I don’t give voice to my inability to stay airborne much longer.
“But the horses?” She scans the trees, tension lingering in the set of her shoulders. “Where are they?”
“Already on their way. Nexus will find me.”
She starts forward again. I fall into step beside her, shortening my stride without thinking.
“You can do that?” she asks, glancing at me briefly. “Call her to you?”
“Yes.” My gaze stays forward. “It’s our bond. She’ll always be able to find me. And I, her.”
Silence settles between us as we move through the forest, keeping to the thicker canopy to avoid the light rainfall.
After a while, she speaks again—quieter this time. “Are you going to tell me what I said… when I was out?”
I glance sideways at her. “Are you going to tell me where you got the liquid in those vials?”
She slows slightly, her gaze drifting ahead as she considers.
“My Order,” she says at last. “The leaders had stores of it. I’m not sure where they got it, but they had it, and it was gifted to me when I was selected to be the last of us.”
“The last of who exactly?”
“The Children of the Blessed.”
“Why the last? Did they…?”
She doesn’t look at me. Her gaze drops instead, fixed on the ground as she walks.
“Yes,” she murmurs. “They’re all dead now. I’m the only one left.”
Something in my chest tightens.
“I’m sorry. That must have been difficult.”
She lets out a faint breath—something between a scoff and a laugh. “Probably more so than you can even imagine.”
“Tell me about them,” I press, more gently this time. “The women—I assume it was only women in your Order?”
“There were men,” she says, brushing damp strands of hair back from her face. “But few. They were our leaders—the ministers, the Grand Minister. But yes… the Sisterhood was made up of women.”
“Like a convent?”
“In a way.”
“When did you join?” I glance at her. “Or I suppose—why?”
She looks at me, then a flicker of something sharper in her expression. “Join?”
“Yes. Surely you had a reason for choosing such a calling.”
“I didn’t choose it.” Her voice quiets again. “I was born into it.”
My steps slow before I realize it, coming to a stop.
She takes a few more before noticing and turns back to face me. “What?”
“Born into it?”
