Page 106 of The Castle & the Cloister

“What is it?” he asked, so attuned to her moods and responses by now that it felt like he’d been startled himself.

Wordlessly, Fia drew his hand to the place she’d unbandaged. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected—the viscous ooze of a suppurating wound or stitches torn from his flesh, though he’d no idea how they might have done so. But though he could still feel phantom pain where Lucian had cut him, there was none of that. No stitches. No healing wound at all.

Only the smooth expanse of a crescent moon etched into his skin, run through by a thread of raised scar tissue.

“Oh gods,” the Priest breathed. “Didyoudo this?”

“No!” Fia answered quickly. “At least—no. Only the goddesses choose who bears their mark.”

“This is another risk I don’t need,” the Priest said in frustration. “Not just steward to an infant king, not just blind, but goddess-marked now as well. Hadrian was livid when Lucian suggested Afon take Honoria, and more than half of his resistance was because the man’s a heretic. Gods forbid he ever learn about this, or it’ll mean my throat cut on Tyrus’s altar. Swear to me this wasn’t you, Fia. Swear you didn’t do something to invite Silith to lay her mark on me.”

“It was nothing Imeantto do,” Fia said. “But this morning, at Tyrus’s altar, in the spot where Olienne died—I wanted to be with you there for a reason. That sanctuary’s polluted by blood—a realm of ghosts—and it wants cleansing. What I did was intended for the war god himself, and for the sorias trapped in that cavern.”

“And exactly what is it that you did?” the Priest asked.

When Fia answered, the bewilderment had left her voice, replaced by pride and defiance. “Nothing you weren’t an equal part of. Raea’s daughters believe a woman’s full pleasure has power—that it can purify and bring about restoration. I meant to leverage mine against Tyrus himself, and to render his altar less obscene for when Ariana comes to it. I didn’t expect it to have any effect on you. The last time… I thought the last time was only chance.”

The Priest let out a sound of disbelief. “The last time?”

“Nikolau.” Fia’s voice had gone hollow. “After we were together, Raea marked Nikolau. But I promise you, Priest, and I’d swear to it—I had no idea it would happen again. It is no pleasant thing, learning your goddesses take such an interest in who goes to your bed. And I wouldneverput you at greater risk. Do you think it doesn’t weigh on me constantly, knowing you’re taking this throne because of my prodding? If I could stay and look after you and Justus myself, it would be different, but I…”

Her voice trailed off. She sounded so shaken, now the full truth of what had happened had settled in her, that the Priest pulled her into his arms at once. “Forget the mark, it doesn’t signify. No one will even know it’s there.”

She kissed him, but there was restlessness and worry on her lips. ThePriest could taste finality as well, and an ungovernable fear rose in him, that this would be the last moment he ever spent alone with Fiametta Raeana. He tried to swallow back the fear, and swallowed again, but it would not subside. Instead, he tamped it down, locked it away, left it to haunt him like a ghost. He’d never shake this, he realized—the low, awful dread of a world without her, where they were kept separate by circumstances or ambition or divergent aims.

Dressed once again for his oldest and most familiar role, the Priest lifted Justus from the bassinet. As if to confirm his suspicions that she was on the cusp of leaving, Fia placed a hand on them both, and he could feel the fine weave of her kirtle. Back to Priest and postulant, as if all that had happened since her arrival was only a dream.

“You’ll need a new nurse for the little king,” Fia said gently. “Best find one as soon as you can, or have Glora make inquiries.”

The Priest shook his head. “He does well enough on goats’ milk and paschalflower, as I have, and I don’t trust him with anyone but you. If you leave us, I’ll be his nurse myself.”

“Priest, regent, and nurse as well,” Fia said with low humor. “You’ll never sleep.”

“If you pity me, then stay.”

Fia let out a wistful sigh. “You know I can’t.”

And it was true. The Priest did know—Fia had been leaving ever since she arrived.

Ariana lay in a lightless cell curled against her king and wished for nothing more than to join him in death. As yet, he had not begun to decay, but she knew—she knew—it would kill her when he did. Guilt rotted away her bones. Failure turned her insides to liquid. Despair twisted at her so terribly she felt as if she lay splayed upon some invisible and insidious rack.

She had tried so hard, for so long. And in the end, she had not been able to stay Orden’s hand or alter his course. It was better this way—better that he’d called Fia to him unbeknownst to Ariana, and that the postulant had found him, necessitating a confession everyone believed false but that was hideously true.

Better Ariana went to her death for the regicide she’d truly undertaken.

For seven years she’d been pushed and cajoled and chided to end Orden’s life for the good of the Hand. Always she’d refused, knowing she could keep peace at his side. She’d withheld nothing of herself in that pursuit. She had shattered into unnumbered pieces, time and again, and cast them out across the Hand and across the sea.

It had not been enough. Unlike Lyria, Ariana’s light had not vanquished the dark. It had, finally, been consumed by it, and all Ari wished was for the rest of her to be extinguished now as well.

Booted footsteps came marching down the dungeon corridor, followed by a wash of too-bright torchlight.

“It’s time,” a guard Ariana did not recognize said gruffly. She peered up from where she lay on the cold stone floor, receiving a confused impression of golden hair and a confident posture and sharp, pitying blue eyes.

She let herself be helped to her feet. Guards fell in around her as if she was a danger, and Ariana supposed, dully, that she was. Nevertheless, she went quiet as a lamb.

The sanctuary was a blaze of glory, just as it had been at summer’s onset, when Justus was named and Orden and Ariana Inver stood together on the altar rise, alive and well and an image of Honoria’s strength. Ariana thought wistfully of how good she had still been then. How pure and unsullied before her goddess. She’d believed herself irreparably damaged already, but she’d known nothing.

Ariana’s guard had taken her to a place at the edge of the sanctuary brightness, where they were well apart from the gathered celebrants and half hidden by shadows.