Soulkeeper Page 23

  “No,” he said. He stood on instinct, his anger pushing him to his feet. Jacaranda slid back two steps and pulled one of her daggers halfway out of its sheath. “No, you’re not a murderer. You never chose to take a life. The blame isn’t yours, Jacaranda, and neither should you bear the guilt. Others gave you orders. Others trained you to be what you are. Let them bear the responsibility.”

  Jacaranda stared at him, and he met her gaze without flinching. Everything within her was a swirling vortex of emotions. Her gaze hardened, and her rage was so naked and unrestrained it frightened him. She leapt to her feet and grabbed her pack from the ground beside her.

  “You’re right,” she seethed. “Another was responsible.”

  And with that she trudged on the path northward.

  “Wait, what are you doing?”

  “I’m going to Londheim,” Jacaranda said. She spun on him. “I’m going to find Gerag, and I’m going to shove a dagger so far down his throat he shits steel.”

  “You’re far more evocative with your language now,” he said. She glared death and fury his direction. “Sorry, sorry. I make bad jokes when nervous or confused, and right now, I’m both.”

  “I don’t care about your confusion. I know what I want to do, and so I’m going to do it. Gerag treated me like I was his doll. His precious little doll. He deserves what I shall give him.”

  “I’m sure he does,” Devin said. “But this isn’t worth your life.”

  “My skills are more than enough to handle the likes of him.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Gerag isn’t some lowly dockworker. The church will investigate. I’ll be brought in for interrogation and forced to lie to keep you safe, a task I might fail. Soulless who commit murder are executed, Jacaranda. You just regained your life. Don’t throw it away.”

  “Then I shall explain,” she said. “I’ll prove I’m no longer soulless. I’ll tell them of all he did to… to…” She looked away, her entire face and neck matching the color of her hair. “I’ll be doing Londheim a favor. How could anyone execute me once they know I’ve awakened?”

  “Because you’re terrifying!” He didn’t mean to shout. He was afraid she would leave. “Do you know how many soulless are within Londheim alone? How many are servants for the wealthy? Over one hundred are city guards. Even the church has their soulless custodians. The idea of them waking, feeling, behaving human, it… it’s too much. And if you’re the first, they might decide you’re an oddity best eliminated and never spoken of again.”

  “But I’m not soulless,” she said. Her face was a heartbreaking mixture of fury and despair. “Doesn’t that matter?”

  “It does to me,” Devin said. “But I am not the rest of the world.”

  Tears trickled down to her chin. Her feet rooted in place. Her gaze bounced between the northern horizon and Devin’s campfire. Bandaged fingers traced across the chain tattoo upon her neck.

  “Will the world truly be so hostile to me?” she asked. “To what I am?”

  “I don’t know,” Devin said. “But it’d be a cruel fate for you to awaken now only to spend the last of your days in a cell or fleeing bondsmen.”

  Jacaranda wiped away her tears.

  “Cruel,” she said. “As if nothing else in my life has been cruel?”

  He winced as if she’d thrust a needle into his heart.

  “I know. I mean, I don’t know. I know nothing of this, what it means, and how you feel. I’m overwhelmed, and surely you are, too. Please, at least sleep on this. That’s all I ask.”

  Jacaranda crossed her arms and looked away. Devin held his breath as he waited. He would not force her to stay. For good or ill, Jacaranda’s life was now her own.

  “I’ll decide come morning,” she said. “Good night, Devin.”

  And with that she marched to one of the nearby cabins and shut the door behind her. In the sudden silence Devin lifted his eyes to the heavens and raised his palms.

  “What the fuck, Sisters?” he asked. “Just… what the fuck?”

  If Jacaranda were the only one to awaken, her life would forever be in danger. If all other soulless awakened, violence and chaos would follow. No transition from slavery to free people would happen without blood. It’d be for the best, he knew that, but the situation had surely arisen because of the Sisters’ failure to deliver the souls in the first place. Why the delay? Why the sudden return? What did either mean to his faith in the Sisters’ divine nature? Questions without definitive answers, and he’d only drive himself crazy chasing solutions in his mind.

  He returned to his cabin, but sleep was slow in returning. When he awoke the next morning, he did so with a pounding headache and a tightly clenched stomach. Devin dressed and relieved himself, groggily wondering what in Anwyn’s name he would do about the situation. A tiny part of him hoped it had been a strange, vivid dream. That part of him was a coward, though. Easier to hope it had never happened than deal with the difficult consequences.

  He saw no sign of Jacaranda, so he lit a fire to cook their breakfast. The flames helped chase away the last of the morning’s chill. Devin kept his eyes on the door to the cabin Jacaranda had slept in. Had she already left for Londheim? He wouldn’t blame her for abandoning him, especially after his stunt with the child’s burial. Hopefully she stayed out of trouble if she did. Even if she hid her tattoo, she posed a memorable figure. If one of Gerag’s servants or acquaintances saw Jacaranda on the street and identified her…

  The cabin door opened. Devin sat up straighter, his heart racing with sudden nervousness he could not explain.

  Jacaranda emerged looking like a completely different person. Her fiery red hair was carefully cut at a length close to the chin. She must have raided spare clothes from all of the cabins while he slept, for every piece appeared different. She wore a red oversized shirt, untucked and hanging past her belt. For her trousers, gone were the soft brown cloth, replaced with a pair of sturdy blue breeches that stretched all the way to her ankles. What he guessed to be the remains of a white shirt was ripped and torn into a makeshift scarf wrapped tightly about her neck, obscuring her chain tattoo.

  The brown of the coat, the burgundy shirt, the blue breeches, the white scarf, all slightly off and clashing. It reminded him of when a toddler learned to dress oneself. His absolute favorite part of her new ensemble was the tall, wide-brimmed hat settled atop her head. A smile blossomed on his face the moment he saw it.

  “I was right,” he said. “You do look good in hats.”

  Jacaranda looked momentarily taken aback.

  “Are you mocking me?” she asked. She removed the hat and held it before her. “Do I look foolish? It’s big for me, I know, but I saw it and loved it and…”

  Devin slowly moved as if to avoid startling a frightened animal. His hands closed around the brim of the hat and gently pulled it from Jacaranda’s fingers. He set the hat atop her head and turned it so its silver buckle was centered above her face.

  “If you love it, then wear it,” he said. “You’re dressing for yourself now, not anyone else.”

  Jacaranda smiled at him. Her violet eyes shone, and he saw her truly happy for the first time in perhaps her entire life.

  “So I will,” she said. It seemed she caught herself. Her arms crossed over her chest and she backed a few safe feet away. “I spent the night thinking. For now it seems reasonable for me to trust your advice. You were… kind to me. After I buried the child, you apologized. No one has ever apologized to me, no matter how terrible their actions. You even looked away when I…” She blushed a little. “Stood naked before you.”

  Devin awkwardly coughed.

  “Yeah, that was, um, a thing.”

  “Don’t think you’re fully forgiven,” she said. “The blisters on my fingers hurt way too much for that.”

  “Sounds fair.” He glanced northward, imagining Londheim in the far distance. “Are you still angry with Gerag?”

  “I am,” she said. “More than you could possibly un
derstand. What keeps me calm is the freedom I now possess. To dress myself this morning. To look over clothing and decide if I wished to wear it. Imagine wearing a blindfold your whole life, and then one day someone rips it off. Nothing can compare. I have spent my whole life dying of thirst, and now I drink of limitless water.”

  “Try not to get drunk on it,” Devin said.

  “You cannot get drunk off water.”

  Devin laughed.

  “I see we still need to work on our analogies and metaphors.”

  She blushed, embarrassed. He tried to playfully smack her shoulder to show he meant no offense and immediately regretted it when she took a step back. It wasn’t a matter of trust, either. He recognized that instinctual reaction, that twitchy fear of another’s touch.

  He hasn’t paid.

  “Your hair’s a big change, too,” he said, pretending not to have noticed her shy away. While she processed her trauma, he’d give her a cautious amount of space. “Why did you cut it?”

  “Because Master hates…” She caught herself. Visible revulsion shuddered through her. “Because I wanted to, and so I did.”

  Nice. Two dumb, awkward things in a row. He was really on a roll this morning.

  “Well, I’ve cooked us up some grub,” Devin said. He gestured to the cook fire. “Eat up, and then we can get on our way.”

  She walked to the fire and stopped just shy of it. Her gaze lingered on the bowl of porridge mixed with honey he’d prepared for her. She bit her lower lip in thought.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “I was deciding if I wanted to eat it,” she said.

  “And?”

  Jacaranda shot him a wink as she plopped to her rear, grabbed the bowl, and began wolfing it down.

  “I’ve decided I do.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Is that the last of them?” Faithkeeper Sena asked as Adria shut the door behind her.

  “In a sense,” Adria said. She pulled off her mask and wiped sweat from her brow. Her long dark hair stuck to her forehead, and she used her fingers to pry it away. “A few more sought potions I simply do not have. They didn’t sound content with only prayers, either. They’re loitering outside the entrance. I don’t have the energy to force them away.”

  “Then I’ll do so for you when we’re done here,” Sena said. She leaned back in her chair. The two were inside the Faithkeeper’s private room, drinking in the quiet and solitude after another hectic day in the church. “I have something to ask, though. A silly thing, really, but it’s been digging at me all day.”

  Adria twirled the mask between her fingers and looked away. Had the older woman sensed something amiss? Or would she reprimand her for not putting her whole heart into serving the people?

  “Your prayers,” Sena said. Adria’s heart immediately spiked with panic. “You’re reciting them wrong.”

  Adria tugged at the collar to her dress, wishing she could have something less cumbersome and hot to wear, such as Sena’s expertly tailored suit.

  “Am I?” she asked. “I’m sorry. The exhaustion must be catching up with me. I’m not surprised I fumbled a word here or there.”

  “You’re not fumbling,” Sena said. She leaned back in her chair and clicked her long fingernails together. A hint of worry snuck into her voice. “I’ve listened closely now. Every single prayer, no matter which you offer, you have changed a word or dropped a verse. You’ve been my Mindkeeper for too long, Adria. I know you can recite each and every one of Lyra’s Devotions from memory. Void’s sake, you could probably list their possible variants from old Orissian translation. You’re erring, and on purpose, but for the life of me I cannot decipher why.”

  Adria finally met the other woman’s gaze. She wasn’t a good enough liar, and Sena was far too experienced at reading others, for her to deny the truth. Her best bet was to rely on the Faithkeeper’s trust in her.

  “I am erring,” she said. “But it is for my own reasons, and I swear to you, they are important. I… I don’t feel comfortable explaining why, nor safe to do so. Not yet.”

  Sena frowned at her.

  “Does your faith waver during these trials?”

  “No,” Adria said, more forcefully than she meant. “No, please, my faith has never been stronger. This world is different now, and I’m doing what I know to adjust. Will you allow me my little secret?”

  The Faithkeeper’s eyes narrowed.

  “This was merely a matter of curiosity,” she said. “But now you have me worried. Has something happened, Adria? Are you in danger?”

  Loud knocking on the door interrupted the conversation before she might answer. Faithkeeper Sena rose from her seat, smoothed out her trousers, and then opened the door with a practiced stern expression on her face.

  “Yes?” she asked, as if it would take a goddess waiting outside to justify her coming to the door.

  Adria couldn’t see outside but she recognized the voice that spoke.

  “Forgive me, Faithkeeper. I know it’s late but I must speak with Adria. It’s important.”

  “What is the matter, Rosa?” she asked as she stepped around Sena at the door. The older woman backed away. Her hands twirled nervously together. Adria noted that she stood perfectly balanced on both her legs. If the knee she’d prayed over had regressed, she showed no sign of it.

  “It’s my friend,” Rosa said. “Please, we need your help. She won’t stop bleeding.”

  Rosa led them back to the pews. Only half were filled with sleeping men and women, a fact Adria was proud of. They’d spent hours setting up tents and residences for all of them, slowly giving the refugees a sense of home beyond the church. Most appeared asleep, or trying. By the door sat a younger woman with her back propped up against a wall.

  “That’s her,” Rosa said. “That’s Laura.”

  Adria crossed the room, Faithkeeper Sena trailing a few steps behind her. Her cranky mood quickly shifted to worry as she neared Laura. Sweat caked her hair to her face and neck. The woman’s normally dark skin was visibly shades lighter. Tints of blue washed over her lips. She held a bloodied rag between her legs, her pale green dress stained with blood around the crotch.

  “Hello, Laura,” Adria said with cheerfulness she did not feel. “What’s the matter?”

  “The bleeding,” Laura said. She sounded drowsy and eager for sleep. “Won’t… stop bleeding.”

  “Were you cut?” she asked. Laura weakly shook her head. “Is this your flow?” Another negative shake. Adria gently lifted the woman’s dress and took the bloodied rag away from her. Performing such an exam there in the entrance hall of their church was hardly ideal, but Adria feared to move the woman. The walk to the church looked to have drained what remained of her strength.

  Sena arrived holding two candles; one she put beside the young woman, the other she held aloft. Adria examined as best she could, coming to a third question she feared to ask.

  “Are you with child, Laura?”

  Confusion put a bit of life into her drowsy words.

  “What? No… I… I mean I could be, my last flow was three months ago, but…”

  Adria gently pressed on the woman’s abdomen. The muscles immediately seized, providing her with her answer. She replaced the rag, gently brushed her forehead with a clean hand, and then stood. The other two women gathered closer.

  “I fear she’s lost a child and it’s taking her with it,” Adria whispered. “There’s nothing we can do but keep her comfortable and wait. If the body can pass it soon, she’ll have a chance.”

  “Bullshit,” Rosa seethed. “Heal her, Adria. You know you can. This is far more important than my damn knee.”

  Again panic snarled Adria’s stomach. She’d not recited a single prayer perfectly since healing Rosa’s knee. The potential consequences for wielding such a power were far too much for her to grasp. The people might revere her as a saint or bury her as a monster.

  “Rosa,” Adria hissed. “You promised.”

  “Prom
ised what?” Sena asked. She held her candle like a sword, her free hand crossed over her chest. “Speak quickly, Mindkeeper. This woman is dying.”

  “Adria can heal her,” Rosa said, turning her attention to the Faithkeeper. “She did it with my knee, and she can do it with Laura. All she has to do is pray, that’s it, just fucking pray.”

  “Don’t tell tales,” Adria said. The lie passed poorly off her tongue.

  “What, are you scared?” Rosa asked. She jabbed a finger toward her. “Fine. Be scared. Let her die.”

  “You can’t put this on me,” Adria said. She felt like a cornered animal. “I didn’t cause this. I’m not Lyra. Her life wasn’t born into my hands.”

  “Her life is in your hands now, Mindkeeper, so save her or let her die. Either way, it’s on you.”

  Sena’s eyes bored a hole into Adria’s skull.

  “I pass no judgment,” she said. “Not without understanding. But if you know a way to keep this young woman alive, I expect you to do so.”

  Adria didn’t want this responsibility. She didn’t want this gift. The world was frightening enough. Why must people live and die by her faith? Must her prayers to the Goddesses bear fruit in such a physical, immediate way? Let others wield miracles. She just wanted to make her little corner in Londheim a better place.

  In the end, her desire to help others won out. Selfishness could not withstand her guilt, nor her sense of duty. Adria pulled her mask over her face and knelt before Laura. The mask’s comforting separation solidified her decision. So be it. Doubting it now would only prolong the woman’s suffering.

  “Listen to me, Laura,” she told the dying woman. “Hear the words I say and repeat them as best you can, all right? Can you do that for me?”

  “I’ll try,” the woman more mouthed than said.

  Adria fell to one knee and crossed her hands over Laura’s abdomen. She closed her eyes and said good-bye to her old life. Once Sena saw her, things would never go back to the way they were.