We are only partway through your initiation, but it is never too early to say it—some of you will be leaving us.” Ryn Gylles sat on a raised stool in the middle of the Trilling Hut. The teaching hut would be a more appropriate name, but the initiates had rechristened it in honor of the speed and flow of Gylles’s speech. “Some of you will find the Order is not your calling after all.”
The room quieted. Several initiates shook their heads in denial, but others stared at their feet.
“I am here to tell you that’s all right.” The ryn’s face brightened so greatly, Serra thought Madel’s hand reached down to him for a moment. She gasped, drawing curious gazes from the initiates seated close by. She was used to that by now. It had been a week and a half, but she had not found a place among them, though Lourda had been wonderful, accepting her instantly with a warmth that reminded Serra of Lord Xantas’s bone-crushing hugs. The woman had even allowed Serra to brush her wild hair, though she yelled at every tangle pull, causing Poline to laugh.
“All of you will remember this month for the rest of your lives. But only a few will continue with it. And that is all right.” Ryn Gylles sipped from a quartz-studded chalice. “Those who stay will become novices and continue with Madel’s training. Those who go will live their lives more fully than they could here. It is not a failing to go, but a recognition this life is not for you.”
Serra wondered which of the thirty or so men and women would stay. How strange these few weeks might be the ones to determine the courses of their lives. Serra was still unsure why she was there. Maybe the Brothers considered a spiritual queen a greater ally. Or they thought of her grief and gave her the space to deal with it. Calming her tempers was easier away from the day-to-day activities of Callyn.
Gylles spoke again. “Not to change the subject—okay, I mean to change the subject now that two-thirds of you are as pale as a granfaylon’s underside.” That elicited laughter and smiles all around. “Let us turn our thoughts back to the designing of rituals. What is the purpose of the bells?”
Asten, a wisp of a man she imagined had ended up at Enjoin while chasing drapian seeds on the breeze, shot his hand up. “My rynna said the bells are struck to tune our minds to Madel’s resonance.”
“Your rynna was correct, and if you continue, Asten, I hope you will give the same answer to others who seek it in the future.”
Colini spoke next, a middle-aged man from Neville. “Ryn Gylles, I have never heard anyone talk about resonance in relation to the rituals. That answer sounds meant to shut up a questioning child, not teach her about the Order.”
“Oh, but it’s not!” Gylles’s voice pitched higher in his excitement. “Madel reaches to us from another space, a different resonance, you might say. She is here, all around us, but a goddess does not live in the world as we do. She has always been and will always be. Such an entity cannot be part of our world. She is outside of our existence but connects Herself to us. The bell, when struck, reminds us to open ourselves to that.”
Serra found that a rather beautiful thought, one she would have never considered before coming here. She could see why Dever Albrecht had been drawn to a life full of such remarkable images and ideas.
Ryn Gylles struck the bell that stood in the middle of the room then dismissed them. He caught Serra’s eye as she made to leave, and she whispered to Lourda that she would meet her back at the cabin. She had grown quite fond of Ryn Gylles, especially these occasional afternoon chats together. He was as easy to talk with as Queen Lexamy.
“Are we to have a walk today?”
He shook his head. “No, I have a little extra teaching for you, something the others will soon learn, but I wanted you to keep in mind for now.” He sounded graver than normal; the joy she had glimpsed a moment ago drained out of his countenance so thoroughly he resembled a granfaylon himself.
“But why tell me?” She laughed and played with her clove necklace. “I am not an initiate.”
He ignored the question. “There are other things out there, Serra, truths besides Madel we shut our senses to. The war between the gods did not eliminate all darkness from our lives.”
“Surely the existence of Medua is proof enough of that?”
Again, he did not answer. She left the room with a foreboding she had not felt since Ser Allyn had brought her the Ravens’ letter.
Lourda stood under the lip of their hut, lacing up her knee-high sandals, and Poline walked out of the doorway as Serra approached. She raised her elbows in greeting. “Do you want to come for a walk by the lake with us?”
The invitation took Serra by surprise. “I would love to.” It would help her forget how Ryn Gylles had turned her blood to ice with a few words. Serra laced the golden ribbons of her sturdier sandals around her legs. Her fingers moved quickly—it would take nearly half an hour to reach the lake, and they would barely have time to skip stones on it before having to return for the evening ritual. Plus, she was proud of the speed of her lacing, a significant improvement from being unable to unclasp a single button by herself. She imagined Bini turning her other servants away at her bedroom door. Lady Serra will dress herself today. Serra giggled then joined Poline and Lourda on the path.
The afternoon light was dimming when they reached Lake Ashra, its surface gleaming as the sun’s rays broke over the water. Regardless of the picturesque surroundings, Serra wished Madel or the Brothers would dispel the jocal flies. The pests were thicker than the spider webbing that covered grapevines at harvest time.
“Does Callyn have anything this beautiful?” Poline’s eyes glittered. Serra shook her head but recalled the city’s bridge over the falls and smiled.
“Oh, yes, it does. But only our bridge can compare to this. You should see it, Poline, a thousand stones of sparkling quartz. People claim you can go blind from staring at it.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
“It is wonderful.” Serra considered the woman before her, swatting at flies. Poline was in her sixties, but she’d seen so little outside of her Wasylim town. Not that Serra had seen much more than Callyn and Gavenstone. “You should come sometime, after your studies here. You can visit me at the castle.”
“Do you know you will return? Will you not continue as a novice?”
The question took Serra by surprise. Of course she would return to Callyn and everyone she loved. Janto, Queen Lexamy—by Madel’s hand, she missed Bini’s prattle. She had needed time away, but the castle was her home. Had she talked so little of it the others would think she did not want to go back?
No. She had been reserved here, but that was not why Poline asked. The other initiates did not know she was here at the Brothers’ request, and royalty sometimes studied under the Order. Some continued up until the moment they’d pledge their troth to Madel—the king certainly had. Lying by omission to these women felt shameful, but Ryn Gylles had asked her to—that had to make it right. Right?
“Lady Serra! Poline! Come right away!” Lourda called from the shore. A plume of black and red smoke hovered above her head, but it dissipated too quickly for it to have been real. Serra blinked her eyes, then Poline grabbed her hand and they ran.
What they found made Serra lose the remnants of her lunch in the nearest bush. Poline merely screamed. Serra wiped her lips with leaves once she’d stopped heaving, leaving a sharp, metallic taste in her mouth. Then she faced the sight again.
Two green-tinged skins lay on the ground, sacks as thin as scrolls. One was smaller than the other, and they both looked concave, like something had been sucked right out of them. Through the holes puncturing them, she could see a crimson liquid inside. It oozed like congealed blood, but it couldn’t be blood. There was so much of it and nothing else inside the sacks. They could not be bodies, at least not human ones. They cannot.
“Are they animals left to rot?”
Lourda shook her head with pronounced sadness. “These are people.” Her voice was steady, though she had tears in her eyes. “Look here.”
She lifted an edge of one skin with a stick, revealing a tiny drindem doll beneath it, almost identical to the one Serra had had as a girl. The thickened liquid had leaked all over it.
“A child.” Poline clutched her chest.
“And here.” Lourda prodded the other skin, exposing a string of hooked fish beneath it.
“The fish do not smell.” Poline’s voice trembled. “This is fresh. They have died recently. But that is not possible.” Fear besieged her visage as Poline continued, “I had heard there had been deaths, but I did not believe it.”
“Did not believe what?” Poline’s words confused Serra. “What sort of deaths have you heard about?”
“Rumors, I thought, people spreading rumors of a killer in Rasseleria that sucked the blood out of its victims. Some of my daughters thought it was a Meduan”—Poline uttered the word with contempt—“come back to torment us again, but I figured it was a pack of wolves at worst. I did not think it could be real.”
Serra gawked at the skins. “But that cannot be right. These people are drained of everything but blood. What sort of animal could do that?”
“I do not know. It is too dreadful to be real.”
“What do you think we should do?” Lourda deferred to Serra, a responsibility she did not want right then. The thought of bringing the skins—the people—back with them to Enjoin made her queasy, but they could not be left to rot. Lanserim did not leave their dead to the elements, especially not ones who had suffered like this. They deserved more.
“We must bury them, and then we will tell the priests. They will know what to do. They have to.”
The lake had darkened, now ominous instead of beautiful, something only a vast body of water could do. She was cursed to relearn, again and again, how fast perspectives could shift.
“Here.” She pulled a greenish shard of glass out of the sand, perhaps a relic of ages past. “We can use these.”
Serra was grateful the thickness of flies lessened near the bodies. They dug shallow graves, anxious to leave, and used bunched leaves to shift the skins into the holes. The skins were heavier than they looked, and Serra cringed as blood dripped onto her sheath. They were people, she reminded herself, my people. I can wear their blood.
A fly bit her as they took their first few steps away from the graves. She cursed, and Lourda and Poline moved away in fear.
“I’m sorry. It was a fly—I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”
No one said they should keep a fast pace, but they fell into one all the same. They knew they had reached the temple when they could hear the evening ritual chants. As they neared, the bell rang, and it felt like a premonition. A few initiates she had yet to meet walked out first. The peaceful expressions on their faces were quickly replaced by ones of disgust. Serra had never been observed with such eyes before.
“What happened?” They moved aside for the others coming out. “There is blood all over your clothes!”
“There were … there were bodies at the lake.” Serra cursed the tears welling in her eyes. She should be stronger than this, should be able to react with calm to such events. “We buried them.”
“It was horrible.” Lourda made no attempt at composure, her tears an engorged mountain stream overflowing the banks of her creamy skin. “A child and maybe a man—something happened to their insides, dissolved them.”
One of the initiates recoiled. “From the inside? What do you mean? That’s impossible.”
“No. It is very possible.” Serra closed her eyes. “I wish you were right.”
Rynna Gemni stepped through the doorway next. Her face clouded when she saw them and the blood on their clothes. “Serrafina, Poline, Lourda,”—she took all three of their hands and clasped them between her own—“what happened?”
Rynna Gemni bore no resemblance to Lady Gavenstone, but the feel of her hand’s warmth reminded Serra of when her mother would clasp her hand to comfort her. She filled with longing for a woman she would never see again, and then for Agler and Callyn and a time when she did not encounter something wretched and wrong around every corner. Then she sank to the ground and wept. Lourda knelt, wrapping Serra in sturdy arms and rocking gently. Serra did not stir as Poline told the rest of their tale of blood-stained drindem dolls and things that should not be.
Time passed, and Poline placed a hand on her back. “Serra, Rynna Gemni wants us to come with her to see Ryn Cladio.” Cladio was head of Enjoin, the chief priest of the Order. “Will you—can you come?”
Serra extricated herself from Lourda’s arms. The rest of the initiates and several priests had gathered around them now, wearing a mix of confused and horrified expressions. And why shouldn’t they? The almost-princess of Lansera had broken down in front of her people. It will not happen again. Serra wiped her tears with filthy hands.
Gemni led them to one of the huts nearest the temple, where the priests made their dwellings. Inside sat a desk made of Wasylim wood, covered with stacks of bound paper, inkwells, and quill pens topped with tan, silky threads of marshweed. The man at the desk had an appearance so odd, she wondered if he was a Brother uncloaked. He wore the same sheath they all did, but his Rasselarian-dark skin wrinkled finely and completely, a beach shore lapped at by waves. His eyes were lavender and so radiant, she was unable to look away once he greeted them. That marked him as a descendant of Deduins, one of the oldest peoples in the world, though they’d rarely been seen outside of Medua since the division.
“Ryn Cladio,” Rynna Gemni raised her elbows in deference, “I am sorry to interrupt you, but we have had more strange deaths.”
More?
Ryn Cladio’s face fell at the news, but his eyes shone brightly. “I take it these women found them?” His voice was warm. “I am sorry you had to see such a thing. What are your names?”
“I am Lourda of Ertion, Ryn. We are initiates here.” She said it proudly.
“Of course you are, Lourda. And who are you?” He gestured to Poline.
“Poline of Wasyla.”
“And you?”
Serra raised her elbows. She had introduced herself to the other initiates as a citizen of Callyn, following Ryn Gylles’s advice, although the truth of who she was had spread fast enough. But saying that felt like a lie here. “Serrafina of Gavenstone, Ryn.”
The purple of his eyes deepened, enchanting her.
“Lourda found the bodies,” Serra continued. “We did not think them people but something that had decayed a long time ago. But then Lourda found belongings beneath the … the sacks of flesh, the corpses, I mean.”
“And what did you do with your discovery?”
“We buried them,” Poline answered. “Is this what has been happening throughout the marshes? We had word of it down south. Does the Order know the cause?”
“We have suspicions, but we know nothing for certain. That it is evil, there is no doubt. We pray Madel brings us the tools we need to combat it before it spreads.”
He took the news so calmly. How had Serra never heard of this before if it was well known to him? “Someone should tell the king. He will send people to hunt down whomever committed such crimes.”
Lourda murmured her agreement, but Serra’s jaw dropped at Ryn Cladio’s next words.
“The king knows what is happening.”
Such horrible deaths would surely have been all Callyn talked about. If King Dever already knew, then why hadn’t Serra heard news of them?
“Thank you for sharing this with me, initiates. I will see to it the kitchen has fresh food for you, once you have had the chance to bathe and replace your clothes. You may go.”
Rynna Gemni exited first, the others shuffling behind her. As Serra reached the threshold, Ryn Cladio called out, “Serrafina of Gavenstone, would you stay for a moment, please?”
“I will find you both later,” Serra said. Lourda nodded as she ducked through the doorway.
Once they had left, she raised her elbows again. “How can I be of service?”
“Serrafina of Gavenstone? That’s a strange choice of home for a woman who’s lived so long in Callyn and is nearly the princess of the realm.” A hint of amusement showed in the corners of his luminous eyes.
She was confused. There were many names she could be called, but Gavenstone was always the first she reached for, outside of Enjoin. “I apologize. I did not mean to hide myself from you.”
Ryn Cladio laughed. “You could not do that, Lady Serra. It struck me as an odd choice, is all. I would encourage you, however, to consider yourself Serrafina of Lansera. You will soon be indispensable to us all.”
Words said in kindness, but they made Serra feel as cold as Ryn Gylles’s words had done before. She shivered despite the humidity of Enjoin. “I do not want to be rude, but did you wish to speak to me about something else? I would like to wash myself of today’s events.”
“And you shall in but a moment. I want you to know you are not alone here, Serra. You have made few friends—yes, I have been watching you. Times of mourning are troubling ones, and you need all the support you can get. Reach out to your companions. Show them more of who Serrafina of Lansera is.”
He was right. She had thought her grief abating, yet her collapse in front of the temple indicated that her sorrow had only been mollified. “I will try to take your words to heart. Thank you.”
His lavender gaze followed her out of the hut.