by A. M. Manay
“You can say that again,” Shiloh agreed.
“But possibly good,” Bluebell continued.
“Good? How?” Shiloh demanded. “How could this be good? He wants to use me as a weapon, but the others might decide I’m too dangerous to live!”
“Because it sounds like the steel in the tower really was conducting your magic, just like Elton’s letter implied it could,” Bluebell speculated. “It ran through the whole place.”
“As though it is a wand,” Shiloh concluded.
“Yes, like a wand,” Bluebell said. “This place is made as much of magic as it is of metal and stone. You have a connection to this tower, Shiloh. A magical connection,” Bluebell continued. “Elton was right about what you could do with that connection: create or destroy.”
Shiloh bit her bottom lip. “So when Honey brings me my wand, I connect with the tower. I use it to amplify my magic . . . but to do what, exactly?”
“I don’t care,” Hana answered, “as long as this place is smashed to pieces by the end.”
“I think it will be,” Bluebell offered.
“Have you seen something?” Shiloh asked. She clutched her friend’s arm.
Bluebell nodded. “While we were shaking. I saw a mountain of slag where the Citadel stands. A mountain of slag surrounded by rich, brown soil.”
Silas ignored the stares as the guards dragged him through the halls of Greenhill Palace. He knew he must look a fright, with his long hair and beard, though he did do his best to groom himself with his fingers. He supposed many of them enjoyed it, seeing him brought so low.
It didn’t bother him much. His skin, pale from months in his dark rooms, betrayed no flush of shame. He thought of Shiloh, of her first night at the Academy, and how she had held her head high beneath the indignities Queen Zina had heaped upon her. He’d been so impressed with her.
He blinked in the midday light as they passed a bank of windows. Westan was out fishing on the Bay with his men, or so he’d overheard. Perhaps Esta is more clever than I’ve given her credit for, to choose such a moment for our meeting, away from Gernish ears.
The guards brought him to the queen’s study. She was surrounded by women, mostly old friends of her mother, who stared down at Silas with narrow eyes. He knelt before the young queen, chains clanking, and waited patiently. At last, Esta waved everyone out of earshot.
“Well? Have you come to unburden your soul?” she demanded. She made a magnificent little tyrant, Silas had to admit, though he feared the weight of her jewels might topple her tiny frame.
He smiled sadly. “In a manner of speaking, Your Grace. I know you despise me, and with good reason. But I hope you know, nevertheless, that I served your father and this kingdom with all of my skill and energy.”
“Get to the point, Hatch,” she commanded.
He steeled himself for the revelation, though he feared she would take it for a threat rather than the desperate effort to help her that it was. “I must tell you, Your Grace, a rather shocking thing. When the traitorous Jasin, Lord Kepler, was dying, he used the last of his life’s blood to curse your father and his descendants.”
Esta took an involuntary step backward and traced a protective circle on her forehead. “You’re trying to frighten me. To threaten me,” she accused him. “It isn’t true.”
He shook his head. “I am trying to save you, Your Grace. If you and your children are to have any chance, the curse must be combatted. I didn’t give the fool enough credit. If only I had taken it more seriously, perhaps your father could have been saved. But for a curse as powerful as that, for such old, such dark and hateful magic . . . I think you know the only person in the kingdom who can help you.”
“You mean Shiloh,” Esta whispered.
“If she can heal the Deadlands, perhaps she can remove this dark magic from your line,” Silas confirmed, voice rising, impassioned. “You must take her back from the Patriarch, Your Grace. Bring her back here, where she belongs, defending kingdom and crown. It’s the only way to protect you and the kingdom, Your Grace. She’s the only chance you have. Do whatever you want with me, but you need Shiloh.”
For a moment, Silas thought he might have gotten through to her, managed to protect her, the kingdom, and Shiloh, all three. Doubt pooled in the queen’s eyes.
It drained away. Regal arrogance reasserted itself, and Silas knew she was lost.
“Get him out of my sight,” she ordered the guards, turning her back on Silas.
The men grabbed Silas, and he sighed. He wanted to warn the queen about the use to which the Patriarch intended to put Shiloh, warn her about her untrustworthy husband. But to do so would invite questions about where he was getting his knowledge. It would endanger both Kiven and Silas’s precious system of spy mirrors. She’d never believe me, anyway.
When this all goes to hell, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Don’t say I didn’t try, even after you crossed me.
Whatever happens, now, it’s on your head, Esta of Bryn. Yours and yours alone.
A long day of odious labor behind her, Shiloh prayed for Fenroh to dismiss her from his study. Instead, he turned to her and said, “Vestal Veena wishes to speak with you, Shiloh, and I cannot deny a request from a dying woman. Come.”
She stood and followed, bewildered. Why would she possibly wish to talk to me?
A sister in gray opened the door to allow them into Veena’s chamber. Sister Riah was there as well, administering some potion.
“This is her?” Veena asked, weak of voice. “The hexborn one?”
“It is, Holy Mother,” Fenroh confirmed. He knelt by her bed and kissed the back of her withered hand. He gestured to Shiloh that she should kneel beside him and do the same.
She waved him away. “Get out. The both of you. Leave us.”
“Holy Mother, I must protest—” Fenroh began.
“Do it somewhere else!” Veena ordered, not sounding quite so close to death’s door as she had first appeared to be. The Vestal waited until the door had firmly closed before she said another word.
“Come closer, Shiloh. If I shout, he’ll hear us.”
Shiloh obeyed, crawling closer.
“When I became a Vestal, my child, I thought that I could fix the church,” Veena whispered. “End the corruption. Free the afflicted. I thought I would raise the next Patriarch to be a good man. A kind, generous man. A shepherd to the people. I was wrong. All those decades, worse than wasted.”
Shiloh listened in mute shock.
“And his son is worse,” the ailing woman continued. “At least Vinsen knew love as a child. I cared for him as though I had borne him myself. That love tempers his worst impulses, a little. His worst faults are laziness and lust. But Fen . . . Fen is cruel, and full of misplaced ambition and implacable resentment. Perhaps if his mother had lived . . .”
“Brother Fenroh says he means for me to replace you, Holy Mother,” Shiloh ventured.
“He lies,” Veena spat. “He would never see you elevated above his own position. Not Unclean as you are, and so powerful. And the fact that you wield steel! How that must rankle, when he never could. How he must enjoy punishing you for it.”
Shiloh dredged up a memory of the day she had received her wand. The armorer and headmaster had mentioned Fenroh. He showed a connection to all four elements, she remembered, but destroyed one steel wand after another.
“Fenroh knows you will be rejected by Vinsen, and by the young Hestoh, the pretty whore. Fenroh knows they will throw you back. He knows he is safe to suggest you because he knows they will never agree. That way, no one can accuse him of conspiring to use you for his own ends, and he gets to keep you under his thumb. Now, perhaps you want to make an alliance with Fenroh. I do not know you. Perhaps you share his ambition. Perhaps you like him. Perhaps you share his taste for cruelty.”
“I do not.”
Veena barked a laugh. “Good girl. Now, Korra does want you elevated. She is wise enough to want you as a foil for Fenroh when his f
ather returns to the Gods, and foolish enough to think she can win your loyalty with bribes. The Vestals rule the church while the new Holy Father grows up, and Korra fears she cannot hold that triple throne alone. Not against Fenroh. Hestoh will be little help to her, as Fenroh does not share His Holiness’s weakness for beautiful women.
“And Hestoh does not see the precariousness of her own position. She doesn’t understand that she needs you, too. She thinks throwing herself into a God’s bed, making herself his favorite, means she will reign forever. She never should have been chosen. She has neither the necessary talent nor the proper temperament. Fenroh or Korra will do her in before Vinsen’s been dead a week. And with his bad habits, the Patriarch will not make old bones.”
“Why are you telling me all of this, Holy Mother?” Shiloh asked.
“So you do not repeat my mistakes. So you do not let them woo you with promises or cow you with cruelty. So you do not make vows you will regret at the end of your life, as I have done. So that you know the severity of the danger you face. So that if you see a chance at escape, you will take it.”
“But why should you care what happens to me, Holy Mother?”
The old woman reached out a hand and pointed to a desk in the corner. “Top drawer,” she rasped.
Shiloh crossed the carpet and opened the drawer. A pile of correspondence in familiar handwriting greeted her. She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to touch the words marching across the top page. She traced the letters of her own name.
“Edmun?” she whispered, turning to face the Vestal.
“Our mothers were sisters,” Veena told her. “We were thick as thieves when we were young, growing up at Greenhill Palace. He started writing to me again about five years ago, after decades of silence. He asked me to do what I could for you when he was gone. Alas, this is all I can do in my current condition.” She smiled fondly, her face becoming a web of wrinkles. “I’ll see him again soon. I hope he isn’t too cross with me.”
Shiloh brushed away a tear and laughed.
“Oh, Holy Mother, he’s always cross.”
“What did she tell you?” Fenroh demanded. His gloved hand gripped her bad arm far too tightly.
“You’re hurting me,” she protested, tears springing to her eyes. He tightened his fingers.
“I know I am. What did she tell you?” he repeated, eyes dangerous.
“That I should not take her place,” Shiloh answered, trying to look disappointed.
“She objects to the idea?” Fenroh asked, eyes shining.
“I think so. She was . . . not easy to understand,” Shiloh lied. “Her words were slurred. Perhaps the potion Sister Riah gave her.”
“What else?”
“She does not seem to like Vestal Hestoh very much,” Shiloh offered.
Fenroh snorted. “No news there. Fine. Go back to your cell. You’d better get some rest. The Patriarch wishes to examine you tomorrow.”
Shiloh tried to slow her racing heart as the elevator lifted them into the clouds. Fenroh’s unblinking stare didn’t help.
“I trust you know how to behave in the holy presence, but let me refresh your memory,” he began. “You will enter with head bowed. You will genuflect when you reach the red marble floor, and you will remain on bended knee, silent until you are spoken to, eyes on the floor. You look anyone in the face, and you’re liable to leave bleeding.”
“Yes, honored brother.”
There was no pause in conversation when she and Fenroh entered. Shiloh did as instructed and knelt upon the circle of red marble before the Patriarch’s throne. She was expecting an interrogation or some effort at intimidation. Instead, they talked around her, as though she were a piece of furniture. She simply knelt and listened, heart pounding. She could only see their gilded shoes.
“I still think we should choose the new Vestal from Vreeland,” a woman declared. “It will help shore up support for when we make a move against the Reformers in Estany. And they have princesses to spare.”
“Each one uglier than the last, Hestoh,” Vinsen replied, sounding bored, his voice roughened by years of dissipation.
The young Vestal. The beautiful one His Holiness takes to bed.
“And none of them with much talent or education,” another woman replied. “That is the real problem. They are lazy.” Korra. I recognize her voice.
“Veena certainly is taking her sweet time dying,” Hestoh groused.
“Mind your tongue about the last of the women who raised me,” the Patriarch scolded, but his voice was indulgent.
“Fen wants us to choose this thing,” Hestoh continued. “In Gerne, we know what to do with such creatures.”
Shiloh’s face burned, but she remained still as a statue.
“How fortunate she was not born in Gerne,” Korra said, voice calm as a still lake. “It would have been a waste to kill her in the cradle.”
“We can make use of her without raising her to our own level,” Hestoh pointed out.
“She’s a princess of the blood!” Korra countered. “Her bloodline is better than yours or Veena’s!”
“On whose word?” Fenroh argued. “Silas Hatch? An atheist blasphemer, traitor, and fornicator?”
“Besides, as I already said, we can use her without making her one of us,” Hestoh declared.
“True enough, Holy Mother,” Fenroh agreed.
Veena was right. He has no intention of letting this happen.
“We can’t trust her anyway,” Hestoh continued. “She probably hates the lot of us.”
“What of it, Shiloh? Do you love the Patriarch as you should?” Korra asked. Shiloh could feel the woman’s eyes boring into her, commanding that she answer appropriately.
Shiloh’s stomach turned to ice. Veena’s warnings rang in her ears. So did Korra’s threats. Buy yourself time, Shiloh. Buy yourself time until the next execution.
“Of course, Holy Mother,” she lied. “I pray for His Holiness daily. I love the Gods, and I love the church.”
“Even though His Holiness took your title, your lands, your husband? Even though he restored the Cleanliness Laws?” Hestoh prodded mockingly.
Shiloh swallowed. “That has been hard to bear, Holy Mother,” she admitted. She knew she was not a good enough liar to claim otherwise. “But I have submitted to those trials in a spirit of contrition and trust in the Gods.”
“And what of this incident in Fenroh’s study, girl?” His Holiness asked, addressing Shiloh for the first time.
“That was . . . inadvertent, Your Holiness. I was . . . in a great deal of pain,” Shiloh explained.
“And does that happen often?” Hestoh demanded.
“No, Holy Mother, it does not.”
“Twice in two years,” Fenroh pointed out, slithering back into the conversation.
“The other time I was fighting Feralfolk who had killed my father, honored brother,” Shiloh countered.
“I find this . . . concerning,” Vinsen mused.
“It wouldn’t have happened at all if Fenroh hadn’t been tormenting her for months,” Korra insisted. “And all it does is prove her power. This job needs a softer touch. She will never be loyal enough to wear the red if you leave her in Fenroh’s hands. All he knows how to do is smash things. Give her to me. I can turn her into an acceptable Vestal by the time Veena dies. Give me a few months to undo the damage Fen’s done. No one will dare stand against you with her steel at your side.”
“This is madness!” Hestoh said, throwing up her hands. “An insult. I won’t stand for such a creature being brought into our apartments, power or no.”
“I don’t want her, either,” Vinsen declared. “I mean, look at her. So sickly. So skinny. Unclean.” He took a pull on his pipe. Shiloh smelled opium. “A God’s closest servants should be perfect, not . . . defective.”
“Exactly, Your Holiness!” Hestoh agreed.
“I’ll leave her with, you, Fen,” Vinsen decreed. “At least until we need a bone to throw to Esta
or Westan.”
“As you wish, Your Holiness,” Fenroh replied. “Shall I remove her from your holy presence?”
“Yes, yes.” Vinsen waved a hand in dismissal.
Fenroh contained his delight until they were safely in the elevator. His gleeful laughter filled the tiny space, and Shiloh thought she might vomit on his shoes.
“You should have seen the look on Korra’s face!” he cackled.
“She’s going to kill me,” Shiloh whispered.
Fenroh grinned. “She’s going to try.”
“Fenroh says Korra will wait to try to have me killed until Veena dies and a new Vestal is elevated,” Shiloh told a rapt Hana and Bluebell, “on the chance that she can change Vinsen’s and Hestoh’s minds.”
“How long does Vestal Veena have?” Hana asked.
“Based on how she looks, a couple of months at best,” Shiloh answered.
“Based on what I’ve seen, she might not make it until Solstice,” Bluebell concurred.
Shiloh buried her head in her hands. “I might not even make it until the next execution.”
“Oh, I think you will,” Bluebell replied. “I see Vinsen standing behind the condemned with two Vestals in red. Which means a third won’t have been appointed yet. Which means Korra will still be pressing her case.”
“Which means I have a chance.” Shiloh sighed. “If a slim one.”
“I have a question,” Hana piped up. “How do you even know what you’re seeing since you’re blind? How do you know what color to say their vestments are? How does a blind girl learn her colors?”
“Can we get back to how I’m going to manage not to die?” Shiloh asked, exasperated.
“I wasn’t always blind, Hana,” Bluebell explained with long-suffering patience.
“How did it happen?” Hana asked, eyes wide, sounding like the curious child she once must have been.
“Hana!” Shiloh scolded.
“It’s all right,” Bluebell said. “I’ll tell you. I was little, maybe six. The visions started, and I wanted them to stop. Nobody believed me. They thought I was making up stories for attention. And in my little mind, I thought my eyes were the problem. So, I took one of my older brother’s wands, and I looked up a curse in the library, and . . .”