by Megan Bannen
Ambrus’s last words remind me of yet another pressing question I need Tavik to answer. “Who exactly is this man you sent a message to, and what did you tell him?”
“Rusik DeRopa is captain of my Two-Swords division and one of the team who opened the Vault of Mount Djall twelve years ago. When the Prima proposed this mission, he suggested me.”
“Why would DeRopa send you? Why not send someone older and more experienced? You are so young.”
“DeRopa sent me because, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m really good at what I do,” he informs me in a voice soured by offense.
I nearly retort, “Killing people, you mean?” but I bite back the words. It won’t do either of us any good to start sniping at each other. “I am sorry,” I tell him. “I am grateful for your help.”
He gives me a nod, and a truce settles between us.
“What did the message say, the one you sent to DeRopa?”
Tavik picks up a Shakki piece and rolls it between his palms. “Everything.”
I give him an incredulous laugh. “How could you fit everything on that tiny slip of paper?”
“We use shorthand. I told him that the Mother wasn’t free and that you were the Vessel and that we’re in Dalment. Please advise.”
I blanch so quickly I feel light-headed. “Oh my Father, you really told him everything.”
“It’s all right. I trust DeRopa with my life.”
“But I do not trust him with mine. The Goodson is like a father to me, and yet I doubt very much that you would trust him just because I asked you to. Even if this DeRopa is the most trustworthy man alive, what if Brother Miklos intercepts that message?”
“I get that you’re concerned, but we don’t have a lot of options right now, and we need all the help we can get. If anyone can help us, it’s Captain DeRopa.”
“Define ‘help.’”
“Help is help.”
“Help is killing people, as far as you are concerned.” When Tavik opens his mouth to speak, I hold up one long finger. “If you tell me to use contractions right now, I swear I shall sing the apocalyptic hymns of Saint Wenslas at you.”
Bone weary, I rest my palms on the table and let the wood take my weight.
“Are you all right?” Tavik asks, genuinely concerned when only minutes earlier I think he wanted to shake me until my teeth rattled.
“I need to sleep.” I look up and meet his worried eyes. “But I would like to pray first.”
“Of course.”
“In private.”
He gestures around the room. “Where am I going to go?”
“Fine, then. Watch me pray.” I’m half tempted to sing The Song of Saint Wenslas out of spite. I take myself off to the corner of the room farthest from him, kneel, and press my forehead to the dusty floorboards.
Holy Father, I think, if ever you wanted to answer my prayers, now would be the time. Keeping my voice low so no one can hear me downstairs, I sing “The Vessel’s Prayer” from The Song of Saint Lanya.
Father, most high and most exalted,
I am your humble Vessel.
You have made my mouth clean to sing Your praise.
You have made my tongue straight to spread Your word.
You have made my body pure to receive Your spirit.
You have given me life to reflect the light of Heaven for all to see.
You have given me death that I may live eternally
In the light of the Father.
I fill my prayer with the notes of my longing to be heard, to be understood, to be valued in the eyes of the One True God. But there is no answer, no sense that the Father is listening. There never is.
My prayer done, I climb into the lone bed and bury myself beneath the blankets.
I stand next to Zofia in the convent courtyard, gazing at the statue of Saint Vinnica. “You lied to me,” I fume. “Then you left me.”
“Most people just say hello,” she says, managing to sound both joking and a little hurt at the same time.
“You started a war, Zofia. Men are dying because of what you did.”
“Ovin started this war long ago, Daughter, and I have to believe on some level you understand that.”
I cross my arms. I can tell she’s looking at me, but I don’t return the favor.
“I used to think it was a blessing that you had forgotten who you were, where you came from,” she says. “The world is an easier place to bear when you don’t have to question it.”
I’ve been grasping at thin memories of my past for months now, even though I know it’s wrong, and now here is Zofia—or, at least, the memory of her—telling me my life is easier without them. I finally turn on her. “You think I wanted to forget?”
“Yes, I do. But by the time you decided to remember, it was too late.”
I turn away once more to glare at Vinnica, prison and prisoner.
“You have to remember who you are and where you came from,” Zofia tells me. “For everyone. And everything.”
“I know who I am!” I shout, but no one is there. Her absence is tangible, a marked emptiness, a hole in a lovely cloth that no one can mend.
Twenty-One
I wake hours later to Ambrus’s rapping at the attic door. “The messenger is back,” he says as I drag myself awake, and Tavik is on his feet and out the door before I can untangle myself from the bedding.
“You asked for news? I have conflicting reports,” says the apothecary as I catch up with them on the stairs. “Official channels say the Tovnians are holding the Kantari at bay, but my Milk Road contacts indicate that the Kantari are cutting their way north at an astonishing pace. I suspect reality lies somewhere between the two. As for the Goodson, he was last spotted crossing the Sargo on the Kings Road, so all I can tell you is that he may be heading west. His retinue is extremely small, and it seems odd to me that he’s traveling away from the Tovnian front rather than toward it. What I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt is that Brother Miklos is actively searching for you two, although I do not know his exact whereabouts. Additionally, the kings of Rosvania, Auria, and Ukrent have warrants out for your arrest at the behest of the Holy Ovinist See.”
“Oh,” I say, the most inadequate syllable ever to exit my mouth. I translate for Tavik.
“It gets worse. King Horac of Tovnia has a price on Tavik’s head. The Tovnians say he assassinated Prince Horaccio. As a matter of fact, they say he single-handedly killed nearly thirty men. Is that true?”
“Nice,” Tavik says in Kantari with no little bitterness when I translate Ambrus’s avalanche of bad news. “Can you explain reality to this man?”
I’m not champing at the bit to defend Tavik, but the reports aren’t true, so I set Ambrus straight. By now, we’ve reached the window, where Tavik takes the soulswift from her coop with a careful hand. He can be as gentle as he likes; it’s still upsetting.
“What does the message say?” Ambrus asks. “And what did you send to begin with?”
“He requested his next orders from his captain,” I explain, keeping only to the vaguest details. The less Ambrus knows, the better as far as I’m concerned.
Tavik removes the note from the canister and places the soulswift back in its coop. A frown pulls down his mouth. “He says the Kantari army has made it to Varos da Lotharo. I’m supposed to stay put. He’s sending help.”
I don’t really want to translate for Ambrus, but I see nothing for it. “DeRopa is sending men?” I add warily in Kantari.
Tavik is already scribbling a new note as he answers, “I’m telling him not to come.” Then he switches to Rosvanian for the apothecary’s sake. “Ambrus, a map?”
Ambrus scurries over to a small bookshelf and pulls out an atlas, which he sets on the desk, opening it to a map of the north.
“Where is Varos da Lotharo?” Tavik asks, still speaking in Rosvanian as we bow over the book. Ambrus points a neat fingernail at a town in east central Tovnia. It’s much closer to Rosvania than I thought.
“So the Kantari are here,” says Tavik, placing his finger next to Ambrus’s. “We’re here.” With the index finger of his opposite hand, he points to Dalment. “And the Goodson is . . . ?”
The Kings Road is the main highway running east and west through the north, and I point to the spot where it crosses the Sargo on Saint Nadel’s Bridge. “Probably around here.”
“Where would he be going?” Tavik muses in Kantari.
Ambrus frowns at my finger. “You’re not traveling toward the Goodson, are you? Shouldn’t you be running in the opposite direction?”
“Why are we telling him any of this?” I murmur to Tavik in Kantari.
“Because we need the help of the Milk Road to track down the Sword. Tell him we need to follow the Goodson.”
My necklace feels like lead around my neck. “To be perfectly clear: I will not help you if you plan to kill or hurt Goodson Anskar. You don’t need to kill a man to disarm him.”
“Of course I’d rather steal the Sword than fight him for it, but I’m not making any promises I can’t keep. Do you have any idea how hard it would be to take a sword from me? Same goes for the Goodson.” Tavik switches back to Rosvanian to ask Ambrus, “Can you help us find the Goodson?”
“Possibly. If you’re heading west, I can mark a few places where you can stop between here and Juprachen, and I’ll do my best to keep you off the Kings Road. The farther you get from Dalment, the fewer contacts I have, so if you track the Goodson beyond Juprachen, you’ll have to rely on others for help.” Ambrus tears the map from the atlas and adds, “It would be wise for you to leave any valuables in my care. Is there anything you’d like to store under the protection of the Milk Road? That necklace, perhaps, my dear?”
I get the sensation that Ambrus and I are playing another game of Shakki, and that I am about to lose badly. I pull up on the chain around my neck. The Goodson’s gift to me dangles from my hand, reflecting the light of Ambrus’s candle. “It’s just a necklace.”
“So you tell me.”
Perplexed, Tavik looks from the triptych to Ambrus, then puts a hand over mine, pushing it back down. “We will keep it. Thank you.”
“I see.” Ambrus smiles thinly. “Give me an hour. I should have your map ready for you by then.”
We leave Ambrus’s room, but Tavik stops me on the stairwell. “What was that about?”
I glance at Ambrus’s closed door over his shoulder. “I’m not sure. He wanted to look at my triptych while you were sleeping, but I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t let Mistress Dyer look at it either back in Varos da Vinnica.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It’s personal. They must think I’m trying to hide something.”
“Like the Vessel that holds Elath the Mother, for instance?”
My hand flies to my mouth. “Does he think . . . ?”
Tavik looks behind him at Ambrus’s door, before nodding up the stairs. We don’t start talking again until we’re back in the attic with the door shut. “I’m trying to decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing,” he says, pacing the floor. “Might be a good thing. Maybe? It’s definitely A Thing now.”
“I could go prove him wrong.”
“No, I’d rather he and his northern buddies believe some worthless trinket holds the Mother rather than—”
I step in front of him, forcing him to stop. “It is not worthless.”
“All I’m saying is let them believe what they want to believe, as long as it keeps you safe.”
“Because of what I am.” I walk over to the bed and plop down on the mattress. It feels like the weight of the world is pushing me farther into the tick. Tavik comes to sit beside me, so close his hip presses against mine, but I don’t scoot away from him.
“Can I see it?” he asks.
I hesitate. My necklace is the only thing that truly belongs to me, and showing it to Tavik feels like an act of friendship. We’re not supposed to be friends.
“I know it’s important to you, but it’s just a necklace, right? You’re not actually hiding the Mother in that thing.”
I relent, taking the chain from around my neck and handing it to him. He turns it over on the palm of his callused hand, studying it. “This looks Kantari.”
“It is. A Kantari convert made it.”
“That explains why it’s so beautiful. May I open it?”
I wouldn’t let Mistress Dyer or Ambrus look inside, but it’s different with Tavik. I don’t have much to hide from him at this point. I nod, and he pulls back the gold panels with careful fingers.
“What am I looking at? Saint Ovin, obviously, but who are the other two?”
I lean in to point at the two girls, close enough to notice that Tavik still smells faintly of lavender. “Saint Vinnica and Saint Lanya.”
“His daughters. Of course. What’s their story? In Gelya-land, I mean?”
“Now I am the one telling bedtime stories?”
He looks up, his face just inches from mine, and I can feel my own face go red and blotchy. I don’t let my gaze falter, much as I might want to. I don’t want him to know he makes me . . . uncomfortable? Shy?
“Vinnica was the most innocent girl in the world, a young woman without sin,” I explain, covering my embarrassment. “That made her the only person pure enough to contain the Great Demon and trap the evil spirit within her body. When Ovin slew Elath with the Hand of the Father, Vinnica was there to receive the demon’s immortal soul.”
“Wait a minute. So when Ovin sealed Elath in the Vault of Mount Djall, he actually imprisoned his own daughter at the same time?”
“Yes.”
“Was she dead?”
“No.”
“He buried his own daughter alive?”
“Her sacrifice saved millions of souls. She was glad to do it.” But even as I say the words, I have to question them. If I were happy to make the same sacrifice, I would already be locked away now. The truth is that I’m terrified by the prospect, which is why I’m sitting side by side with a Kantari Two-Swords in an Elathian’s attic.
“I highly doubt that,” says Tavik. He stares down at the little Saint Vinnica in his hand. “Wow. She died cold and alone in the vault with a thing she thought was evil incarnate inside her.”
“Actually, while the Great Demon lives, Vinnica cannot die.”
“Are you kidding me? Holy good Mother! Did Ovin at least bury her with a good book?”
He looks up when I don’t answer right away. The words that spill off my tongue are so heretical that I can’t help but feel a stab of guilt for saying them. “She wasn’t buried in the vault. We know that now.”
His face grows more pitying, not less, but I don’t think it’s Vinnica he pities at this moment, and my eyes well up.
“And what’s Lanya’s story?” he asks softly.
“Lanya, the sister who is not important?” I joke, holding the sadness at bay.
He gives me a crooked grin. “Yeah, her.”
“She grieved for her sister, so the Father planted the Grace Tree in Saint Vinnica’s honor. Lanya would visit the tree and be comforted. One day, the tree grew a single flower—”
Tavik’s eyes go distant. “Five white petals turning pink toward the heart.”
“Yes. And from that flower came a seedpod. When Lanya held it in her hand, it burst, and she felt . . .” My words trail off, trying to recapture the moment when the Father chose me.
“Like a song trapped in a cave . . . ,” Tavik fills in.
“. . . like the newly lit wick of a lamp.” I look at Tavik, making the connection, finding this strange similarity between us that I had never before considered. “Did it feel the same when you were chosen?”
“Yeah.” For once, I can look him in the eye without feeling self-consci
ous. There are so few people in the world who understand what it’s like to be chosen by a god, whether you want to be or not.
“When the seedpod burst in her hand, she found that she could speak all the languages of the world, even Sanctus, the Father’s Word. The One True God told her to sing the story for the faithful, and it became the first of The Songs of the Saints.”
“The Song of Saint Vinnica?” Tavik guesses.
“No, The Song of Saint Ovin. There is no Song of Saint Vinnica. We learn of her sacrifice through her father’s song.”
Tavik frowns at my open triptych in his hand. “That’s so depressing.”
He’s right. It is depressing. How could I have failed to see that before now? Because you didn’t have to see it until two days ago, I remind myself. Of course you see it now. You are Vinnica.
Tavik wears his pity, as clear as glass. Pity for Vinnica. Pity for me. It’s all the same. As I tell him the rest of the story, the words feel empty, because the story we put together today negates so much of what I was taught as absolute truth.
“Anyway, Saint Ovin founded the Convent of Saint Vinnica in his daughter’s honor, with the Grace Tree at its heart, and Lanya became the first Sacrist. When she died, she was so dedicated to the Father that she transcended her mortal body and became the first soulswift.”
“And soulswifts carry the souls of the faithful to some wonderful afterlife in the sky?”
“To heaven, yes.”
“How did souls go to heaven before Saint Lanya?”
“They didn’t. Back then, when a body died, the soul remained on earth in the Dead Forest. Only by containing Elath’s worldly influence are we able to live eternally beside the One True God in heaven. If Elath is set free again, it will be the end of the soul’s everlasting life in paradise. That’s why the Order wants to find us.”
“They want to find you. They want to stop me.”
I take my necklace from his hand, close the triptych, and put it back around my neck. “They want to save the world, just like you do.”
Twenty-Two
We’ve only been back in the attic for twenty minutes when Ambrus comes rushing in, the map from the atlas clutched in his neat hands.