by Megan Hart
“Think about it,” Deliberata urged. “You might be surprised to learn that even a made-up story of bits and pieces is a true vision, after all. Go on, now. Read your letters. Go to your studies.”
And Annalise, unexpectedly obedient, went.
One letter was indeed from her parents. All was well at home. Several of her sisters were with child. They were proud of her, of Annalise, for taking this path and hoped that when she took her vows they would have a chance see her before she left the Motherhouse. One from Allorisa, filled with bragging of her new life.
And the third, the final and thickest letter, the one that made her fingers tremble to open . . . was from Jacquin.
Chapter 17
Annalise?” She wasn’t looking at him, and Cassian realized how quickly he’d become accustomed to her attention now they’d declared the truce. “Have you something to add?”
She’d had her head bent over her desk, still at the back of the room, and now didn’t look up even at the sound of her name. As one, the other novitiates turned. Concerned, Cassian made his way down the aisle to stand before her. Was she truly unwell, the way he’d thought earlier?
“Annalise?”
She looked up then, her eyes tinged with pink in a too-pale face. She wet her lips before speaking. “Your mercy, sir. I was distracted.”
He looked to the desk, to the text, closed. To her journal, also closed. She had a letter spread on the polished wood, her hands flat over it. She’d smudged the ink onto her fingertips and must have touched her forehead with them, for a smear of darkness marred her dusky skin.
“Are you unwell? Ought I send one of the girls to fetch a medicus?” He touched her shoulder, wishing instead to put the back of his hand to feel for fever but too mindful of the eyes of so many.
“I’m fine.” She cleared her throat.
Her eyes said otherwise.
“You are all dismissed,” Cassian said.
Annalise’s eyes widened. Her mouth thinned, clamped tight on some protest he would refuse to hear. The class murmured, texts closing, papers shuffling, chairs squeaking.
“Now,” Cassian said in the voice of thunder that had never let him down.
“Sir, should I fetch a medicus?” Wandalette asked from his elbow.
“No,” Annalise said.
“No?”
She looked at Wandalette, then Cassian, then at the letter on her desk. “No. I’m well, truly. I think perhaps I ate somewhat that disagreed with me. That’s all. Truly, Wandalette, you need not fret.”
Wandalette made a doubtful noise, then looked at him. “Well, you’re with the master, and I suppose we know he’ll make sure you’re taken care of. So if you’re sure.”
Her simple acceptance—that he would take care of Annalise—set him back a step. “Go, please.”
Wandalette nodded. “Yes, sir. Annalise, I hope you feel better.”
Cassian stood straight and tall without bending until the last novitiate had filed from the room. Then he pulled a chair toward her, so fast the legs scraped curls of wax from the floor. He sat, knee-to-knee. He took her hands in his and chafed their chill.
“Tell me what has you so distraught?”
“Not distraught,” she told him. “I am quite undone with joy.”
She looked as far from joy as the Void was from the Land Above. He squeezed her hands again and settled them onto her lap. She blinked at him, her eyes bright, but no tears sliding down her cheeks. For that he supposed he ought to offer gratitude.
“It’s a letter from Jacquin. My betrothed. My former betrothed, I suppose I should say, though he has now said he wishes me to reconsider our engagement.”
“And . . . do you wish to?” He tried to think what she’d said of him, this other man, and could not. He wished he’d more thoroughly read the letter he’d so childishly stolen from her before, so that he might know better how to judge what she was telling him now.
“Of course! Why would I not?”
“I thought you were finding your place here,” Cassian said.
He pushed away. Had to move away from her, lest he open and everything inside him tumble out onto the floor where she might see. He made a show of tidying the texts on his desk but neither saw them nor felt the leather covers in his hands.
“You’re going to undo all the work we made.” She said this from just behind him.
He didn’t turn. He didn’t want to think about that day in the closet. How she’d tasted, and her heat and how she’d writhed. He didn’t want to remember how tightly her fingers had tangled in his hair.
“What are his reasons for seeking to renew your agreement? Can you be certain they’re honorable?”
“Jacquin was ever honorable,” Annalise said, a bit of bite in her tone. “It was not he who ended our agreement. I did it.”
Cassian turned. “You must’ve had good reason.”
Emotions slid across her face as they always did, but this time he could not read them. He couldn’t tell what she thought or felt. He bit his tongue to keep from saying more and hoped for the taste of blood to distract him, but even that eluded him.
“I have ever had good reason for all I do.”
“I’m sure that’s so.”
She tilted her head to look at him, but he didn’t find it as endearing now. “He says he wants to come here. Speak to me in person. He feels we might be able to work out our difficulties. He wants to try, at least.”
“Now? And not before?”
“Before,” Annalise said, “we tried and were unable to accomplish an agreement.”
“And you think now it might be different? What’s changed?”
The slow, small, and secret smile she gave was not for him. It churned his stomach. This was the smile she had for another man.
Cassian hated that smile.
“I suppose I won’t know until he comes, and we see if we are able to . . . improve upon the situation.”
This had the tone of intimacy and it set his teeth on edge. He turned from her. “My best wishes for you both.”
“Cassian,” she said as though just now realizing she might have been being self-involved. “He says he loves me.”
The words hurt worse than the smile had, for he might combat her feelings but he could never compete with those from another.
“But I—” he began, and as so often with her, stopped himself from saying more.
And Annalise, unlike so often with him, did not ask him what he meant to say. With another slow and secret smile that was not for him, would never be for him, she tucked her letter against her chest and sighed. Then she turned and left the room.
Cassian stayed behind.
Once as a child Annalise had been taken ill with a fever so fierce her parents later told her they’d feared she would die. All she recalled of that time was being in her bed, too weak even to wail for her mother’s cool touch, and the underwater burbling of adult voices that sounded far away but came from beside her bed.
And then, one day, she’d opened her eyes and sat up in her bed. She could see again. She could hear. She could move her limbs, unweighted.
That was how she felt now.
Unweighted.
Where had the vision she’d created come from? Had the mix of bits and pieces from commentary and text been random, as she’d intended, or had the Invisible Mother truly had a hand in its creation? The more Annalise contemplated it, the more convincing such a possibility became.
She didn’t want to discuss such a matter with Tansy, nor Perdita or Helena. Not even Wandalette, who might understand the best of all the other novitiates.
The letter from Jacquin had been delayed, which meant the visit he’d proposed to make in a sevenday’s time would, in fact, happen sooner than that. Annalise spent the day in the sanctuary, forgoing her studies and even meals, though her stomach gnawed itself and her head began to spin.
Cassian found her there after even the priests had gone. She’d left the pews to Wait in front of
the beemah. For the first time, the position didn’t feel forced. The back of hand resting inside the palm of the other in her lap, her buttocks comfortably settled on her heels, her back straight, Annalise had finally discovered the peacefulness of Waiting.
“What are you doing?”
She opened her eyes. “Waiting.”
“I see that. Why here? We don’t kneel to pray.”
“I’m not praying. I’m Waiting.”
Cassian grunted, looking down at her and shifting from foot to foot. “What are you waiting for?”
“A vision.”
Another grunt. “Wouldn’t you be better served to seek that in the forest?”
“I think if the Invisible Mother wants to visit me, She’ll do it wherever I might be,” Annalise told him.
He didn’t look good, she noticed. His shirtsleeves hung unevenly from his jacket sleeves, and his hair had been rumpled. A fine shadow of beard dusted his face. It was the first time she’d seen him anything other than utterly clean-shaven.
“So then why do it in here?” He looked around the sanctuary with thinly veiled distaste.
She’d never realized before that he actively disliked the sanctuary. It seemed an odd distaste from a man who’d once made his life’s work in places such as this. She frowned.
“I wish you’d get up,” Cassian said. “I don’t like you when you’re on your knees that way.”
Her brows went up. “This is Waiting. It’s what Handmaidens do. It’s what I’ll be expected to do when I have a patron.”
Cassian’s grunt sounded a little more strangled this time. “Get up.”
“I shall,” she said, annoyed, “as there’s no point in meditation with you jabbering in my ear.”
She got to her feet. He watched her. He looked angry, and she sighed.
“Cassian, speak the complaint I see so clearly in that furrowed brow and angry mouth. I’ve no patience for pretense.”
She knew him so well, now. Could tell when she’d struck a nerve. His jaw tightened, relaxed.
“You didn’t come to the dining hall today.”
“I was here. I’ve much to think upon.”
“I waited for you,” Cassian said stiffly.
This stopped her. A spiral of warmth coiled inside her. “Your mercy, but I was otherwise engaged.”
“Ah, yes. That.” He curled his lip.
He wouldn’t allow her to know him overwell, but this response made little sense to her. “You know of my struggle?”
Did he know her so well, beyond providing her with water instead of cider, that he could guess at her state of mind, too?
“You did tell me somewhat of it as was in regards to your letter.”
More surprise. “Oh, that. Think you I stayed here upon my knees the day through in order to clear that matter?”
“Why else?”
Annalise had been raised in the Faith. She’d seen how the strength of it could pull families together or tear them apart, how it could elevate as well as destroy. That she’d ever felt broken by it had mattered little to her before. But now . . .
“Something has changed,” she told him.
If there was anyone who might understand it was he, for had he not taken his own vows, made a life based on the Faith? Even now, no longer a priest, Cassian’s every act was bent toward understanding and teaching the Faith. And beyond that, he was her friend, or supposed to be. Annalise wasn’t quite sure how shallow or deep their acquaintance ran.
“I believe the Invisible Mother spoke to me.”
He looked around the room as though expecting the Invisible Mother to spring from beneath the beemah. “In the forest. Before.”
“No, not then. I lied about that.”
He had a lovely smile, when he cared to use it. He wasn’t using it now. “Did you?”
“I thought I did. I intended to. But now . . .” Annalise sighed, unable to shake the sensation she’d woken with today of being bright-eyed and clear-headed for the first time in . . . well, for as long as she could recall. “Now I feel as though perhaps Her message to me was too subtle to understand the first time. That She has more for me to learn.”
Cassian squared his shoulders almost imperceptibly. “Maybe the lie you’re telling is to yourself, this time.”
She blinked, then accepted the chastisement with a bowed head. “You have every right to be disappointed in me.”
“Disappointed? Disa—” Cassian coughed into his fist. “By the Arrow, Annalise. Is that what you think?”
“Is that not what you meant?” Confused now, her mind on her revelations, she moved toward him.
“I waited for you, and when you did not come to the meals, when you didn’t come even to our session, I worried somewhat had happened to you,” Cassian said suddenly and sternly. “None had seen you since the morn. I looked everywhere for you. I didn’t expect to find you here, waiting for a vision that will never come.”
“Why do you think it will never come?” she cried. “Why would you say such a thing? I should think you, of all people, would be happy to hear I’ve felt a connection to the Invisible Mother that’s strong enough for me to wish to pursue it!”
“Me, of all people? What does that mean?”
“You,” Annalise said, “believe. You are learned. You, your knowledge, the depth of your faith, are to be admired.”
He made that strange noise deep again in his throat. His hands made fists at his sides. “You find me admirable, do you?”
“Yes, yes of course, I do. No matter what else has ever come between us.” She thought of his mouth between her thighs, and a small shudder ran through her. “But especially now that I believe I understand, even more.”
“You understand nothing,” Cassian told her. “You aren’t even listening to me.”
“I’m right here.”
“I waited for you,” Cassian said in a low voice, “and when you didn’t come, I looked for you. Everywhere. I looked for you, Annalise.”
“And you found me!” She tossed out her hands, unable to comprehend why he was so chastising her. “Right here. Here I am in front of you, Cassian, trying to tell you what’s happened to me, and how it makes me feel. What is your issue with this?”
“I thought you were worried about your betrothed!” he shouted, sudden and loud in the hushed silence of the sanctuary that never bore such an insult. “I came to be certain you were not . . . that you were not . . .”
“What?” Frustrated by his continued inability to ever finish a thought with her, she advanced upon him. “Just speak to me, Cassian. What do you think I will ever do or say in reply to you that you cannot bear?”
“Many things.”
She softened. “I like you when you’re honest with me.”
He looked away from her; she hated it. “I thought perhaps you were reconsidering allowing him to reconcile with you. That perhaps you’d become distraught. That you might . . . bring harm to yourself.”
Such an idea had never occurred to her, but that he’d worried about it so moved her she touched his sleeve. “Never. I loved Jacquin and I may still . . .”
He took his sleeve from her grasp in order to pace away from her. “I was worried about you.”
She caught up to him and captured his wrist. She turned him, gently, until he faced her. “I’ve not yet even seen Jacquin. And when I do, I know not what shall happen. I came to the Order for the wrong reasons. I’m fair certain Jacquin seeks reconciliation for the wrong reasons as well, but I won’t know until I hear his argument.”
“And of the rest?”
“That, too, is somewhat I must think upon, Cassian. I don’t know what to say, or what you wish of me. But I thank you for your concern.” Her hand slid from his wrist into his palm, and she squeezed his fingers. She smiled, teasing. “I like you when you’re concerned.”
“You’ve missed every meal today. You must be hungry,” Cassian told her. “Let’s go to the kitchen for something to eat, yes?”
&nbs
p; It wasn’t until some time later, with her belly and her mind still full, that Annalise realized he’d taken his hand from hers so gently and without fanfare, she hadn’t noticed, and nor had he touched her again.
Chapter 18
Leaping Tiger. Striking Serpent. Cassian knew all the forms so well his body could create them without benefit of his mind’s assistance, which was quite well, since he was unable to concentrate upon them today.
He practiced the Art in memory of his brother, but today there were too many memories crowding his brain for him to focus. He kept on, anyway, forcing himself to stretch and bend. It would’ve been easier against an opponent, one who’d strike back. Make him think. But as it was, he’d never had one, never fought using the skills he’d bent himself to learn.
Not like Calvis, who’d ever been a Master of the Art and who’d died at the hands of another less skilled than he.
The sun was too new in the sky to provide heat, but Cassian sweated anyway. His body ached. His soul ached, too. He heard his brother’s voice and saw his face, too. If ceasing this practice would’ve put the memories from Cassian’s mind, he’d have gladly abandoned it, but there was no forgetting today.
“I plan to ask her to marry me.” Cassian knew his brother would mock. He wasn’t prepared for the look of disgust twisting Calvis’s face. “What? You think she won’t?”
“I think she will,” Calvis told him. “And moreover, I think she’s been angling for you to ask her for the past three months. You’ve only been waiting because you’re a great bloody prat who can’t see what’s right in front of his face.”
“I see what’s in front of my face. I see you, brother, drunk again. Unshaven, unwashed. Your clothes dirty. Who were you fighting?”
“Whoever someone paid me enough coin to fight, as usual. What do you think? I head myself toward the local pub and hurl random insults until someone takes up the challenge?”
“I think you might,” Cassian said. “In between the others.”
Calvis snorted laughter and went to the drawer where he pulled out a bowl and a jug of worm. His bedchamber already reeked of both, as did his breath and clothes. He gestured for Cassian to sit on the low, sprung-cushioned couch. “Make yourself at home, brother. What’s mine is yours and all that nonsense.”