Steadfast

by Michelle Hauck

  Use a different Song?

  An idea began to form around her latest magical discovery: combining illusion with emotion. Illusion had worked before in a spectacular fashion, chasing off a whole army when she pretended Dal was among them. What could it do if combined with emotion, passion?

  Details cleared in her head, becoming fuller and more certain. Relief surged through her, pulling away her stress, telling her she was upon the right track. This could make her something other than a murderer. A Destroyer who didn’t need to take lives.

  Claire brushed back her braid. “Ladies. New plan. When we find the Northerners, this is what we’re going to do.”

  Chapter 32

  Ramiro had led Sancha with Father Telo on her back to a small, nondescript church of stucco where a handful of friars gladly took in their fellow priest, promising to tend him. Indeed, Father Telo showed more signs of recovery under their care and lying on a cot in one of their austere chambers. He stretched out in a real sleep, no longer mumbling. He looked haler somehow, less feverish, almost as if he knew he’d come home to his kind. Whether his improvement came from the friendly environment, the quick ride through the city, the surge of fresh air, or leaving the unhealthy atmosphere of the crypt—or all those factors—Ramiro couldn’t say. He could only approve any advance in the priest’s healing.

  The friars also offered Ramiro and Teresa a place to hide until night settled over Aveston. Though additional people, including more Northern patrols, would be moving with curfew lifted as the sun disappeared, Ramiro still preferred the cover of darkness to hide their way to Her Beauty.

  The moon rose and Teresa went to say her good-byes to their friend, while Ramiro had some last words with the eldest friar—one of those men always immaculate in their dress and never ruffled by the panics of the flesh. Ramiro envied him. “If we’re not back by morning, take Father Telo and get out of the city. I’ll tell Sancha to carry Father Telo.”

  “The marvelous horses of Colina Hermosa. Smart as a child or so I’ve heard.” The friar paused as if for confirmation, continuing when Ramiro said nothing. “But I’m afraid rumor says the main gate is closed, my child. Egress is denied everyone. I’ve had it from too many credible sources to dismiss rumor as anything but truth.”

  “And the other ways out?” Ramiro asked. The city must have other exits, even if just a sewer. A good priest would know them all, like he knew the heartbeat of his city. Ramiro judged these friars to be that sort of priests.

  “The Water Gate appears to be still open. But it is only wide enough for one at a time and more difficult to access. It descends into a canyon, dangerous if there should be a flash flood. My bones say something is coming and it may be the summer rains. The weather is as uncertain as the times.”

  “It’s not the summer rains.” Ramiro stared at the sky where clouds had begun to form. The light silvery ones that did not portend precipitation. “It’s something worse. Use the Water Gate. Get out. Warn who you can to get out, too, but do it without making a stir. We mustn’t let the Northerners guess more of us are escaping. You understand, Father.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t. We should warn everyone, my child.”

  “Normally I’d agree, but they plan for Aveston to die in the same way as the armies—in blood. If they sense an uprising or a mass escape they’ll act immediately and everyone will die. I am going to try to stop it, but should I fail, this is a chance to at least save some. The key is, you have to be outside the city before the sun breaks.”

  Bushy eyebrows of black and gray rose. The only sign of the friar’s shock. “Then we will make it so and take as many as we can, including your friend. And then there’s another rumor I should share with you. I hear the Northerners are taking the curfew breakers they’ve been holding to Cathedral Square. I assume for executions.”

  “How sure are you of this rumor?”

  “Only relatively, my son. Two different boys reported it to us. They hang around the prison and saw our people being led out by soldiers, taken to Cathedral Square. Frankly I’m shocked they weren’t executed immediately, as they executed the bishop and Alcalde Martin. The boys followed as boys will and saw the prisoners being kept in the livestock pens of the market. Is this what you feared?”

  Ramiro sighed. He’d hoped to be ahead of the Northerners, but it appeared he had only half a step on them. They must be preparing for daylight. “Blood calls the demon who killed our armies. Don’t wait. Take your people and get out now. Tell as many as you can so long as it doesn’t delay you.” To hell with causing a panic. He couldn’t be a part of leaving anyone to their deaths when he could at least warn them. “The saints be with you, Father.”

  “And with you, my son. May the saints guide your aim and your steps.”

  “Amen.” Ramiro went outside to find Sancha, the new armor settled on his shoulders like a second skin, barely weighing on him. He tried to have faith the lighter metal could turn a Diviner’s killing blow as his other armor once had.

  When the moonlight struck the armor, the surface glowed. In sunlight, the metal would be blinding. He knew why they had quit making armor in this fashion: He’d stand out like a beacon in daylight. Fortunately, the clouds obscured the moon for the most part.

  The mare was waiting for him at the entrance to the lean-to the friars used as a stable. It housed chickens and a few goats and smelled of straw and faintly of the ammonia of chicken droppings.

  He’d given Sancha a good grooming when they’d arrived yesterday, spending the hours with her instead of sleeping. Now he stroked her coat. The feel of her was almost as powerful a comfort as going home. She’d been the other half of him before his beard, before his growth spurt, almost half his life, since she was a colt. They’d truly grown up together like siblings. Closer in some ways than with Salvador, who was often too old to be bothered with a little brother.

  Maybe I’ll be bothering you again soon, Salvador.

  “I need you to carry Father Telo for the friars and go to my parents,” he told Sancha.

  She whickered, ears laid back, understanding him too well. He rubbed her nose.

  “It’s not a parting—not really. I’ll find you with my parents. We just have different paths for a short time. I need you to help get Father Telo out. And maybe I’ll be back in time to go with you.”

  She leaned her weight against him in a sign she agreed but didn’t like his orders, and his knees buckled, almost sending him to the dirty cobblestones. “Hey!”

  Her upper lip lifted in a laugh.

  “Not funny.”

  “What’s not funny, cousin?” Teresa asked, adjusting her poncho around her round form. Her broken arm was bound under it. “I’m ready . . . I guess.” She carried a Diviner in her hands.

  He drew, not his sword—they couldn’t risk bloodletting—but another white Diviner from his belt. “Let’s go. Stay behind me.”

  A crease appeared on her brow. “You don’t have to protect me.”

  “No. I know that. It’s so we don’t touch each other accidently with these things.” He gave a flourish with the Diviner. It felt all wrong in his hand. Too light. Too . . . unsafe. Unlike his sword, this magic weapon, born of blood, troubled him. It would be too easy to make a mistake with it.

  “Are you sure we know how to work them?” she asked.

  “No. I’m not sure of anything.”

  “Except we have to do this,” she finished for him.

  “Hi-ya,” he agreed. “That we do. Let’s go.” He said a last good-bye to Sancha and they snaked their way out into the night, heading for Her Beauty. The great bell tower above the nave stood a dark guard over half the city, visible from almost every point. It acted as a beacon to them now. Guiding them. A holy place turned into a den of nightmares.

  He only hoped they could rid the world of a few of them.

  Occasionally they’d see a woman with a bucket, going swiftly to the well. A child played with jacks and ball close to the door of their house, while
a girl across the way swung a rope as her siblings jumped. A man lugged coal home to his family. A family dug vegetables from a scrap of a garden. Normal city folk doing their daily tasks as best they could in an occupied city. The people of Aveston pretended to ignore Teresa and him, and they gave the citizens the same courtesy.

  “I’m going to get one of those red ones for Father Telo.”

  Ramiro turned to see Teresa’s face looking grim and determined in the faint light. “To heal him,” she continued. “I can do it. I’m not afraid of the pain it causes. He’s my friend.”

  “He’s a friend to both of us,” Ramiro said simply, intending to make sure it was he who took the punishment of healing Father Telo. “We’ll find one for him.”

  “I can’t stop thinking,” she said softly as they kept to the shadows of the street. “Julian was healed, but others were not, like Father Ansuro. Maybe with Father Telo nothing happened because we had the means in our power to heal him ourselves the whole time. We just didn’t see it. Do you think that could be it? The Lord helps those who help themselves and all that?”

  Ramiro checked around a corner before leading them forward again, more than a little surprised she wanted his opinion. On matters of theology, she knew a hundred times more than he did. But maybe on the subject of miracles no one was an expert. “I dunno. Never thought about it. Possibly, I guess. We had the red Diviner. It could have healed Telo. But wouldn’t I have had a dream showing us what to do, if that’s what . . . God wanted?”

  “I wondered that, too. It all seems so . . . arbitrary. Why a miracle here and not there? Why send a dream yesterday but not today? I guess I don’t like how random it is. I always just assumed the saints had the Lord’s help all the time.”

  “All the time? They died, remember? Unpleasantly.”

  “Until then,” she said. “And the unpleasant part was part of the plan, too. I think they knew it was coming. To be martyrs, I mean. So they and their message would be remembered thousands of years later.”

  “I’d rather not be remembered then.”

  “Me neither,” she agreed softly. They made the rest of the way in silence, hiding behind some abandoned crates once until a patrol of Northern soldiers passed. They slipped around the back of the cathedral to the cottage of Father Ansuro. All the windows were black as the night, the house as dead as its owner.

  At least from the outside.

  Teresa clung to his arm. “Do you think Santabe got back and told them we were coming? Set up an ambush? I really don’t want to be a martyr.”

  “Only one way to find out.” If they ended up dead in this cottage, Ramiro didn’t think anyone would remember them. They’d just be dead.

  He crossed the square before the cottage with haste and leaned against the peeling paint of the door. Locked. Father Ansuro had locked it right after he let them in. They hadn’t returned here, but had exited from the cellar last time. The locked door matched what he remembered at least.

  The tip of the knife from his belt fit in the door seam. He wiggled it back and forth until the crack grew wide enough to push the whole blade in and force the latch up. The door swung open on a room unchanged from their last visit. No soldiers waited, at least.

  Every inch of the place was a reminder of the frail, old man who’d lived here.

  Ramiro moved on before regret could take hold. He put a finger to his lips for silence and darted to the map of Her Beauty on the wall. Teresa joined him there, pointing to the reflection garden on the drawing. Ramiro had seen the like in other churches: a small courtyard garden in the center of a building with no roof and surrounded by walls. A space that allowed for nature and gave a place to go for contemplation and quiet. The map showed this one as bigger than most, as aggrandized as the rest of Her Beauty.

  According to the map, there was an entrance from the back of the nave. One that required walking through the heart of Her Beauty to reach. But another entrance started with a corridor on the outer wall of the cathedral. Ramiro traced it with his finger and it ran all the way around the building, right to the door to Father Ansuro’s cottage and continuing around to the grand front portico.

  “That’s our way,” Ramiro whispered.

  “A pilgrim’s path,” Teresa whispered in return. “They come in the front doors, take the corridor where they stop to pray at each niche. By the time the pilgrims make their way to the reflection garden, they’re supposed to have cast off their sins on the path and be purified, almost ready to enter the church proper. The corridor is meant to be isolated so the pilgrims don’t have to meet anyone. There will be very few connecting doors.”

  Ramiro remembered the niches, each one supporting an icon or statue of a saint. They had used the corridor briefly before peeling away to the living quarters at one of those few connecting doors.

  He left Teresa to her contemplation of the map and flipped open the lid of the chest below it. Inside were several pairs of floppy slippers and a pair of familiar boots with metal reinforcement. Ramiro lifted them out. “My feet have missed these.” The replacement pair he’d bought had been used, broken in to another set of feet, and they pinched. Teresa shook her head at him as he sat on the lid of the chest to change shoes.

  “Priorities,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

  “Happy feet, happy life,” he said with a shrug. More important, the metal reinforcement was better in a fight.

  “Let’s hope.”

  He tightened his grip on his Diviner before going to the old wood door that would take them inside Her Beauty. Teresa followed, more hesitant.

  Ramiro touched the wood of the door, but felt no heat, though whether it would feel warmer with a dozen soldiers waiting behind it was debatable. It creaked in a whine that shattered the silence when he opened it.

  A single Northern priest in white rose from a nest of blankets on the marble floor in the niche opposite the door. His mouth opened to call out and his hand darted for his Diviner. Ramiro was upon him in an instant, bringing his own Diviner down to touch the soft flesh at the base of the man’s neck. Ramiro felt a jolt to his hand, like the distant sway of a far-off earthquake or the rumble of an overloaded cart going down the street. The priest, however, flailed wide, muscles locking, then dropped with staring eyes to the blankets from which he’d begun to rise.

  Ramiro retreated until his shoulders hit the wall of the corridor behind him. He stared at the Diviner. This weapon took skill out of the equation. It let any person kill without any training, preparation, or even giving them a moment to question intent. Not even the sharpest sword or most skilled swordsman could kill this cleanly. It sickened him.

  “These Diviners all need to be destroyed,” he said. “I don’t like using this.”

  Teresa nodded. “Me either. But I can’t think of any other way, can you? Not unless we want to cause the massacre of the whole city. That’s what we’re trying to prevent. We have no choice yet.”

  “Aye,” he said hoarsely. He felt unclean anyway. He reached for his San Martin medallion only to remember it was gone. He’d traded the charm days ago for more medicine when the herb woman took a shine to it.

  He glanced at the Diviner in his hand as if drawn to it. By the saints, what would the figure from his dreams think of him for using a Northern weapon? Worse, what would his father say? Or Salvador? Would Claire turn away from him now?

  Teresa snatched the priest’s Diviner from the blankets. “We have to take this one, too. Can’t let them keep it to turn it red. Look at it this way—we know they work for us now, and if the Northerners knew we were coming, there’d be more of them waiting for us.”

  “Aye,” he said again, his unease only growing. “I don’t think Santabe warned them. This seems like a response to our first break-in, when we took her.”

  “That’s heartening.”

  “Not so much. It’s worse than I’d hoped. If they had a man here, they’ll have men stationed all along this corridor. All over Her Beauty. All it takes is for one o
f them to be more alert, or luckier. I don’t like the odds. Maybe we could have done this if they weren’t prepared like last time. We should go back.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me, cousin. We won’t make it this time. I’m being realistic. Maybe we should cut our losses and get out. Go to my parents. Or you should. I might be able to get through alone.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Cut it out. That noble thing isn’t going to work with me. Give me a second. We can think of some other way.”

  He shook his head. “Now who’s trying to be noble?” If they just had some of that help he’d been promised.

  A tendril of fog wound around his knee. He stared at it, eyes tracing it back to one of the marble columns on either side of the niche even as his mind tried to take in the appearance of the vapor. He took a step and saw more fog behind the column, hovering from floor to ceiling like a wall . . . or a door.

  By the saints, the sight of the fog made him sweat as it seemed to beckon him. He didn’t want to take that path. He wasn’t meant for the supernatural. The mystical and uncanny always unsettled him. Even Claire’s magic had frightened him. He preferred things he could understand, things he could touch, that were based in reality.

  Then he remembered the people of Aveston: the old herb seller who always gave him some mint or a dollop of honey to add to his tea at no charge, for his handsome face, she said; the healer and the friars who could have left, but stayed to tend and support their patients and their flock; the little girls jumping rope in the dark because they couldn’t play in the daylight; the little boys with a touch of wildness who ran through the streets despite the Northern occupation. So many others. Women still hanging out their laundry, tending their children. Men still trying to provide for their families when the wells ran dry. Faces becoming pinched with hunger. All of them would die.

  “I think I found another way. Give me your hand.”