by A. G. Henley
“I have no idea.”
She pauses. “I wonder if he’d be jealous.”
I pick at my dress. I don’t have the heart to tell Frost I don’t think Moray gives a flying fleshie about her. His baby, yes. But not her.
“What do you think of Conda?” I ask. “He seems nice.” Nicer than Moray, anyway. “And he makes a mean possum stew.”
“I don’t really know him, I guess. I only thought of him as my baby’s future uncle.”
Future uncle.
Hearing those words brings it suddenly home that although Frost is only a year or so younger than I am, our lives will be radically different from here on. I love Peree, but I’m nowhere near ready for a baby. And whether she is or not, she’s having one. She’ll be a mother this time next year. And if we aren’t successful in getting out of here, she’ll have her baby in the Cloister.
The thread of my thoughts is torn away by the sound of yelling. Guards stand above us along the top of the wall. We’ve heard them the last two days, speaking to one another or to the Sisters in charge of the wall repair, as they strolled the undamaged section. We all quiet to listen.
“What is it?” Grimma calls to them. “Ants?”
There’s that word again: ants. Are the Sisters afraid of insects or something? Surely not—they raise wasps for their venom.
Moans and shrieks drift over from the other side of the wall.
“Wailers,” Grimma says with disgust. “Will it hold?”
Wailers? That must be what the Sisters call the sick ones, because they are definitely what’s on the other side of this wall. They must have come from the forest beyond; that’s where they always seemed to be at home.
“The stones we’ve placed are temporary and unsecured,” a Sister here on the ground says, sounding grave. “It was meant to give the impression of solidity until we could rosin the stones and finish the repair.”
The sharp scent of greenheart sap, often the base of rosin, has been wafting in the air all morning, mingling with the smoke from the Eternal Flames. The Sisters must have been heating it up, getting it ready to apply to the stones.
If the wall is unsecured, the sick ones might be able to get through the gap. The guards overhead are armed, but I know from experience that weapons can only eliminate so many of them.
Arrows spring off bowstrings above our heads. The sick ones begin to scream with pain. As many times as I’ve heard their agony, it still makes the hair all over my body rise up.
“Back up!” a guard yells from above. “They’re pressing into the wall.”
Something hard and heavy falls to the earth on our side of the wall; I feel its thud through my feet.
Frost grabs my arm, dragging me backward, away from the wall. “It’s breaking up!”
A moment later, the sound of a horn splits the air.
“That’s the signal to take cover.” Grimma says, her voice tense but calm.
“Where?” Frost sounds frightened. “Where do we go?”
“Up.”
She herds us along, keeping the wall to our right. Guards are still above, shouting to each other, their bows working overtime. More rocks slam to the ground behind us. Shouts and calls of “To the walls!” echo from other parts of the Cloister. The Sisters sound determined, but there’s a note of panic in their voices.
A sick one screams behind us, sounding like it’s on our side of the wall. Grimma, her voice pressured now, encourages us to move more quickly. I hold on to Frost’s arm as we break from a jog to a run. My heart stutters as I begin to smell the sick ones’ rot on the air.
“There’s a ladder,” Frost says with relief.
I feel the wooden rungs and sides for myself a moment later when Grimma hustles each of us up it. The climb is longer than I thought it would be, which means the wall is also higher than I imagined. It takes me half a minute to reach the top. As soon as I do, I inch to the side to make room for the others, but I have no idea how far I can go without toppling off again. Queasiness hits me hard.
Frost takes my arm after a few moments, orienting me, as panting Sisters continue to crowd onto the wall. It turns out there’s a generous walkway on top that the guards must use to move along. The stone feels well maintained, too; at least it isn’t disintegrating under my grasping hands and stumbling feet.
Frost pants beside me. The run and climb, after the hard labor, must have taxed her.
“The children,” Amarina says. “What about the children?”
“They are safe.” Grimma says from nearby. “Their quarters are well-stocked and fortified.” She sounds distracted, probably by whatever she sees below.
“Can’t we stay in our quarters until the runa leave?” Kai asks. “It’s made of thick stone.”
“The top of the wall allows us better positions,” Grimma says.
“For what?”
“For killing them.”
“Bring up the ladder,” another Sister yells from down the wall. “They’re coming.”
The ladder scrapes and bumps against the side of the wall. Hands pull me back as Sisters take our place at the edge of the wall. Spears and arrows begin to fly, bringing fresh screams and howls from the sick ones below. The women are organized, focused. This is no warning, like the sting; they aim to kill.
The old dread rises in me as I listen to the carnage. I hear no words from the sick ones; it’s hard to even remember how they sounded when they spoke. The memory is muffled, as if a blanket was thrown over it.
There’s a scream from somewhere down on the ground. I’ve heard the Sisters yell and shout, but scream? No. The women around us quiet to hear what’s happening.
“Fia! Fia is on the ground!” a Sister on the wall says.
“Send the ladder back down!” Grimma yells. From the sudden note of alarm in our trainer’s voice, I can tell whoever Fia might be, that she’s special to her.
The word spreads along the walkway. Women all up and down the wall are shouting now.
“Run, Fia!” our trainer cries.
“Behind you!” another Sister says.
“She’s not going to make it,” Frost murmurs.
I don’t know if Grimma heard her or not, but she lets out a strangled sound.
That note of despair does it. Grimma clearly cares about this woman, and Fire Sister or not, I’ll help her if I can. I fumble my way back along the rampart, stopping when I hear the ladder sliding along the wall again as it’s lowered. I grope around and grab a nearby Sister.
“Give me a staff and put me on the ladder!”
“What do you mean to do down there, Initiate?” she asks.
“Hopefully give Fia time to get to the wall. Let me get on the ladder!”
I’ll say one thing for the Sisters: they don’t waste time hemming and hawing. Within moments, a staff is in my hand and I’m hoisted onto the end of the ladder.
“Hold on,” the same Sister yells.
I’m glad I do, because a sickening few seconds later, the bottom of the ladder crashes to the ground. I scurry down the last few rungs.
“F… Fia?” I gag at the strong reek of the sick ones. They’re close.
“She’s to your left!” Sisters shout from above. “Your left!”
I whirl in that direction, staff at the ready.
“Fia!” I say again.
“I’m here!” a woman says shakily from a few paces in front of me.
I recognize her voice; she sits with Grimma during the evening meal. She sounds older, like our trainer. Her feet slap the ground, coming my way. The sick ones seem to follow, shrieking as they draw in toward me.
Despite what I know about them now—all I’ve learned since I became the Water Bearer—the memories of the past are strong. The stories about what the Scourge does to those they catch threaten to crush me. My legs quiver; my mouth is a drought-swept plain.
As soon as Fia runs past me, panting, I split my stance and begin to swing the staff in a wide arc, trying to remember Grimma’s teachi
ngs about maintaining my balance. I don’t want to hit the sick ones, not really, only to keep them away as long as it takes Fia to get up that ladder.
I yell at the sick ones to stay back. All along the top of the wall, the Sisters let loose their battle cry, and spears and arrows rain down. Bodies of the sick ones plunge around my feet, making me shrink back, and still they come, howling with rage.
I swing again, this time landing a blow. The sick one cries out pitifully, and I grimace. I don’t want to hurt them.
“Fia’s on the ladder!” several Sisters cry from above. “Come back, Initiate!”
I start to scuttle backward toward the wall, still brandishing the staff. A sick one blows its terrible breath in my face, so close my eyelashes flutter. My stomach turns, and bile shoots into my mouth. I push it back, grimacing at the feel of a thin chest and painfully prominent ribs against my palm. As soon as I can, I run to the ladder.
Groping for the first rung, I almost drop the staff. The ladder wriggles as Fia climbs it. A sick one growls in my ear, and another, so close they’re touching me, chilling my skin. They aren’t dangerous, they aren’t dangerous, they aren’t—
A sick one grabs me. And bites.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Pain blooms from the bite at the juncture of my neck and shoulder.
I kick back instinctively, the bottom of my foot connecting with the sick one’s legs. When it groans and falls back, another takes its place. Fearing a second bite, I turn and bring the staff down on it with all the force I can muster. The sick one screams and collapses under the blow.
New creatures surround me, howling. I drop the staff and bolt up the ladder. Their fingers scratch at my legs before I outpace them. Dizzy and sick, I fall into the Sisters’ arms at the top. They haul me onto the rampart and gently lay me down. Then, from the sound of it, they begin to methodically pick off the sick ones below with bow and spear. The death cries are a chorus of agony.
I close my eyes, trying to slow my heart rate and get a handle on the pain. I’ve been bitten before, when I was ordered by the Three to spend the night alone outside with the Scourge. Kadee said they sometimes attack other humans when they’re especially hungry and desperate. That one seemed like an exploratory bite; it didn’t even break the skin. Maybe this one was starving, because it drew blood, and it hurts like holy hell.
One of the Sisters examines the bite on my shoulder and puts some kind of powder on the wound. Stinging pain explodes through my neck. To escape the suffering, I let the world go for a while.
We all grew up believing an attack by the Scourge caused the transformation into one of them. What I learned in Koolkuna was that a victim’s belief in the creatures’ dangerousness, combined with the mind-altering effects of the poison in their bodies, convinced them they had become one of the creatures. They believed it was true, and so it became true.
I was assured being Sightless protected me. My rock-solid, lifelong faith in that promise was what kept me safe. So now that I know I’m no different from anyone else, am I at more risk than I was before? The question leaves my thoughts in knots and my gut shriveled with the fear that I could turn.
Turn into what? The sick ones are human.
The problem is that they don’t sound, smell, or act human anymore. It’s so hard to believe that what I perceive isn’t reality. Especially when they bite.
Amarina and Frost sit beside me, fretting over my condition. I realize I’m moaning—like a sick one. Nausea shoots through my gut. I push reality away again, and wake some time later as I’m being lowered from the top of the wall to the ground. There are no sounds of the sick ones, only Sisters’ voices. The jostling of my body sends shock waves of pain through me.
I fade, and suddenly, I’m lying beside Peree, enjoying a few stolen moments alone with him. I slide my hand across the bedclothes, searching for him, trying to pull him closer. He must be here… only he’s not. It’s the last, wistful scraps of a dream. I’m alone on my pallet in the Cloister. Disappointment punches me hard.
I sit up, and I’m rewarded with searing pain from the sick one’s bite. Lifting my shoulder, I gingerly stretch my neck. The wound is covered with a soft cloth, and as long as I don’t move my upper body whatsoever, it doesn’t hurt that much.
It’s dark, and soft snores drift around me, but firelight cavorts from another room. I smell the pleasing scent of wood smoke, so different from the caustic Eternal Flames. I must be on my pallet in our quarters. Wrapping my covers around me against the chill, I grope my way out toward the light.
“Fennel. Have a seat.” Grimma startles me. “Join me for a drink.”
Her voice is slower and heavier than normal. What’s she doing here? Although we haven’t been in the Cloister that long, I’ve never known her to lurk in our quarters in the middle of the night before. She usually leaves us to the watch of the outside guards in the evenings.
Cautiously, I feel around for one of the empty chairs and sit. Our trainer thrusts a cup in my hand. Whatever’s in it smells like the distilling barrel at home. I take a sip to confirm my suspicions. Yep, some kind of alcohol.
“That won’t do,” she says. “Drink up!”
I take a larger swig, and flames shoot out of my ears… or at least it feels that way. Grimma laughs as I sputter and squirm, the liquid fire searing my belly.
“You get used to it. It’s our special brew.”
“No… thanks,” I manage to choke out.
She settles back, taking a few more noisy swallows of her drink. I give her a minute, but she doesn’t say why she’s here.
“Grimma… are you okay?”
She chuckles. “Yes, yes. Your friends were tired. I thought you might be in pain when you woke, so I stayed on for a time to tend you.”
I blink. She’s worried about me. “Oh. Thank you. But I’m fine if you want to go… home.”
Where is home for Grimma? What does she do there when she’s not training us or supervising our work? Does she have hobbies, interests? I know nothing about her.
“No rush. I’m enjoying my cup and the fire. These old bones ache with the colder weather some days. I’ll go in a few minutes.”
Her words bring clove smoke and easy laughter to mind. Nerang always complained about how old he was, too, even though he didn’t sound much more aged than Kadee or Fox most of the time. And as for Grimma, no one who can take the kind of unintentional beating I gave her those first few days can be described as decrepit.
“Shall I fetch Nuria?” she asks. “Our healer?”
I touch the bandage on my neck. “It’s better than I was expecting; the pain’s not so bad. But I worried I might not feel… you know… normal.”
“Yes. That is the other reason I stayed,” Grimma simply says.
Ah. If the sick one’s bite turned me, and I went berserk, Grimma could shut me in here to feed on my friends. Nice. But her next words surprise me again.
“Thank you for what you did for Fia.”
I push the resentment away. Monitoring me was the only practical response. Of course the Sisters thought I could turn.
“Is she all right?” I ask. I’m pretty sure Fia made it up the ladder, but I passed out before I heard anything else about her.
“She was shaken up, but otherwise fine. She’s home, sleeping.” The older woman pauses, and then her voice takes on an unexpectedly affectionate note. “She’s my partner, you know.”
I smile. “I didn’t know that.”
“Can’t imagine what I’d do without her.”
“Then I’m especially glad she made it.”
“Were you not afraid to be down there with the wailers?” She sounds genuinely intrigued.
I weigh what to say. I could explain that the water is poisoned and they’re sick, and that it’s all a really sad delusion, but I’ve already been down that particular path. If I couldn’t convince most of my own people of the truth, those who knew me best, how will I convince Grimma, or any of the Fire Sisters?<
br />
“Yes, I was.”
“Remarkable,” Grimma says. “I wasn’t sure about the wisdom of keeping you on as an Initiate, being Sightless. But Alev argued for you and the others, and I respect her opinion. Now I’m thinking she’s right—you’ll make a fine Sister.”
I work very hard to smile as if nothing would make me happier.
“What happened?” I ask. “Did the, er, wailers, leave?”
She grunts. “We killed them all, rounded them up, and burned their bodies in the Eternal Flames. It purifies them, you know, returns them to humanity, so they might have a chance of spending their afterlife with Mother Asis.”
I wince. Even after being bitten—again—by a sick one, I wouldn’t wish being killed and burned on them. But I can hear the compassion in Grimma’s voice. The Sisters and she clearly feel they’re doing the best they can for them.
“Let’s hear about you, then.” Her chair creaks as she shifts her weight. “I know you come from the forest. Beautiful country. I haven’t been in that part of the world in years, but I remember it. Not so stirring as the Cloister, but lovely in its own way. Did you suffer much there?”
Suffer? “Um—”
She must see my confusion. “Were you mistreated by your men?”
I run my finger around the rim of the cup, thinking. If I’m being honest, I was mistreated at times. There were a few boys who enjoyed teasing and tormenting me when I was a child. Moray hurt me, and Adder’s paranoia and narrow-mindedness caused no end of hardship and anguish. Osprey and his followers took Eland from me. But I never blamed their behavior on the fact that they were male. There were women—Breeze and Thistle come to mind—who caused me as much pain, if not more.
As far as I can tell, people are people. Men and women. We all have good and evil in us.
“No,” I tell her. “I wasn’t.”
I take a shaky breath. As ever, thinking of Eland’s death hurts more than any physical wound could. Grimma touches my arm, misunderstanding whatever she sees on my face.
“Are you in pain?”
I reassure her I’m not. Not that kind, anyway.
“I wasn’t born in the Cloister, you know,” she says. “I came here as a young woman, like you. The Sisters have been good to me. I’ve been content.”