By then, the incense had diffused through the hall, no longer cloying and intense but relaxing and sensual. Aranen led Touraine back upstairs through the priests’ corridor and into the kitchen. The roasted meat still smelled delicious, even mingled with the incense clinging to their clothing. They sat in the rickety chairs, Aranen with her long legs stretched out.
“Don’t look so disappointed,” Aranen said to Touraine when she caught the soldier eyeing the kebabs. “I need it for my work. Short supply.”
“Your work? You mean healing them. Like you healed me.” Touraine held her left forearm out so the thin scar shone. “The girl I—the assassin did this. How does it work, exactly?”
Aranen traced the scar with a sad smile. She considered Touraine carefully before answering.
“Shāl requires flesh to mend flesh. That’s what the meat is for. We eat it, we pray, and if Shāl blesses us, we heal.”
“Or you use it like Empress Djaya. To destroy. Djasha said—”
“No,” Aranen said harshly. “That’s forbidden.”
Touraine bowed her head in acknowledgment. “Anyone can do it, though?” she asked shyly. “Heal, I mean.”
“No. It is and always has been a matter of faith. And training. If you don’t know the body, you can’t knit it back together properly.”
Touraine dragged her eyes from the lamb and picked a stray incense cone up from the table, rolling it between her fingers. She thought of balance again. The balance of a flawless knife. Of standing steady and strong on one leg. Finding your place between two parts.
The cone of incense broke in half, one part a solid chunk. The other half crumbled to a smear of fragrant dust against Touraine’s skin. “If I wanted to pray, could you teach me?”
“What?”
Touraine clenched her fist around the broken cone, crushing the other half as she fought her embarrassment.
Aranen took Touraine’s hand and opened it, letting the powder fall to the floor. “It’s all right. I just thought you would have asked Djasha instead.”
Touraine snorted and dusted her hands on her trousers. “She only tells me stories about the old empress.” The Apostate, overall, didn’t seem to approve of Shāl.
The priestess glowered at Touraine. “What about her? Empress Djaya was a fanatic and a murderer. Don’t take her for a model of faith.”
“She took on the Balladairans with Shāl’s magic.”
“If you come to gods seeking power, you’ll only find ruin. Has Djasha done something?”
A dark weight on the word done.
Touraine looked away, focused on the incense dust under her fingernails. “Did Cantic really kill her family?”
“Yes.”
“People say a Brigāni… destroyed Cantic’s company after that. Was that Djasha? Did she really?”
“Yes.”
“With the magic.”
“Yes.”
“Is that why she can’t do Shāl’s magic anymore?”
Aranen looked sharply at her.
Touraine shrugged. “I figured it out. Is it why she’s sick, too?”
Aranen rubbed her hands over her knees, almost as if distracted. “When she lost her family, she lost her faith. That’s why she’s called the Apostate. We don’t know if it’s why she’s sick. Maybe something of Shāl’s curse on Djaya lingers, passed on in the blood.”
“I’m sorry,” Touraine said softly.
“Don’t mistake me. Shāl isn’t dangerous. Shāl is balanced. Shāl is… so many things. I can’t teach them all to you. But Shāl values peace above all. That you should understand.”
“I do.” In theory. The first thing Djasha and Jaghotai had done was beat her, after all. Touraine gathered that Jaghotai was only marginally more devout than the Apostate. What she didn’t understand was what place a god of peace had in war if he wasn’t going to end it.
“You need to get out more. Listen less to Djasha’s theology lessons. Come here instead.”
After a few moments of silence, Touraine couldn’t help asking, “What is wrong with her?”
The priestess inhaled sharply and closed her eyes. Her exhalation came out with a visible shudder. “Essentially, her body is attacking itself. I can’t stop it. I have to help the patients who may actually survive. She and I both know this. I was thinking to stay home with her tomorrow, though.” Her hands trembled.
Touraine hesitantly reached out and squeezed them.