We hold each other’s gazes, our breathing short and tight. My mind tumbles, a thousand feelings sinking their teeth into my soft places. A distant shout draws my attention. Pinpricks race across my skin.
“I will return you to your bondage if you demand it,” Nyatrix says, straightening, the angles of her face hard, feral.
Another voice rings through the stone chambers, closer now, louder, undeniably accented with Lumendei’s lilt.
“Considering all that has happened,” I say, my tongue thick in my mouth, each word a tiny battle, “I fear the High Ecclesia would see me burned.”
For a long, stretched moment, the Lupa Nox holds my gaze, motionless. She bears down on me with all the intensity of a hurricane roaring in from the ocean. I am little more than a tender sapling bough, snapped in her wake. When she seizes me,I flinch, bracing myself for pain, but Nyatrix gathers me up with a longing sort of tenderness. I reach over toward the wall and grab my cane.
“Doexactlyas I say unless you want to burn,” she tells me.
I nod my consent, though I realize the movement is only barely visible given the low light. She settles me into her arms, holding me close to her chest, and stalks to the edge of the pool. She grabs the wool lengths we cut from my skirts and drapes us both in them. My hands shake as I help her arrange the fabric into hoods and long strips to cover our mouths.
And then Nyatrix leans toward one of the rocky outcroppings and extinguishes the few candles we left lit, plunging us into darkness. The same kind of darkness, maybe, of that little hiding hole my mother made for me in our cottage. Before the Sepulchyre fell upon us, slaughtering everyone I’d ever known but, for some godforsaken reason, leaving me alive. Just me.
And now I’ve chosen the arms of the Sepulchyre, the very fate my mother fought so hard to avoid. Was Nyatrix one of the warriors who descended on my village and took my people between her teeth? I close my eyes against the thought and turn my head into her chest, breathing in the scent of asphodels. The other dream of my mother I so often have—on those sun-warmed stone steps, stripping the petals from the plant—dances around the edges of my mind.
I expect Nyatrix to creep through the chamber, to flatten herself against one of the corridor walls. She does none of those things. I watch her reach for the stolen sword at her waist, but she does not draw it. Her fingers just brush the pommel, making me ache in ways I should not permit. And then she stalks forward, soundless despite the weight of her muscle and the power in her strides.
Nyatrix must know these tunnels. She slips through them like a shadow, a wolf hunting at dusk. More than once I hearthe clang of armor and footfalls just around the corner, but she always finds another corridor and disappears into the darkness.
“Here!” comes a shout.
Ice floods my veins, my entire body gone still in her arms, until I realize the voice isn’t upon us. No swords at our throats, no High Ecclesian shrieks.
“They’ve found the springs chamber,” Nyatrix whispers to me, flattening us against a wall. She holds me as if I weigh nothing, as if I have never been a burden to anyone at all. “There’s more than I thought. More than they usually send.”
Even though I’m sightless in the dark tunnels, I can feel her eyes fall upon me. Is she wondering why the Host has sent more knights than usual? Is she wondering if it’s because of her or because of me? I’m wondering much the same, if I’m honest.
“Ophelia,” she says, barely more than an exhalation. “We need to go aboveground.”
My mind swims. Her words are heavy, weighted with meaning, and I do not understand. Were we not aboveground earlier, trekking across the blackened sand for what felt like a hundred bells?
“Night has fallen,” she adds, sensing my confusion. “The Hexen are awake. The Godwinds sing their Nocturnes.”
Fear rushes through me in a great tide. “We’lldie,” I say, clutching at the fabric of her blouse, my heart ricocheting against my ribs. Throughout my life, I have watched entire regiments of the Holy Guard venture into the nighttime sweep of the Sundered Lands, never to return.
The Lupa Nox laughs softly in reply. “Worry not,” she murmurs, her breath ghosting my hair, as if she’s bent her head over mine. “You are already in Death’s arms, are you not? Besides, either we go aboveground, or I slaughter every man in these tunnels. Admittedly I have a preference, but I do not think you would approve.”
Some kind of sinful thrill simmers low in my belly at the idea of the Lupa Nox seekingmyapproval. But then she pushes off the wall, sending us hurtling back into the darkness. I can’t see my own hand in front of my face, and yet the knight slips through the shadow as if she’s made of the same substance. For a moment, she slinks past a large, open corridor, and I catch sight of the Host.
Terror slides down my throat, burning caustic and sour. At least twenty knights are arranged in the chamber, lanterns held aloft, the hum of Mysterium unmistakable. Light glints off their bronze chainmail, the sharp lengths of their broadswords. I notice with a start that the Host Knights’ armor and weaponry are not affected—not the way the Holy Guard’s was when Nyatrix wrenched the sword free.
“Why did everything change when you pulled the blade?” I ask as she moves soundlessly past the chamber. I know I shouldn’t risk speaking, but the sight of the Host Knights in all the glory I know so well drags the words from my parched, unsteady mouth.
“I don’t know,” Nyatrix answers in a low tone, her voice flat. “I fear there is a lot I do not understand. An illusion, probably, don’t you think?” She pauses, and I imagine she is brushing her fingers along the heavily carved pommel. “This sword is powerful. That’s all I know.”
Yet it does not hum with Mysterium, not that palpable whine I’ve always heard, tinny and undeniable, whenever I’m around someone working the Mysteries or a Blessed object. Then it must be goetia, must it not? The power that courses through that blade must be evil.
Or perhaps it is simply something I do not understand. I swallow hard, my throat aching. What does someone like me even trulyknowof the world? Down in the darkness of the ruinsbeneath the Sundered Land, I am so, so terribly afraid that I understand nothing at all.
I feel Nyatrix’s body tilt, like she’s climbing a hill. We take a tight turn, and then, up ahead, I spot an archway gilded in moonlight. Beyond it, the slopes of the Sundered Lands roll out like a great beast, jaws unhinged.
“Have you crossed at night before?” I ask as she pauses in the archway. I look up at her, the sharp jaw silvered, her eyes little more than blackened hollows.
“No,” she admits, meeting my gaze, a muscle in her jaw feathering. “But I’ve also never crossed with an enchanted sword I stole from the Host’s vaults. So we might live.”
I clutch at her, fingers scrabbling at the linen blouse on her powerful shoulder. Beneath the thin fabric, I feel the powerful curve of her muscles, and my stomach tightens. “Might?” I demand.
