Then it is true I was present during the tithe, though I do not remember. “How?”
“A sword.” The words tremble. “You were very lucky. It could have been so much worse.”
My attention shifts to the blade hanging from the wall, its ruby-inlaid pommel. “Who cut me down?” I was not aware that I had enemies.
A slow hiss seethes from between Mother Mabel’s thinned lips. It is another moment before she speaks. “The task I gave you and Harper was a difficult one. I asked you to seek out the fabled sword called Meirlach, which I then used to kill Pierus, the Orchid King.”
Light and shade take shape around that name—Orchid King. A ghost in my mind’s eye.
“Is that it?” I point to the sword. “Meirlach?”
“Yes. I was dueling the West Wind when you intervened. I did not see you, and by the time I realized what had happened, it was too late.” Her dark eyes meet mine. “I did,” she whispers. “I cut you down.”
She admits to maiming me, yet I feel nothing. No betrayal, no heartache. I touch the scar resting directly over my heart. “I should be dead.”
“As I said before, we nearly lost you.”
Mother Mabel continues to withhold information as she has always done, but for now, I let it pass. I’ve other matters to discuss. “Who is the West Wind?”
Again, I’ve caught her off guard. Shifting in her chair, she peers out the window, only to find the heavy drapes masking her view. Her fingers drum against the desk. “A man I believe you loved,” she says, turning back to face me. “Though it hardly matters. He is gone.”
Gone as in dead? My palm presses against my chest where the ache spreads. “What of Harper?” Because if she struggles to place her memories, were they, too, taken? “She was assigned the quest as well, but doesn’t remember.”
Her mouth twitches in suppressed distaste. “Harper must focus on her duties as a newly appointed acolyte. I thought it better that she not be weighed down by her past transgressions. Those who participate in the tithe remember nothing from that night, as you are aware. I donot wish my charges to recall the horrors I myself witnessed for seven long years. But Maria managed to acquire a special tonic thatcleanses the mind, as she says. Harper was equally tangled in the West Wind’s web. In removing both your memories, I had hoped to give each of you a fresh start.”
“You had no right,” I snap.
“I am sorry, Brielle. I truly am.” She smooths her palms down the front of her gold stole. One end bears a long line of stitching, as though from a recent tear. “Your experiences changed you, and I would not see you return to that confused, conflicted woman.”
“What do you mean?”
“You turned your back on the Father.”
The blow lands exactly as she intended it to. But I do not flinch.
Mother Mabel is wrong. I did not turn my back on the Father. It was she who turned her back on me.
In a cool, detached manner, she goes on, “You claim to have had relations with a man, but purity, both of mind and body, is required to become an acolyte. I cannot in good conscience allow you to ascend.”
Then that door is officially shut.
I expected grief, its sundering wave, but my feet remain on solid ground. She has barred me from the opportunity of taking my final vows, but the truth is I no longer desire to give myself fully to the Father. Pieces of me, and of my life, yes, but a world awaits me beyond Thornbrook’s walls, and I can’t wait to explore it.
“I understand,” I reply calmly. “For what it’s worth, I believe you’re doing what you feel is right, even if it is misguided. I regret to inform you that I will not be joining you for evening Mass.”
She pauses with her hand on the Text. Even before she speaks, I sense her disapproval, like a whiff of rot sweeping into the room. “I do not follow. Are you feeling poorly?”
“No, Mother Mabel.” It is easy to feel small in her presence, this woman who sits nearest to our god, but I do not cave beneath her will as I once did. “I must pack, for I am leaving Thornbrook.”
She opens her mouth, closes it after a moment of indecision. “Is there a reason why you feel the need to leave us? Is your connection to the Father not what it once was?” She does not give me the opportunity to defend myself. “Even though you are no longer a Daughter of Thornbrook, I understand this is your home. I will make an exception and allow you to remain at the abbey, should you continue your duty as the bladesmith.”
Someone needs to continue forging blades, is that it? Mother Mabel has lied to me, but that is neither the whole of it, nor the root. “Truth be told, I feel I have outgrown the abbey.”
Her hand curls atop the tome. “In what way?”
I have wounded her pride, as I knew I would. “Mother Mabel—”
“Have I done something to offend you, Brielle?”
