‘The Izir was at the gates. He was looking for Csilla. He implied that she tried to kill him.’
The staccato words sounded all the more ridiculous leaving his mouth. He’d once seen Csilla carrying a mouse in her skirts, protecting it from the cats, cats who took more of her dinner than she did with her worry over their care. Soul or no, she was a perfect reflection of steady Mercy.
Abe paled.
Ilan’s heartbeat quickened. He’d seen that look of guilt on hundreds of faces, and it didn’t belong here.
‘Thank you for telling me.’
Abe pushed away from his desk and reached for his knife. The blade gleamed in the light thrown by the stained glass behind them, the halo of Blessed Imre consecrating the metal in pale yellow and milk white.
His reply was far from a denial of the accusation.
‘Is there any truth to what the Izir was saying?’
Abe’s hand spread on the open letter as if performing benediction. ‘We have permission to root out evil in the city. It would solve one problem.’
‘By sending a girl to kill...’ He couldn’t even finish the sentence. There were already unholy deaths in the city. Adding a holy one to the body count didn’t seem helpful.
‘She clearly didn’t.’ The Prelate’s words dripped with blame. ‘Or perhaps there’s another explanation. We can be charitable.’
He didn’t sound like he intended to be. Ilan opened his mouth, but his words were stilled by Abe’s raised hand.
‘This was a direct order from the Incarnate, a way the girl’s flaw could be useful in protecting the Faith. Are you going to argue?’
‘Of course not.’ The answer left his mouth automatically. Asten spoke directly to the Incarnate. If Ilan found it unsettling, it was his own weakness, and one he’d do well to carve out at the first opportunity. ‘I only wish you’d told me. I’d have done it. I’ll still do it.’
He could set the whole thing to rights, taking up the holy charge where Csilla had failed if they’d trusted him. Old insecurities threatened to rise like sour bile. He would have succeeded. He would have enjoyed it. But by the Prelate’s face, he wasn’t going to be given a chance.
Abe smiled with clamped teeth.
‘He’ll be on alert now if he hasn’t already made plans to leave, and you’re far too well known around the city to get near him without notice. Killing him openly will just make him a martyr and rally his followers.’
He wasn’t going to leave. Not with his interest in Csilla. ‘But the Incarnate ordered...’
‘He’ll be here soon enough, and may holy inspiration lead him to a better way to manage it. But you can come and witness for us now.’
‘What, you’re going to kill her instead?’ He couldn’t picture Abe putting the blade to Csilla’s throat, the blood spray of a butchered lamb painting the pearl white of his robes.
The older man swallowed, hesitation in his eyes.
‘No, there’s been no order for that. But if she refuses to serve, she can’t stay, and we don’t want word of this... mess...reaching those already drawing away from us. We’ll take her tongue. Her hands, too, if you think she’d survive it.’
‘She wouldn’t.’
There was nothing righteous about mutilating a girl with no soul to save to cover a failure. But he wouldn’t stand against the Faith’s judgement; if they wanted him to punish her, he would. The fact that they hadn’t asked him to take on the task in the first place only showed he still had more to prove. Those sworn to the Faith were more than servants. They were tools, shaping the world into something Asten could love again. That was more important than any one life.
He wouldn’t think about how she shook tucked in front of him on Vihar, her small hands and their years of thankless work.
‘If that is Asten’s will, so be it.’
He’d borrow a little of her kindness and make the cuts as clean as possible.
7
Csilla
The slice-thunkof knife through onion was repetitive enough to be soothing and quick enough to distract. Kitchen preparations were hardly Csilla’s favourite duty, but today she was grateful. She could be alone, with only the cat twining around her feet waiting for her generosity, and any watering eyes could be blamed on the onion sting.
