I dig my fingernails into the top of my cane and tell myself I’m going to get up, request salve at the infirmary, and climb into bed. I tell myself that everything I’m experiencing is some strange, self-induced madness, or maybe a girlish nervousness about my upcoming wedding.
Is it still sin if I’ve lost my mind?
But then an unearthly sound slinks through the air—some kind of low-pitched war cry, the battle roar of a hero from the old illuminated manuscripts I love so much. I freeze, my face pressed against the grate, searching for the source of the noise.
One High Ecclesian comes down the aisle, an ornate brazier swinging from a studded chain in Their hands. Another Ecclesian processes in close behind, and then another, and another. They’re all clothed in those unusual, ruddy vestments, muttering something in a language I’ve never heard. Their voices move as one, almost song-like. Though I cannot understand the words, something about the pitch stirs dread in my stomach.
I watch as eight High Ecclesians process down the aisle. Each one bows before the altar and then approaches, arranging Themselves on the marble steps. Their eerie song continues, unrelenting, as the final two Ecclesians come into my line of vision through the grate. At first, I think the heavy brass chains wound around Their gauntleted hands are just more incense braziers. When I realize the truth, my stomach drops to the floor, the breath stolen from my chest.
It is the Lupa Nox at the end of those chains, dragged forward by her wrist bindings. She resists, baring her teeth around a strip of cloth They’ve used to gag her. I press my face against the grate until the metal bites into my skin. Behind the knight is a group of people, not Ecclesians—mortals, I assume, dressed in hooded robes. The one at the front raises a gloved hand and shoves the knight forward with a harsh blow between her shoulder blades. I wince, my chest tightening.
This is no Baptisma.
The Lupa Nox is brought to the wide expanse of gleaming marble just in front of the altar. Hooded figures take the chains from the Ecclesians, who join Their brethren on the steps. All ten of Them go utterly still, facing the pews as if to give a homilia. Their wretched song stops, all at once, leaving a bone-deep silence.
One of the hooded people delivers a kick to the back of the knight’s knees that sends her to the hard stone floor. The other cloaked figures spread out in two half-moons between the Lupa Nox and the pews.
Nausea stirs in my stomach, my skin hot and clammy as I watch. But this must be holy, mustn’t it? Thismustbe right—for the entirety of the High Ecclesia stands before me, a rare, sacred thing. They are the closest thing to God. They speak for Him because He is too grand and glorious to descend among His people. They are His right hand and most trusted counsel.
I try desperately to understand, my mind racing, but everything comes to a halt when one cloaked figure throws back their hood.
Renault.
Here, in the Devorarium at an ungodly bell, in the company of the High Ecclesia, is my betrothed. A gasp leaves my throat, and I clamp one hand over my mouth, though no one reacts. Their attention seems to be entirely on the Lupa Nox, who is on her knees, head lolling onto her chest. In the low, sputtering candlelight, I can see her dark locks—which I just washed the other day—are caked with blood, the sleeve of her blouse torn at the elbow.
That corpse-light pulses, raising all the hair on the back of my neck. I strain, peering through the grate, searching for its source. There, in the middle of the altar, the massive statue of the First Son in His sweeping robes, fabric kicked up by the Godwinds, His hands outspread, the chiseled features of His face open and earnest, is bathed in that sickly light. I raise my gaze slowly, my breath caught somewhere in my chest.
A single eye has opened on the statue’s chest. It is bloodshot and horrible, flashing in the dim light like an animal’s in the dead of night. Looking away requires every ounce of my will, every muscle in my body, a clammy sweat breaking out on my skin. But Icannotallow it to see me. I know that, deeply, intrinsically; I cannot be seen by anything in this room, but particularly not the eye opened like a wound in the chest of my savior.
Chants in that strange tongue rise in the air like gulls on the headwinds. Wrongness grips me again, an ancient dread unfolding in the pit of my stomach. Louder and louder they grow as each High Ecclesian joins in, and then the cloaked figures. Renault stands at the Lupa Nox’s back, his lips moving in unison with the others. She is utterly still—so still that I strain againstthe grate, trying to determine whether she is breathing, my healer’s instinct unfailing, but I’m too far away.
I have always been sensitive to Mysterium since I was a little thing. Not everyone feels it—the thrum and the pulse, the sensation of power woven through the air like threads in an embroidery. Here, in this Devorarium, during this godforsaken rite, I feel it more than I ever have before. It fills the massive space to the brim, and I wonder if the entire chamber may burst, Lumendei’s first miracle ripping open like rotten fruit in the summer sun.
The Mysterium rattles my bones, but I cling to the grate, watching as two High Ecclesians approach the Lupa Nox. She doesn’t raise her head, her chained hands limp, her body gone slack. In unison, They reach down to pull her to her feet.
In Their gauntleted hands, she is nothing, just a crumpled heap on the marble floor. And then, all at once, she is everything—moving faster than I can track, asserting her place as the most unearthly and utterly terrifying thing in this chamber.
Without a shred of hesitation, the Lupa Nox dives to the side of one Ecclesian, tucking into a tight turn to avoid the swipe of Their hand. Like a shadow, she slips past another’s clutches and climbs the altar’s steps, dragging her chains like a war banner behind her. There, she steadies herself, and I notice one of the Ecclesians’ massive bronze broadswords now resides in her lithe, long-fingered hands. Despite her bound wrists and heavy shackles, her grip on the pommel is unyielding. Defiantly, she reaches with one hand to tear away the strip of cloth gagging her.
For a moment, all is still. Even that terrible, weighted power lifts, like a fog burned away from the sun.
And then the High Ecclesia descends upon the knight like a swarm of locusts.
Chapter 22
Though I can do nothing, I still find myself flying to my feet, my entire body pressed against the heavy bronze grate. I crane my neck painfully, determined to keep my eyes locked on the Lupa Nox. When she bursts from the Ecclesia’s cloud of vestments, a strange wave of triumph surges through me.
The tip of her stolen broadsword cuts through the storm-gray cloth, and one Ecclesian shrieks—a horrible sound, all wretched and wrong. I cling to the grate, slipping my fingers through the slim openings and clutching the bronze metal as if that could help her, aid her somehow.
As the eye-wound in the chest of the First Son watches, the pupil tracking every movement, the High Ecclesia closes rank. The Lupa Nox, panting, steps on one of the chains attached to her shackled wrists at the same time that she lifts her hand. The chain snaps, metal pieces skittering across the marble. If They kept her ankle bindings, those are already gone—torn to shreds between the teeth of the black wolf.
I press my face against the grate until it hurts, trying to see if the hooded mortals will do anything, but they make no move, like they were already instructed not to interfere. Sicklycandlelight gleams off Their chainmail as the High Ecclesia wheels on the Lupa Nox. With a grin, she spits blood onto the gleaming marble floor and leaps to meet Them.
She is, like all those left in her wake say, an utter terror. The Lupa Nox tears through the High Ecclesia, her broadsword’s shimmering arcs so quick that they look more like bursts of bronze light to me than anything else. She might win, I realize—she might triumph.
But then some of the hooded mortals break off from the half-moon, running to the Devorarium doors. Some are already calling for the Holy Guard, working together to open the heavy iron latches at the doors. Panic shudders through me, and I turn back to the Lupa Nox.
Parrying a blow from an Ecclesian with her sword, the knight flings her other hand outward. The chain still attached to her shackle whips out, snake-like, and curls around the neck of an Ecclesian. With a snarl that echoes through the sacred space, the Lupa Nox pulls. She ducks beneath the strike of another Ecclesian, impossibly graceful, and pulls the tall, narrow figure toward her.
