It was true that the saints had committed terrible wrongs. But it was equally true that Loraille wouldn’t have survived the Sorrow without relics. For each spirit imprisoned, how many innocents had been spared a terrible death? Hundreds? Thousands?
I stared at my scarred hands, my throat tight. The way I had felt as a child listening to the sisters’ hymns, filled with pure, soaring, wondrous faith—I knew suddenly, with a visceral wrench of loss, that that feeling was gone forever. I could never get it back again.
“You can share these things, you know,” the revenant intruded. “You don’t always have to leave everyone in agonizing suspense.”
“I can’t accept it,” I answered.
“Accept what?”
I wasn’t certain I could put my tangled, poisonous thoughts into words. It felt blasphemous to even try. “That—that there can be such a thing as… not necessary evil, because evil is never necessary—it can’t be—but… acceptable evil. Hurt and cruelty that the Lady would allow in service to Her will. Like the goat in Naimes,” I said, dimly aware that I’d never told the revenant about the goat, and it would probably think I had lost my mind. “She wouldn’t make someone kick the goat.”
The revenant was quiet—a careful, pained pause. “Nun,” it said, “isn’t that what She’s done to you?”
I heard a rattling sound, and realized I was shaking, the shackles clattering together. I wondered if I should pray. But the stars were gone, the Lady’s gaze obscured. I had no sign save the hundreds of voices chanting my name outside.
TWENTY-SIX
The noise continued through the night. I slept little and ached with cold, standing frequently to look out the window. Several times I heard shouting; once I heard glass breaking, followed by screams and horses’ hooves clattering across the courtyard. In the distance, something was burning, sending up a plume of orange-lit smoke.
I judged the hour near dawn when keys rattled outside the door. To my surprise, it swung open to reveal a lone orphrey, white-robed and veiled. She beckoned to me in silence.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, but the orphrey didn’t answer. I could see little of her averted face behind the veil.
“She can’t answer you,” the revenant said. “She’s a thrall. The spirit possessing her is acting under Sarathiel’s command.” It paused as though listening. “I can’t tell for certain in this state, but I believe it’s one of the blight wraiths from the square.”
I followed. She walked swiftly, remaining out of arm’s reach, but paused, waiting, when I purposefully dawdled and fell behind. There was a fear and hesitation to her movements. On a whim, I asked, “Can you understand me?” But she only stared, drawing her arms protectively against her chest.
Eventually, it grew clear that she was taking me on a circuitous route to the apartments. We entered a hall I hadn’t investigated the evening before. A cathedral guard stood near the lone door. He twitched as we passed, his posture stiff and his head bowed.
“Another thrall,” the revenant observed. “And another spirit inexperienced at possessing humans. Wearing that consecrated armor must be torture, but it’s too afraid of Sarathiel to disobey.”
To my surprise, I felt as bad for the newly risen spirits as I did their vessels. They were like confused children, born through no fault of their own into an unforgiving world of hunger and fear. If they hurt anyone, they did so only for those reasons—not out of evil, or even malice.
As we neared the door, a conversation carried into the hall. The Divine was saying, sounding threadbare with exhaustion, “But no one at the convent will come forward. If they know anything, they aren’t willing to speak. Can’t we simply exorcise Rathanael from her?”
“An exorcism would merely return it to its relic,” Leander’s voice replied patiently. “In doing so, we would give it a chance to inhabit a new vessel. At least for now we have it contained…”
While they spoke, the orphrey puzzled over the door, shrinking back several times in apparent fear before she gained the courage to touch it. The door swung open, interrupting the conversation.
The Divine was curled up in a chair in front of a window. She wasn’t wearing her maquillage, and she looked pale and smudged; she clearly hadn’t slept. Sarathiel stood beside her with a hand on her shoulder, which she was clasping to herself as though it were a precious relic. I wasn’t sure whether it was just my imagination, or if its tranquil expression truly did betray a slight air of impatience.
It struck me, seeing the Divine so at ease with Sarathiel, that she had never favored Leander. She had kept him close to watch him—assigned him important duties merely to keep him busy. And he had played the part because he’d had no other choice, locked in a treacherous dance with his own enemy. The entire city had been fooled; so had I.
The Divine was watching me. In a rustle of silk, she rose, came to me, and drew me down to sit beside her on a cushioned settle. She tried to take my hand, but I moved it.
“Artemisia,” she said earnestly. “This does not need to be painful. All you must do is tell us who has the reliquary, and then this ordeal will end. You will be better off without Rathanael.”
“Why?” I asked.
A line appeared between her brows; she hadn’t expected that question. “Because it’s wicked.”
“And Sarathiel isn’t?”
Gently, she shook her head. “It was sent to me by the Lady. Perhaps you have heard…” She hesitated, color rising to her cheeks. I wondered if that was why she wore the maquillage. “It’s true that I was not the Assembly’s first choice for Divine. When I arrived in Bonsaint, I was so alone. But after countless nights of praying for guidance, uncertain of my ability to lead, the goddess gave me Sarathiel. Trust me when I say that it has spent centuries regretting its misdeeds. Lifetimes in which it has listened to the devotions, the choir, has been surrounded by the Lady’s presence. It has changed—repented. Can you say the same of yours?”
The longer she spoke, the deeper my stomach sank. I too believed that the Lady had sent me a revenant. But there was one key difference.
“No,” I said, “because my revenant doesn’t lie to me.”
Disappointment shaded her features. She badly wanted me to believe her. “But how long have you known it? Sarathiel has been my heart’s companion for many years. Of course, there are still moments when I am unsure… but the Lady sent me a sign,” she added swiftly. “You wouldn’t understand. You weren’t there.”
“In the cathedral?”
“You heard of it,” she said breathlessly.
“The pauper’s balcony. I was there.”
Her eyes widened. We regarded each other at an impasse, and the world fell away in a weightless plunge as I realized that looking into her face was like gazing into a mirror. We both believed the other misguided for trusting a revenant—both thought the Lady meant us to ally ourselves with our own. One of us was right, the other wrong. A warped reflection in a glass.
A sense of unreality crept over me. Could I truly claim to know better than a Divine? What if the sign in the cathedral hadn’t been for me after all? Who was I, to believe that I alone knew the Lady’s will? I had based my convictions on the path of a raven’s flight. The dying words of a half-insane holy woman.