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Yana was silent for a long time. She dipped and wrung her cloth two more times, dabbing blood from my back, before she answered. “It wasn’t you, Salem. We know that. Father said the Augur is getting too old, he didn’t make your tea properly…”
“What did I do?”
She cleared her throat, dabbing at my side. “You were screaming, and then… Father said you attacked him. You had the evil spirit of the Beast inside you.”
A wave of ice flowed over me, prickling my skin. I looked at my hand, tattooed with purity runes. Then I rotated it so I could see my nails.
Dried blood caked my fingertips.
“Is he… badly hurt?” I whispered, my voice breaking.
Yana plastered the cloth across my lower back. “He will be fine. Salem… have you ever thought that maybe…”
She broke off, and another long silence stretched between us.
“Thought what?” I asked, almost not daring to breathe. Yana hadn’t said a word of dissent against her father’s wishes in months.
Maybe all it had taken was my inner monster breaking free to crack her cage a little, too.
“I don’t think what they’re doing is… good.” She was so quiet it was almost impossible to hear her. “And… I… Salem, he said you attacked him, but he didn’t have a scratch on him.”
I stared at my bloodied fingertips. I couldn’t remember the events at the well clearly at all.
If it was not Father Borodin’s, then whose blood was it?
I wished I could roll over and look at Yana herself, read the emotions in her pale blue eyes. Throughout her entire life, anything her voice failed to convey, her eyes had never been able to hide.
“Why are they lying?” she whispered.
Because they are men, I thought.Because they can.
But that would not be any comfort to Yana, who lived under Father Borodin’s thumb.
“Because it would weaken the Church,” I told her. “If the Vessel is weak, then… nobody would have faith in the Church anymore.”
“Too right, indeed,” Father Borodin’s voice rang out.
I almost heard the bones of Yana’s spine snapping upright. My own fists clenched compulsively, sending shooting pains through my tender fingertips.
But worse than that pain was the emotional wave inside me—the surge of pure rage that his presence induced, the feeling of nails and claws shredding through my skin from the inside out.
I heard the heavy tread of his footsteps across the belfry floor, and felt hands at my wrist. He loosened the straps holding me in place, and Yana silently helped roll me onto my side so I could look at them both.
Father Borodin bore no marks from my supposed attack. His hair was freshly oiled, his robes clean and new. In those soft hands he carried a chipped tea cup and a plate.
I wanted to claw his face, to give him the marks he had lied about.
“To undermine the strength of the Church is to undermine our people. Without faith, the Beasts may break the borders between us and invade this sacred land. We would no longer be safe in Vostok, nor even in our own homes.”
Yana, as stiff as a board, tucked her hands in her lap, eyes downcast to the floor. Her lips had gone bloodless as the Father leaned over us.
“Everything we have rests on your shoulders, Salem. You are the Vessel, the sin-eater. If we lose you, we lose that faith.”
He held the cup of tea to my lips. The scent of earthy mushrooms made me want to vomit.
“Drink.” There was nothing gentle or cajoling about it. That was an order, with a promise of more pain to come if I disobeyed.
I was so tired of hurting.
