Anya had no taste for judgment or punishment—even the single exiling she’d witnessed in Weatherell, which had been a relatively peaceful affair, left her feeling bruised and brokenhearted for weeks. But this was her compulsion, and her one small courage—a refusal to turn away from pain and suffering.
“Excuse me,” she said to the people ahead of her as she slipped between them, ignoring the way her palms began to sweat as she did. “Pardon me. I need to get through.”
As Anya moved forward through the village square, onlookers complained until they saw her band. Then they shrank away, as if self-sacrifice were a catching thing. Only a knot of formidable-looking guards in unfamiliar blue-and-black livery stood their ground, watching Anya’s passage with curious, calculating expressions.
In moments Anya had worked her way to the front of the crowd and stood a few feet from the platform. The town’s Arbiter had joined the selectmen there, and the boy accused of thievery still struggled, a torrent of curses pouring from his lips, most of which Anya had never even heard before.
Slowly, portentously, the Arbiter opened a thick book and made a show of finding his place. Though Anya could not read the Divinitas script etched across its cover, she recognized the shape of the words—it was the god’s Cataclysm. The same holy book Arbiter Thorn consulted in the governing of Weatherell.
“Tieran of Stull,” the Arbiter said, casting a scathing glance at the writhing thief. “If that be your true name, which I have reason to doubt. You have been caught in the act of theft, proved guilty, and sentenced to pay for your perfidiousness. The punishment meted out for you is as required—the loss of a hand. For the Cataclysm commands that if thy right hand causeth thee to sin, cut it off and cast it from thyself; it is more profitable for thee that one of thy members perish, than for thine whole body to fall into judgment. May our god smile upon the justice done this day.”
The Arbiter shut his book with a bang, and one of the selectmen stretched out the thief’s right arm, binding his hand to an iron ring driven into the stump. The boy redoubled his furious swearing, and struggled so hard Anya feared he’d dislocate his shoulder. She watched in numb shock as the second selectman took a hatchet from a hidden loop on his belt and ran a whetstone along its shearing edge.
None of this seemed possible. None of it seemed real. Sylvie had told her a hundred stories of the barbarous ways of the people beyond the wood, but for such acts to be carried out by emissaries of the Elect, who so strictly regulated life in Weatherell and required perfect forgiveness from those who dwelt beneath the trees? Who declared that even to harbor anger toward another person in one’s heart was blasphemy? All her life, she’d been taught to strive for the sort of mercy that would sacrifice no matter the cost. To see the very Elect who’d taught her demonstrate mercilessness was an offense so deep Anya went dizzy with it.
She might have stayed, frozen in disbelief, if the thief had not caught sight of her as he desperately searched the faces of the gathered crowd. His eyes fixed on her, and he went dead white.
Weatherell girl.
Anya saw his lips form the quiet words, for she could not hear them over the excited clamoring of the crowd. Then the thief tore his attention from her, and it was as if the glimpse of Anya and her band had lent strength to his anger. He turned to the bailiff binding his hand and began to shout with rage—a guttural, incoherent sound, with no words to it, that cut off and began again when the boy was forced to draw breath.
“Shut that mouth and take what you deserve,” someone in the crowd called out.
But Anya was filled with sudden and ferocious longing. All her life, she’d lived in the shadow of women who walked willingly to their fate. Who’d given up pieces of themselves by choice. She’d never known someone who fought the way this boy fought, just to stay whole.
Without allowing herself a moment to hesitate, Anya clambered up the steps to the platform and stopped between the hatchet-bearing selectman and the thief. But it was the Arbiter to whom she turned her attention, fixing her eyes on him in a vain attempt to ward off her awareness of the crowd and of all the many gazes trained on her.
“Stop this,” Anya said, voice shaking though she struggled to keep it strong. She forced herself to speak up, to be louder than she’d been taught was fitting. “Please, I beg you to stop. None of this is right, or natural, or just.”
Though displeasure clouded the Arbiter’s face at Anya’s interference, he hid it swiftly after catching sight of her band. With a pitying smile, he shook his head and placed a hand on her shoulder, his touch reasonable, reassuring. Nevertheless, Anya fought back the urge to shrink away.
“We’ve already passed this thief’s sentence,” the Arbiter explained. “So there’s no stopping now. I realize things are different in Weatherell, but—”
“Things are different in Weatherell,” Anya said, desperate to make him understand. “Do you remember the second last of our girls, who walked the length of Albion eighteen years past?”
“Yes,” the magistrate said tersely.
“And do you remember her sacrifice?”
Silence fell over the crowd as the Arbiter did not answer. Anya turned her back to him and faced the assembled onlookers, though her knees were like water and her stomach full of frantic wings.
“Eighteen years ago, Willem of the woods passed through this town on her way home from the god’s mountain, Bane Nevis. While she was there she’d made an offering, to keep the god quiet, and to keep all of us safe and prosperous. She came back without her hands. I can’t… I can’t let you do that to someone else, no matter his crime.”
Anya turned to the Arbiter once more.
“Does the Cataclysm not say that judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy? And that mercy triumphs over judgment? I’ll ask for nothing but mercy in this village, then—no lodging, no bread. Just that you leave the thief whole.”
“Child, you were born to a gentler place, with gentler rules,” the Arbiter said, his tone infinitely kind. “In the rest of Albion, mercy is too often met with ingratitude. Out here, we must be wise as well as gentle.”
The thief with his bound hand refused to look at Anya, as if her very presence shamed him. And Anya, who alone among those gathered knew her true reason for leaving the forest behind, felt entirely unworthy.
Be Ilva, if you cannot be yourself, she thought, wishing even for a glimpse of Ilva’s ghost to bolster her courage. What would she have done, if it had been her standing in this place?
But the spirit haunting her did not appear. Instead, Anya fought back her nerves and stood a little taller.
“You owe me this,” she said sternly to the Arbiter. She’d never spoken in such a way to an authority before, or contradicted anyone set over her. To do so now made her dizzy and anxious, though she struggled to hide her nerves. “The Cataclysm also says a laborer is worthy of her reward. What am I and those who went before me but laborers on behalf of Albion? And what reward is more fitting for my mother’s sacrifice than this—a hand in exchange for those she lost?”
“Let her have it,” a firm voice said from the back of the crowd. The Arbiter’s jaw tensed, and Anya caught sight of one of the liveried guards, a laconic smile playing across his face. Both men were obviously accustomed to being obeyed, and as she had with Ilva and Willem, Anya felt caught in the middle—a weather vane to be swayed, a pawn to be shifted at will.
“Lord Nevis has no jurisdiction here,” the Arbiter snapped. “The presence of his guard this far south is not welcome by the Elect, merely tolerated. Don’t mistake one for the other.”
“Nevertheless,” the guard replied, more easily this time. “I say you let the girl have this.”
The Arbiter considered for a moment. But the guard’s intervention seemed to have altered the opinions of the crowd. Whatever their thoughts on the thief, murmurs echoing the guard’s sentiment rippled among the people.
“The Weatherell girl.”
“Give her what she wants.”
“We’ve no right to naysay her.”
The Arbiter turned back to Anya, frustration writing itself across his face. “Very well. I can hardly deny you, of all people, can I? But if the thief ever comes this way again, we will exact the punishment he deserves. And I would caution you not to involve yourself in the judgments of the Elect from now on—it is not for you to decide the course of justice.”
Anya could not answer other than to nod. Now that she’d won her battle, nerves rose up so strongly in her she feared she’d be sick if she opened her mouth. Instead, she gestured to the nearest selectman, who swung his hatchet and severed the rope that bound the thief. The boy flinched visibly, and Anya went to him.
The thief stayed on his knees, staring down at his hand with the rope still tied about it. Then, with a startled blink, he scrambled to his feet and let Anya herd him from the platform as the crowd broke into a muttering, indistinct commotion behind them.
Anya had every intention of carrying on into the countryside without stopping, wanting to be well out of the town that had given her so much trouble. But halfway down a narrow, abandoned lane, the thief ahead of her stumbled and Anya realized his hands were trembling like leaves in a winter gale.
“Need a moment,” he mumbled, and slid down to sit with his back against a stone wall. The thief hurriedly tucked his hands under his arms, but not before Anya caught a glimpse of something she’d never seen before.
From wrist to fingertips, where he would have lost it, the thief’s right hand had been changing. His fingers elongated and shortened, thickening with age, thinning with youth, flashing from age-spotted to freckled to clear-skinned and back again. It was bewildering, and unnatural, and like nothing Anya had heard of in any of Weatherell’s stories.
She pressed her lips together and kept her counsel, waiting as the thief put his head down on his knees and drew in a few uneven breaths. The mongrel dog, Midge, emerged from an alleyway, smelling of rubbish and looking pleased with herself, and pushed her nose under one of the thief’s arms.
“Better?” Anya asked after a minute. The thief did not look up.
“Tieran of Stull,” she said, prodding him with one foot. “Come along. I’ve got to be going, so you do too. You heard what the Arbiter said—you can’t stay in this place.”
The boy raised his head, jaw tense, eyes bleary. Pain had written itself across his features, though Anya could see no source to it, and the strange shifting of his hand had ceased.
“Why’d you do that?” he asked. “Why’d you meddle? Could’ve just left well enough alone. Could’ve just let me be. Your sort are supposed to be untouchable—you aren’t supposed to interfere.”
Anya bit at her lower lip. Half a day out of Weatherell and she was already failing at passing for a proper sacrifice. But surely, she could not be the first Weatherell girl to get herself tangled up in the affairs of the world beyond the wood. It was impossible, to stay untouchable throughout all of Albion.
“He’s right,” a cool, unfamiliar voice said from behind Anya. Tieran the thief scrambled to his feet, fear plain in his eyes and flight plain in his posture, but a word from the speaker stilled him. “No. You stay.”
For a moment, Anya watched the thief. The way his gaze roamed everywhere, searching for some manner of escape. The way his hands had begun, almost imperceptibly, to tremble again. He reminded her of a rabbit Ilva once caught in a snare, which had taken to eating the crops in one of Weatherell’s garden clearings. The creature had lain still beneath Anya’s hands, but she’d felt such wildness in it, and such a longing for life and freedom.
Ilva had snapped its neck, in the end—its leg was broken, its prospects hopeless. When Anya cried over it, Ilva told her it was for the best. That some lives carried on at the expense of others. And Anya had felt a spark at her core even then. A hint of outrage, at the injustice of the world.
She felt it again as she looked at the thief, though she didn’t yet know why he should be so afraid. When she turned to the speaker, all she saw were three robed figures—the village Arbiter, still in black with the leather-bound Cataclysm beneath one arm, and two of the Elect’s devout, clad in gray habits. There were a man and a woman, both of them with ageless, unlined faces, and it was the woman who’d spoken.
“Beloved,” she said with a warm smile, holding out both hands to Anya. “I’m Orielle, and this is Roger. We oversee a way station in Sarum, and came to fetch you. The high roads are safe, but an unsettling place for a lamb such as yourself, especially in a time of such grave misfortune.”
Anya did not reach back in return.
“I don’t—I don’t need an escort,” she said. “Weatherell girls are meant to travel on their own. Isn’t that in the Cataclysm? Arbiter Thorn used to read it aloud to the girls—how did it go?”
She put her hands behind her back, like a child practicing recitation. It brought the words to mind more readily and kept her from having to accept the touch of the unfamiliar woman before her.
“You have tried my heart, you have visited me by night,
you have tested me, and you will find nothing;
I have purposed that my mouth will not transgress.
With regard to the works of man, by the word of your lips
alone, I have avoided the ways of the violent.
My steps have held fast to your paths;
my feet have not slipped.
As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;
when I arrive, I shall make my sacrifice before your likeness.”
The verses came quickly to Anya, once she began. She’d always found it easy to grasp and recall what Arbiter Thorn had taught the girls—once she heard what he’d said, the words stayed within her, there to be called up at need. They seemed to serve as a comfort to most of Weatherell’s occupants, though Anya had not been very old before they began to taste of bitterness and ash.
“So you see,” Anya finished, nerves singing at her own audacity, in having contradicted an authority not once but twice that day, “it’s part of what makes us fit for an offering, isn’t it? That the girls who go to the god manage to stay unmarred along the road. I want to do things properly. I don’t want what happened with Il—what happened with the last girl—to happen again.”
She waited, feeling transparent and unhappy and utterly faithless, to have dredged up the memory of Ilva’s failure. But the idea of having her every step watched over set her skin to crawling, not unlike the way the thief’s had done. How long could her lies last, if she was so closely overseen?
Orielle glanced at the village’s Arbiter, who set a reassuring hand on Anya’s shoulder. She fought to keep still beneath his touch.
“I spoke of wisdom in the square,” the Arbiter said. “It would behoove you to strive for wisdom yourself. As the god is already stirring, more rests on you than on most others who’ve worn that band. Choose your company with care, child, and submit to the discernment of your betters, rather than seeking to exercise judgment of your own. You know little of the world, and we’re here to work for your protection. Don’t question our fitness for that duty, and we will not question yours.”
“Yes, sir,” Anya murmured, fixing her gaze on the ground. She could not help the treacherous tears that swam in her eyes—even knowing what lay ahead and what she intended to do, it stung her to be corrected. Regardless of her inner contradictions, she’d always striven to be good and to meet with the approval of those who governed Weatherell. A part of her craved that approval yet, despite the path she’d set herself upon.
The Arbiter reached out, tilting her chin up with one finger so that she must look at him. There was understanding in his broad face, but Anya hated the ungranted familiarity of his skin against her own.
“I spoke of wisdom and you spoke of mercy,” the Arbiter said. “The Elect are not merciless, child. And we are grateful for your sacrifice on behalf of Albion. Hold the course. Keep yourself apart from the vices of the world, and undoubtedly the god will look more favorably upon your offering than he did upon the last.”
I gave him nothing, Ilva said in her hollow, lifeless voice. She swam into being in the shadow of a nearby building, the imprint of the god’s terrible hand burned across her heart.
He took from me instead.
After a glance, Anya looked scrupulously away. She would not have the Elect know she was haunted. Not have them know Ilva followed her on this journey to the mountain. They did not deserve another shred of her sister.
But the Arbiter had been right in one regard. Anya would have to cultivate wisdom if she was to survive the pitfalls along her way and fulfill Ilva’s last request. She bowed her head humbly.
“I accept the offer of escort for now,” she said. “For myself and my companions.”
But when she glanced back over her shoulder, both the thief and Midge were gone.