“But you have to burn your dead as well,” I said.
Their eyes flicked to me. “That is the law, yes.”
Which wasn’t really a confirmation.
“The Temple also demands tithes for the burnings,” said the Priest. “Only Temple officials can perform them.”
“Why?”
“They claim the One-Eyed God presides over the proceedings, keeping the Plague at bay. Of course, this proves very profitable for them,” they said evenly.
The Priest stopped suddenly, stooping to lay their palm flat against the dusty ground.
“You may not know this,” they said, “but we follow the paths of the old Corpse Roads in our wanderings. They connect every holy place and every city in Virelith. We follow them on the surface now as people used to walk them in the time before the Plague—to honor the forgotten dead.”
I thought of Mother and hoped that I was not unwittingly walking in her funeral procession. She had to be alive somewhere, surely? We had been so entangled, just the two of us, for so long—surely I would know in my heart if she were truly gone?
We made our way to Quell stride by stride … or inch by inch, it felt like, at the Followers’ placid pace. In all the stories of maidens and knights that Mother had told me, I had never heard more than the most minor details about the actual journeying part of their adventures, getting from one place to another. I was not prepared for the sheer amount of walking. The tedium.
I suppose it wouldn’t make for much of a story, hearing how the heroine’s feet felt like they were about to burst from blisters, or how her stomach growled enough to raise the dead from the Corpse Roads underfoot, nor how—in one memorable instance—the heroine squatted to urinate behind a shrub and realized too late that she had chosen a patch of stinging nettles, to the Followers’ great amusement.
They certainly didn’t comment on how dirty you felt after a day of walking, or on that particular sour-milk smell when you haven’t washed your skin or changed clothes. I longed for a bath, but I had to make do with washing myself in the little streams and creeks we passed—as quickly as possible, teeth chattering, before the chill set in. I used my blanket as a makeshift towel, which meant it was still damp come nightfall, and all in all, I reflected that I could have done a much better job of packing my bag for the journey. My Hair, fortunately, had some quality to its magic that kept it clean and untangled no matter what the rest of me looked like.
Although it probably hadn’t been the wisest decision to bring all my silks and embroidery when I could have used the space in my pack for more practical things, I didn’t regret it. I would have gone mad if I hadn’t been able to sit before the fire at night and work at my stitches, letting my mind dissolve into color and pattern rather than worrying at the gap in my memory that felt as dark and teasing as a missing tooth.
Baldbeak liked to sit on my shoulder and hold spools ofthread for me, which fascinated the Followers. I felt them watching me with interest as I worked, but only one came to sit beside me: one who appeared to be a young woman about my own age (although of course the Followers used no signifiers of gender, so I had to think of her asthey), with curling dark hair and long lashes.
“You’re very talented,” they said after watching for a little while. “How long have you been sewing?”
“A while,” I said.
I had been desperate for ways to occupy my time in the Tower, and on one particularly dreary day, I dug out Mother’s old sewing box to try my stitching skills on something other than spellbooks. Mother didn’t concern herself with such frivolous things as appearance, but I found that something in me yearned for color and beauty—to bring the vividness I saw out in the meadow into our dour Tower and colorless, well-worn clothing.
Mother endured my attempts to “prettify” (as she called it) our napkins and tablecloths, but it was hard going with her old sewing things. One night, after ruining a beautiful piece of silk with needles blunt as my own fingers, I begged and pleaded with her for a set of proper embroidery needles. Surely she could write to one of her contacts in the cities and have the pigeons bring us some? Mother listened, but shook her head.
“We have needles already, my dear.”
“But they’re old, and blunt. And they wouldn’t be expensive!”
Surely a packet of embroidery needles, so small and light, couldn’t cost more than the thick bronze needles for the manuscript binding.
“Please, Mother.”
She leaned back in her chair and rubbed at her tired eyes, a tic of irritation at the corner of her mouth. I felt a swell of shame. My new interest was frivolous, compared to Mother’s great work—whatever it was. So I held my tongue and bided my time until Baldbeak came knocking at the casementwindow again in the morning, when Mother was occupied with her work in the upper room and would not see him.
We had progressed greatly in our understanding of each other, Baldbeak and I, but communicating the concept of a needle to him proved difficult at first.
“Pointy stick?” I tried. “Metal?”
He sent me the image of a sword. With relish. I got the impression that he would rather like bringing me a sword.
“No! Smaller.” I spread my thumb and forefinger an inch apart.
Tiny sword? For why?
I brought my tortured silk handkerchief to the window and showed him the too-large puncture marks, then showed him the thick needle we used for bookbinding. He cocked his head and looked from it to me and back again.
“Like this,” I said, “but thin.”
