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I pushed to my feet, ignoring the pain in my abdomen, and pressed myself into the door alongside her. Another hardthunkknocked both of us backward, but we charged forward, plowing into the steel panel, until it finally clicked shut.
The thudding stopped.
Palm pressed to the door’s surface, I closed my eyes and breathed hard, resting a hand against my stomach that hadn’t quite healed yet. When I opened my eyes again, Vespyr wasn’t standing beside me. I spun around to see her looking out through a window, which cast a small ray of light into the room where we stood, brighter than that of the lantern I’d dropped.
“Vespyr?” I whispered as I approached her from behind, but she didn’t answer. It wasn’t until I stood alongside her that I noticed a look of distress coloring her face, breaths stuttering out of her.
I followed the path of her fixed gaze to a room on the other side of the window, where a young boy, perhaps nine or ten years old, stood fidgeting before a group of other boys. About the same age as him, they all sat cross-legged on the floor, and a shine of tears streaked down his cheeks as he stood there, his lips curved downward, as if on the verge of crying.
I hadn’t worked out why he stood before them, or what had upset him, but another glance at Vespyr showed tears wobbling in her eyes, as if she somehow knew.
Behind the boy stood a man dressed in the telling robes of a priest, and I caught the all-too-familiar Pentacrux symbol embroidered into his vestments. He held a long ornate crosier in one hand, and a thick book of scriptures in the other.
A woman stood alongside the boy, wearing a simple A-line dress that reached past her knees. The cross around her neck bore the same symbol as that on the priest’s robe.
The children, too. All of them were dressed in the same uniform. Gray shorts, a button-down shirt and burgundy tie, and over that a jacket bearing the same Pentacrux sign.
“Children of the Holy Father.” The clergyman stepped toward the seated children, whose attention was directed toward the boy. “Is this the outfit worn by a girl, or a boy?”
“Boy,” the children all said in unison.
“Yes. These are the clothes worn by a son of the Holy Father. Not adaughter.” The clergyman waved the woman on, and she stepped toward the boy, removing his jacket, his tie, his shirt, his shorts, and his underwear, until he stood completely naked in front of them. When he tried to cup his groin, the woman smacked his hand away, forcing him on display.
The urge to smack her face had my palms tingling, and I curled my hands to fists.
Bruises and cuts marred his body, obvious signs of suffered torture, and he jerked with his sobbing as he stood before the other children. The sight had me turning away, and in doing so, I caught a glimpse of Vespyr beside me, whose cheeks were wet with fallen tears.
Frowning, I turned back toward the boy, and it was then, I noticed his features. Similar features. The eyes. The same nose. The same lips and jawline.
“Children, does James have a girl’s body, or a boy’s?” the Pentacrux clergyman asked.
James? A brother?
“Boy’s,” they answered again.
And then it hit me.
Oh, God.
A deep, hollow ache stirred in my chest as I looked back at the child who stood naked and crying in front of them.
I covered my mouth with my hand, the tears in my eyes blurring the scene.
Vespyr.
“Say your name,boy.”
Head lowered, the child didn’t say a word.
“Say your name!” One hard whack sent the child forward, tumbling to already bruised and scraped knees.
“Vespyr!” she cried out, and the clergyman cracked the crosier over her back.
Once. Twice. Three times.
“That is not your God-given name!” the elder man roared in a thunderous voice that bounced off the walls. “Say your name! Say your name! Say your name!”
The other children chimed in, as well. “Say your name! Say your name! Say your name!”
