Page 55 of The Castle & the Cloister

The Priest seemed uncertain—as if he couldn’t quite find the words for what he wished to say next. After a brief but fraught silence, he managed.

“Will you be all right?”

Fia felt as if she’d been struck. Never, for as long as she could remember, had anyone asked her that question. To be asked it now, by the Invers’ Priest, after circumstances and fate had forced her to make an abominable sacrifice at his altars, seemed bitter and hard indeed.

Not so much unwilling to answer as unable, she chose to ignore what had been asked.

“Why did you have a plan in place already, to avoid a blood sacrifice?” she said. “You’re the one who presides over them, I assume, dictating at which ceremonies they occur and who the victims will be.”

“Not always,” the Priest answered. “Blood sacrifice is also used as a punishment for court members accused of treason, from time to time. More often they’re drawn and quartered out in the city, where the execution can be a public spectacle. But if the family is still in favor, or has the means with which to offer a substantial bribe, sacrifice can serve as an alternative. It’s quicker and kinder, and at least dying on Tyrus’s altar fulfills a purpose.”

“And if you’re able to forestall the sacrifice altogether, making it look as if a treasonous noble has died when they’ve actually been sent off quietly . . ” Fia said, immediately seeing to the heart of things.

“Then they and their family would be forever indebted to me,” the Priest finished.

“Have you ever done this successfully?” Fia asked.

“No. It isn’t something I’d undertake lightly. The need or the reward would have to be very great indeed, to outweigh the risks.”

“You’ve the mind of a mercenary, Priest,” Fia said, and whatever her own reputation for self-interest, she did not mean it as a compliment.

The Priest gave her a wry half smile, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “You wouldn’t think so, if you knew why I came up with the scheme in the first place, or why I was willing to use it for the first time on the queen’s behalf. You’d think me sentimental, and un-Inver. An object fit for pity and scorn, rather than a worthy opponent for you to match yourself against during your time here.”

“Try me,” Fia challenged.

“I don’t like dredging up old history.”

“And I don’t like slaughtering prisoners of war on heathen altars, yethere we are. Let’s just make it a bad night for the both of us,” Fia shot back impatiently.

“I had a sister,” the Priest said. “There were five of us altogether, and she was the youngest. She was not meant for life on the mountain. Too sweet-natured, too generous for it. The queen reminds me of her, a great deal. She’d never have stood against Orden when he made his bid for the throne—never could have, but he made a blood sacrifice of her anyway, after killing our other sister and brother. I was at the Vesperin front and newly blinded by an attack he’d ordered when I got word of it. So I resolved to make myself Priest and find a way to spare someone from Tyrus’s altar, should the need arise.”

“How do youlivehere after all that?” Fia asked in bewilderment. “At the king’s beck and call, overseeing this cursed sanctuary? Don’t tell me it’s a matter of faith—I know people well enough, and you’re no true believer.”

She looked at the Priest seated across from her—at the network of scars where his eyes had been, at the taut, wary length of him. He perplexed her greatly. In so many ways, she begrudgingly felt a kinship between them—a similarity of spirit and disposition. Such things had existed between her and Nikolau, too, but they’d been tainted by the pity he felt for her, and his constant desire to be the one who saved Fia. It was, in many ways, a pure and altruistic longing, but it would have been intolerable to her, living with the knowledge that she was in her lover’s debt. The Priest, by contrast, offered no pity to either Fia or himself. If anything, he seemed to view them both with a sort of hardened scorn, as if their troubles were of their own making. Some of Fia’s had been, but she at least had walked away from them. She’d never have been able to stomach what the Priest had done, in returning to danger, abasing himself before the very brother who’d stolen his sight and murdered every other member of their line. Fia couldn’t understand how he kept from lashing out or breaking loose in some way. If the place of her own upbringing had been a trap to her, the Invers’ mountain was doubly so for the Priest.

“I live here because I can’t live anywhere else,” he told her darkly. “You’re fortunate to have been able to leave your past behind. If I tried to escape mine, it would hunt me down. Away from court, I would be an unknown quantity to Orden. Someone he forever envisioned as plottingand scheming to usurp him. Here I can assure him daily of my loyalty, which may be a distasteful task, but it’s one that ensures my survival.”

“You could kill him,” Fia said without a moment’s hesitation. “I would, if it were me in your place, and call it saving my own life.”

The Priest got up and went to the chest of drawers, deftly covering the laver with the linen towel Fia had used.

“I don’t deny that I’ve thought of it a great deal,” he said with his back to her. “But it would accomplish nothing. With Orden dead, what would I do? Leave the castle? Whoever took his place would find me as surely as he would have. Serve his successor as Priest? I’d be no better off than I am now—worse, in all likelihood, for anyone who followed after him would be more likely to doubt my allegiance.”

“You could be the one who took his place,” Fia suggested.

The Priest let out a hoarse laugh. “What, have you turned kingmaker now, in addition to postulant and wet nurse and queen’s right hand? I wouldn’t live out a week on Honoria’s throne.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Fia said with vicious amusement. “I’d have you assassinated myself, and return Honoria to the old ways. But you’d save me a great deal of trouble if you dealt with Orden first.”

Turning, the Priest crossed the room in a single stride and knelt before Fia, his hands on either side of her, his face turned up to hers.

“That is treason, and I would not speak it outside this room if I were you,” he said fervently. “In this cell only, you can voice whatever traitorous thoughts you like. I will not judge—they’re certainly no worse than the idle fancies I indulge in during my darker hours. But beyond my door, you must be cautious. You must rein in that wicked tongue of yours, or it will be your undoing.”

The sight of him on his knees kindled something warm and hungry at Fia’s core. She doubted this faithless Priest knelt before his own gods, but for her, he did. A shiver of power and pleasure went tingling down her spine. Leaning forward until her face was a scant inch from his own, she permitted herself a smile.

“Priest,” she said. “When have I given the impression that you need to worry about me?”

He swallowed, and the way his throat worked set the flame in her to burning hotter and brighter. “It isn’t worry that’s the problem.”