Page 84 of The Castle & the Cloister

“I never disagreed with his goal,” Fia said. “Only with his methods. I don’t choose conquest as a weapon. I choose you, and I would wield you as regent. So answer me this, Priest. Will you run, or will you rise?”

XXIV

I send you thanks for the use of your spymaster, who has indeed been most obliging. He is now five hundred gold nobles the richer, and in possession of a fine country house at the northwestern edge of my newly expanded lands, which had been intended for my wife. I doubt he will find it necessary to disclose this acquisition to Your Majesty, particularly given the convenient access to both sea and deep mountains this country house affords. A tidy bolt hole, for a spymaster and an assassin, should he ever displease his master. Naturally, I have assured him of my discretion, and that the house and its estate will remain officially in my name, should he ever need to go to ground.

—FROM HADRIAN INVER TO DARIAS INVER

Fia’s touch lit a fire in the Priest’s flesh, and her words lit a fire in his bones. But he was a pragmatist if nothing else, and shook off her hands.

“I have some connections,” he said flatly. “Some favors I could call in among a few of the nobles. But nothing to rival Lucian, who has the guard in his pocket and the highest-placed Invers already plotting as to how they can take the throne. Even if I could outmaneuver Lucian and claim the kingship for Justus and a regency for myself, an infant and a blind man wouldn’t last long as heads of this court.”

“Not with Lucian still in power,” Fia said. “Not without the guardunder your control and whichever nobles might support you raised to the highest possible positions. Not without an unforeseen ally who can keep the remainder of Honoria’s most powerful families in check.”

“An impossibility,” the Priest told her, one hand straying to his rucksack to methodically check its straps and buckles. He itched to be away. The idea Fia had put forward was so vast and daunting he could hardly get his head around it. To rule Honoria. Never, not once, had the Priest considered grasping for that position.

“Not an impossibility,” Fia said. “A difficulty. And one we can surmount, if we set ourselves on this together. I will give you something no other Inver has ever been able to claim before—the full and unflagging support of Raea’s cloister, and all the plains land in its gift. Those who accept you will survive winter. Those who don’t, we will censure, and if they don’t starve outright, they’ll be destitute before long, paying for goods which Raea’s daughters and Raea’s faithful did not grow and harvest.”

“You’re a postulant,” the Priest scoffed. “None of this is yours to offer.”

“I am a postulant, yes. But one with Dolenza’s backing. Before we left the plains, she gave me complete discretion to speak for her. What I offer on behalf of the goddess, Dolenza will honor. Think what you could do with Raea’s cloister on your side.”

The Priest’s hands stilled. Her offer so closely mirrored what Orden had spoken of, but Fia’s conception of such a union was entirely different. In her vision of the future, it would not be Raea’s Matria who was the puppet, moved by Honoria’s king, but rather himself as regent dependent on Raea’s support.

“You understand that I don’twantHonoria?” he said. “That if you offered me the kingship on a golden platter and could promise me a long life of ease and prosperity while I held it, I would refuse? I’ve barely learned to tolerate the role of Priest, let alone of ruler.”

Fia shifted her weight, Justus making small, contented sounds as he fed. The Priest could feel faint heat radiating from her, smell that scent of lavender and sun and hot earth, which had intoxicated him from their first meeting.

“I need this,” she said, her voice low. “I need it because Ariana does. She’s in chains now because I was in the wrong room the morning a kingdied. Even if I hadn’t been, though, Orden dying was as good as a death sentence for Ariana and Justus both. And you, if you’re honest—how long do you think you’d last? A blind man with an infant? Whoever takes the throne will have you found and butchered no matter where you go. Vesper will not be able to hide you well enough.”

The Priest let out a long breath, his irritation made audible. “We’re at an impasse, then. You prefer my chances on the throne, I prefer them on the road. What if I refuse you? What if I just go?”

There was a whisper of fabric on fabric and a faint, disgruntled noise. The Priest felt the weight of his nephew settle into his arms.

“Don’t,” he warned. “Don’t use him like this.”

But he took Justus all the same.

The child rested easy against the Priest’s chest, slight and warm and sweet-smelling. It felt as if something had cracked open within the Priest as he thought of Celina growing up separated from her own blood at the cloister, and of Ellimere, being raised in secret by the daughters of the stars. He’d done well by his brother’s children, the Priest thought. He’d lent staunch support to Ariana when she requested Celina be sent to Raea’s house for fostering, rather than dashed against the mountain or shut away at some backwater estate. Ellimere’s departure, he’d arranged himself. Now only Justus remained—the last living creature in Inverlyn tied to the Priest by blood. An Inver son. A little king. The closest the Priest would ever come to fatherhood.

“He deserves a proper chance to live and to claim his birthright,” Fia said. “Besides which, if you leave, I will stay here. I will confess to having aided Ariana in murdering Orden, at Dolenza’s behest. We will both be executed. The cloister will be razed. And wherever you are, wherever you go, you will always know there was a chance you could have averted that future. You will think of it every day, moment by moment, because when I die, I will refuse to leave the world entirely. I will make myself into a ghost, and rather than be chained to a sanctuary, I will shackle my soul to you. As a spirit, I will hold no other purpose besides reminding you of what you lost and how you failed.”

“You are cruel, Fia,” the Priest said, but he couldn’t help himself. His grip on Justus grew more secure, and he drew inexorably closer to her.

“I know,” Fia murmured. “But if you run now, it will be about survivaland despair. If we hazard this together, though? We’ll be moving toward hope, and bringing all of Honoria along with us.”

This time, it was the Priest’s hand that went to Fia’s face. She covered it with her own and turned toward his touch, pressing a lingering kiss to his palm.

“I want something if we do this,” the Priest warned. “I know it will leave me beholden to Dolenza and Raea’s house. But you? I want you beholden tome. I want you to remember that you asked for this, and that I gave it, and that you owe me a debt.”

When Fia spoke, he could hear the wicked smile in her voice.

“What will you do with that debt?”

“I don’t know. Save it, until the time is right. But you must agree to honor the debt immediately and unquestioningly when I call it in.”

“Very well,” she conceded.

“Swear it,” the Priest said, running his thumb across the velvet skin of her cheek. “By your goddess, like a good postulant. I do like to hear you swear.”