Reciting these familiar Catechisma passages does not soothe me this time. Incense curls around my throat, and my eyes water. I push the back of my hand into my brow, the pontifex’s words drifting across the stone and marble space. He warns usabout the inherent danger of creation, of the beings made in the Creatrixes’ image—any of us with a womb. How life is so sacred, how creation is so precious, that surely such a great power must be led and directed by men. Otherwise, would we have learned anything from the treachery of the Creatrixes all those anni ago?
Panic gathers in my throat. I pull air sharply into my lungs, earning me a glare from Sister Alma, who sits to my right. Returning my gaze to the mural, I consider the pontifex’s words. As my husband-to-be, Renault is my spiritual leader. He will temper the wickedness in me, that lingering sin I cannot purge. And he says I must convert the Lupa Nox.
Renault seems sosure. At supper, he wasn’t interested in discussing anything but tactics on how to accomplish such a task.
Sister Alma shifts in her seat, sending a creak shuddering down the ancient pews. I glance at the pontifex and catch a few more sentences; this is a recycled homilia, one he’s given before. I let my mind wander back to my prerogative. A holy task contemplated in a holy place does not feel amiss. If I manage to convert the Lupa Nox, Renault said a thousand times, I won’t even need the First Son to grant me the Mysteries—though He certainly would.
And then there’s the thing I barely dare to dream of—that I might help my God complete some of His most important work. If I can convert the Lupa Nox, help her see the truth, perhaps she may even become good and pure enough to join the High Ecclesia. To help my Great and Glorious God reach twelve Ecclesians—the divine number that rules Mysterium, the exact number of days it took the Creatrixes to create their First Son.
No one would be able to question my devotion to the Church ever again.
A gift. A wonder. The very thing I’ve been striving for, the reason I’ve begged at Saintess Lucia’s rosy marble feet. So whycan I not go to this task the same way the First Son’s twelve siblings did: eyes clear, heart open? The original Twelve—after which the council of mortal men is named—went to their deaths with nothing but joy in their hearts. And yet here I am, unable to take up a much less dangerous yoke. Even though my betrothed commands it. Even though my heart leaps at an opportunity to finally prove myself beyond a shadow of a doubt—and to do so by bringing the light of the Host to someone who desperately needs it.
The pontifex finishes his homilia, tucking away his leatherbound Catechisma into the ornately carved lectern. To my left, the ministers of the Flesh sweep down the wide marble aisle, swaying censers puffing smoke that only makes my eyes sting more. A nameless grief claws at me, but I rise anyway, gripping my cane, and file down the pew with the rest of the congregation, approaching the altar.
Flanked by carved wood with gilded edges, a towering statue of the First Son occupies the center of the space. His wings lie severed at His feet, massive, feathered things that will never know the feeling of the sky again. His arms are outstretched, divine palms nailed to either side of a crude cross by the Fallen Sepulchyre Fatum. His gaze is directed toward the heavens, His face a mask of pain. He will hang here for three days, His holy blood feeding the Earth, the last remnants of His force used to destroy the Sepulchyre’s seat of power and save Sylva.
So many anni I have done it, and yet every day when I approach the altar, I am filled with awe and purpose. Tonight is no different. From a tray held by the ministers of the Flesh, I offer up a small disc of flattened bread and pour out the thimble-sized glass of wine at my Lord’s feet.
“Eat of my body,” I murmur, bowing my head. “Drink of my blood.”
“His Divine will be done,” the minister replies, anointing my forehead with oil before I turn and process back down the aisle to my pew. The ritual is a promise to our Lord—that, like His faithful siblings, He may devour His congregation should the need arise. We exist only for His glory.
Doubt trembles across my skin like the first frost. My Lord has not even deemed me worthy of the most minor of Mysteries. And now through Renault, He sends me into a spiritual battle like His holiest warrior.
What if instead of saving the Lupa Nox, that lithe, midnight-haired creature seizes hold of the dark seed burrowed deep within my bones and corruptsmecompletely?
Chapter 8
Ilook up at my mother. We are both seated on stone stairs. Dust clings to her faded blue skirts. I am only a small thing, no more than three or four summers. Despite the corn-husk dolly clasped against my chest, it is my mother who has my attention. Her hands are moving, fingers deft, as she plucks pale petals from the tall, heavy stem of an asphodel. The petals fall like snow into a wide, shallow wooden bowl between her feet.
My hearing fades in, as though my dream-body has just recalled it has ears. And then my mother’s voice glimmers into being—soft, silk-spun. She is telling me a story about two women. They love each other, she explains, her fingertips tinted green by the plant’s stalks. I understand love; I know the way my mother looks at me, the way my tiny heart yearns every time she must depart to tend to a sick villager.
But this is a different kind of love, she says, her sea-blue gaze darting toward mine for a moment, the skin around her eyes crinkling. A kind of love I might understand as I get older, if I’d like to. I bring the dolly to my face and mime kissing, like I’ve seen grown-ups do sometimes on the quarter days. Mymother laughs, the flat of her forearm pushing wind-tangled blonde hair away from her face.
“Like that,” she agrees, turning her gaze back to the white petals. The flower’s scent dances into my senses—damp vegetation with a honey-like sweetness, a slight spiciness at the edges. “But more, too.”
My mother explains that these two women have tiny pieces of the Creatrixes hidden inside them, like the way Sylva makes gemstones in the dirt. She says that when these two women meet, the gemstones will be unearthed from the soil and polished to a shine so bright that it will change the entire world.
I am enraptured, even though this story is too complicated for my age, lacking the clarity and straightness of a proper children’s tale. Instead, the story veers off the path the moment it steps into the woods, prowling through hemlock groves and bramble-choked cottages. Hesitantly, I reach out, my tiny fingers brushing the plant’s petals. The smell of damp earth and honey intensifies.
“Life and Death, Ophelia,” my mother says, the empty, stripped stalk between her hands looking like a dagger or maybe even a sword, “were never meant to be torn asunder. They exist in tandem, in balance, in marriage, with one another.”
I do not understand this, but I am happy to sit in the sun with my mother, to smell the petals, to twirl my dolly in my hands. I am happy to hear her voice, look into her eyes, feel her hand skimming my back.
And then my mother is gone—as is the sun and the petals’ soft scent. Instead, there is darkness and weight, my ears thundering. Groggy, I roll over and reach desperately for the dream, hungry to fall back into its crystalline depths. But a shout rings out, and then another, followed by pounding footsteps. My throat constricts. There will be no more of my mother, no moregentle sunlight and white petals. I dream so rarely of her, of those early anni in that tiny village before it was devoured by the Sepulchyre, before the Host rescued me.
I push off my soft mattress and feel for my dressing robe, which hangs on a bedpost. I pull it on just as a knock shakes my entire doorframe.
“I’m up,” I call, feeling my way around the edge of my bed. I reach for the latch and then the handle, yanking my door open. Low, warm light spills into my room—though it’s nothing like the golden sun of my dream. I blink against it, bleary eyes struggling to adjust.
“Another attack,” says the foundling—his name escapes me—at my door, his gaze darting back down the hallway. “They want you in the infirmary.”
My heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach, though I knew what was happening the moment I heard the first shout. I’ve done this a thousand times before. A cycle of endless, meaningless violence—one I had hoped might slow, at the very least, with the Lupa Nox imprisoned six floors beneath my feet.
“I’ll head there now,” I tell him, leaning against the wall to pull boots onto my stockinged feet. “How bad is it?”
He finally looks at me then, his gaze holding mine. “Not the worst you’ve seen by any stretch, I’d imagine.”
