One of the priestesses is half Mercy’s age, and has neither moved nor spoken the entire time Mercy has been awake. Alyss has taken to calling her Owl; her golden-hazel eyes stare unfocused and unblinkingly through the stone wall, and stripes of white scars crisscross her cheeks like the quills of feathers where she has scratched the raw and peeling skin too deeply. Her knuckles, swollen to nearly twice their natural size, deform her hands into claws.
Pilar cries when she sees her.
Alyss orders the two soldiers guarding the door to drag in a large washing basin, and she fills it with warm water from the hearth, stirring in several handfuls of herbs, which wilt as soon as they touch the water. Coils of steam rise from the surface of the water, and the spicy fragrance of the herbs’ oils fills the room.
Mercy helps Alyss undress the girl, then throws her soiled clothes into the hearth. She calls through the door for a change of clothes, then hurries to help Alyss lift Owl from the bed. The girl barely weighs sixty pounds—her ribs are sharp and defined under her inflamed skin, and each of her vertebra protrudes along her spine like a knot on a tree trunk—but she bucks and flails when Alyss tries to close her arms around her. Owl’s eyes finally focus and suddenly she’s screaming, squirming and crawling backward on the bed until her back hits the wall, her feet tangling in the blankets as she tries to kick them away. Alyss moves forward and Owl’s hand shoots out; her fingernails rake Alyss’s cheek and scratch three jagged lines.
“Damn it!” Alyss cries, her patience snapping. She swipes at the blood welling on her cheek and scowls. “Grab those bandages and bind ‘er hands with ‘em.” She glares at Pilar, then at Owl, who has quieted to little whimpers. “I was hired to heal, and by the Creator, that’s what I’m goin to do. They never said I had to be gentle.”
She snatches the bandages out of Mercy’s hands and gestures for Mercy to hold Owl’s wrists. As she does, Alyss winds the fabric around her wrists tight enough for the surrounding skin to turn white, and Owl fights against Mercy’s grip. After a few seconds, Owl’s fingernails begin to turn blue.
Alyss nods, satisfied. “The fabric will loosen in the water. Don’t want ‘er to slip out and hurt someone.”
Mercy stoops and lifts Owl from the bed, and her stomach roils at how impossibly light the girl feels in her arms. She can count every bone in Owl’s body, can practically see through the sallow skin where the infection hasn’t yet spread.
Mercy holds her over the bath and slowly lowers her in, starting with the tips of her toes and moving up her body. Owl’s eyes go wide at the sudden warmth and she relaxes in Mercy’s arms, practically going limp with relief. When she is mostly submerged, Mercy lets go, and the girl bobs for a minute before propping herself against the side of the basin. She stares at her pitted and mangled body in disgust, which slowly morphs into wonder as the heat and herbs soothe her pain. Standing beside the desk, Alyss lets out a snort.
“They always make it harder than it has to be. Ye won’t give me that much trouble when it’s yer turn, right?” she says. When Mercy had explained what Pilar has said the night before about her being immune, the healer had dismissed it with a snort.
Mercy doesn’t respond. She picks up a small brass pitcher and uses it to pour some of the water over Owl’s hair. Owl smiles, her eyelashes beaded with silver droplets, and nods for Mercy to do it again. She does, and Owl closes her eyes and leans back, the water splattering against the stone floor as it drips off the ends of her hair. The little girl sighs contentedly.
For what feels like the first time in ages, Mercy’s lips part into a genuine smile.
33
The peace lasts seven minutes.
Mercy is pouring more warm water into the bath when Alyss rounds the shelves with a jar of purple salt-like crystals in her arms. She steps around Pilar, who had settled at the head of the basin, braiding flowers into Owl’s hair, and scowls.
“Those aren’t for ye to play with,” she says. “I’ve half a mind to stick ye wi’ another dose of that sleepin oil if ye don’t stay out of my stock.”
Pilar’s hands drop from Owl’s hair. She scuttles toward the hearth and watches Mercy and Alyss work, her blister-covered arms wrapped around herself. She glances at the other priestess, who had received a dose of her own after her shouted rantings had set them all on edge earlier, and she shudders.
Alyss turns to Mercy. “This is a Rivosi housewife’s secret weapon. We call it Pryyam salt. It’s not really salt—don’t ask me why it’s called that—but it helps to detox. Watch.” She holds a strip of leather up to Owl’s mouth. “Bite down on this.”
Owl stiffens, but obeys, gingerly taking the leather between her teeth.
Alyss grabs a handful of salt and lifts Owl’s arms out of the water by their binding. “Hold ‘er tight, she’ll be slippery.”
Mercy holds Owl’s wrists, and—after checking to be certain her grip is tight—Alyss begins grinding the salt into Owl’s skin. The girl screams into the leather, her eyes filling with tears as she tries to jerk her arms free, but Mercy holds tight. Alyss continues working without pause as the crystals shred Owl’s outer flesh into tiny ribbons. The blisters across her arms and shoulders break and the milky pus inside runs down her arms in little rivulets before dripping into the bath and mixing into the water. Tears stream down Owl’s face and her cries echo around the room, loud enough to make Mercy’s ears ring.
Alyss finishes one arm and moves to the next, never acknowledging Owl’s agony, and Mercy can see why. The salt is working. Little flakes of red, infected skin float on the surface of the water and cling to Owl’s wet arms, but through them, Mercy can see the pink, healthy skin underneath. Back by the hearth, Pilar’s sobs begin anew.
“Don’t put yer arm back in the water,” Alyss instructs through the girl’s screams, “or we’ll have to do this again. Got it?” She waits for Owl to sniffle and nod before continuing, this time turning to Mercy. “Wrap ‘er arms in bandages while I work on ‘er legs. Owl, I need ye to stand and move to the hearth so I can see.”
Owl whimpers and nods, and Mercy and Alyss help her out of the bath, goosebumps erupting across her raw skin. Pilar scuttles out of the way, terror plain on her face, but Alyss pins her with a stern look.
“Don’t go too far,” she says. “You’re next.”
Pilar trembles, but agrees, then settles on the corner of Mercy’s bed and watches forlornly. Mercy bandages Owl’s arms while Alyss works the salt into one of her legs. Owl bites down so hard on the leather the tendons strain in her neck, and she tilts her head back and cries silent tears of misery, her long, flowered braid trailing down her bare back.
By the time they finish treating the last priestess, an older woman named Gwynn, Mercy is soaking wet, cold, and sore. The three priestesses sit huddled on the other side of the shelves, whispering to each other. Together, Mercy and Alyss dump the dirty bathwater into the drain in the middle of the floor, and, after the guards take away the basin, Alyss turns to Mercy with an expectant stare.
“Strip.”
“Excuse me?”
“Ye heard me. Yer turn. Strip.”
Mercy holds her arms out at her sides. “I’m fine, Alyss. No sign of the disease. See?” She spins in a slow, exaggerated circle, but when she turns back, she can tell Alyss isn’t satisfied. She sighs. “You’re not going to budge on this, are you?”
“Ye think I’m goin to let ye waltz out of this infirmary without makin absolutely certain you’re not infected?”
“Fine.” Mercy tugs the dress Calum had given her over her head, dropping the sopping fabric on the floor. After Alyss raises her brows, Mercy sighs and slips out of the gold leotard and throws it aside, too. She stands before Alyss in nothing more than her underclothes, but she makes no move to cover herself. After so many humiliations over the years, she is determined not to be bothered or ashamed by her nakedness; the Guild girls would never have bored of tormenting her if she had continued to amuse them with her shame and blushing,
so she had learned to smother and hide her feelings of weakness and vulnerability, and to channel her anger into their daily training. Sometimes that was enough. Other times, her blade nicked an apprentice a little too close for comfort, or her blunted arrowhead found its way into the soft flesh standing between her and her target, and in those moments—when the apprentice’s eyes had widened in pain and fear—Mercy had felt powerful.
The memory comforts her as Alyss circles her, poking and prodding with her short fingers and unwavering gaze. All Mercy has ever known is the Guild. It’s her entire life; it has determined who—what—she has become. She will leave this infirmary unscathed, she will assassinate Tamriel to complete her contract, and she will return to the Guild as the Daughter she had always sworn she would become.
Why, then, had she not killed the prince when she had had the chance?
Perhaps his royal surname stays her hand. Mother Illynor only allows contracts to be taken out on royalty by other royalty, otherwise ruling families all over the world would be murdered at the whims of every disgruntled factory worker or farmer. Would Mercy have hesitated had she been certain Ghyslain had ordered the murder of his son, or if Calum had been Tamriel’s brother instead of his cousin?
No. Mercy will not back out of the contract, forgery or not. It’s prestigious, much more so than a newly-inducted Daughter deserves, and Mother Illynor had given it to her. She could have chosen one of over a dozen full-fledged Daughters, but she had chosen Mercy. If she backs out now, Mercy will always be the elf who gave up the opportunity to assassinate the prince. Even if she were to reveal Calum’s trickery, the other Daughters will only see her failure.
They’ll know they were right about her.
Alyss picks up Mercy’s clothes and folds them. “No sign of anythin yet, but we can’t be too certain ye won’t catch it. Stay another day, then ye can go back to yer partyin and socializin.”
She smirks. “Is that all you think I do?”
“I don’t know how ye Feyndarans do it, but ye seem to be a more violent people than these lords and ladies, sittin around all day drinkin wine.” She nods to the lines of scars crisscrossing Mercy’s arms and legs. “Older brother?”
“Cousin. We liked to train with the soldiers.”
Alyss shrugs and pushes the clothes into Mercy’s arms. “Lay these out at the end of yer bed to dry, and I’ll find somethin for ye to borrow.” Mercy does as she is instructed while Alyss steps into the storeroom, shuffling through a battered trunk on the floor. “Ye let me know the moment ye feel anythin different, alright? Even if ye think you’re only imaginin something different. Tell me right away.”
“I will.” Mercy straightens as Alyss returns and hands her a simple tunic, threadbare around the cuffs of the worn sleeves. She slips it over her head and is surprised to find it long enough to fall to the middle of her thigh; it’s certainly not Alyss’s. She ignores the question which surfaces of what fate had befallen the previous owner of this garment, and instead narrows her eyes at the thin sheen of perspiration across Alyss’s upper lip. “How do you feel, Alyss?”
She crosses her arms. “Don’t go askin anythin like that. I’m fine.”
“Really?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” After a beat of silence, the stubborn frown slides off Alyss’s face, replaced with something much wearier. “It’s been a rough coupla days, is all. It’ll be nice when we can get back to our normal lives.”
“Just . . . take care of yourself, okay? They need you.” Mercy waves a hand to the shelves, behind which the priestesses still huddle. “You’re the best healer they have.”
Alyss’s face lights up and, for a moment, Mercy thinks she might smile.
Instead, she turns around and marches out of the infirmary.
The priestesses have been whispering for hours.
After recovering from the shock of the skin shredding, Pilar, Owl, and Gwynn had settled into a circle on the far side of the shelves, sitting cross-legged on the floor so closely their knees touch. Pilar’s eyes are closed, her face turned partially away, creating a shadow across the scarred half of her face which hides it from Owl’s view.
The little girl sits ramrod straight, flinching whenever her sleeve or the back of her tunic brushes her raw skin. Now that she’s clean, Mercy realizes Owl is even younger than she had first guessed—she can’t be older than seven. Her lips move quickly as she mouths words Mercy cannot hear. When she creeps closer, she realizes the three priestesses are speaking at the same time, the same words in a language she cannot comprehend; it’s all hissing s’s and soft vowels, nothing like the common language of Beltharos and Feyndara or the guttural tongue spoken in Gyr’malr.
Mercy steps forward, and when she is less than an arm’s length away from their circle, the priestesses stop chanting and stare at her. Gwynn’s eyes are glassy, but Pilar’s functioning eye focuses on Mercy’s face and narrows in hostility. It’s not the intensity of her glare which causes Mercy to take a step back, but the unexpectedness. When she retreats to the opposite wall, Pilar closes her eyes, rolls back her shoulders, and the priestesses resume their whispering.
“What are you saying?” Mercy asks, if only to stop the eerie way Owl keeps peering at her out of the corner of her eye. “What language is that?”
“It’s a holy passage,” Owl says. “A prayer to ward off a malevolent spirit. It wishes to do you harm.”
“Do me harm?”
Gwynn nods. “The Creator showed the spirit to Pilar while she slept. Something’s been hiding in this castle, stalking the halls. It somehow . . . awoke when you arrived. It’s looking for you.”
She looks at Pilar. “Is this the same thing that sent you to me? The one who sent you the visions?”
The priestess shakes her head. “I cannot tell. It feels like it has been corrupted somehow, twisted from its true nature,” she says. “We’re not going to survive much longer, Mercy, and we must protect you. Owl felt its presence this morning. Even Alyss felt it—that’s why she left so suddenly. She cannot explain it, but something feels really, really wrong.”
As she listens, the blood drains from Mercy’s face. When she speaks, her voice comes out a hoarse whisper. “What did you just call me?”
Pilar’s expression shifts to confusion. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Owl shrieks and Gwynn pulls her out of the way as Mercy steps into the center of the circle and—before she realizes what she is doing—closes her hand around Pilar’s throat, dragging her to her feet and pinning her against the wall. Pilar lets out a scream which ends in a mangled cough as Mercy tightens her grip. The priestess’s fingers scratch at Mercy’s as she struggles for breath.
Mercy leans forward, her face inches from Pilar’s. “How do you know who I am?”
Pilar’s eyes bug in terror, her hands prying at Mercy’s grip on her throat. Her mouth opens and closes, but no sound escapes.
“Did Calum send you here to scare me? Is this another one of his clever tricks?”
“Stop, please!” Owl cries. “Let her go! She’s protecting you!”
Her words strike Mercy like a blow and she releases Pilar, who sinks to her knees, clutching her throat. Mercy staggers back and claps her hands over her mouth in horror, her eyes wide. Her legs begin to tremble uncontrollably and she reaches to the wall to support herself. “Oh, no,” she whispers. Owl stands in front of Gwynn with the elder priestess’s arms wrapped protectively around her, staring up at Mercy with terrified eyes. A stone sinks in Mercy’s stomach. “You don’t know, do you? You don’t know who I am.”
Pilar shakes her head. “The Sight,” she rasps. “Just your name.”
Mercy opens her mouth, then closes it. “I have to go,” she finally says.
She turns on shaky legs and pulls the door to the infirmary open so hard it cracks against the wall. Owl lets out a squeak and sinks further into Gwynn’s embrace, and Mercy feels their stares on her back as she runs out the door.
34
Their footfalls pound behind her as she climbs the stairs to the main floor and sprints down the halls, dodging surprised nobles and courtiers. A slave shouts and jumps out of her way as she rounds the corner, dropping a tray of tea and pastries on the floor. Several teacups shatter, and the slave mutters in frustration as the shards crunch under the soldiers’ boots moments later.
Mercy bursts into the great hall, releasing a sigh of relief when she sees the familiar silhouette standing in the open doors of the castle, outlined by the bright blue sky beyond. “Tamriel—” She steps forward, a hand outstretched, then freezes when she realizes who stands beside him.
Calum.
He stands with his arms crossed as he listens to Tamriel. At her outburst, they stop mid-conversation and stare at her, and in the several seconds during which they take in her labored breathing and disheveled appearance, the guards catch up and each clamps his hands around her upper arms.
“Apologies, Your Highness. She—”
“Marieve, what’s wrong?” Tamriel doesn’t hesitate before he crosses the room and stops in front of her, his expression caught between fear and worry. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I—” she stops and shakes her head. What can she tell him? Anything she could possibly say would result in her either being thrown into the dungeon or an asylum. A spirit searching for her? An Old God bent on revenge? She doesn’t know how much of what Pilar told her is true and how much was brought on by fever and her corrupted Sight. “I needed some fresh air, is all. I don’t like being cooped up,” she says lamely.
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