In fact, I swing off Ranger and stride toward her, rage burning me up like a candle. I grab the woman by her shoulder, fisting her filthy robes in my hand. “You seem to forget your place. You’re speaking to a princess.”
The woman’s sneer falters to find a six-foot-six-inch beast hulking over her, but she must think her saintly robes will shelter her from violence, because she tries to pull away indignantly.
Another woman pokes her head out of the gates and bursts into laughter. “Princess of what,” she sneers, “the land of filth?”
These. Fucking. Women.
Oh, little violet, I think.I’m sorry I doubted you.
“I knew Sabine’s time here was bad,” I mutter. “I didn’t realize whatbitchesyou are.” Still gripping the woman by her robe, I tilt my head back toward Sabine. “Wildcat, you want me to lock them in the cellar and throw away the key?”
But there’s no answer behind me.
Sister Rose’s face changes. Her tight wrinkles sag, jowls loose as she stares behind me. The other women fall silent, too. One of them drops to her knees, hands clasped in supplication.
“Immortal Iyre, help us!”
Then, I see it. A reflection in the watery mirrors of Sister Rose’s eyes. It’s Sabine, still atop Myst, only she’s dropped her human appearance and now burns like cold, silver fire.
I let go of the nun, and she falls onto her knees with the others, immediately dropping her head in prayer.
“Please,” Sister Rose begs. “Please. Immortal Iyre, here our prayers?—”
“Iyre won’t save you,” Sabine snaps, her voice like flint striking stone. “Believe me, I know her. She’s not your savior. Still, it’s fitting you pray to her—because she’s every bit as cold and cruel-hearted as the lot of you. You want virtue? You wantgrace? Then you’ve chosen the wrong Immortal. Iyre doesn’t care who you are or how hard you pray. She taught me that herself.”
One of the women starts sobbing. The third scrambles to her feet and runs back into the Convent.
Sabine opens her palm, fey sparking, and pebbles from the wall loosen in a gust of wind, raining down on the other two women.
She warns, “You’d best run back inside, too.”
The women don’t hesitate. They push hastily to their feet, turn, and stumble over each other to scramble back into the safety of those stone walls.
Sabine throws open her arms, and a gust of wind throws open the enormous, heavy oak gates.
Her eyes are silver mirrors, pooled with her fey blood.
When the doors slam open, the Sisters inside shriek. Two of the three from outside run straight for the chapel, throwing themselves against the door, pounding on it with their fists.
“Matron! Matron, come at once!”
The third Sister falls to her knees in front of a stone statue of Immortal Iyre, choking on her own prayers as she garbles them out between kisses laid at the statue’s feet.
With a hiss, Sabine lifts her hand, and a vine bursts from the floor, knocking the woman backward, away from the statue.
The rest of the convent’s population—maybe a dozen red-robed women—are still at their work tasks, only now catching onto the disturbance. One leads a goat by a rope toward a pile of rotting vegetables. Another hauls a wooden wheelbarrow laden with a cider barrel.
The chapel door opens, and that old bitch, Matron White, strides out.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demands, only to drift to a stop when she sees Sabine in her full fae splendor, blazing as deadly and bright as a star fallen to earth.
“S—Sabine Darrow?” she stutters.
Her eyes flicker to me, but if she recognizes me, it’s dim in comparison to her shock.
The other Sisters wail and fall to their knees. The one with the apple cart cries out, “Sabine, forgive us! We did not know what you were!”
This causes the Matron to snap back to her senses with a deep scowl. “And what is that?” she sneers, her words directed at the Sister, but her eyes on Sabine.
