“Truly? I was not aware she was in any distress.” The knight peers at me through his chainmail-skirted helm.
Panic rolls through me like a stormfront, and the room pitches again. I slam all of my weight onto my cane and my bad leg, swallowing down the bile creeping up my throat.
“Yes,” I assure him, taking a painful step toward the gate, hoping he relents—I am here by the High Ecclesia’s order, after all.
The knight hesitates but then nods and unlocks the gate, holding it open for me. I fight to move as normally as I can, Mysterium humming as I pass over the threshold. I hear thegate lock behind me, the pitch of the Mysterium changing as the Blessing is closed, and let out a short sigh of relief.
Only the candle sconces in the Sepulchyre knight’s chambers are lit. I navigate the slightly uneven dirt floor by the low, sputtering glow. Just as I’d hoped, the stool and healer’s kit are tucked against the earthen wall, far out of reach of the Lupa Nox.
She’s curled up on her pallet in the far corner, her back facing me, though I can see the shackles encircling her ankles. Her feet are bare, soles caked with dirt, body curled up tight like a fern at the beginning of spring. It makes her look smaller than I know her to be. For a moment, my eyes trace the line of her hip before I shove the pain-induced delirium aside.
I drag myself toward the healer’s kit. But before I reach for it, I hazard a glance over my shoulder, even though it pulls at my wounded skin. Stifling a cry, I note that no guardsmen have joined me inside the cell, just as the knight warned. All I can think about is ending this pain—so the thought of being alone with the wolf-woman does not terrify me as it should.
Besides, I can see that she still sleeps, the pulls of her breath long and even. Tears cloud my eyes as I begin to search the pockets of the healer’s kit, my fingers frantic and shaking. I find the collection of salves and frantically eye the labels. A bolt of euphoria shoots through me as I find my quarry: chamomile and marshmallow in cattail jelly, charged with a healing Blessing. Exactly the salve I had gone to Physica Hall for.
I do not even hazard a glance at the woman sleeping on the straw pallet, nor at the gold-helmed knight on the other side of the gate. Instead, I collapse onto the stool, salve clutched in my desperate hand. Trembling, I set my weight onto my good leg, tuck my cane between my knees, and begin to undo the laces of my work dress. For a moment, shame creeps through me—what if the guard sees my back clad in naught but linen, or what if the Lupa Nox herself watches me partially undress?
But the pain drives me forward, rash and senseless. My entire body shakes, nausea tightening around my stomach. As I dig my fingers into the salve, I realize I’ve nearly soaked through my dress with sweat. I peel the fabric away with one hand and bite down on my tongue, knowing how much twisting at the waist and raising my arm to apply the salve will hurt.
A sudden rustle—impossibly loud in the early morning quiet—interrupts me. Sharp, anxious pinpricks of heat shoot through my body, colliding with the pain. I snap my head up, my cane slipping out of my clammy fingers and clattering to the floor, searching for the long, elegant body curled up on the straw.
The Lupa Nox is no longer on her pallet. She stands instead. Her deep, sleeping inhales are short and furious now, a darkness on her face that I cannot describe. Despite the ankle restraints that hobble her, connected to wrist shackles with a short metal bar to further limit her movements, she is as terrifying as ever. Those thunderstorm eyes rake across my hands, the tin of salve, my open dress, the flail’s marks. She bares her teeth, her namesake all the more real, straining against the chains that bind her.
“Who,” the Lupa Nox growls, “did this to you?”
Chapter 17
My balance wavers, and I clutch at the stool, nearly losing my grip on the salve tin. Behind my breastbone, my heart careens wildly, heedless as a spooked equus. The Lupa Nox pins me with the weight of her dark gaze as surely as if she has driven daggers into my hems and sleeves. Catechisma verses float into my head but cannot take root; everything in me that should’ve been fertile soil for my God to plant His seed is instead a vast and endless ocean with no land in sight.
“I’m sorry,” the knight says, the intensity in her features waning, the eye in a storm. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I am angry that someone did this to you. I’m not angry atyou.”
Even the soft-boned corset of my work dress is too tight for my heaving gasps of damp, blood-tinged air as I try to understand.
“Easy,” the knight murmurs, raising one long-fingered hand as far as her shackles will allow her. “Easy, little dove.”
Her voice wraps around me like a warm woolen on a cold winter day—entirely too familiar, entirely too comfortable. I grit my teeth and steel myself. “You just startled me. I thought you were asleep,” I manage, not as convincingly as I’d hoped. Ipull my bodice back up around my shoulders, though I’m too unbalanced to begin closing the laces.
“Who?” the knight repeats, gesturing to my back with a clink of her chains. Her voice stays soft as down, eyes searching me in a way I’ve never experienced before. She is seeking, yes, but not prying, not forcing.
“I did,” I say after too many moments tick by, the words strangled. “Can’t you tell? Purifying blows dealt by one’s own hand look far different from other injuries. Or are you too well-versed in meaningless violence to recognize godly suffering when you see it?”
My tone is sharper than I intended; in fact, I hardly intended any of those words to come out. By the time I manage to still my tongue, the Lupa Nox has gone pale. A strange thing to watch, the pallor spreading across her rich skin. Her eyes widen, too, her lips parting.
“You?” she demands, her beautiful face ghosted with a faint green. “You did that to yourself? For fuck’s sake,why?”
Her reaction conjures a wild flash of gratification from deep within me, but then I’m speaking, thoughtless, rote. “That is between myself, my God, and my betrothed,” I retort, still fumbling for balance, attempting to drag my cane closer with the heel of my good leg.
Understanding seems to dawn on the knight’s face; surely they have such customs within the Sepulchyre. Or perhaps they think spilling the blood of others is the only way to purify themselves in the eyes of their Creatrixes.
“That is horrific,” she says in a hoarse whisper, still wide-eyed, her gaze never leaving mine.
I swallow hard, trying to clear my mind. Her compassion is false; she is playing me as surely as we are attempting to play her. I’ve almost steadied myself when she speaks again.
“Do you need help?” the Lupa Nox asks, the low, slinking tone of her voice undoing me again. “With the salve, I mean.”
Temptation arches through me, needing and throbbing. “Do not be absurd,” I say, finally dragging my cane closer. I slide the salve tin into my pocket and then lean one palm on the seat of the stool, stretching down to retrieve my cane. Sweat breaks out all over my body, nausea rearing in my stomach as black spots crawl across my vision. With a strangled scream, I manage to pull myself upright, my right hand curled around the top of my cane. I feel feverish and raw, the pain of such a simple movement reducing me to nothing.
I cannot flee from the Lupa Nox’s cell for a second time any more than I can be found half-mad and sweat-drenched, my bodice undone, on the floor at her feet. So I run my gaze along her restraints, noting the hobbles at her ankles and short lengths of chain by her hands that should prevent her from strangling me.
