Unclean

by A. M. Manay

  Fenroh laughed. “Such a diplomat. So careful. The princess in you, coming out, I suppose. But it can’t completely hide that Feral rage—the legacy of your natural father.”

  Shiloh stiffened. He knows. She cast her mind back, trying to remember if he had ever said anything about her bloodline. Perhaps, when I was sick . . . Her memory of that night was foggy.

  His mouth twitched. “Of course, I know of your parentage. The queen informed the Patriarch, and he shared the information with me, that I might be better able to help you . . . find your way.”

  When she made no reply, Fenroh stood and walked around his desk. Shiloh flinched when he placed a gloved hand on her lower back to guide her toward the window.

  “Just look at that view. It’s such a clear day. You can see the City to the north, the sea to the west.” Fenroh looked at Shiloh expectantly.

  “It’s beautiful,” she managed to reply.

  “You could have a room just like this one, far above the noise and trouble, high enough nearly to touch the heavens. You could have the one next door, in fact. It belongs to Vestal Veena. She is not long for this world, alas. She’s nearly a century old and has served the Gods since she was fourteen.”

  “I’ll pray for her,” Shiloh replied.

  “You pray a great deal, I’m told,” Fenroh responded, studying her face as closely as if she were a specimen under glass. “You spend your breaks on your knees in the chapel, the guards tell me.”

  “It is close to the Script Shop.. It’s a lovely chapel,” Shiloh confirmed. “I find it . . . restorative.” Oh, Gods. Does he know about the letter?

  “As you should. Personal devotion is an important discipline. I cultivate my own practice quite carefully,” Fenroh concurred. “The Patriarch is also pleased at such reports.”

  Shiloh’s eyes darted to his face, then leapt away. “His Holiness receives reports about me?”

  Fenroh smiled. “Indeed. He wishes to meet you soon, as a matter of fact. Of course, he is currently at his house in the Claw, as the royal nuptials are tomorrow. But when he returns . . .” He paused before continuing. “Let me speak plainly, Shiloh. Esta will never allow you to leave this place, even when your sentence is complete. You are a threat to her claim to the throne. You will be a threat to the claims of her future children. Only by aligning with the Patriarch will you be able to obtain power of your own with which Esta cannot interfere.”

  “I have no interest in power. I’ve never made any claim to the throne, and I never will,” she replied, eyes fixed determinedly upon the window.

  “I believe you,” Fenroh replied. “At least, I believe that you believe it to be true. But it does not matter, not to the crown. Esta is fond of you. She wrote to the Patriarch of your kindness to her. But that friendship is of no importance. Your blood dooms you. Westan will see it the same way, when he is king. He may, in fact, press for your execution, or assassination. Can you imagine, Shiloh, how easy that would be for him to arrange, with you trapped here in the Citadel? Wandless. Hungry. Sick. Alone. Anyone might slip a knife between your ribs.”

  She shivered.

  “Ah, I see you do understand the perilous nature of your situation.” He put his gloved hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “But if you are garbed in a Vestal’s red, at the Patriarch’s side, with steel in your hand, they will not dare to touch you. You won’t even be Unclean anymore, since every place His Holiness stands is consecrated ground. You will be a princess of the Church. A bride of the Elder. Anointed by the Gods, revered by the faithful. A walking saint. You would join Vestals Korra and Hestoh at the Holy Father’s right hand. Imagine.”

  Angry tears filled her eyes, and she could no longer hide her disgust. “I hate this place,” she declared. “I want no part in it.”

  “I know, my child,” Fenroh replied, almost kindly. “You must think me terribly cruel, though in my defense, you may well have killed more people than I ever have myself. But you must understand . . . to make a gem sparkle, it must be cut and polished. Everything that interferes with the beauty of it must be ground away. And you . . . you are to be His Holiness’s crown jewel.”

  She broke his gaze. Voice shaking, she asked, desperate to escape his presence, “May I go back to the Script Shop, honored brother? The master will make me stay late if I don’t finish my quota.”

  He laid a heavy hand upon her shoulder again and smiled a conspiratorial smile. “Oh, Shiloh. You’re not going back to the Script Shop. You obviously require more of my attention in order to shine. You’re going to work as my scribe from now on.”

  “What happened to the scribe you already had?” she demanded in a transparent effort to stave off the inevitable.

  “I’m afraid he’s run off. It seems the young brother’s commitment to the cause was not as strong as I thought. But don’t worry. We’ll catch up to him. We always do.”

  “So what did he make you do?” Hana asked, wide-eyed. Shiloh had just finished informing her cellmates about the day’s unsettling events. She left out the part about her parentage.

  “There weren’t any interrogations today, thank the Gods,” Shiloh answered. “I helped him answer letters and issue warrants. I have a little desk a few steps away from his, up high in his office. I could feel him watching me, all the time. Gods, he makes my skin crawl.”

  “He is a dangerous creature,” Bluebell concurred, eyes troubled.

  “What do you know about him?” Shiloh asked the seer.

  “He is the bastard son of the Patriarch. His mother was some Gernish beauty of minor nobility. She died when she was young. He entered the order at age nine, serves his father with great devotion. Patriarch Vinsen is an exacting and ruthless man, and he taught his son to be the same,” Bluebell reported. “Were Fenroh a woman, he could aspire to be a Vestal. As it is, he has risen as far as he can in the order, having been named the Grand Purifier.”

  “He’ll probably milk that for all it’s worth,” Hana muttered.

  “I don’t think he’s satisfied with that,” Shiloh said slowly.

  “What do you mean?” Bluebell asked, brows drawing in.

  “The way they were talking, on the road . . . They didn’t realize I could understand Gernish. They seemed to be implying that the Patriarch wasn’t satisfied with his power in the spiritual realm. That he feels he deserves more. That they all feel they deserve more.”

  “You mean he wants a kingdom of his own,” Bluebell concluded.

  Shiloh nodded. “Perhaps he has made an arrangement with Queen Esta and the king of Gerne.”

  “Or maybe just with the king of Gerne,” Hana suggested. “The Patriarch pushed the marriage with Esta. Everyone says so.”

  “So you think . . .” Shiloh began.

  “I think His Holiness and King Westan intend to divide Bryn between them,” Hana proposed. At the impressed looks from her companions, she added, “What? You think I’m not smart enough to understand politics? I come from generations of courtiers. I drank cynicism at my mother’s breast. And I don’t trust a Gernishman as far as I can throw him.”

  “And if the Patriarch becomes a king on earth as well as in heaven,” Shiloh began.

  “Then Fenroh will be his right hand,” Bluebell concluded, “and a prince in all but name.”

  They stared bleakly at one another until Shiloh took a deep breath. She blew it out slowly.

  “And people thought my husband was scary.”

  “Now, now. It won’t be as bad as all that,” Fenroh chided.

  Shiloh knew she must look like someone headed to the gallows. They sat together in the interrogation room, the Grand Purifier and she, awaiting the morning’s first victim. It was her first time in the scribe’s chair, and she found herself praying for something to fall from the sky to deliver her from participating in the evil to come.

  No such salvation was forthcoming.

  She tried not to look at anyone the guards strapped into the chair. She focused intently on her shorthan
d. The first few cases were relatively straightforward. A priest accused of drunkenness received three years. Another accused of licentiousness received five years. A priestess who had been caught wearing a corset got six months.

  Shiloh glanced involuntarily upward when a scuffle broke out in the doorway. A monster of a man in Feral garb was being wrestled into the room. Fenroh drew his wand and flicked it in the man’s direction. The prisoner screamed and half-collapsed in the arms of the guards. They were then able to get their charge seated and bound. The bearded man, panting, looked at Fenroh with a face filled with loathing.

  Fenroh shook his head sadly. “Honored brother, what has become of you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man replied, eyes blazing.

  “There is nothing more reviled by the Gods than an apostate, Brother Senn. To throw away your faith, to discard your robes of gray, for the life of an atheist savage.” Fenroh sighed. “I fear there may be no saving your soul.”

  Shiloh’s hand began to shake. This is going to become ugly. She willed her fingers to behave, and her pen danced across the page, recording each word. She kept her face down, afraid to look up at Fenroh’s cold eyes or the prisoner’s defiant ones.

  “My name is Henrik,” the captive protested. “I was born one of the Free. I have never been a cleric, much less one of you Patrists.”

  A curse crackled, and a scream rang out. Shiloh jerked in her chair, the hairs rising on the back of her neck. She couldn’t bring herself to look up from the page to see the damage.

  “Don’t lie,” Fenroh ordered. “I don’t like lies.”

  “I swear!” the man protested weakly, once he had recovered his breath.

  Another curse sizzled. The prisoner contorted, groaning. Shiloh smelled flesh burning.

  “Pull up his right sleeve,” Fenroh commanded the guard.

  In spite of herself, Shiloh looked up to see if Henrik had the mark of the Order of the Elder: a black tattoo of the Wheel of Life on his inner wrist, the same circle everyone traced on their foreheads to ward off evil. Instead, his wrist was marred by a shining scar.

  “You burned it off,” Fenroh concluded, his voice oddly heartbroken. “You desecrated the sign of your devotion to the Gods. How could you?” To Shiloh’s shock, the Purifier had tears in his eyes.

  As Shiloh watched, horror-struck, she could see Henrik decide to give up the charade.

  “Because we’re a bunch of monsters!” the prisoner hissed. “That’s why. And I was done being a monster for your all-too-human father.”

  Shiloh forced herself to continue recording his words, terrified of what Fenroh might do next. The pen fell from her hand when she heard her own name.

  “Do not lose heart, Shiloh,” Henrik cried, pulling at his bonds. “Your father is coming for you! Keegan knows of your plight.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. “My father is dead,” she managed to whisper, just as Fenroh cast another spell.

  Henrik began to choke, his face turning red and eyes bulging. Fenroh did not relent until the man lost consciousness.

  “One hundred lashes and throw him into the Pit,” Fenroh ordered the guards, face twisted in disgust.

  “He’ll die, honored brother,” the guard pointed out, drawing a look from Fenroh that Shiloh feared would set his hair alight.

  “That is the idea,” Fenroh replied, his voice all the more frightening in its softness. “He does not deserve to be washed clean in the waters of creation during a proper execution.” He turned to Shiloh. “Don’t record anything after his admission of guilt.”

  She swallowed the gorge rising in her throat. “Yes, honored brother,” she whispered.

  “I can’t do this,” Shiloh despaired. “I’m going to lose my mind.”

  Hana, Bluebell, and Shiloh sat in a circle on one of the beds, waiting for the dinner bell to ring.

  “Has he hurt you?” Hana asked, hard-eyed.

  She shook her head. “No. Not yet, anyway. But having to watch what he does to the people he’s questioning, knowing there’s nothing I can do for them, knowing that Silas did those sorts of—” she broke off. “Feeling his eyes on me all the time, terrified every second of making a misstep . . .” Tears slid down her face. “I don’t know how to bear it, day after day.”

  “What happened today?” Bluebell asked gently.

  “There was this man,” Shiloh explained, “a Feral. He used to be a gray-robe but ran away years ago. They were so cruel to him.”

  “I bet they were,” Bluebell said, shaking her head.

  “He . . . he said that my . . . the man who sired me, that he’s sending men to help me get out of here,” Shiloh continued.

  “Wait, your father is a Feral?” Hana asked, aghast and fascinated all at once.

  “Apparently.” Shiloh sighed. She decided to come out with her secret. “Keegan, Chief of the Ferals, to be exact.”

  “Well, good! Then he might actually be able to do something for us!” Hana judged. “Who’s your mother, then? Another Feral?”

  Shiloh shook her head.

  “Might as well tell her,” Bluebell suggested.

  “You know who her mother is?” Hana demanded.

  “Of course. Tarwin’s known since before she was born,” Bluebell scoffed.

  “You might have mentioned it when I came there years ago,” Shiloh groused.

  “Mother Falcon judged it unwise,” Bluebell explained.

  “Oh my Gods, just tell me who it is!” Hana erupted.

  “The Usurper. My mother was Alissa, the Usurper.”

  Hana’s mouth formed an “O” of surprise, and she was, for once, speechless.

  “At any rate, I don’t really want to leave my fate in the hands of a savage I don’t even know,” Shiloh said, trying to get back to the topic at hand, ignoring Hana’s shock. “I would much rather save myself.”

  “But how?” Bluebell replied.

  Hana swallowed a shriek as a bird appeared from nowhere, diving through their slit of a window and landing in the center of the floor with a flutter of wings and squawking.

  “It’s that bloody bird again!” Hana erupted. “It’s been peering through the windows for days. Shoo, you filthy thing! Shoo!”

  “Honey?” Shiloh whispered. She knelt next to the bird, which hopped onto her shoulder and picked at her hair. “Honey!”

  “He’s come to check on you,” Bluebell declared with unnerving certainty. “He still has your wand, safely hidden. He also has a tremendous sense of timing.”

  “Then he should bring the wand to the princess, here, so we can get out of this vile place,” Hana replied, her sharp tongue ever in working order.

  Shiloh thought before replying. “One wand, even one made of steel, won’t get us past all the guards, all the locks, all the priests. And what of those we would leave behind? He needs to bring it at the right moment, or it will be for nothing.”

  “The next execution,” Bluebell suggested. “We’ll all be outside. People will be distracted. You’ll have the element of surprise.”

  A slow smile spread over Shiloh’s face. “What do you think, Honey? Can you do that? Bring me my wand the next time they decide to murder a bunch of us?”

  Honey rubbed his head happily against her cheek, then leapt up to the window and disappeared as abruptly as he’d arrived.

  “You just have to make it to the next execution,” Bluebell told Shiloh, patting her shoulder.

  “How long will that be?” she asked, steeling herself for the answer.

  “Summer,” Hana answered. “I overhead some of the brothers talking about it. They’ll do it close to the Solstice. Apparently, it’s traditional or something.” She raised her eyebrows.

  Shiloh’s heart ached. It wasn’t even yet spring.

  Bluebell took Shiloh’s hand and hook and leaned in until their foreheads touched. “You can do this, Shiloh. We can do this. We’ll come up with a plan, together. Between your power, my foresight, and Hana’s
sharp ears, we will figure this out.”

  Shiloh nodded and embraced her two companions before she replied.

  “And when the moment is right, the three of us will burn this place to the ground.”

  The Dog Off Its Chain

  Little Shiloh peered down at her history book. A drawing of monks had caught her attention. The caption called them “The Guardians of the Citadel.”

  She looked up from her reading. Her shining hook held her place. “Master? Who are these people?”

  Brother Edmun looked over her shoulder. “They are members of the Elder’s Order, the priests closest to the Patriarch. They are chosen for their devotion and wear robes of gray, while the rest of us wear black or brown. The most loyal sisters of the order, the most gifted, the most beautiful, are chosen to be the Vestals. They never stray from the Patriarch’s side. Their robes are red, like the blood they pledge to spill in defense of their master.”

  “And the three Vestals choose the new Patriarch when one dies?”

  “Yes, poppet. They search for his reincarnation among the children of the realms that worship the Six Lords of Heaven, guided by the Holy Family, naturally,” Edmun confirmed, rolling his eyes. “In truth, they spend a few years voyaging in splendor, visiting a bunch of rich brats, and taking bribes from noble parents eager to see their sons rise to the top of the Citadel. Then they choose some insipid little whelp and raise him to be a tyrant.”

  “You mean you don’t believe that the Patriarch is really the holy incarnation of the Elder?” Shiloh whispered, as though fearful they’d be overheard.

  Edmun snorted. “If you’d ever met one, poppet, you’d agree with me.”

  A guard grabbed Shiloh’s arm as she was exiting the Temple after worship on Lordsday. Her heart clenched with fear. Fenroh’s finally decided to throw me into the Pit.

  But, to her relief, the man dragged her up instead of down. One step after another, for what seemed like an age, she rose. When they passed by Fenroh’s office, she exhaled in relief. Soon, she found herself standing before an unfamiliar door, one lacquered in deepest red.