When she opened her eyes, Ilan was on his knees before her, eyes alight with reverence.
‘Csilla.’
He breathed her name like a prayer and looked near to kissing her hands. She did have a second miracle to her name now. But not the most important one.
The seal was still dark. She’d extinguished one creature of Shadow, but there would be dozens more, finding hosts, andnone of the priests would be able to seal them again, much less banish them.
Csilla knelt in the dirt, willing the magic back. Fierce power rolled inside her, but nothing manifested. Arany’s remaining blood was ordinary loam.
You had me fix one life.They’d used her to bring Madame Varga back, out of everything broken. Why was that the one thing They fixed? Not Ágnes, who could have lived another twenty years doing good in the world. Not this, the remains of Arany’s rebellion that had ensured people still had a chance to save themselves.
She slammed her hands on the ground, wincing at the helpless smack. She was going to be just a conduit for the divine will.
Everything but that blood in the dirt is a lie.The words echoed and hit home.
There was still something there. Everyone who had taken vows in the Union had lent a drop of Brilliance in their blood, save her. Now it was her turn to do it properly.
If she were to be a conduit, she would be a conduit for them all. If Arany could bleed and weep, so could she. She picked up the dropped knife.
‘Csilla, what are you doing?’ Ilan asked as she slipped off Ágnes’s robes. There was no need for them to be stained with the rest of her. She folded them, and held the knife to her breast.
If Asten wanted to stop this, They could. Inside there was only endless quiet. She was being watched, not helped.
Was Tamas right? Do You truly want us to suffer?
Butwantseemed a distant and far too human concept. There was something alien in the quiet that answered her.
‘Csilla, stop. The Church isn’t worth this. We’ll find another way,’ Ilan said, but Csilla shook her head, everything in her far too old and heavy.
‘This isn’t for the Church.’ This was to give the people hope that a power beyond them still paid attention and cared, and to save them from immediate threat. To give her hope that all of this wouldn’t end in a second Severing, one even more disastrous than the last.
Mihály crouched next to her, his hand closing over hers on the blade. For a second her heart skipped, wondering if he was going to push it in.
‘Don’t,’ he said, eyes filled with a measure of the sweet affection she used to see when he would pretend she was what he wanted. Her fingers loosened on the hilt, and he pried it from her sweating hands.
Then he placed it against his own neck. ‘If a divine sacrifice must be made, let it be my legacy.’ His eyes were bright now, traces of the medicinal haze faded. He was beautifully, terribly awake.
‘No!’ Csilla reached for him again. Mihály’s sins were born from love and grief; he didn’t deserve death for them. ‘No.’
Her voice could barely rise above a whisper, and she forced a smile, though the stretch of her cheek was agony. ‘You can still leave. Go somewhere far away, and do good. This must be what I was born for.’
She’d always quietly hoped her strange life would have purpose. If this was the purpose, she would accept it.
He shook his head, calm and resigned. ‘You have to let others burn sometimes. You’re too important to die. You can’t help anyone if you’re throwing yourself on every blade offered to you. And you’re not the kind of girl to take an easy out.’
He was using the same smooth voice he did to persuade her of other things, so calm and soothing it seemed the most natural thing in the world. She still hadn’t developed perfect immunity to it. She shifted to look at Ilan, standing above them as if in looming benediction.
‘Ilan, tell him not to do this,’ she said, as if that would do any good. But Ilan only shook his head, his lips moving in a silent no. She swallowed a growing lump in her throat and turned back to Mihály. ‘And what if it doesn’t work? You’ve told me all along you’re no real angel.’
‘Divinity freely sacrificed will always be a powerful thing.’ He reached out to cup her cheek, where their touch glowed and her open scrapes knit back together. ‘This started with me. Let me end it.’
Ilan held out his hand to Mihály. ‘Give me the knife. If you shake while you do it you’ll make it worse on yourself.’
Mihály lifted his chin, pressing the knife more firmly against the skin. But not enough to cut, yet. He was trembling, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
It had to be done. But she couldn’t let him do it to himself. Csilla put her hand over the handle again, shifting his fingers from it. ‘No. If someone is going to die for me, I’ll be the one to do it. Because he’s right.’ She was nauseous and her heart might fail itself, but she had to. Ilan’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t protest.
And still the power in her didn’t speak, didn’t stir.
