by Kerstin Hall
Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore, I thought with a hollow pang. What good could a trial do now? What are we even doing here?
“You could martyr me,” I blurted out.
Cyde seemed taken aback. “Excuse me?”
“I’ve made a terrible mistake, but there’s still time to repair the Pillar and halt the island’s fall. With the Renewer’s power, you could do it.”
Her face softened. “Oh, Elfreda.”
Why didn’t you try to stop me? “There might be nothing down there, nothing but Haunts and death. This was my doing, so it’s only right that I pay the price.”
She made a gesture for calm, but I swiftly negated it. Cyde had to see, had to understand—this went so far beyond me, or her, any of us. With each passing hour, each slow moment of our descent, my feeling of panic grew stronger.
“Maybe I,” I swallowed, my mouth bone-dry, “maybe I don’t even need to die. You could amputate—”
“Enough,” Cyde interrupted firmly. “I am not going to eat you, I am going to help you. Now, please tell your friends to get ready to leave.”
Finn was already waiting inside. He looked like he wanted to speak, but I couldn’t bear being chastised or offered empty consolations. I brushed past him to collect my bag.
The woods smelled of mulch and sap, dry earth turned wet. We set out from the cottage and took a path around the western hillside. The track was so overgrown that it was hardly visible. Earthworms slinked through the new mud, and birds rustled their wings and chirped. I drew my borrowed coat tight around my chest as the wind buffeted us with sheets of rain.
Cyde led the way, with Millie walking beside her. The two of them spoke in low, serious voices; heads bent together. Lariel followed behind them, with Finn and me bringing up the rear.
To my surprise, Lariel had put up no struggle. She walked quietly with her head down. Probably just biding her time, waiting for an opportunity to make a break for it. But still, she looked pitiful in the grey light, shivering from the cold, her shoulders stooped. I thought about Zenza, about the bolt that should have struck Millie’s head. My sympathies dwindled.
The woods ended close to the edge of Aytrium. The south-western road looped along the curve of the island’s perimeter, with nothing but an old farm fence separating the land and the drop. Beyond was only cloud, too dense for my eyes to penetrate.
“There,” said Cyde, pointing at a black spot further up the road. It grew larger as we watched; through the veil of rain, it resolved into a large, two-horse cab.
“How do we know that’s the right one?” asked Finn.
“Not many people take this road,” said Cyde. Her eyes narrowed, and she nodded to herself. “And the flag’s up.”
A scrap of sodden blue fabric was tied to the driver’s perch. Cyde stepped out onto the road. The vehicle slowed and came to a halt. The driver jumped down.
“Osan!” I exclaimed.
He offered me a smile, although it seemed forced. I quickly walked forward and hugged him. He was soaking wet and shivering.
“You know, you’re getting downright clingy nowadays,” he said. “Stop before you embarrass me.”
“Are you okay? Is Rhyanon okay?”
“She’s fine. Furious, but fine. The Commander told her what Verje did to you.” He glanced at my arm, now neatly bandaged, then spoke to Cyde over the top of my head. “I came as quickly as I could. Asan says Celane’s going to use the confusion around the Pillar incident to try to make her move. You should get back to the Moon House before they come looking for you.”
Cyde made a dismissive gesture. “I’m hunting down the vandal. If anything, my absence might convince them of my devotion.”
Osan looked doubtful, but the Reverend was already moving toward the cab.
“Well, your martyrdom, I suppose,” he muttered.
It was a close fit with all of us crammed inside the cab, so Millie sat up on the driver’s seat with Osan and held Cyde’s umbrella over both their heads. We rolled down the muddy road, south along the edge of the island. I was fidgety and anxious, and I could feel the pressure of my visions building like a storm in the air. The rain continued.
“Where are we going?” I asked Cyde.
“Somewhere more secure,” she said, watching the clouds through the window. “Less obvious.”
“And then?”
She did not answer me. Finn caught my eye and gave the faintest of shrugs. It might have been my imagination, but I thought his irises looked more green than blue. Beside him, Lariel sat with her head bowed, hands clamped together. She seemed ill and cold.
Murderer, I reminded myself. She was the one who sent Finn to the pyre. She deserves to suffer.
Osan drove us inland again, into a valley where the roads grew rockier and the horses moved more slowly. I guessed that we had crossed into the Rutese province; I wasn’t familiar with the area, I’d never travelled this far west from the city. The miles crawled by, and I tried my best not to think, not to imagine what was going to happen next.
The road came to an end at a circular clearing below a sheer rockface. Coarse grey thorn brush surrounded us. Osan stopped the horses and climbed down from his seat. Cyde opened the door.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Officially? Nowhere.” She walked over to the thorny bushes at the base of the cliff, and swept them aside with her lace. Hidden behind the dry branches was a narrow passage cut into the rock. “The Ash Disciples built this place four hundred years ago during their revolt against the Order. While serving as Chief Archivist, I came across a mention of it and decided to investigate whether the passages were still intact.”
The entrance was high enough to accommodate a tall man, although Finn still needed to stoop. Water dripped loudly and a strong animal musk lingered in the air. It was pitch dark ahead.
“Apart from a small cave-in, the main passages were untouched,” said Cyde. “Remarkable, really, that it survived.”
“So the Order doesn’t know about this place?” asked Millie.
“Outside of the people I’ve told, no. We should be safe here until Celane is forced to play her hand. That gives us time to prepare.”
Prepare for what?
Finn helped Cyde light the lamps, and the passage brightened. To my surprise, the room ahead was large and ornate. Intricate mosaics covered the walls—the patterns looked familiar, the abstract curves and swirls of the designs curling like vines. I had seen these designs elsewhere. I noticed Cyde was watching me.
“The Ash Disciples didn’t build this,” I said slowly.
She nodded.
“The mosaics…” I walked over to the wall. “They match the ones in the Martyrium. This is Sisterhood insignia. Old-fashioned, but still very similar.”
“It is, yes.”
“But how can that be?”
“I have a theory. I’ll explain after I’ve shown you where you’ll be sleeping.”
I trailed my fingers over the tiles. Strange. I was certain this could not be the work of insurgents—why adorn their hideout with the enemy’s symbols? why decorate at all?—but neither could the Sisterhood have built the place and then simply forgotten it existed.
The mosaics continued in the next room, a larger hall where it was drier and the sound of the rain diminished to a soft hushing. Three other passages led off deeper into the hillside.
“There’s dried meat and preserves over there, lantern oil in the canisters, and blankets in the next chamber,” said Cyde, pointing. “You should be comfortable enough, but use the food and oil sparingly; it might be difficult for me to bring more supplies over the coming days.”
“Speaking of which,” said Osan, “I should take you back to the Moon House. You’re going to be missed, Reverend.”
“Much as I appreciate your concern, I need to speak with Elfreda first.”
“I can wait,” I said hurriedly. “If it would be safer for you to go back now, you should.”
Cyde shook h
er head. “It won’t take too long. Shall we speak in the cab?”
With reluctance, I relented. Osan looked nervous. I could only imagine the Order descending upon the Moon House to discover that its Head Custodian was missing during the hour of the Sisterhood’s greatest crisis. Cyde ushered me back outside.
“It would be better if your friends didn’t hear what I’m about to tell you,” she murmured. “I think the rain will dampen Finn’s senses somewhat.”
I climbed up into the cab, and Cyde shut the door after us. She brushed the rain off her face and gave me a reassuring smile.
“Don’t look so worried,” she said. “I dealt with the Council for years before taking up my position out here.”
“With respect, Reverend, you never had to explain a broken Pillar during that period.”
She gave me a reproving look. “Then I’ll just have to rise to the occasion, won’t I?”
Although she spoke lightly, there was an undercurrent of steel in her voice. It was the same streak of self-possession I had witnessed in Asan, only it took a different form with Cyde: more reserved, scholarly, cool where the Commander burned hot. She did not appear at all afraid.
“What is it you wanted to tell me?” I asked.
“Several things.” She reached beneath her coat and drew out a brown envelope from the interior pocket. “Firstly, this is yours. Kirane asked that I wait a few years to give you time to grieve her, but we might not have that much time.”
My name was written on the outside of the envelope. I recognised my mother’s handwriting: the square, scratchy penmanship, the way she looped her L’s. My hands shook when I took the letter from Cyde.
“These probably aren’t the circumstances she had in mind,” said Cyde, her voice kind. “But I hope she would understand.”
I fingered the corners of the envelope. I wanted to rip it open right there, but I also wanted to just hold it, or hug it to my chest, or bury it away somewhere safe and never read it at all.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
“I wish I could have done more for her. And for you.”
The paper felt cool in my hands. I thought of my mother’s lifeless body in the Martyrium, and was unable to look at Cyde. “What else did you want to talk to me about?”
The rain pattered against the roof. The horses stamped their hooves.
“Your friend, Finn Vidar,” said Cyde. “He’s infected. His condition is only going to get worse.”
Her bluntness crushed me, but I said nothing. I knew what she wanted to suggest: that I say my goodbyes now, that she take him to the Edge, that I stop denying the inevitable. That I should let Finn go.
But instead she said, “There’s a chance you could save him.”
I felt as though I had been punched. For a moment, I could not even speak; I just stared at her.
“Only a very remote chance,” she said, gaze direct. “And it comes at a cost.”
“Tell me,” I breathed.
A strange expression flashed over her face, a mixture of uncertainty and regret and something else. Relief? She folded her hands in her lap.
“How much have you been told about Renewers?” she asked.
I could not think straight. I just wanted to know how to fix Finn: no delays, no explanations. I fought to keep my head. “That my body holds more lace than other Sisters’. That Renewers appear every seventy to eighty years. That plenty of people want to martyr me.”
“Then it wasn’t explained what we wanted to do with the Renewer?”
“Not martyr me?”
“Yes.” Her face stayed smooth. “Elfreda, I understand your impatience, but you will need this context.”
I nodded stiffly. Cyde leaned back on the bench.
“While I worked in the Department of Memories, my particular focus was pre-Ascension history,” she said. “It’s a controversial field of study, bordering on the heretical, and the few surviving texts from that period are highly classified. In the course of my research, I uncovered details about the Order’s origins that are incongruent with official doctrine. Tell me, what did the Star Eater eat, that she could raise Aytrium?”
“A … star? Not literally, but some kind of original source of lace.”
“Yes, correct, an original source. But not, I believe, ‘a blessed fruit of the heavens.’” A bitter turn at the corner of Cyde’s mouth. “Records suggest that the real Eater was a group of up to fifty people, women and men.”
“Men?”
“It’s likely that they actually outnumbered the women.”
I felt disoriented, disturbed in a way that I could not quite articulate. It was as if the ground beneath me had become less stable. Cyde watched me, black eyes piercing below her long lashes.
“Do you know what the Ash Disciples believed?” she asked.
“That they were the true inheritors of Aytrium, that the Eater stole their birthright. That Sisters are a…” My voice dropped. “Perversion.”
Cyde was silent for a few seconds.
“‘Athwart waters black and wild divided, endless we did drift,’” she said. “‘Forsaken, forsaken, in loss seeking new lands to arrest, a place not god-taken and unspeakable.’ That’s from one of the Order’s oldest texts. It suggests our ancestors did not always inhabit Aytrium, our predecessors were from elsewhere, further away.”
“The Disciples were right?” I whispered.
Cyde shook her head.
“No one who tries to slaughter children is right. But there are elements of the Disciples’ accounts that may be true.” She gestured toward the entrance to the caves. “The mosaics on the floor of the Martyrium, the walls of these passages? They are not decorated with the Order’s insignia—our ancestors adopted those designs and claimed them as their own. They predate us.”
Then the Disciples had been the true founders of Aytrium. And we, Sisters, were the tyrannical outsiders after all. Just as they had always claimed. I shook my head, staring at the floor of the cab.
Cyde placed her hand on top of mine. Her skin was calloused and cool, her fingers strong.
“You are no perversion,” she said, her words reaching into the heart of me. “And the Disciples’ myths don’t provide a complete picture either.”
My voice sounded far off. “Then what is true?”
She gently removed her hand.
“There’s no certainty to history,” she said. “But from what I could piece together? Our ancestors came to this land before it was raised and begged for aid. They were rebuffed by the people already living here, and so, desperate, they turned to violence.”
Millie and Finn knew the Disciples’ stories. We had never discussed it, but now it felt like a gulf lay between me and my friends.
“The precise details of what happened are hazy.” Even as Cyde spoke, she seemed to be taking careful note of my reactions. “There are repeated mentions of a betrayal, after which our ancestors found and consumed the ‘Star’ of the local people. ‘In fury righteous and bright-flamed, we rent asunder the Star and did her in full entirety devour, her shining blood to ours evermore stain’d.’”
Her words dragged me out of my reverie. “Blood? The Star was a person?”
“Possibly. She certainly had a body. Amongst her own people, she was worshipped as a divine leader.”
There was a sour taste in my mouth. “And we ate her.”
Cyde pressed her lips together, then sighed.
“Yes,” she said. “Our predecessors devoured the Star, gained some measure of her powers in the form of lace, and used those powers to take Aytrium for their own. That’s how I understand it.”
This was my heritage, the legacy my entire life was built around. I should have felt betrayed, but instead I was hollow. All along, through centuries of duty and sacrifice, our faith had been … empty.
My mother had died for this.
“And then?” I asked.
Cyde gazed out the window for a moment. Her expression was distant.
&nbs
p; “Then came the Star’s retribution,” she said. “Men began to turn into Haunts. First those who had consumed the Star’s flesh directly. Then the husbands and lovers of the women who had been a part of it. To save themselves, the remaining Eaters lifted Aytrium into the sky, and purged the island of their former loved ones. And thus the Order was born.”
I sat in silence. The wind whistled through the grey bushes. Rain pooled like quicksilver in the ruts of the road.
“What does this have to do with saving Finn?”
It seemed, briefly, like Cyde had not heard me. The Reverend continued to stare into the distance. Her fingers drummed against her leg.
“You suffer from hallucinations?” she asked, her voice low.
I nodded.
“How would you characterise them?”
I was unsure about the sudden change of subject.
“Frightening, I guess,” I said.
Cyde gestured for me to go on. She was not quite looking at me.
I tried again. “Personal, strange? They vary. Most often, they’re like nightmares brought to life. Like I’m being…”
I trailed off.
“Elfreda?”
“Like I’m being haunted.”
The rain eased, and I sought Cyde’s eyes. Her face was blank, perfectly controlled.
“Is that it?” I asked, and everything around me suddenly seemed unstable and unreal. “Am I haunted by the Star?”
She sat very still, like I was an animal she feared spooking.
“I only have the accounts of other Renewers to rely on,” she said, “but I think that you’re experiencing manifestations of the Star’s dreams. Your fears bleeding into hers and brought to a kind of half life.”
“But she’s dead!” I cried, much louder than I meant to. My body shook. “You just told me that we killed her.”
She shook her head slightly. “I said that we devoured her. Her lace lives on in us. Most of it resides in you. And with that lace, some trace of her consciousness and desires.”
“No.”
“On three occasions in the past, Renewers evaded the Order longer than you’ve managed to. Do you know what they had in common?” She did not wait for my answer. “They all tried to leave Aytrium. The second Renewer tried to launch a scouting expedition, the fifth wanted to build lacework wings, the sixth joined an insurgency movement and, like you, went after the Pillars. But none of them ever made it back to Ventris; the Order always found them. The cycle continued. Until now.”