by Megan Bannen
“I don’t blame you. You’ve been dealt a lousy hand,” comes a stranger’s voice in Kantari.
An electric charge of alarm bolts through me. I spin to find three men to my right. One of them, a man in his late twenties with a black patch over one eye, holds up his hands, signaling his goodwill. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Rusik DeRopa. And may I say that it’s a pleasure and an honor to meet you at last, Daughter Gelya.”
He holds out a hand to me. I’m still trying to figure out if shaking it is a good idea or a terrible idea when Tavik crests the hill, out of breath. He’s got a sword buckled to each side of his waist and he’s carrying both our packs, but when he sees DeRopa, he skids to a halt.
“Oh, hey, nice of you to join us, soldier,” DeRopa calls to him in a voice dripping with irony.
“Captain,” Tavik utters, clearly stunned to see him. “When did you get here?”
“About three seconds before you.” DeRopa gives him an impatient wave. “Why don’t you join us?”
“Yes, sir.”
Tavik walks the rest of the way, his face drawn. When he comes to stand beside me, DeRopa smacks him upside the head. “Father of death, DeSemla, if you disobey orders again, I’ll strangle the life out of you. And watch your back, you idiot. I could have drawn and quartered you five times over while you were shouting at a defenseless female.”
Tavik stares at his captain, then throws his arms around the man’s waist and hugs him for dear life.
“Missed you, too, kid,” DeRopa tells him gruffly, pounding him on the back with a thick fist.
“Sorry, sir.”
“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”
Tavik releases DeRopa to scowl at me.
“I don’t want your apology,” I mutter, my feelings still bruised.
“Good. Because I have no intention of giving you one.”
DeRopa rolls his eyes and looks at the other two men before addressing Tavik. “You can go back to your unit, DeSemla. DeTana will accompany you. DeLuthina and I will take it from here.”
I snap to attention. It? Does he mean me?
“Tavik?” I ask uncertainly, my anger with him vanishing in an instant. He looks at me with matching alarm, then turns to DeRopa. “No, sir, I think I should see this through to the—”
“The end?” I finish for him. I feel like the little boy he was, falling into the dark waters of the well.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” he tells me breathlessly before pleading his case to his captain. “Sir, there’s a trust between us. I can’t leave her with men she considers strangers.”
“A trust? You were just screaming at her,” DeRopa points out with a sardonic grin.
“But I’ve come so far. Why would you take me off this assignment now?”
“Are you kidding? How many times did you fail to report your location? How many times did I tell you to stay put? How many times did you feel free to disregard direct orders?”
Tavik winces.
“Orders? What orders?” I demand.
DeRopa crosses his arms over his chest. “The orders he didn’t follow for weeks on end. That’s why you’re off the assignment, DeSemla.”
Tavik stands ramrod straight. “Sir, I—”
The captain’s temper sparks at last, and he points a savage finger at Tavik. “You don’t question orders. You follow them. Period. Is that clear?”
Tavik shrinks. His eyes falter. He’s backing down when I most need him to stand up for me. “Yes, sir,” he whispers.
“No!” I beg him.
DeRopa softens and speaks to Tavik as if I’m not standing right here. “I know this is hard, but Daughter Gelya is in good hands now, all right?”
Tavik goes very still, his eyes distant and unfocused. “Yes, sir,” he answers as if his words are an afterthought.
“What are you doing?” I ask him, my voice tight with panic.
DeRopa acts as if I’ve said nothing and claps Tavik on the shoulder. “You’ve done well, DeSemla. I’m proud of you. But your watch is over.”
Tavik regards his captain, then glances at the other two men, and I am forcefully reminded of that moment in the parlertorium when Zofia looked about her and knew something was wrong. “Can I say goodbye?” he asks DeRopa.
“Of course.”
I shake my head, my eyes wide and frantic. “Don’t leave me.”
“It’s time.”
“No!”
He takes me by the arms with his warm, strong hands. “I’ll miss you.”
“Don’t do this,” I plead.
His face contorts, and a hard, sad laugh escapes his mouth. “Remember how you wanted to walk right through the front door of the Monastery of Saint Helios, Brother Elgar?” He pulls me into his arms and hugs me tight, whispering in my ear, “Do it. Run. Now.”
“What?” I gasp as he pulls away.
He’s still looking at me, his deadly serious face hidden from his captain as he mouths, Run. Then he turns back to the Kantari and draws both his swords.
Shock roots my feet to the earth, and my mind reels with confusion as the knights behind DeRopa draw their weapons, too. The captain keeps his sheathed and puts out a hand, staying the others. “What’s this, DeSemla?”
“How did you know her name?” The only part of Tavik’s body that moves is his mouth. The rest of him is still and coiled, ready to pounce if he has to. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
DeRopa snorts. “Because you told me.”
“No, I didn’t. How did you get here so fast? Aren’t you supposed to be in Gulachen?”
“You sent for me, remember?” DeRopa answers with an incredulous laugh.
“Why are the Kantari still moving toward the Convent of Saint Vinnica when you know Elath is no longer there?”
“Let me explain—”
“And how in the name of the Mother did Brother Miklos find us again after the trail went cold? Because I sent you a message from the Pavane Forest letting you know we were following the Goodson.”
Holy Father, Tavik is right. If the Elathians had a spy at the Convent of Saint Vinnica, why couldn’t the Ovinists have one among the Kantari Two-Swords? My flags didn’t put Brother Miklos on our trail. DeRopa did.
“You’re jumping to some pretty ridiculous conclusions,” DeRopa says calmly.
“Am I? How did Brother Miklos know he’d find us at Illesmaat? Because I finally obeyed your order and told you where we were.”
“See, this is exactly what I’m talking about, DeSemla. You think you’re so smart. You think you’re the only one who knows anything. That’s why I’m sending you back before you make things worse than they already are.”
“Except you’re not sending me back, are you? You’ve already ordered DeLuthina to take me out the first chance he gets, because I got a lot closer to freeing the Mother than you ever thought I could, and now I know too much.”
DeTana and DeLuthina move into defensive stances, and my heart jumps. DeRopa’s voice is as cold and cutting as a knife when he says, “Soldier, put down your weapons.”
“You didn’t send me because you thought I could free the Mother. You sent me because you thought I couldn’t. Father of death, how could you do this to me?” Tavik finally breaks, his face crumpling with hurt and anger.
“Oh, for the Father’s sake, Tavik, save your water,” DeRopa barks. “You’re eighteen years old, and you’re thinking with your sword instead of your head.”
“No. I’m a Two-Swords, chosen by the Mother, and you trained me well enough to call your bluff. Gelya, run.”
Every feeling revolts. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Now!” he bellows, never taking his eyes off his captain, the father who betrayed him.
This time, DeRopa does pull his swords free of their scabbards and gives Tavik a face full of sorrow and regret. “Don’t make me do this, DeSemla.”
“Now, Gelya!”
I open my mouth, ready to pull back the lid
I keep tight over Elath, but I close it again just in time. How can I hurt DeRopa and his men without also hurting Tavik?
“Run!”
The only person in the world who can help either one of us is at the Monastery of Saint Helios, so I do what Tavik says. I bolt for the monastery with the sounds of steel clashing against steel at my back.
My body runs, but everything I am on the inside stays behind with Tavik.
Thirty-Five
I burst straight through the front doors of the Monastery of Saint Helios, just as I told Tavik I could. Not a soul stirs in the cavernous hall or on the stairs leading up to the dormers.
“Goodson Anskar!” My voice ricochets off the ceiling. “Is anyone here? Goodson!”
In less than a minute, two monks arrive from two different directions, both of them telling me to “Calm down, Brother.”
But there is no calming me. I grab one by the sleeve of his brown tunic. “I need to talk to the Goodson! Now!”
More and more monks pour into the hall, their voices and bodies swarming about me. Each second they dally is another second Tavik may not live. “Goodson!” I shout, searching the faces all around me. None of them belong to him, the one person I need.
I hold up my hands, trying to sound calm so that they’ll take me seriously. “Listen to me.” But the monks are all speaking at once, a dissonant, overwhelming chorus.
“Good Father, it’s a girl!”
“—knight’s clothing?”
“—sacrilege—”
“You don’t understand. Please,” I beg them. But they refuse to take me seriously.
“Miss, you must—”
“—hysterical female—”
The room is spinning. There are too many bodies and voices pressing in all around me. The buzzing of the spirit within me fills my ears. My head feels like it will burst. One of the monks grabs me by the arm.
“Don’t touch me.”
The buzzing ratchets higher. Another man takes hold of my other arm, a Knight of the Order this time.
“Let me go.”
“What is the meaning of this?” the knight spits.
And the lid blows. Fury sets my veins on fire, and the words that come out of my mouth are not spoken in Rosvanian but sung in Sanctus. “Let me go!”
The two men with their hands on me shriek and stumble back. The monk’s sleeve is on fire, and his comrades bat out the flames as I look on, panting, blood streaming down my chin.
“Holy Father. Gelya?”
The familiar voice parts the sea of men, revealing the Goodson. He stands in the hallway directly ahead of me, his white tunic pristine, his gray eyes heavy. I’ve followed his trail for hundreds of miles, tied flags to gelya trees to show him where I’ve been, prayed to the silent Father that I might find him, and here he is at last. The knowledge that he will lift the burden from my shoulders is nearly unbearable, and relief fills me to the brim.
I turn inward to face the spirit that insists on wearing Zofia’s face and speaking in her voice. I’m sorry, I tell Her as I slam the lid back down.
I want to run to the Goodson and bury myself in his strong arms. Instead, I drop painfully to one knee on the unforgiving floor, barely able to keep myself from toppling over completely.
Goodson Anskar races to me and scoops me up. It’s not as easy as it once was—I’m so much taller than his poor little Gelya in the Dead Forest—but he staggers to his feet, holding me in his arms, his voice breaking as he murmurs, “You’re safe now. You’re all right.”
Tavik. The name curls through my blood like steam escaping a kettle.
“Goodson Anskar,” I begin, the words as limp and useless as my body.
“Shh.”
“You have to help Tavik.”
“Everything will be fine.”
I grip the front of his tunic with my weak hands, grasping at the blue Hand of the Father emblazoned on his chest. “There’s a boy fighting three Kantari on the road. Send men.”
“Gelya—”
I tighten my grip, my fingernails scraping against the skin beneath. “Send as many as you can.”
“I . . .” His eyes shift over my head to a knight standing behind me. He gives the man a nod and shifts his focus back to me. “I’ll see to it.”
I press my hand over his heart and breathe, “Thank you!” before I try to squirm out of his arms.
The Goodson holds me tighter. “What are you doing?”
“I need to go with them.”
“Who?”
“Your knights.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” he says as he carries me toward the stairwell.
For a moment, I forget who I am and who the Goodson is. All I can think of is Tavik. “You can’t stop me,” I say, as if the words come from the mouth of the Father Himself.
The Goodson stops and gapes down at me, the powerless girl in his arms. “Gelya,” he says, his tone chastising. It’s like that moment before the summit when I defied him, the thing I swore I would never do again.
“I have to go,” I whimper. “Can’t you see that?”
“What I can see is that you’re distraught, and you need to lie down at once.”
“But he—”
“But he is in more capable hands than yours now, and I’m not letting you go anywhere near a fight. My job is to protect the faithful, not send them into a bloodbath.” He looks past me again and asks a monk, “Can you have something brought up that will calm her?”
“Of course, Goodson.”
“I don’t want to calm down,” I plead. My legs sway with each step as Goodson Anskar carries me upstairs.
“And what good will you do this boy in your current condition? Will you be helping him or hurting him?”
I answer his question by bursting into tears and pressing my face to his shoulder. I let him carry me to a dorm room, put me in a bed, and hold a mug of something “that will calm her” to my lips. As I fade into the darkness of sleep, I hear him murmur, “Poor little Gelya.”
I wake in a strange bed with a headache and a throbbing sore throat. I’m somehow both cold and sweating beneath a heavy quilt. The room is dark, but gray light outlines the thick curtains at the window. I push the blanket off me, only to shiver in the cold air that greets my skin. I’ve got nothing on but a thin shift. I pull the quilt back over me, my movements heavy and sluggish. Everything is fuzzy.
The door opens, and the Goodson’s square face peeks in, at which point I begin to sob with pure, unfiltered relief.
“Don’t cry, Daughter. I’m just glad you’re awake.”
He steps into the room, drags a plain wooden chair from a nearby table next to the bed, and sits beside me. His kind heart is in his eyes as he takes my hand in his warm grasp, and the tenderness of the gesture makes me weep harder.
“Only the Father can know what you’ve suffered,” he says, his voice as warm as his hand. “But you’re safe now. You mustn’t cry anymore.”
I sit up, reining in my tears. “But are you all right? I’ve been so worried. Have you regained control of the Order? What happened to Brother Miklos?”
“Calm down. You’ll make yourself ill. I’m perfectly well, as you see, and I have the Order firmly in hand. I’m far more concerned with your well-being at the moment, not mine.”
The wrinkles pulling down the corners of his eyes have grown deeper since the last time I saw him, probably because of me. He gives me a handkerchief so I can wipe my face. I need to get this over with, the moment I’ve been dreading for weeks.
“You know what I carry inside me?” I ask him, although it’s not really a question, and I already know the answer.
He regards me with a gut-wrenching mixture of directness, pity, and sorrow. “Yes.”
“Can you get Her out of me?”
He takes my right hand in both of his and kisses my palm the way he did on the day the Father chose me. “I can help you.”
His words are my deliverance, and for one blessed moment, I let
myself dissolve into it. And then I remember my true reason for coming to the monastery. I bolt upright and push back the bedding. “Holy Father! Tavik!”
“Gelya—”
“How long have I been out? Father of death!” I say the last part in Kantari, as if the words will make Tavik materialize before me.
“You need to rest.” The Goodson takes me by the shoulders and tries to urge me back down, but I bat his gentle hands away.
“I can’t rest until I know he’s all right!”
He grips my shoulders again, and this time his hands are not gentle. “Then I’ll save you the trouble. I’m so sorry. He’s . . . gone. My men found the boy’s body.”
The boy’s body.
Tavik’s body.
My mind refuses to catch up.
“What are you saying? Tavik’s dead?” The word dead burns like a brand, searing my heart, my lungs, my throat.
Goodson Anskar squeezes my shoulders, his touch tender once more. “Clearly, he meant something to you, and for that, I honor your grief.”
I slip from his grasp and fall back against the pillow as if a heavy weight is pushing me down. Tears wait behind my eyes, but I can’t let them loose. If I do, it means he’s really gone, and I don’t accept that. I can’t. I won’t.
The Goodson lays his heavy hand on my head and looks down on me with the full force of his paternal love. “May the Father bless you, Daughter. You’ve done extremely well. You rest now.”
He kisses the top of my head and leaves me alone in the spare, shadowy room.
Tavik is dead.
Zofia. Mera and her family. And now Tavik. I have no words for this, the loss that pierces me to the core, so painful I curl my body around it, helpless as it throbs through me.
Then I hear the unmistakable sound of the door being locked from the outside, an eerie echo of the moment Brother Miklos took the key from around Zofia’s neck in the parlertorium.
If he ever gets his hands on you, he’s going to lock you up and throw away the key.
But Tavik sent me here. In the end, he knew the Goodson was our only chance. My only chance.
I shove the quilt away and swing my legs out of bed to get to my feet. The room lurches. I grab the bedpost and hang on until the world stops spinning. I take one cautious step, then another and another, and by the time I reach the door, I’m steady enough to walk without falling on my face. I hope rather than believe I’m wrong when I try the handle, but the door is locked, and I’m a prisoner.