Page 76 of The Castle & the Cloister

“They will if Fia is raised to the position of Matria, and a bond is forged between our castle and her cloister.”

Ariana hadn’t even realized he knew Fia’s name.

“Fia as Matria?” she managed to say at last. “Whatever put such an idea into your head? She’s completely unsuitable—I enjoy her company, but she can’t even read. She isn’t truly attached to the cloister yet. There seems to be some reluctance on Dolenza’s part, to hear her fidelity oath. She may never be a soria, let alone Matria. It’s a generous idea, Orden, but impossible.”

“I am king,” he said vehemently, leaning forward. “What I purpose is always possible. I will make Fia Matria before harvest time and give you Raea’s cloister in place of what you sacrificed for my sake. In doing so, I will unite Honoria. I will give Justus a country made whole. I will have the means to defeat Caervallion. And then by and by, I will win our Vesperin war, as well.”

“When did all of this come to you?” Ariana asked. Though her bleeding had slackened and her strength returned, she felt pale and drained again, as if some other essential force was being drawn from her. She reached for Justus, and Orden handed him back to her with reluctance.

“It’s all fallen into place piece by piece, since your nurse first arrived on the mountain,” Orden said. “Then on the way here, I saw the postulant do something, something I’d never even heard of before. She called it the blooded touch. Seemed to think it’s considered base and unacceptableby the followers of the Beloved Three. So we have a secret to keep her in check with. She’s not just a fitting choice for Matria by virtue of being your friend. She’s someone we can bend to our will. That’s good, Ari. That’s the best sort of friend and ally you can have—one you’ve got power over.”

Ariana opened her mouth slightly and shut it again. Then she glanced down and fixed her eyes on Justus’s small, sleeping face, as if looking at him was somehow very, very important.

“She showed you the blooded touch?” Ariana whispered after a moment.

Oh, she’d known Fia was wild and ruthless and unschooled, but it had never occurred to her that her friend from the battlefield would go so far as to use that most terrible of gifts.

Orden was growing impatient with her and her lack of enthusiasm for his newest plan. “Yes. She was there when I learned that Crispus had been causing your bleeding. She drew blood out of him in payment. Said she could kill him that way, and that since she’d touched him so, he was going to die sooner or later anyhow. I’d never seen or heard of such a thing. Is it common among your people?”

Ariana nodded, as if she hardly heard him. When she answered, her voice was far away. “Everyone goddess-marked has the blooded touch. That’s why the blood prohibition exists. To keep us from turning this world into a nightmare.”

“Everyone?” For perhaps the first time since she’d met him, Orden sounded shocked—fearful, even. “And I’d never heard of it? How can that be?”

Ariana smoothed a crease from between Justus’s brows. “We don’t speak of it. Its use occurs so rarely and is punished so stringently, it’s considered unimportant. It’s as if you could breathe underwater but lived in a desert. The fact that you could do so wouldn’t signify.”

All at once, Orden was angry.

“It signifies to your postulant,” he said with dangerous composure. “She will obey me because she loves you. I will secure access to the house of the sun for you, so that you are able to worship in the manner you prefer. And I will find a way to marry Honoria’s old faith to the new, just as you and I overcame our differences to wed. What is the sun, after all, buta flame? Little by little, our influence will grow, and by the time our son comes of age, we will have bent the hearts of the people far enough that it seems right to them to view their Matria as a priestess and the counterpart of our Priest. One who dwells not in darkness, but who walks among flames.”

Black spots swam before Ariana’s vision and heat crawled across the back of her neck—it was too close in the currus, she couldn’t breathe, she’d faint or be sick and disgrace herself before the king.

Orden carried on, warming to his subject. “Your goddesses may join the Inver pantheon as brides for our existing gods. Tyrus and Silith would make a formidable pair, and Kidrien and Raea serve much the same purpose. Mortis has some of Lyria’s austerity, and with both faiths joined, there’d no longer be need for a hearth goddess. A newly unified faith for a newly unified Honoria. We will be a force to reckon with. Afon will never be able to stand before us.”

“And how,” Ariana asked, barely able to get out more than a murmur, “do you plan to reconcile a war god with a pacifist faith?”

“Is it pacifist, though?” Orden shot back. “Afon and Caervallion are fanatical about Silith and have no interest in peace. The daughters of the moon are permitted to kill if necessary. And I know my history well enough to understand that Raea’s followers, though they’ve never waged war themselves, have supported armies if they believed their cause a just one.”

Ariana forced herself to sit upright, to keep her grip on Justus gentle. “Afon is a heretic of the worst sort, and others who serve Silith know it.”

“Afon is only a heretic because he lacks artfulness. If we are winsome and considered, we can accomplish this and more. My ancestors’ hunger led them to take Honoria and engage Vesper, but there is a whole world beyond our borders, beyond these shores and beyond our present conflicts. You and I, Ari, can create a faith people will rally behind. With blood and flame and a new pantheon, we’ll forge an empire not even my forefathers could have imagined.”

“And what part have I to play in all of this?” Ari breathed, hoping her faintness passed for awe. She had misjudged him. If there was one thing this summer had taught her, it was how sorely she’d done so. She’d wished for him to be temperate and malleable and for a few years, he’d seemed to be. But one’s true nature always won out in the end. This wasthe Inver core of the king she loved—an insatiable lust for conquest and domination, which could not be banked by even Lyria’s blessed light.

Orden reached out to pat her hand affectionately. After a moment, Ariana drew away from his touch, under the pretense of adjusting the baby’s blanket.

“You need do nothing for the moment,” Orden said. “Just stand by my side and be the perfect queen I know you are—one whose loyalty is to me before all else. It will take a little time before any action is required. For now, we wait. While we were at Raea’s house, I laid plans—Lucian came with us for a reason. He’s surveilled the cloister and assures me he has a dozen ways to manage Dolenza that won’t come back to us. Of course, her passing must seem natural. There’s a reason none of my predecessors have dared to risk the ire of the Solis Plains.”

Ariana let her head rest against the side of the currus window again, to hide the blankness in her eyes and the abject despair she felt.

“Yes, my lord. As you speak, it shall be.”

Orden shifted forward, pressing a rough kiss to her cheek. “Ari, you and our son are my only joys. I cannot tell you how it moved me to have you offer to Tyrus on Justus’s behalf. I knew in that moment that I would never ask you for such a thing again; that it ran contrary to your nature, and that you required some other form of worship. Yet you still did it, for me. Without that measure of devotion, I’d never have dared to speak to you of all this. I will make a new faith for love of you, and an empire to be your safeguard.”

Ariana bit down viciously on the inside of her cheek until blood pooled in her mouth. She swallowed the metallic taste of it, and swallowed again. The worst was not her failure to check Orden, nor yet that his true nature was as Inver as that of any other warlord who’d plagued Honoria these two centuries past.

Worse by far was the fact that after seven long years of managing him, the king’s words were sweet to her, and his offer an enticement. Unity in Honoria was a worthy goal, as was the melding of their disparate beliefs. But Orden would wield a unified Honoria as a hammer, and make his joined faith an anvil. Anyone who opposed them would be broken or reforged.

And yet. To stand with Orden fully, rather than maneuvering anddiverting him in public while undermining him in private? To have Fia highly placed, as an equal she could freely turn to for advice or comfort? To no longer fear leaning on the assistance and wisdom of the Priest, because she’d accomplished what no Inver had even dreamed of, and so moved beyond the reach of petty gossip?