CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A storm pummeled the boat until it crashed upon a shore, and Ayal stepped foot onto sand dark as tar. There she met Woman-With-Eyes-Like-Fire digging for clams in the mud flats. “Come and share my meal,” the woman said, and Ayal was grateful, for she had never had a friend.
—THE AYALYA
Kyara looked up when the door beyond the cells opened on quiet hinges. A guard entered, and the wound on her chest began to pulse.
Ydaris appeared and approached Kyara’s cell. With a wave, the woman dismissed the guard, who left without another look. As chillingly beautiful as ever, Ydaris wore one of the elaborately embroidered dresses she’d favored in Lagrimar rather than the long, red coats the Physicks here seemed to prefer. Her golden gown was delicately beaded and her head was covered in a matching wrap, which was common among both Physick men and women.
“Kyara,” Ydaris said with a glacial smile. Her emerald-green eyes shimmered in the low light. “I could not have imagined how helpful you would be. We are closer now than we’ve ever been. I should thank you.”
“Closer to what?” Roshon asked from the cell next door. Kyara was curious, too, and Ydaris seemed to be in a chatty mood, but she knew better than to expect any direct answers from the woman.
Ydaris ignored Roshon and gripped the bars with one hand, idly fingering the medallion around her neck with the other. Kyara had never seen the woman without it—not once in ten years—though it was usually hidden beneath her dress. Anxiety for what was about to come twisted Kyara’s stomach.
“I forbid you from accessing your Song in any way,” Ydaris said.
The searing pain on Kyara’s chest flared quickly before dying away, and she clenched her teeth until the agony was over. She wasn’t sure why Ydaris felt the need to reinforce the binding spell every few days. Once the commands were spoken, they were in effect until Ydaris gave a new order. At least that’s how it had always worked in Lagrimar. Had something about the spell changed?
Ydaris turned to leave and the questions bubbling up inside Kyara had nowhere to go but out. “Why don’t you just drain my Song and be done with it? Why keep me here, day after day? Take it and be done!” she cried.
Green eyes peered at her coldly. “Removing your Song entirely can happen but once. This way, while less efficient, is far more advantageous. You are stronger than anyone thought you were. But take heart. We are almost done with you, my dear.” Her lips curled into a terrifying smile before she continued to the door and the guard let her out.
Kyara slumped on her bed. She’d theorized that whatever they needed her Song for was best achieved with it attached to her. Otherwise they would have removed it as Raal had promised. But what was their goal? And would they really accomplish it before the process killed her?
The outer door opened again, this time admitting an old woman dressed in servant gray and stooped over a meal tray. Kyara looked at her dubiously; she normally received two meals a day and it was hours yet until the next one.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Roshon sit up sharply. A change in the routine was certainly something to take notice of.
The old woman placed the tray on the ground and slid it through the narrow opening in the bars.
“Why an extra meal?” Kyara murmured.
“Do you think they’re trying to poison you?” Roshon asked.
She snorted. “I should be so lucky.”
The servant clucked her tongue. “You’re being given extra rations to bolster your strength.”
Kyara froze as the reedy voice floated to her. “You speak Lagrimari?”
The woman kept her head down and remained slumped, though the tray no longer weighed her down. Wrinkled, paper-thin ebony skin stretched over gnarled fingers that retreated into the folds of the servant’s robe. “You’ll need to be strong to face what comes.”
Kyara scrambled off the bed and over to the wall of bars. “Why? What’s coming?” The only thing she knew of the Physicks’ plans was what Raal had told her back in Sayya. The mages were searching for immortality. Though why anyone would want to live forever was beyond Kyara. This life was difficult enough.
“Does what’s coming have to do with the war among the three worlds?” she asked.
Her question seemed to shock the servant. The old woman reared back and raised her head. Dark-blue eyes clouded with age gaped at her. “How do you know of this? Saint Dahlia save us, can you truly speak to the spirits?”
Now it was Kyara’s turn to be shocked. How could this woman know of her dreams? She shook her head. “I-I don’t know.”
“Eat.” With a wary eye, the woman began backing away. “Build your strength, girl.”
“Wait!” Kyara said, pressing against the cold iron. She hadn’t been able to communicate with anyone other than the family in the next cell since she’d arrived. Ydaris didn’t count, and Kyara hadn’t seen Raal since her first day here. There was so much she wanted to know, but before she could get out another question, Varten began coughing.
Dansig, who had not left his son’s side, rubbed the boy’s back as Varten coughed up blood. Alarmed, Kyara met Dansig’s eyes.
“Can you at least tell someone in charge that Varten needs help?” Kyara pleaded. “Something’s very wrong with him.”
The old woman nodded and eyed the ill teen with sympathy. She rapped on the outer door. Just before the guard opened it, Kyara got out one final question.
“What’s your name?”
“I am Asenath,” she said. “I will ask a physician to see about the boy.”
And then she was gone through the thick metal door.
Ella was swaying on her feet. The beauty shop was busy with the normal Sixthday rush. Everyone wanted to look their best for Seventhday, which for most workers was their day off. She’d been at it since the shop opened without so much as a lunch break and now the late-afternoon crowd was thickening.
Her sleep had not been easy since she and Benn had come across the dead smugglers two days ago. She’d checked the newspapers but there hadn’t been so much as a line about the murders in the crime section. Which meant the constables were helping to sweep it under the rug.
Plus, she hadn’t heard anything more about her request to visit the children with Benn. Sister Moreen said it would take a few days for approval, but now Ella worried that her vendetta against Syllenne Nidos was going to be an issue. Were Syllenne’s spies scuttling her chances? Tana and Ulani should not be made to suffer for things they had no control over. Ella couldn’t get the girls out of her mind.
The door over the shop jangled for the hundredth time, causing her to wince. She looked into the mirror at the newcomer and couldn’t suppress a cringe.
“You didn’t tell me Vera was coming,” she whisper-shouted to Doreen, the hairdresser at the station next to hers.
Doreen glared. “You expect a rundown of my entire schedule on a daily basis?”
Ella tightened her jaw, then pulled the curling iron from her client’s hair just as it began to smoke. “I would appreciate a heads-up when my mother-in-law is expected.”
Doreen merely rolled her eyes and turned to meet her client. Vera Ravel was a steam engine of a woman whose force of will Ella would have admired had she not been the victim of it. Vera’s opposition to her younger son’s marriage to a foreigner had been vociferous and unyielding. There were very few people whom Ella couldn’t manage to soften toward her, but Vera was one.
The woman marched past her, then paused, turning stiffly in her direction. “Ella,” she said, acknowledging her with a nod of her head.
“Good afternoon,” Ella replied, holding herself rigid. Thankfully, the woman continued on her way to settle into Doreen’s chair as if it were the throne in the palace, sparing Ella any more of her civility.
“Mistress Ravel, how are you today?” Doreen said cheerily as she draped a cape around the woman’s shoulders.
“Fair to middling, I’d say. Not looking forward to having to trek all the way to the Northern temple tonight, that’s for certain.” Her voice was all starch and vinegar, even when she was engaging in what for her was pleasant small talk. Ella forced herself to remember that Benn loved his mother, so there must be something about her that was lovable.
“Imagine the gall of bombing a temple,” Doreen said, clucking her tongue. “I’ve never understood how there could be such evil in the world.”
“Aye,” Vera responded. “Too many folk have lost sight of their faith, that’s part of the problem. Instead, they’re taking up with that lot down at the docks. Those Dominionists,” she sneered.
Doreen turned up her nose. “Wish I knew where people’s good sense has gone. The Goddess is right here in front of everyone where they can see all Her wonders in the flesh.”
Vera hummed in agreement. “Though She looks like a grol, there’s a difference between Her miracles and witchcraft. People can’t see that, then they’re dumb as doornails. ‘From the beginning, you heard, and saw, and touched that which was put before you by our Sovereign, and still you did not understand.’ That’s what it says in The Book of Her Reign.”
Ella was unable to keep herself from snorting. Both Doreen and Vera shot hard glances her way. She ducked her head to hide a smirk.
“All this talk of a separate country for the grols though,” Vera said. “It makes sense. Since they can’t abide the country they already have, why not spare some of the land up north for them? That way they can go about their business and we can go about ours. No one’s saying they didn’t suffer under the True Father, but we shouldn’t have to tear ourselves apart to accommodate them.”
Doreen shrugged. “I don’t know. The Goddess wants unification. Don’t see why we can’t all live together. It works here in Portside.”
Ella froze for a moment, comb wavering in her hand. Doreen was often mean-spirited and snobbish. Who could have suspected she would support unification?
Vera waved a hand. “We’ve had our fair share of trouble with the rabble here in Portside over the years, but the Lagrimari are different. Knowing they could let loose a stream of witchcraft any time they want, I’m not sure I could sleep at night if one lived too close to me.” She shuddered.
The bell over the shop’s door rang out again, punctuating Ella’s anger at her mother-in-law’s intolerance. She looked up from force of habit and then did a double take. The woman in the entry was almost certainly not here for a color, cut, or relaxer. Sister Rienne had traded her blue robes for an embroidered, white muslin day dress and her hair was in two braids twined on either side of her head like earphones. She searched the faces of the women in the shop until she found Ella, then her whole body relaxed—a marked contrast to the tension she’d entered with.
They locked gazes in the mirror and Ella motioned down to the woman in her chair, hair half-full of curls. Rienne nodded and took a seat in the waiting area, absently flipping through a magazine while Ella finished up with her client.
Twenty minutes later, Ella hurried over to Rienne. “What’s the matter? Has something happened?”
“I need to speak with you. Privately.” Sister Rienne’s voice trembled, and Ella grew even more worried. She led the woman beyond the washing stations to the storage room, looking behind her to make sure they weren’t being monitored. Once closed in the small room that smelled strongly of pungent chemicals, Rienne took a deep breath.
“Some … information has come into my possession. I wasn’t sure who to go to, but I thought that you—that is, your husband is a Royal Guardsman, is he not?”
“Yes.” Ella nodded slowly.
“Then perhaps … You see I’m not certain I want to be involved.”
“Slow down, Sister Rienne. What information has come into your possession?”
She pulled out a small notebook that had been lodged in her bosom. Ella’s brows rose at her choice of hiding place. “Since the bombing, all of the Sisterhood operations have been moved to the Eastern temple. I was setting up the volunteer management office there when I found this mixed in with our paperwork.”
“What is it?”
“An account registry. It contains records of supplies purchased for the temple: food, linens, cleaning supplies, things like that.” She opened the small book and flipped until she’d found the page she wanted.
“Look there.” A thin finger pointed to a line of cramped handwriting.
“Item: p. salt. Vendor: B.W. Quantity: twenty-five kilos?” Ella looked up, shocked. “This is dated three weeks ago.”
Rienne nodded. Ella peered at the registry again. The entry was in the same slanting script as all the others, buried amidst purchases of flour, potatoes, and heating oil.
“The quantity is far too large for cooking salt,” Rienne said. “I looked through the whole book. We never buy more than a kilo at a time in bulk for the discount. I think it’s palmsalt. And look at this.” She fished a folded square of paper out of her bosom. “It’s a letter from the High Priestess. Every Sister receives one on the anniversary of her vows.” Rienne snorted. “She’s thanking me for my diligence and service. But you see the signature.”
A slanted, thin script neatly spelled out Syllenne Nidos. The handwriting matched that in the ledger.
“But how would the High Priestess’s private account book make its way to the volunteer office?” Ella asked. “Especially when it contains such damning information, so poorly concealed?”
Rienne shook her head. “There has been a lot of confusion in the move. The Southern temple was home to nearly a hundred Sisters who’ve had to be rehoused along with a dozen offices for various outreach projects. We’ve been in chaos for the past three days.”
Ella hummed in response, her mind racing. Was this the proof that she’d been searching for? A way to take down the High Priestess? But why would Syllenne have bombed her own temple? If she was a member of the Hand of the Reaper, why choose the seat of her own power as a target?
She couldn’t put anything past the woman. Ella was certain that if Syllenne felt she could gain more power by destroying the Sisterhood whole cloth, she would do so. Still, something about this evidence of Rienne’s felt very convenient.
According to Nir, no one would stock or sell such a large quantity of palmsalt. One stray spark and an entire city block could be filled with poison gas. And if the vendor initials B.W. stood for Bor Wintersail, then he hadn’t even been in Elsira three weeks ago to make such a sale. After the murder of the smugglers, Benn had investigated the other potential palmsalt lead. Wintersail’s ship had departed from Elsira two months earlier, port reports stating he was headed for the Southern Seas. Something wasn’t adding up here.
“You could go directly to the constables with this,” Ella said.
Rienne dropped her eyes. “And what if nothing comes of it? What if she’s too powerful to take down or the government officials cover for her? I can’t take the chance of being the one to turn this in—look at what she’s already done to me and mine.”
Rienne had no idea of the tragedy Syllenne had brought down on Ella’s own family, but she at least had the courage to stand up to her openly. Sucking in a breath, Ella squared her shoulders. “All right. I’ll make sure this gets to the authorities. Your anonymity will be preserved.”
Rienne murmured her thanks. “By the way, you should receive approval for the adoption visit later today. Sister Moreen is sending out couriers with the information. There are several steps before you can take the children home, but the process has been started.”
“Thank you for telling me.” Ella gripped the woman’s thin hands. “And thank you for bringing me this.” She held up the tiny journal.
“You are a good soul, Mistress Farmafield. I know you won’t rest until justice is served.”
As they made their way back into the beauty parlor’s main area, her words echoed in Ella’s head. She was starting to fear that justice would be far more complicated than she’d thought.