It was what she’d been waiting for.
The other orphans used to make a game of telling her there was a family who’d asked for her, and would help her comb her hair and offer her clean handkerchiefs, then laugh as she sat outside on the steps for hours. They’d bet sweets and chores on how long she’d wait, but even after she’d caught on, Csilla still went. There was always a chance that the next time they’d be telling the truth, and hope was stronger than the potential for humiliation.
Standing before the Prelate felt exactly the same.
‘Csilla,’ he greeted, inclining his head. His grey hair was clipped short, thinning to bald at the crown. ‘Ágnes has you ready for your role, I see. It suits you.’
‘Prelate.’ She dipped low in response, her voice barely audible, the rest of her silently begging him to say why she was there and assure her thrumming heart that this wasn’t another jest.
He wasn’t wrong, though. The dove-grey wool, with its slaughter-red lining peeking out at her wrists and throat, did suit her. She might not have a soul, but she’d served the city too long for it not to live in that empty place inside her, moulding her to minister to its needs. Now anyone who saw her would think her a member of a mercy crew and know she was living shelter for their pain.
‘I remember when they found you,’ Abe said, and she tilted her head at the fresh wistfulness in his tone. Ordinarily it would please her, but at the moment it was a torture worse than anything the inquisitor could produce. Every second of uncertainty was a misery. ‘At Arany’s feet, in the snow. A baby who no one quite knew what to make of.’
Csilla shivered, as if the frost on her skin had lingered. She’d heard the story so many times it was practically a memory. A baby near-dead from cold at the statue’s base, scalp weeping blood through crusting scabs and speckled with Arany’s miraculous gold. A baby who left her baptism water cold and clear, whose touch never sparked the smallest reaction in anything from a consecrated threshold to a relic. No one had ever heard of anything like her, not evil, not good.
‘And I thank you for your mercy in taking me in, Prelate.’
They could have done a hundred things with her – sent her to a farming family in need of extra hands, sent her to the ever-burning garden in the great northern forest of Wesp, said to be where creation broke and brought forth Shadow. They could have simply given her a large dose of tonic and rocked her over the veil with lullabies. But they let her live. Every thudding beat in her chest was a reminder that no matter how confusing her existence was, mercy had won.
The thousand flat eyes of the angels watched them from the stuccoed wall, flaking old paint like paper tears. Their golds and whites had dulled to a dead, smoky brown, expressions lost to time; had she not long ago memorised the eight-pointed star of their compass of virtues, she wouldn’t have even been able to tell Arany from Lajol.
The Prelate beckoned her further into the chamber, light lost with each step.
Beckoned her to the Seal.
It was nothing like she’d pictured. It was said to sparkle like the endless dazzle of winter stars over Silgard. It was said to glow like the eyes of the angels, ever watchful over the humanity they loved.
What lay on the ground was a dim, foggy etching with charcoal flecks darkening what light still shone. She squinted, her eyes adjusting to see the lines that had been carved down in thisdeepest floor, the compass of angels and a circle embracing the whole. Little touches of light, each no bigger than a mote of dust, resembled the glowing sparks thrown off a tended hearth.
It was beautiful, but it wasn’t what she’d had described to her, and not what the texts and prayers spoke of. The books told of how Arany created the Seal on her deathbed, linking each of the territories of the Union to Silgard with her own blood and divinity. There should have been millions of lights, one for each soul in the Union, incandescent and gathered at the point of their home. But parts of the Seal had only the barest scattering of glow. Tarnished gold flickered across the darkened points like the frantic heart of a dying bird.
Her mouth went dry. She’d studied too long, done too much mercy work, not to recognise wasting when she saw it. And though it wasn’t logical, as she watched the twisting sparks struggle to light what was shadowed, only to fade again, all she could think was:pain.
Abe moved behind her, fingers curling into her shoulders. ‘The Church has found a use for you, Csilla. If you still wish to serve.’
‘Has it always looked like that?’
The question was rude, she should stay silent and obedient, but perhaps she was wrong. Maybe this was what it was meant to look like, and it was only childish imagination that had made it more than it was in her mind.
The Prelate sighed, a sound that echoed from deep in his chest.
‘No, child. No.’
She barely heard with the horror before her. If the Seal was dying, the power of the Church was, too.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ This couldn’t be everything.
The Prelate ignored her, hands still caged around her. ‘Do you know the Izir who has graced our city of late? Nemes Mihály?’
She nodded, head ringing with the echo of Elmere’s delighted ramblings about the healer.
‘Do you want me to bring him here?’ She did not mention her own silent, stumbling prayers to the Izir. Perhaps they thought he could heal whatever this was.
Abe cleared his throat, the words caught and gargling.
‘Izir Mihály has been preaching heresy.’
‘What?’
