She falls silent, distant, and I fight the urge to fold at the waist, to reach down and touch her skin and tell her that she is much more than a weapon to be wielded. Instead, I avert my eyes away from the knight, staring toward the horizon.
In the distance, I can see the sea cliffs—sweeps of glimmering gray grasping at the sky. Built into them, Agrippina explained to me, are the Conclaves—the oldest part of Liminalia, perhaps carved by divine hands, a vast network of halls and chambers and courtyards, all hewn from the granite rock face clinging to the edge of the world.
“I might,” Nyatrix continues, surprising me, her voice soft and jagged at once, “find a way to break myself apart, too.”
I lose the battle with myself this time, reaching my fingers forward to brush her shoulder. I watch her gloved fingers tighten around the reins, and from my vantage point on Argento’s back, there’s no missing her sharp intake of breath. I want to say something to her—that everything will turn out all right in the end—but any words I summon to my tongue are flat, false, utterly unbelievable. Perhaps this is why it was so easy to cling to the Host, why even with that horrible, ever-present twist in my gut, I still convinced myself everything was all right.
Because this world is uncertain and full of terror, because mothers hide children behind hidden panels and then perish on the steps of their own homes, because people must endure being the last of their kind, because the land fades and dies all around us like we’re in a never-ending winter. I wish I could still believe in Caelus, in that promise of eternal life, of a softer place after my body’s death where my soul may flourish forevermore.
Otherwise, there is only what I can see, what I can touch. It’s clever, I realize, though the understanding sinks in my stomach like a stone. Without the reassurance of an afterlife, wouldn’t I fight until I am battered and bruised to make this world better? Wouldn’t anyone?
Nyatrix grips Argento’s reins and pulls him to a halt by her shoulder. Then she turns to look up at me, and whatever awaits me on the edge of Liminalia’s moors fades away entirely as Imeet her eyes. “We’re almost there,” she says, raising her voice over the Godwinds. “I promise I will keep you safe.”
Something hums in my marrow. So much uncertainty lies before me, behind me, beside me. But not her. Not this. “I know,” I whisper, and I believe it.
Nyatrix offers me a small smile before she turns away and cues Argento to walk forward. She looks back at me less and stops speaking entirely as the terrain becomes rougher. The closer we get to the Conclaves, the more the Godwinds pick up, until I understand why Argento is outfitted in a leather face covering and why Nyatrix instructed me to wear hose beneath my dress and bring my borrowed cowl.
These Umbraxan Moors are a lonely place, all gnarled trees bent at the waist from the endless winds. The soil looks parched, devoid of life, only a few dark bushes managing to find any nourishment in the soil. There are no copses of white birch trees, no river running through the lush green land like the shimmering shed skin of a snake.
Nothing looks familiar at first. It wouldn’t. The God I’ve spent my life worshipping devoured everything I knew. And yet, the longer I look, the more I perceive something about the curvature of the landscape, the placement of the sun in the sky, and the sea in the distance, that makes my heart beat strangely. When I glance down and find scattered ruins rotting into the earth, I avert my eyes, clenching my jaw. It’s a relief, if I’m honest, when we pass under the grand arches of the Conclaves.
Two massive pillars stand on either side, made entirely of skulls. The long-dead faces leer at us as Nyatrix leads Argento past. The arch reaching over my head is made from more bones, inset with glittering words spelled out in garnet jewels.
The old, strange Ceremonia takes me a long moment to decipher. Then I realize the blood-colored stones read,Without death, there is no life. Unease skitters through me, automatic,though this time I question how much of it is mine and how much of it is just what’s been beaten into me by the Host.
Up ahead, a courtyard sweeps across the ground in a wide oval of more glittering, pale gray stone. The crash of the sea replaces the howl of the Godwinds. At the edge of the courtyard, the Conclaves rise in a great sweep, climbing the mountainside. No, not quite—the Conclavesarethe mountain, and the mountain is the Conclaves. Two massive, arched doors covered in deep red varnish and studded with black ornaments are pushed slightly ajar. Gathered at the top of a series of wide, shallow steps is a cluster of hooded figures.
For a moment, my good knee clamps into Argento’s side, my hands curling tight around his braided mane. But I blink the fear away and force myself to look. These hooded figures bear no gold masks, no spindly height, no gauntleted hands that look more like claws; instead, their shapes and sizes vary. Everyone is dressed in the same black robes, though at the hem, the color melts into a deep garnet, as though the wearer has stepped in blood. Upon their heads, the members of the Cult of the Mater Dea wear black lace veils—sheer, delicate, their features visible beneath the sweep of fabric. Silver chatelaines with scissors and candle snuffers and keys hang from ornate metal belts. The smell of resin and black honey slips from between the open doors, tickling my nose.
And there, I realize, are the steps from my dream. The very ones the Cult fellows are gathered upon—those wide, shallow, stone steps where I sat beside my mother as she plucked petals from asphodels. My heart lurches, and for a moment, the smell of sun-warmed stone and rich soil sweeps over me. But it is only a memory; any physical counterpart of my dream-place is long dead, long since Sundered.
Lucretia halts at the base of the stairs, her red cloak suddenly garish. Two Cult fellows peel off from the group and move to greet her, speaking in low tones.
“Ophelia,” Nyatrix murmurs from my side, startling me. “Are you ready?”
I turn to look at her, my heart climbing into my throat. “I’m not sure.”
She smiles at me, a sad thing, none of that slinking heat and dark amusement. “We rarely ever are, I fear.”
I let out a long, trembling breath, and then I nod. She helps me off Argento—yet again making me feel weightless, burdenless—and pulls my cane from the loop attached to the leather pad on the equus’s back. I steady myself, trying to stand as tall as I possibly can. Then, at the Lupa Nox’s side, I make my way to the Conclaves’ door.
I find a surprisingly warm greeting there. Yes, these people are dressed in the colors of death and wear bones gilded in silver about their necks, but they also tell me they knew and loved my mother, or that they never met her but have heard so much about her. Most important, I think, are the soft greetings of “Welcome home.”
To my delight, it’s Agrippina who escorts us—me, Nyatrix, Centurion Lucretia, and her soldiers—into the vast atrium of the Conclaves. At either end of the enormous chamber, hearths stretch nearly to the ceiling, fires blazing in their open mouths. Black iron chandeliers hang down from the domed roof, filling the space with light and the scent of beeswax.
The click of my cane is muted by the beautiful woolen floor coverings—faded, worn, but still rich with depictions of the Creatrixes, of the sea, of symbols I do not understand but feel myself drawn to, somehow. A few more women, dressed in dark robes and veils but without the blood-red hem and the winkingchatelaines, mill about the space. Novices, I presume, those who have not yet taken their oaths.
Agrippina asks us to wait a moment, and so we linger; I examine the walls as Nyatrix and Centurion Lucretia exchange terse words. I see what I think are Saints’ grottos, or something similar, so I take a few steps closer, peering through the candlelit gloom. My heart plummets into my stomach when I realize that instead of statues, I’m looking at skeletons—bodies preserved instead of returned to the Lord, gilded in metals, their bony hands wrapped around weapons, tattered leather armor still clinging to their shoulders all these anni later.
Nyatrix must hear the pathetic gasp I make, for she turns toward me. With one quick look at my face, then at the object of my attention, she sighs and closes the short distance between us. “Bodies of great warriors,” she explains, gesturing toward the alcoves. “Brought back from the fields of war and given honor in the halls of the Conclaves.”
A terrible thought rushes into my mind. “Are . . . are your parents here?” I ask in a trembling whisper.
She pales—which surprises me—and shakes her head. “No,” Nyatrix replies. “Their bodies were not recovered.” She pauses, her gaze slinking back to Centurion Lucretia, who is speaking with her soldiers. Then, in a lower voice, just for me, she murmurs, “Thank the Creatrixes.”
I look up at her in surprise. “Do you not approve of this ritual?”
Her lips press together in a firm line. “I think,” she replies, looking over her shoulder for a moment, “that if someone gives their life to a cause, we should not also ask for what remains of their death.”
