I pray they’ll let us rest. The healing sigil sputtered out long before it could knit me whole. One wrong touch and I’ll splinter.
And yet, when I think of the vicar’s eyes glinting with hunger, I know rest will never come. Not while he still has pieces of me left to break.
32
When the inquisitor guides me to the entrance of the main cavern again, I see fewer supplicants than before by two or three. I suspect I wasn’t the only one being interrogated and they’ll be escorted back later. Hopefully their experience is better than mine, though.
Everyone looks as though they got fresh clothes, too. What a luxury. Saipha is here, and her worried eyes find mine. She moves to my side, and I instantly feel more confident on my feet. Yet my gaze searches for another…
Lucan stands on the outer edge of our group. He doesn’t look any worse than when I last saw him, as if his interrogation was hardly more than a chat. Our eyes meet, and I open my mouth to say something, but he looks away sharply. He turns his gaze to the prelate instead.
My chest tightens at the unexpected pang of his rejection.
Eventually, we’re taken back to the monastery. And the entire walk, I can’t help but feel like something has changed within me forever. The moment we step into the Undercrust, I’m nearly overwhelmed by the flow of Etherlight from the Font. Never have I felt it so clearly—as if I could reach out and touch it. Threads of warmth tangle with my fingers, like the handshake of an already familiar friend.
I keep my eyes forward, hoping no one else notices. But Lucan is behind me, and somehow I know he’s seeing it. He never misses anything. I stiffen my shoulders, chin high until Saipha and I are finally alone again on the fourth floor of the residence hall.
“What happened in there?” The question practically explodes from Saipha. “I can tell just by looking at you thatsomethinghappened.”That’s certainly a way to phrase it.
“You first,” I respond as the door to her room closes. I don’t risk saying anything where inquisitors might hear. “Did you… Were you attacked by scourge, too?”
“What?”She gasps. “Scourge? Why would I— Wereyou?”
I nod and stagger to her bed, sitting heavily.
Saipha sits next to me. “You were… There was scourge in your room?”
“A flood of it.” It’s so strange to say. Again, it’s like my consciousness has left my body.
“How did you survive?”
I tell her, sparing no details. The entire time, Saipha’s expression shifts between shock and horror. She interrupts me toward the end.
“Hold on just a second.” Saipha holds up her hand. “You fend off a scourge flood by turning yourself into a human sigil-in-a-chute, then command Etherlight without drawing it through a sigil and shoot a fireball out of your hands… And the vicar— I don’t even know what to call that!Experiments on you?”
“Keep your voice down.” I place my hands on her knees, leaning in with a severe look.
“You don’t think someone’s listening in, do you?”
“I’ve no idea what might be happening. Things seem different now. Vicar Darius has never done anything like that before.” I fight a shudder. Somehow, it’s even more terrifying after the fact. As if what he did to me is only just now settling into the corners of my mind. I can barely comprehend it. In retrospect, it feels as though I stood before a dragon once more and lived to tell the tale. “I don’t want to risk him finding out anything or having reason to think I’m less than loyal.”
Saipha shakes her head and lets out a noise of disgust. “What do you think—”
A knock on the door interrupts her question, and we share anuneasy look. My heart races, my breath shaky, but I grit my jaw and force myself to get up and open the door. To not give in to the fear.
“Lucan?”
Every muscle in his face seems to relax at the sound of his name from my lips. The furrow between his brows smooths, but the concern that pains his eyes doesn’t abate. His lips part for a second, ever so slightly, then close, and then he speaks. And I know that what he says, while true, isn’t what he originally wanted to say.
“I wanted to see how you are.” He seems sincere, but it’s all a complete turnaround from him making a point to not even look at me earlier.
“I’m fine. You?”
He nods, and we stare at each other. Almost awkward. Do a thousand words burn his tongue, too? Does he know that everything has changed in an irrevocable way?
Saipha stands, hands on her hips. “And what wereyoudoing while she was being tortured?”
“Saipha, volume.” I shush her. I spare a single glance down the empty hall, pull him inside, and close the door.
