“You see,” she replies, reaching for my hand, “I’m from Lumendei, too. And if you’re who we think you might be, then…I knew your mother.”
Chapter 35
“How?” I sputter, feeling faint. “How could you possibly have known my mother?” I heave for air but come up empty, as though my lungs are bound in twine.
“Perhaps,” Nyatrix says gruffly, crossing her arms, “you might start from thebeginning, Agrippina.”
The older woman takes a deep breath and nods, folding her hands together for a moment. Heat rises to my face, skin clammy with anticipation. Then she smiles like a rose thorn—pretty, inviting, the sharpness hidden beneath soft petals. “I escaped,” she says. “I was born on the edge of the Gilded Quarter to a minor Noble family. Things there never made sense to me, the way I think perhaps they do not make sense to you, either.”
I open my mouth, but no words arrive, just my blood pounding in my veins.
Agrippina reaches for my hands, closing her palms around mine. “I left,” she continues, the fire crackling beneath her words, “because I could not love who I wished to love.”
I do not dare look up from her gnarled hands, from the comfort her gesture provides—so much wisdom in those hands,so many lives saved, so many wounds tended, babes brought into the world, stitches closed, bleeding halted.
“You mean . . .” I breathe.
“Another woman, yes,” Agrippina says.
I gasp in surprise despite myself as pinpricks needle my skin, somehow both hot and cold at once.
“We are not so few, Ophelia,” Nyatrix murmurs.
The Godwinds sweep across the roof with a low howl, shaking the shutters. They seem to reach through the sturdy pale stone and shake me, too, throttling me until I can make no sense of what’s happening.
“My mother,” I stammer, finally forcing myself to look up. Agrippina’s face is kind, open, but grief sharpens everyone. “How can you be so sure I’m the daughter of the woman you claim to know?”
“Well,” Agrippina replies, one brow arched, “you’re the spitting image of her, so that certainly helps.”
I pull my hands from Agrippina’s out of sheer shock, almost shooting to my feet before the dead weight of my leg and the pain in my hip bring me back down to the chair.
“Easy, little dove,” Nyatrix murmurs, abandoning her post by the pantry and moving to stand at my side. “Are you all right?” Her long, elegant fingers land on my shoulder, soft as a feather. It’s silly, but I feel safer with her right beside me. I let out a long exhale and nod, turning back to Agrippina.
“You and your mother lived outside Lumendei in a small village,” the older woman says, gentle now, like she’s soothing a frightened child. “You can come see it, if you like. It’s closer to the sea. There’s a copse of silver birch trees and a small?—”
“River,” I finish numbly. Panic overwhelms me, and I bring my hands to my face, digging the heels of my palms into my eyes. “But I remember so little. You could show me any village, and I might think it mine.” Because I have always been so verydesperate to belong. “But it was the Sepulchyre that slaughtered my village. How could my mother havebeenSepulchyre, then?”
The kitchen hearth is suddenly far too hot. My entire body is aflame, except for the place where Nyatrix’s cool fingers press into my shoulder.
“It’s been a very long day,” the knight says. “We could discuss this further after you’ve rested, if you’d prefer.”
Something that might be rage hums in me, like there’s a song in my marrow. Like it’s been trapped for a thousand anni and I only just realized I can hear it. “No!” I shout, shoving her hand away. Tears cloud my vision, and I can’t stop myself from pulling my legs up onto the chair. I wrap my arms around my knees and bury my face in my skirts.
Everything is too much, and I am not enough. That’s the way it’s always been. A different location won’t change that. I stifle a sob, pulling in the scent of a recently lit fire, the rich green herbs from Agrippina’s hands, and the sweet spice of asphodels.
When I decided to leave with Nyatrix, was I truly running from Lumendei, from the Host, from Sergio, from Renault? Or have I always been running from myself? And yet, even all the way on the other side of the Sundered Lands, here I am, still.
“The massacre you remember...” Nyatrix begins, her voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. “It’s well-recounted in Liminalian history. The Host demanded a Tithe from us: children with an inclination for Mysterium. Three an annum. As you might imagine, we said no.”
Horror descends on me, cold as ocean spray in the dead of winter, except this devours me entirely, pulls me to the bottom where muck grabs at my boots.The foundlings. I was always told we were the result of the Sepulchyre’s violence, that the Host was simply taking care of the orphans, giving us a place to thrive and serve the Lord. My mind races, the firelight turningto swathes of blood and gore in my vision instead of golden illumination.
Orphans are made, not born. I never stopped to ask myself why there would be so many. Why would we have an entire Foundling Hall built to house the children the Host so valiantly rescued?
And if it is my God, my once-beloved Lord, who grants us the power to work the Mysteries, why would He demand Sepulchyre children who couldalreadydo so? There is, I realize, no true difference between Mysterium and goetia. It’s all framing. All a game of who should have power and who shouldn’t.
A sob, or maybe a scream, tears free of me, threatening to rend my body in two. Nyatrix’s hand settles onto mine, impossibly delicate. She turns my hand over, palm up, and then interlaces our fingers. The atmosphere thrums, a pulsating thickness I’ve never felt before, like the heavy air of a humid summer day but without any heat.
“The Host attacked when we defied their request,” Agrippina says as she leans back in her chair, the wood creaking. Her words are too worn-in. She’s told this story too many times. She carries it in her pocket like a stone. “They came over the mountains for the first time in our histories. Slaughtered indiscriminately until the Celeres were alerted.”
