Remy held her bloody robe in dismay. “What have they done, Lucas?”
Berringer sat beside his friend who watched the unmoving figure in the bed of the medical room. He didn’t know what to say. Remy wanted to know what the Cloitare had done to Sable, but Berringer wanted to know what the Cloitare had just done to them all.
~~~~~~
The King recognized the resolute posture that sent Berringer speeding past his door. Too often of late, he had seen the soldier square his shoulders, set his jaw, and glare the hatred he reserved for the clergy. Berringer walked quickly, purposefully for the medical center with Remy right behind. His fast step was explained shortly as “Aidan is back.”
Guards had been installed outside the clinic on the King’s instruction that no Cloitare would have contact with Sable again. The General heard Aidan growl, swiping his hands in front of him as though he were clearing a cobweb. Even with Berringer shouting from behind for the guards to stop him, they appeared too dazed to see. The General did not understand why, and there was no time to demand answers.
Black robes in disarray, he went directly for the room where Sable lay immobile. The two men following saw Aidan sink low, press his head to hers and disintegrate with an agonized plea. “Forgive me, forgive me, I did not see it. I would never have left. I would tear down the heavens to change it.”
Berringer had been staggered by it, but he regained his purpose and went to evict the Mentor. Remy held him back.
“I will suffer the black. I will find you. Hear me, anawa,” he continued to call for her to emerge.
Dark shadows dressed in habits soon pressed at the door. The great imperturbable calm Master Aidan possessed could not be estimated until it was lost. The room saw before them a revenant rise; roaring grievance pulled him up. The howl for vengeance found the Mother Vesna.
Berringer threw his arm across Remy’s chest and reflexively stepped them back from harm.
The mask of the three mothers who had come to inform the Master and Mentor his selection was wrong, the imposter exposed and expelled, cracked to realize their mistake. Terror sunk their faces. They thought to retreat, but Aidan was already among them.
He grabbed Vesna by the throat and pulled her to his face. “You would dare?” Her feet left the ground. “Are you so bold as to challenge me?”
“She is mine.” He shook Vesna to accentuate the possession. “Mine.” Throwing her into the wall, he grabbed the next.
“You would usurp me?” He pitched this mother down the hall and captured the last that had spun to escape. Pulling her back against his chest, he finished, “This treachery will be paid.” She collapsed but he dragged her behind. He seized the Mother Vesna as she fled past, choked her to the floor as he walked, and then launched her into the retreating back of the mother farthest away. Bellowing outrage clenched his stomach, arched his back, and dropped them both to the floor. He bowled the mother in his hands into them. From the pile, he picked Vesna and threw her again, and he would have delivered them such through the palace to the double doors had they not gained their feet and run.
~~~~~~
When Aidan returned, Remy was waiting. The King had sat down to wait in silence, wanting to feel the stretch in time that kept the Mentor away, imagining in his absence the fury that rained down in the convent as the minutes passed.
Berringer sat across the room struggling to answer if what he had witnessed might be called right, or merely justified, or would the man who had trained him in the strategy of war denounce the attack against the women. Had the Cloitare done half as much to his wife, his mother, or Remy, Berringer would have killed the lot; nevertheless, the violence he saw disturbed him, and he knew he could not leave the King alone with its maker.
Doctor Branson had come to wait too. When he saw Aidan enter, he began to unwind the bandage from Sable’s wrist.
Remy’s expression angrily accused the Mentor. He pointed to the shackle, “I said before to take it off.”
Aidan took her hand and then, dropping his head again to hers, he begged her to accept his guilt. He rolled his thumb over the ball as he took the controller from his pocket, all the while pleading to reach her. The bracelet hesitated then whirred to life, retracted its pressure and released. Aidan expected it to drop, but it was mired with blood and fluid, stuck with skin burnt and blistered. Remorse rumbled in his throat.
The doctor pushed through with saline and a bucket to catch it.
Aidan could not remember when last he had explained himself. He sat beside the King, both men staring ahead, and said, “The mothers brought it to me. They insisted on it. I did not consider there might be another controller. I did not see their deception. The fault is mine. I would give my soul to change it.”
The King said it for himself, not Aidan, “She has been hurt; she will recover.”
“No,” it was a profound sigh of denial. “No, much more than that has occurred. She would not have liked it, but she would have gathered herself and while the blood dropped to the floor, she would have laughed at their archaic attempt to shame her. She would have dared the mothers to do better. They dared.” He looked at her eyes sealed shut. “They did dare to do worse.”
“I told you to take it off. They were banned for good reason,” the King’s voice rose with authority. “Yet the Cloitare will not accept the law of this or any other land. Arrogance robed in sanctimony.”
Aidan sat in silent agreement. “The shackle is only a part of it,” he said. “What happened in the cloister could not have transpired had I not permitted it through neglect, but neither the blade that cut her nor the shackle alone brought her to this. This,” he took Sable’s bandaged hand, “this was a punishment as old as the order. It is called the shattering. There is not a nun alive who does not fear it.”
Remy’s anger prevented him from saying more than, “Explain.”
“The stillness you see before you is of no concern. She alone I taught to escape into the void, to protect her most valuable mind in the dark. She is merely waiting to return when it is safe, but she is far away in the night, unaware of the time that passes.”
“And when she awakes?”
“If she can speak, she can be saved. If she screams, she is shattered.”
Remy felt punched by the memory of her shrieking on the floor of his room when she had pleaded to free herself of the shackle, to be the one, if anyone must, to hurt herself. He never wanted to hear her voice raised in grief again. Livid it was a possibility, the question growled through his teeth, “What did they do to her?”
“They expelled her from the Cloitare. But the Cloitare have many secrets and they cannot banish a member without securing that knowledge. To do that, they must take away the voice that can betray and shatter the mind so no contact can be made. On the scale of damage,” Aidan shifted his hands to show it would not balance. “Because of my errors, she will not have escaped it without sacrifice. The shackle would not allow her mind to escape. They brought her back again and again to break her apart. You must accept that you cannot understand in full what has happened; it is a matter of the mind, the mind of the Cloitare, which can act as one. They turned their mind against her, or the part of itself that was her.” Aidan knew it held little meaning for the uninitiated. He explained more simply, “Religion requires rituals to unite and intimidate. In the shattering, they would have assembled the convent, and on the altar they would have cut the signs that deny a nun to give or receive. Had she been penitent, she would have offered her hands for each member to place salt in the wounds. This was not symbolic, but very real. Her condition tells me what any of us could have guessed: she was not bowed with remorse. They forced her to hold it. Had she been humbled by the ritual, they would not have united their minds and driven her out, shattering her and the ties that bind, taking from her the voice that makes her dangerous and the eye that makes her divine.”
The King had come to his feet and was pressing his temples against what he was hearing. “Of all
the bloody things to pass in war,” outrage shook his voice, “such a vulgar act has not been seen.”
“Perhaps not,” Aidan conceded, “but then the realm and clergy do not acquire territory in the same manner.”
~~~~~~
The General watched her turning toward the two men’s voices and motioned to the doctor that she was waking up. Branson had just removed the tape from her eyes when she grabbed his hand, twisted it near flat to his arm and drove him in the direction he was leaning to escape the pressure, pressing him down onto the mattress as she pushed herself up.
Aidan was on her before the General could cross the room. At the sound of his voice pacifying, “Anawa,” she forgot the doctor, letting him slide sideways to the floor, while Aidan took her by the shoulders. She sat on the edge of the bed, swaying slightly, drunk with confusion.
Helping the doctor to his feet, Berringer kept his focus on her face.
Her brow was pulled together, searching to understand the scene before her. She found Aidan and then grabbed a hand full of her black hair, but this only further confused her. Spotting Remy, she squinted her eyes as though she might be able to see events more clearly, but then gave up to stare at her hands. She looked like she might speak, but instead, she dug frantically at her wrist, drawing it up to her mouth to chew on the bandage, clawing and biting to get it off. Blood soaked through the white mesh before Aidan could wrestle it behind her.
Her expression, so painfully bewildered, slackened when she left the room to search her mind; then the nightmare split from her mouth. She wailed from the ruins. It robbed hope from all who heard it. Pulling her head against his shoulder, Aidan’s voice rose over hers, a horrible disparaging lament that nearly drowned out the sound of her terror.
Feeling dread spread from his chest, the General backed away from it. He understood it was over. She was gone. The people were going to climb the walls and burn the whole place, Cloitare and kingdom, to the ground. He started to calculate how much time he had to get the city reinforced, to pull the brigade out of Alena, and call home the peace patrols. He did not have time to fantasize about getting the King to leave; Laudin would have to argue that futile case, showing Remy the countries that had agreed to accept them. Berringer wondered how long he had to prepare before Erria learned the great promise of a united future had been tortured into madness.
~~~~~~
Girard went to see for herself. Before that night, she’d never had a problem sleeping. She could put her head against a concrete barrier and doze through flying bullets in a springtime war, but tonight she’d been battling with her sheets for hours. She’d irritably thrown on clothes to get it over with, convinced the insomnia was caused by the accusation she leveled at herself: coward.
The Clementyne Dynasty would be next to face the public’s riotous ire, and she was not going to twist all sentimental over the loss of a mind. She wanted to slap herself, and there was no better way.
It was well past midnight and Sable had a fist full of Aidan’s robe with one hand, and with the other, she was marking her mental slide down some unseen slope as she told him, “Slipping.” Her finger followed a thought as it sunk and she told him again, “Slipping,” then showed him the slide, “Slipping,” again the hand slide, “Slipping,” hand slide, “Slipping,” and she seemed prepared to go on indefinitely. Girard sat down to confirm the insanity was lasting.
Sable’s timing was perfect, repetitive, meditative, like signing papers. Catherine went over her strategy.
She would start by dropping everything into the PIT, her online Propaganda and Information Team. They wouldn’t even have to manufacture a story this time; the truth would be clear when she gave them the recording of the nuns casting Sable from the double doors. The PIT needed to emphasize the King’s fast response to aid the Bride. Remy wasn’t going to like it, but his grief beside her needed to be played over and over until he was unassailable. Catherine needed pictures of Sable’s hands while the cuts were still fresh and horrifying. The hands, but not the wrist, that raised too many questions. Evidence of the shackle would come out—these things always did—but by the time the public learned Sable was wearing the shackle because she refused to wed the King, the public would have spent its energy tearing down the Cloitare. The Ministry of Intelligence would ensure the public had everything it needed too. And here Girard sunk deep, spreading her thoughts over the territory, thinking of the people she would call upon, the networks to reinforce, the propaganda to be boosted. She would call home from Alena and Sierra her legion of agitators and instigators. And bombs, she decided, to finish the clergy, they were going to need bombs.
Behind all the furious scheming, Sable kept slipping. The intelligence chief rose to leave, feeling braced for the fight.
Aidan let Sable rant, but he called to Girard, “Hold off on your plans, Catherine.”
The hour, the lack of sleep, uneaten meals, she had stood too fast. The blood had rushed from her head and toppled her back into the chair. She had heard him though.
“The Cloitare will beat you. This time you would give the public the truth, but your history is filled with fabrications, monsters of smoke, and acts so vile even you might quail to revisit them. The mothers are not passive. They are aware. They will fight you with everything they know, and they will not stop there. They will show you such inventions as you would think impossible, lies born of flesh your best cannot battle. If you strike them, they will destroy you and your king. Politics does not have the authority of religion.”
Sable sat on the edge of the medical bed clutching the front of Aidan’s robe, and he stood before her, unmoved since she awoke. His devotion would not allow him to turn, so the whole lesson, threat, and warning had been punctuated by the random appearance of Sable’s hand slipping beyond his arm.
Over the continuous repetition of Sable slipping, Girard spoke to Aidan’s back. “The clergy has this funny way of not admitting anyone is in charge, something about all mothers being the mother of all, but if I had to guess, I would say you are as high as it gets.” Despite the uncertainty he had instilled, she was smirking. “And now, if I understand, you offer me advice, concerned perhaps I might scuff up my shoes when I kick down your doors.”
“You need not trust me, you have no reason, but set your mind, master of deception, to how you would foil your own plans. What happens when the Cloitare denies your every accusation?”
“Your anawa is mad.”
“This? The clergy might call this a divine trance. Temporary.”
Catherine scoffed. “And the cuts?”
“What would you say?”
She had already searched and knew there was no accessible information on the ritualistic slicing of an X into the hands of nuns. Free of evidence, Catherine would portray it as an honor to receive the marks.
“The mothers often express regret for not finding you as a child.”
The compliment chilled Catherine’s blood. There was no need to confront him with the video; the recording did not clearly show it was Sable. The prophet before her, set to deny Sable had been cast from the Cloitare, could easily counter her every move. The battle would not be a decisive victory for the realm.
Aidan’s voice had been patient, seemingly without opinion of Catherine’s actions or attachment to their outcome. Now he was brutally dismissive. “You have no weapon to go to war with the Cloitare. Hear me,” the throaty roll of the command held her attention. “All the paths you consider will lead to defeat.”
Multiple images of the King’s destruction played fast through her mind. With a desire to know his intention, she asked, “The path that does not?”
“Patience,” he said while Sable slipped around his words. “You do not yet possess the weapon for the battle you seek.”
~~~~~~
Girard did not sleep. She accompanied Remy and Berringer with Dr. Branson in the morning to find Sable continuing her mad descent down the slope, still telling Aidan her mind was slipping.
&
nbsp; With Remy leaving, Sable told herself, “Stop.”
The fist full of robe she had not released, she drew closer, pulling Aidan to eyes that only he might recognize as cognizant. “Go save them.”
“Who, anawa?”
It seemed to Remy she was blind, that she was trying to get Aidan’s attention but could not see she already had it. She said, “Find them.”
“Show me.”
She struggled to keep her focus on Aidan, body swaying, eyes swimming. Now agitated, she pushed at him, telling him, “Go.”
He waited.
“Go save them.”
“Who, anawa?”
She stopped searching his face to ransack her mind. “Sister … sister.” She could not find a name. “She would not obey.” Pulling Aidan closer, her voice lower, “The salt, she dropped it.” She fought for the memory. “One, then four, more, but four would not give it. Four,” both hands gripped his robes, “they refused.” Then she pushed at him to act, “Go save them.”
For the first time, Aidan pulled his attention away from her, telling Branson, “Quickly, put her out. I cannot leave her conscious.”
“Leave her? Where are you going? Explain,” Remy demanded.
“There were four sisters who would not take part in the ritual. She is right to fear for them.”
Max
The magnetic Felix Magnus, voice of the Libertines, had managed to spam Max with a message. He’d been calling for civil disorder. Max thought the only way the world would know it was not just another domestic street brawl was the bands of yellow the protesters had tied around their arms to appear united. Working class Alenans were all in the same gang for the moment.
Sister Sable (The Mad Queen Book 1) Page 9