The city of Sarum lay sprawled against the banks of the River Avon like a cluster of oak galls festering on a once-healthy branch. Where the city touched the river’s edge, the water of the Avon ran dark and sludgy, and a cloud of smoke hung above the convoluted tangle of streets, which sprawled across the flat land.
A pretty picture on the outside, Sylvie had said about Sarum. But dark at its heart.
Apparently, in the years since she’d wandered Albion, Sarum’s façade had caught up to its soul.
Anya stood on the river’s far shore, surrounded by the honey-rich light of late afternoon, and stared across at Sarum in disbelief.
“I didn’t know there could be so many people,” she said to Orielle and Roger, who stood on either side of her. She tried not to think that they were flanking her like guards—they had, after all, been pleasant and polite during the several hours’ walk along the high road. They’d pointed out landmarks and shared bits of history and given her a fresh oatcake flavored with herbs. “It’s preposterous, that we could make such a mark upon the land.”
Orielle smiled. “And Sarum is not so large, in the grand scheme of things. Londin, where no Weatherell girl has ever gone, is Albion’s largest city, and a den of vice. Yew and Wintencaster hold far more people too. But you will not see one of the great cities, besides Banevale. A sacrifice must not be tempted beyond what she can endure.”
“Shall we?” Roger asked courteously, gesturing to a nearby footbridge. “I think we have enough time to take our newest lamb past Sarum Cathedral, before dusk settles in.”
The city did not improve at closer proximity. Buildings rose precipitously above the narrow streets, blocking out the sun and most of the sky. There were people and noises and unpleasant smells everywhere. Despite her escort, the chaos left Anya feeling laid bare, as if she’d lost her skin and were walking about with her insides exposed. In an attempt to orient herself, she kept glancing up, toward a breathtaking spire that rose skyward to pierce the heavens.
And then all at once, Orielle and Roger led her out onto a pleasant, open green along a bend in the river. Trees clung to the banks with spotted cows standing in their dappled shade, while from the center of the grassy expanse there rose a building like nothing Anya had ever seen before. It was topped by the spire she’d been looking up at, and the expanse of the structure stretched from side to side—unfathomably large, monumental enough to fit the entirety of Weatherell within its walls. Soaring windows and archways and stone carvings ornamented every bit of it, the windows glinting with colored glass. Anya’s lips parted as she stared—sun shimmered off those windows, splitting into rainbows of light.
“It’s quite a spectacle, isn’t it?” Orielle asked. “They built it on and around the ruins of an older sanctum, that was here before the god of the mountain woke.”
Anya frowned, still looking up at the brilliant windows. “If the old sanctum was built before the god of the mountain woke, who was it for?”
“The dying god,” Roger said dismissively, and the disdain in his tone brought Anya’s attention back to her companions.
“I’ve never heard of the dying god,” she said, and Orielle offered her a reassuring smile. In spite of herself, Anya felt a little safer, and less uncertain. It was easy to be guided, comforting to have her life fall into old patterns. She’d been a good student—to take on that role again lent her strength. And it eased her guilt a little to feign the role that would have been hers, if Ilva had not been born with the lion’s share of their courage and Anya with most of their moral scruples.
“We don’t consider him a god anymore,” Orielle told her. “He lived centuries ago, but made grandiose claims and died in the end, and never returned despite promising that he would. His cult was brought here by the Romans and taken away with them as well, when the god of the mountain woke to fortify Albion with his presence.”
“I never knew,” Anya said, struggling to keep her face expressionless as excitement stirred within her. So her vengeance might not be an impossible task—those who’d once been worshiped could be killed. Until that moment, she’d worried that the god of the mountain might prove unassailable. But if one of Albion’s gods had already died and passed from knowledge, might not another?
“Of course you didn’t know,” Roger said, still dismissive. “You didn’t need to. Come, we’ll pass closer to the cathedral before taking refuge at our way station for the night. Tomorrow, you may go your own way, and our blessings will go with you. We will never be far, so long as you keep to the high roads, and if you require our care, you need only return to the fold.”
At the cathedral’s doorstep, a little knot of people had gathered. An animated crier in ragged clothes stood on the broad threshold, bathed by evening light and blocking the way in. He blazed with faith, fiercer than the sun itself, and Anya felt her pulse quicken. Orielle let out a small, disapproving sound, but both she and Roger stopped and Anya stood with them, rooted to the spot by the stranger’s conviction.
“Our god is a consuming fire!” the crier called, his wild eyes roving across the onlookers. “Even now, his wrath burns through Banevale, and soon it will overtake every city in this blasted land. He will purify us with flame, until each one of us bears his mark. Until we are set apart for his service and cleansed of our willfulness, for the time of our renewal is at hand!”
Anya shifted anxiously and glanced at the cathedral’s center window, so that the crier would not be able to pin her with his gaze. From up close, she could see that the riot of colored glass formed a picture—that of a hunched, snow-dusted mountain before a brilliant sunset, with a hidden flame burning at the peak’s heart. She’d never seen it before, but what could it be besides Bane Nevis, the god’s own mountain in the north?
But much smaller, hidden among the stonework that surrounded the window, she found something more familiar—the outstretched figure of Ilva’s little sufferer, carved into the stone of the wall, his wounds and band of thorns still present. Unconsciously, Anya ran a finger along the soft leather of her own scarlet band.
Movement drew her attention back down to earth. The crier had reached behind himself, into the shadowy cathedral archway, and Anya kept entirely still as he pulled a child into the light. The small girl he brought forward could have been no older than eight, and her clothes were as ragged and unkempt as the crier’s own. Wincing, the child ducked her head in a vain attempt to hide the vicious burn spreading across her face. The scorched marks of vast, inhuman fingers puckered the skin at the edge of her mouth, one ear fused to her skull, and patches of hair were seared away where the god’s palm had stretched to the back of her head. Showing no pity for her hurts, the crier seized her chin and forced her into the full light, so that everyone might look upon her wound.
An intolerable rushing noise rose up in Anya’s ears at the sight of the burned child. Ilva’s death had been the product of her cowardice, so surely this must be too—surely, if she’d gone to the mountain in her sister’s stead, the god would have accepted her, gentle and biddable as she’d always been, and this small girl standing with tears in her eyes would not have had to suffer.
“He isn’t meant to be leaving the mountain yet,” Roger muttered to Orielle, annoyance undercutting the words. “We should have had more time.”
“He hasn’t,” Orielle shot back. “I had news from Banevale—there’s a group of zealots in the city, who’ve been collecting girls to send up the mountain. None of them will be fit, of course, and we’ve tried to convey as much. But no, they persist in this folly.”
“There are none of us worthy,” the crier ranted on, his voice muffled and distant as within Anya, something dark and bitter roared. “Not from the eldest down to the newest babe. But the god favors us with his fury and honors us with his refining touch, and when the last soul in Albion has been cleansed, we will rise anew, a people united for his service and his worship.”
The sound within Anya had all but drowned the crier out. A half-solid vision of Ilva wavered in the shadowy doorway’s gloom, staring out at the gathered listeners, her once-glad eyes dull and milky, her loose woolen shirt slipping from one shoulder, so that the livid impression of the god’s hand was clearly visible. Anya swayed as her knees threatened to buckle.
Don’t go, Ilva said accusingly, in that shattered part of Anya’s soul where her sister’s last words lived perpetually. Don’t let anyone else go.
A bitter taste rose at the back of Anya’s throat and she swallowed, trying to catch her breath. The rushing noise and a wave of raw panic threatened to overwhelm her, but a Weatherell girl must stay her course. Must be steadfast and immovable in the face of the world’s injustices. And so, staring at the god-touched girl from Banevale, Anya rallied, though the intent that bolstered her was not one of self-sacrifice.
I will put an end to you, Anya swore silently, reaffirming the vow she’d made to herself and to the distant god on his mountain. However terrible you may be, I will cast you down or die in the attempt. For even a god should not be above his own laws, and I learned my lessons well. Those who take a life owe their own in exchange. Those who injure or maim must pay a debt in kind. There can be no greater debtor than you in Albion, and it is time you make good on all you owe.
“I think we’ve heard enough of that,” Orielle said crisply. “I wouldn’t fret over it, child. Such things only happen in what we call a bale year—in the natural course of things, none but a Weatherell girl must bear the god’s touch. Let this be a reminder to you to hurry on the road. More rests on your swiftness and purity than on most.”
“There have been other years like this?” Anya asked. “How can that be? None of the girls but Ilva have ever—”
“Of course not,” Roger cut in, his impatience evident. “But occasionally, every few generations or so, an offering is too small to keep the god quiet for the full eighteen years intended. A bale year occurs then, and he makes his power known until a girl can be brought to renew his rest. Enough questions.”
Roger’s eyes cut to a pair of liveried guards who were pushing through the gathered crowd. Anya recognized their uniforms—only that morning, she’d seen similar jackets of black and midnight blue on the guards who’d been watching the thief’s trial and who’d taken her part.
“Enough of that racket!” one of them called out. “None but the Elect are permitted to spread their doctrines publicly in these parts, by order of your own Lord Selwyn, who has the backing of Lord Nevis.”
“Come,” Roger muttered. “Best we reach our way station before nightfall.”
Anya nodded and followed obediently as she was led away, off the green and back into the maze of the city. Within minutes she was hopelessly turned around, and reached for the rough handle of her bone knife by way of reassurance. In the absence of the high road and its markers, Ana had no way to get her bearings, so she did just as she was told, as if she were truly a good and righteous lamb.
Orielle and Roger finally stopped in a nondescript back alley, lined with windowless brick walls, that smelled of boiled cabbage and mildew. Anya glanced about them uneasily.
“This isn’t what I expected,” she pointed out, but Roger was already tapping on a splintered wooden door. It swung open, revealing yet another gray-robed attendant. A foolish instinct to run surged up in Anya, as she thought of her deceitfulness and the blasphemy lodged at her core, but the servants of the Elect were serene, at least, calm and composed and familiar-looking, unlike the rage-filled crier on the green.
Orielle and Roger stepped inside, and Anya hesitated on the threshold. A faint noise caught at the edges of her consciousness—a distant, rhythmic hum, coming from within the way station of the Elect. She glanced back over one shoulder uncertainly.
It was dusk now, and the streets of Sarum were a labyrinth of unsettling shadows. Somehow, it frightened Anya more, thinking of being alone among so many people after nightfall, than camping in the woods or the hills might have done. And though she must hide the truth of her journey from the Elect at every turn, they were, at least, a reminder of home, and of an order to things that she understood.
“That crier on the green…,” Anya began, but her voice trailed off. She wasn’t sure what to say about it. All she knew was that what she’d heard and seen had hurt her, in a deep and fundamental way.
Orielle held a hand out to Anya, her eyes full of sorrow and understanding. “Oh, child. You of all people know the Elect follow a different path than that. No wholesale destruction, no wanton harm. We make one worthy sacrifice, for the good of many, rather than allow such pointless suffering and unrest. Our way is a mercy, and I’m glad you know it now.”
It all sounded just and right, when Orielle put it so. Weatherell, with its long line of suffering women, its trees hung with bone charms. Willem, with her handless wrists. Ilva—
But no. Anya would never see justice or mercy in what had happened to her sister. So she stepped forward, willing to risk a night with the Elect if it kept her on the path she’d chosen.
Though the way station’s exterior had been filthy and faded, beyond the door lay a web of clean, whitewashed hallways. Beeswax candles in tin sconces lined the corridors, casting off warm light and filling the air with a sweet, honeyed smell. Everything was muted—serene, even—after the clamor of the city, and from far away, Anya could hear the notes of a chanted song. Occasionally, another gray-clad individual passed them as they wove through the hallways. Anyone they met nodded to Anya’s companions but bowed low to Anya herself.
They stopped before an interior doorway, marked with an unfamiliar red-painted symbol.
“These will be your quarters for the night,” Orielle said. “There’s a bath waiting for you. We’ll put out clean clothes and wash your things. When you’ve finished, just step into the hall. There will be an attendant who can take you to the refectory for supper.”
“Thank you,” Anya said. The relief of being somewhere quiet and safe and comprehensible was so acute that tears swam in her eyes, and she blinked them back, shame heating her face as she did.
“No, my dear.” Orielle bent and pressed a kiss to Anya’s forehead. “Thank you. First days are always hard, and we understand you’re carrying grief with you as you travel—you lost a sister, yes? And your mother was a Weatherell girl too?”
Anya nodded, and Orielle ran a gentle thumb along her cheek. “How brave you are, child. What a sweet and irresistible offering you will make. A selfless sacrifice, and a perfect prayer.”
The shame in Anya grew to irritation. She was not brave, but hollowed out and desperate, left utterly desolate by Ilva’s passing. And she was sick to death of a world in which needless suffering was seen as sweetness and virtue.
“I’ll have my bath now,” she said, and though it was her habit to speak softly, there was an edge to the words.
With a small bow, Orielle and Roger drifted away. The moment they’d gone, Anya slipped through the bedchamber door. She let her pack fall from her shoulders and glanced about, finding herself in a spare but comfortable room. Sheepskins littered the plank floor, and a bed sat on a raised platform. A small desk stood next to the garderobe door Orielle had mentioned, and that was everything.
When Anya opened the door to the garderobe, a waft of soft warmth and steam billowed out. A sigh escaped the girl as she caught sight of an iron tub and a folding wooden table set beside it, laden with thick towels and bath oils. There was no mirror, in deference to Anya’s role, but she had not expected one. The only glass in Weatherell was broken up by the Arbiter for charms, so that the girls might not catch a glimpse of their own image and become ensnared by vanity. Windows there were oiled paper, dishes all of clay. Anya had never beheld her own face, but knew, of course, that she must look something like Ilva.
Half an hour later Anya emerged from the bath, swathed in towels and feeling, for the moment, more relaxed than she had since leaving Weatherell. She smelled satisfyingly of rosemary and mint, and her damp hair hung in short, loose waves around her face. On the bed, she found a gray robe—a match for the ones the keepers of the way station wore. Anya stared at it doubtfully before retrieving her bone knife and its makeshift sheath from the bathroom. Taking out the blade, she picked a dozen stitches loose from the right side of the robe that had been set out. Strapping the knife to its customary place on her thigh, she pulled on the robe and nodded with satisfaction. The garment’s loose folds hid what she’d done, and she could easily put a hand through the opening to reach her knife.
Slipping out into the hallway, Anya caught sight of an attendant at once. The keeper glided over to her, and bowed low.
“Mistress,” her keeper said. “Please follow me.”
The web of corridors was even more bewildering now that Anya was warm and comfortable, and her head swam with exhaustion. She followed the keeper obediently but halfway down one hall stopped before a set of double doors that were thickly painted with red Divinitas script. The sound of singing she’d heard earlier emanated from behind the doors. It set a strange, prickling feeling spreading across the back of Anya’s neck.
“What’s in there?” she asked.
The keeper escorting her bowed again. “That is our sanctum, mistress. Would you like to see it?”
Anya wanted to eat hot food and sleep in a bed and be on her way, in that order and as quickly as possible. But Ilva wouldn’t have passed up the opportunity to see something new and strange.
“All right,” Anya said, pressing two fingers to her temple. After a morning in the sun and an unsettling afternoon, her head ached fiercely.
As the keeper swung both doors open, the sound of chanting intensified. Beyond lay a cavernous space, filled with the guttering light of a hundred beeswax candles. Robed attendants knelt here and there, singing the odd, rhythmic song Anya had heard. But all that, she registered as an afterthought. What caught her attention and held it like a vise was the sanctum’s far wall. A mural had been painted on it—long generations ago, if the faded colors and chipped places were any indication. It portrayed a barren, rocky mountain—a match for the one on the cathedral window—with a great city spreading far below. A creature like nothing Anya had ever seen stood on the mountainside. It was tall and terrible, human in form but wreathed in flame, with curling horns like a ram.
At its feet knelt a girl in a red collar.
The band around the girl’s neck was by far the brightest aspect of the painted scene. Crimson and slick, it gleamed in the candlelight, and Anya watched with muted horror as one of the worshipers stood and walked to a side table. The woman took up a knife that lay on the table, its blade steel, not bone, and drew the cutting edge across the ball of her thumb. Then, singing softly, she approached the mural and kissed the feet of the creature on the mountainside.
For a moment she lingered, pressing her forehead to the likeness of her god, but soon carried on to the image of the kneeling sacrifice. And as Anya watched, the worshiper drew her bloody thumb across the neck of the painted girl.
“I—I have to go,” Anya stammered to the keeper at her side. It felt as if her throat were closing, as if the band she wore were tightening and within moments she’d choke. In Weatherell, the god of the mountain was not worshiped like this. He was placated as a matter of course. He was obeyed and feared, but in a distant way. This veneration was like nothing she’d ever known, and it set a sickening sense of wrongness in her bones. It was only one step removed from the ranting conviction of the crier in the city—the same brutal faith, but with a veneer of serenity and control.
Anya backed into the hallway, and the keeper followed, a curious look on her placid face.
“I’m afraid you can’t go,” the keeper said, though her voice sounded muffled, as if Anya heard it from underwater. “Not until our prayers go with you.”
Anya’s head was splitting now, and she dropped to her knees. Fumbling at her side, she tried to reach for her knife with hands grown clumsy and slow.
But then the pain in her head redoubled and everything faded away.