Wicked Like a Wildfire (Hibiscus Daughter #1)(56)
He turned and swept ahead of us, robes swishing.
The rock-hewn monastery was smaller and blockier than the Lower Church, square and snowy against the sheer cliff it had been carved into, its whitewashed surface scored with tiny slits for windows. It looked as though it had been partially swallowed by the rusty, yellow-streaked rock around it, as if the mountain had once been a ravenous stone Titan before it settled.
The priest led us past the main entrance, toward a terraced area that ended in a tiny black metal door emblazoned with a cross. “This is the cave-church of the Holy Cross,” he said, fishing a heavy, bronze key out of his robe pocket. “Normally there would be many gathered here to receive blessing, but we’ve been turning pilgrims away since yesterday.”
“What happened?” I asked. “If you can say.”
“The remains were desecrated, child. Some devil-ridden blasphemer stole one of our saint’s finger bones, if you can imagine something so grotesque.”
My gorge rose, and I abruptly wished I hadn’t had so much honey. Whatever was happening here wasn’t just beyond the pale. It was sin, mealy and soiled.
My stomach still churned as I followed Luka into the cave-church, ducking my head under the door’s low threshold. The father stood in the farthest corner of the little grotto, next to a massive cross of wood and gold. Biblical frescoes, richly pigmented like cave-paintings, covered the rocky walls and low ceiling, from which hung gilded censers. The reliquary that held the saint’s bones was swaddled in burgundy velvet with a golden fringe of tassels, like some morbid bassinet.
As soon as I set foot inside the cave and took a breath of ancient stone and incense, the nausea and roaring wrongness swelled until I choked back a dry heave. My scalp tingled, my ears buzzing as though we’d stepped into an apiary. Instead of fear, a strange, blind rage began howling inside me—like a gale of winter, like the roaring song of storms—and I barged ahead, pushing past Luka until I stood with my fingers wrapped around the wooden edge of the shrine. The priest’s shrill voice echoed faintly, as though from somewhere far away, because he couldn’t touch me here. This had nothing to do with him. This was between me and it, the aura that surrounded these dry and shrouded bones.
And it hated me. Just like I hated it.
How dare you hate me, a whisper curled inside of me like smoke. How dare the remnants of you pitiful man, who groveled for a mewling child-god only to be reduced to withered tendon and dusty bone, lay judgment upon the likes of me? The ancient gods attend to me, you skeletal, marrowless heap. WHO ARE YOU TO SPURN ME AFTER EVERYTHING I’VE DONE?
The grotto had fallen away from me entirely, and all I could see was Mara’s face as it had been in the dream—her black hair whipping in the snowy wind, her teeth white as winter flurries in her smeared face as she shrieked through my own mouth. And I adored her just like I had before, waves of toxic love pounding over me, glistening like rainbows in puddles of black oil. This pile of human kindling in its cradle had no right to hate her. Feeling anything toward her was a privilege, and even hatred was too good for him.
By the time I came to myself, I realized I was standing with my fists clenched and my teeth bared so widely I could feel the ache up to my temples—I had said all of that aloud, snarled it at the reliquary in a lock-jawed hiss. I was still making a growling noise in the back of my throat, and the fug that surrounded the remains was so dense it felt like a malarial pool, like this place would seep into my blood and sicken me if I let it. The roots of my hair itched furiously, and I could nearly feel every separate length of ribbon that twined through the strands, as if the ribbons had come alive.
The next thing I knew, the priest had seized me by the shoulder, his fingers digging painfully into my bone, and hauled me out of the cave. I stumbled and nearly fell as he flung me out onto the terrace, his blue eyes ringed with white, his face pale with fury.
“How dare you,” he spat. “How dare you use such words in the presence of our saint, you daughter of hell? What are you?”
Luka stepped between us, breaking the priest’s hold. “Father, please, calm down,” he urged. “Something’s wrong with her, can’t you see that? She’s—she’s having a spell of some kind.”
“A witch’s spell, maybe! Did you see her, son? Did you see her hissing at our holiness like a devil’s cat? That girl is evil, son. Or there’s something inside of her that is.”
Luka glanced over his shoulder at me, and I could see the shock and fear on his own face before he turned back to the priest to appease him. “It’s just the grief, Father. She’s lost her mother, she’s not in her right mind—”
I was crying by then, deep racking sobs that were more terror than grief. My arms wrapped around my chest, I stumbled against Luka’s side. “I’m so sorry,” I wept. “I don’t know what that was, but I swear, I didn’t mean to . . .”
“Keep away from me, demon!” The priest backed away from me, his face contorted, frantically crossing himself. “Keep away from me!”
I went blind with tears, the world blurring around me as Luka half dragged me away. But even through the haze, I could see the wrath warring with disgust on the priest’s face as he stormed back into the monastery.
Like I was some foul thing, unnatural, everything Luka had said to me before along with everything I’d always felt inside.