Vespertine (Vespertine #1)(107)

The knife hung poised above my arm. I waited for the cut, then waited some more. Nothing happened. It was as though my body had turned to stone, the dagger frozen in midair. Light quivered on the blade; my hand was shaking.

“I can’t do it,” the revenant muttered at last.

It didn’t mean the Old Magic, I realized in amazement. It meant that it couldn’t cut me, even though it only needed a little of my blood, and the cut would barely sting. My chest tightened with unexpected sympathy. Embarrassed, the revenant quickly handed back control.

Someone in the crowd whispered, “Is she going to—” the moment before the knife’s edge met my skin.

A brief flash of pain. Then a sluggish rivulet of blood traced the curve of my arm, and a single shining droplet landed on the cobbles. I hadn’t cut deeply, knowing I would need to score a new wound for each rune.

I passed back control to the revenant, who immediately flung the knife aside as though repulsed by it. It dipped my fingers in the blood and began to draw.

The rune took shape in glistening dabs of red. The revenant was right; I had seen this symbol before. It was carved on one of the cornerstones of the chapel in Naimes and decorated many of the oldest tombstones in the graveyard. Novices were taught that it meant something like “peace” or “rest.”

Murmurs of enlightenment spread as onlookers began to recognize the shape. I imagined the news fanning outward from the nearest bystanders like ripples in a pond, distorted to rumor by the time it lapped against the farthest corners of the square.

I hoped this wasn’t going to end up on a tapestry one day: “Saint Artemisia beseeching the Lady for aid with her own heart’s blood.” Or worse—they had better not believe She was revealing the symbols to me like the saints of old, etched across my mind in sacred fire. At least now I understood why I had never read accounts of Old Magic being used in the War of Martyrs. If I checked again, I suspected I would see references to it everywhere, described as the Lady’s miracles.

The revenant only glanced up once, bringing Charles and Marguerite into view. I hadn’t explained my plan to either of them. There hadn’t been time. Charles signed himself when he saw me looking. Marguerite wore a slight frown.

As the revenant finished drawing the rune, I expected a change to happen, that I would feel the Old Magic’s poison seeping through my soul, or the terrible abandonment of the Lady casting me from Her sight. But I only felt slightly drained, as though a small amount of my life force had left my body along with my blood. The revenant sat up slowly, mindful of my spinning head.

As I sat there dazed, a clopping of hooves penetrated the fog. Mounted on his own black charger, Captain Enguerrand had returned with a horse—and not just any horse. Seeing the dapple–gray stallion approach, the revenant wordlessly surrendered control.

Heedless of the many onlookers, I stumbled to Priestbane and caught his bridle for balance. His hot breath gusted down my front as he nosed at my face, his whiskers tickling my cheek. He didn’t seem to blame me for how hard I had ridden him after the battle. I bent to run my hands down his powerful legs, wanting to check them for signs of heat or swelling.

“He’s sound. He’s a good horse,” Enguerrand added, a little roughly. I felt him watching me. “Can you ride?”

I wondered if I looked bad enough that he needed to ask. Before he could offer to help, I pulled myself into the saddle. I had just gotten settled when a warm, soft weight pressed against my back. Charles had boosted Marguerite up after me.

“If you’re going to be cutting up your arm and bleeding all over the place, I’m coming with you,” she said fiercely. “Don’t argue.”

I wasn’t about to push her off, at least not with this many people watching. I supposed she wouldn’t slow me down—Priestbane had been bred to bear a fully grown man in armor. Marguerite’s extra weight wouldn’t tax him on an easy ride.

The revenant was saying, “We should start at the northwest corner of the city and draw the second rune, then work our way around. The walls would be the best place to start; they’re guaranteed to be among the oldest parts of Bonsaint.”

I relayed this to Captain Enguerrand, who turned his horse to guide us, though he glanced at the patch of blood on my sleeve in concern. Priestbane impatiently mouthed the bit as our pace broke into a trot, then a canter, hoofbeats clattering loudly through the square. Marguerite yelped and clutched at my cloak until I grabbed her hands and wrapped them around my middle.

As we reached the streets, windows and doors began to open. Faces peered out, at first cautiously, and then with growing excitement. Light flushed the buildings as the sun rose higher, cresting the rooftops. Color returned to the festival banners still strung overhead.

The occasional voice calling out from a window failed to explain the hubbub at our heels. A glance over my shoulder revealed that the crowd from the square had decided to follow, the nearest people jogging to keep up, the slower trailing behind.

They accompanied us all the way to the next stop, a rugged stretch of wall shining with moisture and thrumming with the roar of the Sevre’s current. I made the cut on my arm, then passed over control to the revenant. When it looked up from drawing the second rune, I discovered that the crowd had filled the street, gaining in size as those walking at the rear began to catch up.

Onward we went. After the third rune, the Old Magic’s dizzy, draining weakness lingered instead of subsiding. After the fourth, my thoughts swam. I was grateful for Marguerite behind me; otherwise I might have slid from the saddle like a sack of grain. If it weren’t for the urgency of our mission, I suspected that the revenant would make me stop and rest, and probably eat some pottage.