Page 21 of The Castle & the Cloister

She spoke the words with restrained anger, as if she meant to startle or wound him in order to vent some private passion. But the Priest, who oversaw the spiritual needs of the bloody-minded Invers, had grown very hard to shock.

“How unfortunate,” he said, the words dry and unsympathetic. “I myself was consigned to perpetual darkness when my brother the king failed in his attempt to murder me and left me sightless instead.”

But the postulant, it seemed, was equally difficult to catch off guard.

“We’re both richly blessed in our family, then,” she answered without a moment’s hesitation. “How the divine have favored us. Are we alone here, Priest? And are you worthy of the queen’s regard? She says she trusts you.”

“Ariana can trust me,” the Priest said, and he did not think it would escape this sharp-edged postulant’s notice that he had not claimed to be trustworthy in general, but only in particular. Only for the queen.

“And are we alone?” the young woman pressed. “There’s no one hidden in the corners? No one to overhear?”

“Most likely,” the Priest said. “Our guards feel as you do about the dark. But in Inverlyn, you can never really be certain that no one is listening.”

The postulant fell silent. When at last she spoke again, the anger in her voice had been replaced by grief.

“By now, most of the castle knows that Ariana Inver has deliveredtwo children,” she said carefully. “A healthy prince, to someday sit upon his father’s throne. And a stillborn daughter, goddess-marked from birth. The queen says… she says at least her daughter will not live life torn between her goddess and her blood.”

There was some significance behind the postulant’s words that the Priest did not understand at first. But then she stepped forward and pressed a bundle into his arms, and he felt Ariana’s daughter stir. The Priest drew in a soft breath.

“Her Majesty trusts you will do what is necessary for her daughter,” the postulant said. “It may not be the Inver practice to name children until they’ve been in the world a full week, but itisthe practice of those who worship the Beloved Three. And as the princess is goddess-marked, I give her a name to take into death with her—Ellimere. Ellimere Lyrien. May she go in Lyria’s light.”

The Priest’s heart was a forge hammer in his chest. It had been one thing for Ariana to prevail upon Orden to set his eldest daughter aside because of her mark. But to spirit an Inver child away entirely, out from under the king’s nose, with the clear expectation that she be sent to foster at Lyria’s last cloister in Corrin? If Orden was to discover it, it would undermine every ounce of trust he’d ever had in Ariana. And the Priest did not think his brother would weather such a betrayal well.

Shifting the little weight of the queen’s daughter to one arm, the Priest snaked out his free hand, seizing the postulant by the front of her kirtle and drawing her to him roughly. She did not stumble but remained straight-backed and unbending, clearly used to ill treatment.

“I will cut out your tongue if you breathe even a hint of this elsewhere,” the Priest murmured, his mouth a bare inch from the postulant’s ear. She was tall—scarcely less than him in height—and static fury rolled off her in waves.

“I would cut out my own tongue before I did,” she hissed back at him, the words hot and sweet against the side of his face. The scent of sun and brine and lavender was overwhelming now, an intoxicating thing, the essence of a world he’d never know. “I left a six-month daughter behind, safe at the cloister. I’d risk anything on her behalf—kill or die for her. I’d never betray another woman trying to do the same.”

“How can I be certain of you?” the Priest pressed. Ellimere was making small, discomfited noises between them, the sound muffled by their closeness, and he could feel the postulant’s focus splinter. But even with half her mind on the baby, she was formidable.

“Do you know what it is to swear by your mark?” the young woman answered haughtily. “It is a sacred oath, which the Beloved Three hold their followers to. No one undertakes such an oath lightly, for if you break it, sooner or later the Three will exact payment for your faithlessness.”

The Priest loosened his hold on her, and rather than backing down, she stayed exactly as she was, so near that if either of them had shifted their weight they’d have stood pressed against one another.

“I know what swearing by your mark means,” the Priest said. “I’m not ignorant.”

“No. Not ignorant. An Inver.”

No one had ever been so utterly dismissive of the Priest before, and yet he couldhearthe backwater cadence in this postulant’s voice. Even as she spoke, she took his hand in her own and drew it to the back of her neck. He could feel the warmth of her skin, the slick sunburst swirl of her goddess mark, the strength in her grip as her fingers cupped his own. He ought to be angry with her, the Priest thought—ought to be incensed at the disrespect she showed, here in his own sanctuary. But all that woke in him was a thrill of anticipation. It was one thing to know what an oath by the mark was, another entirely to hear one sworn. Few Invers, the Priest suspected, ever had the chance to do so.

The cavern’s manifold ghosts were equally eager. All around them a restless whispering began, though if she noticed it, the postulant said nothing. Instead, she stood a little taller and let out a breath.

“By Bright Raea,” she said slowly, “goddess of my mark, I swear to do as I’ve purposed. To keep Ariana Inver’s secrets and never betray her connection to this child. Should I fail in my oath, may the sun strike me dead.”

There was more conviction and faith in her words than in any ritual the Priest had ever undertaken, and a stab of shame lanced through him. They humbled him at every turn, these sorias with their fading goddesses. For all the Invers spoke of fire, it was the remaining daughters of the Three who truly burned, and when he stood in their presence, the Priest felt as if he might be scorched by them.

He felt so now and drew his hand away from the postulant.

“Thank you,” he said, compelled to be honest, wanting desperately, in spite of himself, to earn a shred of her respect. “I’ve never heard a mark-sworn oath before.”

The young woman before him relented a little, her edges softening. She stood with one hand resting gently atop Ellimere, and the baby quieted.

“I’ve never sworn so either,” the postulant admitted. “I meant for my fidelity oath, when I enter Raea’s service as a soria, to be the first time.”

Silence fell between them, punctuated only by the incomprehensible whispering of the cavern’s ghosts and the snapping of the altar fire.

“What shall I tell the queen?” the postulant asked, and her anger had given way to sorrow once more.