“Shh, Ophelia, I’ll dress you,” Renault murmurs.
I lean into him only because my hips have long since given out from the strain of being on my knees. His hands slide across my skin from my back to my chest. He grips my breasts for a long moment, filling his palms with their heaviness, thumbs drifting across my nipples in a way that makes me recoil.
Yes, I know little of the ways a married couple might touch each other, but I know far too much of how Sergio’s advances, proposal, and accusations made me feel: powerless, a thing to be possessed and fondled and taken at will. Sadness beats both fists against the inside of my sternum when I understand in a horrible unfolding that perhaps Sergio and Renault have never been different, not in the way I’ve always believed. And, worst of all, Sergio might be right about my betrothed.
I clench my jaw as Renault moves to re-dress me. Apparently it is his decision whether I am clothed or bare.
“Don’t bother,” I say, my voice wind-worn even though I haven’t been out-of-doors since this morning. “I’ll need to put salve on my back, anyway.”
“You did so well,” Renault murmurs, brushing loose strands of hair away from my tear-damp face. “So well, Ophelia.”
With a shaking breath, I look up at him and find radiant joy on his face, hazel eyes positively brimming with it.
And by the Saints, Idetesthim for it.
“Thank you for your guidance,” I reply after too long, hollow and shivering.
He does not even notice. His hands skim my sides, sweeping up from my waist, lingering again at my breasts, though thistime there is at least the thin linen shift between his skin and mine.
“I will always be here for you,” he promises. “I will always ensure you stay on the path of light, in the flock of our Lord. No matter what it takes.”
I swallow, looking down at my lap, skirts pooling around me. Those are precisely the words I always wished my husband might say to me, delivered at just the right time, moments after witnessing the wickedness embedded so thoroughly in me.
So I do not understand why it fills me with a sorrow so thick and all-consuming that I feel, even having avoided the stake, like a woman set ablaze.
Sleep does not come to me easily. When it does, the scant moments of near-slumber are marred by altered dreams of the goetia trial. In one, Renault is up on the stand, claiming I have bewitched him, too. Why else would a member of the Twelve wish to marry a foundling—no matter how supposedly beautiful she may be?
I open my eyes, finding no silvery light of dawn sneaking through my window. Four bells chime in the corridor. My back is an endless expanse of pain, made worse by the way I collapsed into bed without applying any salve. Even lying on my stomach with my face turned to the side, I find no reprieve.
My teeth grind together so hard my jaw cracks. I need to care for these wounds, ensure they heal well. Any Host bride would be expected to have marks from cleansing blows—but they should be minimal before marriage, nothing more than delicate, feminine lines of gentle penance. I do not wish to know how far my own skin departs from this standard.
What if Renault changes his mind? What if he only sees me for my supposed beauty, too, which grows increasingly marred? After all, it’s the sole reason the Host’s army didn’t leave me behind in that backward village so many summers ago. The First Son does not Spare a soulandbestow such loveliness for it to be wasted—to not be used as a reward for a devout man of the Church.
I sit up with a cry of pain, biting down on my tongue at the last moment. In the dim light, I scrounge around my bedside drawers in search of my tin of salve, only to find there’s so little left that it’s practically of no use. Carefully, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and gather up the remaining salve on my fingers. I let out a long breath, preparing myself for the pain that reaching my arm around to my back will undoubtedly cause.
With a pathetic, embarrassing whimper, I manage to cover a few wounds at the base of my spine, though even with a thin application, the salve doesn’t go very far. Pain digs its talons deeper into my flesh, sweat breaking out along my hairline. The darkness of my chamber spins and splits like seawater.
With a cry, I reach for my nightstand and feel around for a match to light a candle. I’ll have to get myself to Physica Hall for more salve—though I can’t have anyone seeing the condition of my back. The depth of my sin will become too obvious. My stomach churns at the thought.
Gripping my bedpost, I haul myself to my feet. Pain lances through me again, my legs shaking, but I clamp my jaw shut and pull a soft flannel work gown from my drawers. It takes me far too long to put it on, black stars tumbling across my vision, my skin hot and sticky, but eventually I am dressed. For one of the first times in my life, I leave my room without scrubbing my face or tidying my hair. Agony rules me entirely.
Every step down the stone corridor weakens me further, even with the help of my cane. The ever-present anguish settled deepinto my hips and knees seems to intensify due to the throb of my open wounds, as if working together to destroy me. The guardsman at the end of Foundling Hall sleeps at his station, helm tipped back against the wall, his chest rising softly with long inhales. I continue my journey unseen, my cane like an oar, the distance to Physica Hall an unruly, angry ocean.
The Spine is quiet this early in the morning, only a few candelabras lit, no Morning Devotions incense yet wafting through the air. The Holy Guard is halved, most of them standing alert on our battlements instead of within the Cloisters, and I think I manage to slip by unnoticed. It is hard to say; so much of my energy is trained on keeping my clammy grip tight on my cane, on each and every step I force my body to take. Despite the early morning chill, the flannel dress sticks to my skin. As the Physica Arch comes into view, a large droplet of sweat trickles down my neck, stinging my wounds so badly I collapse into the wall at my side.
By the time I manage to right myself, pushing tears out of my eyes with my free hand, I find an unwelcome sight: the physician from the other night, who made such unsettling comments about my body, conferring with a colleague right in front of the entrance to Physica Hall. Horror races through me. A distant, rational thought tells me to wait it out in the shadows; surely he will move on. But that soft, terrified animal within me propels my body away, seeking a safer burrow to lick my wounds.
It makes no sense, I know, but in my delirious, pain-addled state, I find myself moving toward the Vincula’s attollo. There are at least three kinds of salves in the healer’s kit kept by the Lupa Nox’s cell. There’s quiet and privacy to apply it; the idea of obtaining the salve and then having to journey back to my room makes me want to collapse on the floor. I am a moth to a flame, a flower to the sun—propelled in one direction only in desperate search of relief.
The Holy Guard do not question me as I approach the attollo, though I know Sergio will hear of it. In truth, the fear barely even breaks the surface of the bone-deep agony. My descent into the depths is rote, automatic, like I know well the path to the places below.
How long have I been tending to the knight now? How many of my days have been spent beneath the earth of Cathedral Hill, down in the murky, damp darkness of the Vincula? And what did my life even look like before the Lupa Nox came slamming into it like a wave against Lumendei’s chalky cliffs?
“An outpost was hit hard about a bell ago,” a knight tells me in front of the Lupa Nox’s cell, a twin key to the one the High Ecclesian wore winking on his belt. “A lot of our men are out on the battlements. You should come back later, when you won’t have to be alone in that cell with her.”
I exhale raggedly and look around, trying to only move my eyes. The Vincula is much emptier than usual—some Holy Guard by the door, but no knights lining the wall like statues. My mind swims.
“It can’t wait,” is all I can manage, my voice so high-pitched and strange that the Knight of the Host turns to look at me, his armor glinting in the candlelight.
