Apple slowed as she approached the first trees. She had been careless before: her haste had delivered her into the hands of men she could have stepped around unnoticed if she had kept her focus. She moved between two elms and the shadows flowed around her, raised with both hands. Shade-work had always come easy to her. Darkness pooled in her palms. When the shadows answered her will it felt as if she had remembered some name that had long escaped her, or recognized the solution to a puzzle, a sort of mental relief, joy almost. Other shadow-magic had been worked within the woods. The empty spaces shivered with the echoes of it. Kettles cry lay there, sharp and deep, but other traces too, the sour workings of Noi-Guin. Apple had tasted their like before, back at Sweet Mercy on the night Thuran Tacsis had sent two of them to kill Nona. Quite how they had failed in that task was beyond her.
Apple wrapped herself in darkness and sought the patience of the Grey Sister. Mistress Path had taught her the mantras twenty years ago and Apple had made them part of her own foundation, woven through her core. Today though, with Kettles distress throbbing through the shadow, patience came hard.
The undergrowth scratched and tore and rustled with each step Apple took. She felt as raw as any novice, her woodcraft rusty with disuse, certain that her advance would be heard by any foe within a thousand yards. Bait the trap. A tactic as old as killing. Leave a comrade, a friend, a lover wounded, then wait and watch. A Noi-Guin could be resting among the branches of any tree, crossbow ready, bolt envenomed.
Kettle wouldnt have called me if that were true. Apple advanced, leaving patience behind her but bringing the shadows.
All that drew her eyes to Kettle was the bond between them. The nun lay at the base of a great frost-oak, the length of her body fitting around the rise and fall of roots. Leaves and mud covered her range-coat, her headdress gone, the spread of raven hair showing the paleness of her face only in thin slices. She lay sprawled like a dead thing, a part of the forest floor, a work of camouflage of which any Grey Sister would be proud.
Kettle! Apple came to her side, the fear of an assassins bow crushed beneath the certainty that Kettle lay dead and that no purpose remained to her in the world. She took Kettles muddy fingers in her own, shocked by the coldness of them. Kettle its me. She choked on the words, overwhelmed, while her other hand, still calm, sought the nuns pulse with practised ease. Nothing. No not nothing, a whisper.
Apple reached to pull Kettle to her, to lift her from the cold ground, but saw the hilt of the knife, jutting from her side just above the hip. She touched a finger to the pommel, an iron ball. Leather binding wound the grip. She recognized the dagger. Kettle had shown one like it to her after it was confiscated from Nona. Noi-Guin for certain then. The one that got away. Apple eased her lover onto her lap and sat for a moment, hugging her, eyes squeezed tight against the tears. Seconds later she drew a deep shuddering breath and strove for calm.
Think.
Apple set Kettle back upon the ground and stripped her own range-coat to lie her on. With Kettle arranged on the coat she examined her for other injuries, checking the colour of her skin, lifting an eyelid, listening to her breath, watching the speed with which circulation returned to her extremities when pinched. She took a thin leather tube from the collection within her habit and broke the seal. Already the cold was making her shiver. She tipped the liquid into Kettles mouth, sat back, and watched. The knife was the only wound. It must have been coated with blade-venom but there were no strong indications to narrow down the type.
For the longest minute in Apples life nothing happened. All about her the trees groaned against the wind, their leaves seething. Then Kettle twitched, spluttered and started to choke. Apple seized her head. Easy! Just breathe.
W-where? Any further question became lost in coughing and choking. One hand clutched at the range-coat just above the knife. Hurts.
I told you to breathe, idiot.
A-Appy? Kettle rolled her head to see, eyes squinting as if the light were too bright. Her skin was bone-white, lips almost blue. Sister. The faintest smile.
Ive given you adrene, it wont last long. Tell me what youve taken. Quick!
Nona. She made me call. Kettle slurred the words, staring past Apple at the leaves, black against a white sky. Gone now.
Apple shook her. What did you take? Its important!
B Kettle blinked, trying to focus. Black cure. Her breath came shallow and fast. And kalewort.
Kalewort?
I was cold. Thought it might be nightweed on
Who puts nightweed in blade-venom? Apple shook her head. Wheres the assassin?
Gone. Kettles eyes closed and her head flopped back.
Apple bit her lip. The black cure should have had more effect whatever the Noi-Guin had used. She tasted blood and frowned. Her mind lay blank. Nothing in her great store of lore suggested a cause or cure.
Despair closed about Apple. Her lips moved, reciting venoms, none of which fitted the symptoms. Tendrils of shadow caught around Kettle, moving across her in wisps. Apple stared, her brow furrowed, mind racing. On the white inch of wrist exposed before Kettles range-coat swallowed her arm, a line of shadow followed the path of the largest vein.
No? Apple motioned the shadows around her forward and like a dark sea they washed over Kettle. As they drew back traces of shadow remained, held by her veins as a lodestone will hold powdered iron, revealing the invisible lines of its influence. Yes!
She grabbed Kettles face in both hands. Wake up! Kettle, wake up! Kettle lay, as boneless as the Durns in the road. Apple slapped her. Wake up! It was dark-venom.
Im dead then. Kettle rolled her eyes open. Im so sorry. A glistening tear pooled in the corner of her eye. She lifted a hand, as if it were the heaviest thing in the world, to Apples cheek. Youre bleeding.
Apple took the fingers and kissed them. You are my blood.
The darkness began to thicken around them, shadows streaming towards Apple, clotting about her.
What are you doing? The smoothness of Kettles brow furrowed and her hand dropped back to her side.
Saving you, Apple said. The effort of drawing so much shadow so fast tightened her voice. She felt a coldness in her bones, an ache behind her eyes.
H-how? Kettle sought her eyes. Theres no way.
There is a way. Apple saw Kettle only because the darkness ran so deep in her. Night enfolded them both now, a fist of darkness within the depths of a forest grown lighter as its shadows were stolen. I have to push you into shadow.
No. Kettle managed to shake her head. The Ancestor
I have to. Its the only way. Apple gathered the darkness around her hands until even to her night-born sight they were holes cut in the shape of her body, without depth or contrast. The Noi-Guin pushed the best of their killers into the shadow, as far as their minds could bear it. It broke some of them. Others were lost in the dark places behind the world. But the price Kettle feared to pay was her soul. The Church taught that those who walked too far into the shadow would never join the Ancestor in unity.
Dont. Kettle lacked the strength to raise her hand again. Sister Wheel says the Ancestor
Fuck Wheel, and fuck the Ancestor. Apple set one hand to Kettles chest, kneeling above her, ready to push. She took the hilt of the knife in her other hand. Youre mine and I wont lose you. She bent her head and tears fell. Let me do it. Her mouth twitched and the words came out broken. Please.
Poisoner. Kettle found the strength to raise a hand, running white fingers into the flame of Apples hair. She held her a moment. Poison me.
And with a cry Apple pressed down with one black palm, all her strength behind it, and with the other drew the assassins knife from the wound, pulling with the steel and blood an inky venom born of the darkness that dwells between stars.
2
Two Years Later
Have you come for the laundry? The tall girl, a willowy blonde with a narrow beauty to her, stood away from her bed and bent to pull the linens from it. A titter ran among the other novices getting undressed around the room. Mystic Class had the whole of the dormitorys second floor and the beds were well spaced around the walls, with desks between them.
Nona had been warned about Joeli Namsis. Her family held lands to the west and kept a close alliance with Thuran Tacsis. Yes, she said, and stepped forward quickly, taking the bundled sheets with hunska swiftness. She returned to the doorway and threw the bedding down the stairs. Across the skin of her back Keot trembled with laughter.
Now, which bed is mine? Or must I take one? Nona looked around at their faces, a dozen of them, variously astonished or horrified, a couple even amused. Of all the novices from Nonas time in Red Class she was the first to join Mystic. Three of the girls from her time in Grey Class had reached Mystic ahead of her: Mally, a hunska prime who had been head girl, had a bed close to the door; Alata watched her, dark-eyed, from the far side of the room, the ritual patterning of her scars a black web across arms and cheeks; and Darla who had joined the week before, grinning beneath the brown mop of her hair, the hugeness of her contriving to make the larger Mystic beds look small.
Well that was a mistake, peasant. Joeli came to stand before Nona.
Mistakes are how we learn. Nona looked expectantly past Joelis shoulder towards an empty bed.
Perhaps I should teach you another lesson. Joeli raised a hand, fingers spread. A white haze of lines filled Nonas Path-sight. Some said Joeli was the best thread-worker in the convent, and since Hessas death Nona supposed it could be true. Using any kind of Path-power outside a lesson, however, was a sure-fire way to get your back shredded with a wire-willow cane, no matter which family name you bore.
Nona looked up, meeting the green slits of Joelis stare, and spoke with all the sincerity she could muster. I love you as a sister, and when we die we will be together in the Ancestor, our bloods mixed. A warmth spread across her back as Keot sank into her flesh. A moment later he had wrapped himself around her tongue. But I must warn you, sister, that a sickness runs in me, and if you fashion yourself my enemy I will make a ruin of your life, for I am born of war.
Joeli stared at Nona, eyes widening as if recognizing a promise rather than a threat. Then laughter burst from her in a clean, controlled peal, confidence pushing aside sensible fear. What dramatics! I am born of war. Joeli mimicked Keots words accented heavily towards the peasants dialect. You were born of a mud hut in the wilds. She glanced at her friends. What a strange creature this novice is. I can see why Sister Hearth was keen to get her out of her class. She turned away.
Nona resisted the urge as Keot tried to make her arm rise to seize the girls neck. Instead she turned towards an empty bed with a snarl, angry at the lapse of concentration that had let Keot speak for her.
I will make a ruin of your life, Keot?
You should let me. That bitch means trouble for you.
Nona sat on the bed she had chosen, one of a pair too neat to belong to anyone. She pushed her small bag of possessions under the desk, spare clothes mainly. Joeli was already in animated conversation with three novices across the room, laughter and glances in her direction punctuating their conversation. A fourth girl returned from the stairwell with the sheets Nona had thrown.
If you kill one of them the others will respect you.
Shut up.
The door opened again and Zole walked in, arms folded across the bag she had brought from the Grey dormitory. When Nona had left the classroom where Sister Hearth had examined her merit certificates Zole had been waiting outside the door. They had both nodded acknowledgment but it wasnt in the ice-tribers nature to volunteer information.
Another one? Joeli raised her voice in complaint.
Zoles face registered no expression as she scanned the room, eyes dark above broad cheekbones. She wore her face like a mask. Nona could count on one hand the times she had seen her smile or scowl.
I Joeli seemed about to expand upon her displeasure but for once her supposedly forgotten aristocracy fell short, eclipsed by Zoles celebrity. Novices rose on all sides along with an excited babble of voices as they moved to welcome the Argatha. Nona decided against shielding her, though she was sure Zole would rather see the novices knocked down than endure their attentions.
Zole made slow but sure progress towards the bed beside Nona, answering questions and flattery with curt nods. On the few occasions she did reply she offered only single words. Most of them no. Outside the convent it was far worse. Her secret had been uncovered just months after they had returned from the ranging. Some said Sherzal herself had spread the news, but whatever the truth all of Verity soon whispered that Zole was the four-blood spoken of in the Argatha prophecy, the Chosen One come to drive back the ice and bring salvation! And the rest of the empire knew within another month. Pilgrims came to sit in vigil beyond the pillars even on days when the abbess stationed a sister at the base of the Vinery Stair to tell them there was no chance of an audience with Novice Zole.
Zole reached the bed and drove the last couple of novices away with a glower. The Argatha prophecy had been a constant in Sister Wheels Spirit classes for almost three years now, and she had managed to infect a fair proportion of the convent with her zeal, including most of the novices. At least the ones who didnt know Zole.
Youre making friends almost as quickly as I am. Nona stood and stripped off her habit.
Zole shrugged. None of them are bleeding.
Nona knelt to dig in her bag for her nightdress. Keot could sink from view for a few moments and knew enough not to be seen. Nona had explained to him that the nuns would seek to burn him out before throwing her from the convent over a cliff if she were unlucky. Nobody tainted by a devil could stay in service to the Ancestor, even after the taint had been driven from them with hot irons. Sister Wheels lessons had left no room for doubt on that account.
Welcome to Mystic, shrimp. Darla came to the foot of Nonas bed, somewhat comical in her tent of a nightdress, her arms, thick with muscle, straining out of short frilly sleeves. Nice entrance.