Vespertine (Vespertine #1)(12)

Soldiers poured into the convent. They set upon the granary, their swords hacking and battering with inhuman strength. The door splintered. As they rushed inside, one man paused to look toward the chapel. His eyes shone silver through the rain.

“Everyone is accounted for, Mother Katherine.” Sister Iris’s voice, behind me.

Heedless of the cold rain trickling down my back, I clung watching as though I had rooted to the stone. A gentle grip took my arm and drew me away. Down from the wall, into the chapel. Mother Katherine.

We must have been the last to enter, because the doors groaned shut behind us and the floor shuddered as the heavy bar fell into place. The pounding of the rain receded to a muffled drumming. The chapel’s warmth enfolded me, but gooseflesh still pricked my body. Mother Katherine surveyed the huddled mass of girls and women, faces ashen, wet hair plastered down.

“The soldiers are possessed.” My robes dripped onto the carpet. “Aren’t they?”

She squeezed my arm. “Wait here. I will have need of you.”

I obeyed, gripped by a sense of unreality as she herded the youngest novices toward the altar, then instructed the lay sisters to pray and light incense. Led by Sister Iris, the Gray Sisters drew their daggers and formed a defensive line. I didn’t think it would help much. The sisters weren’t equipped to battle living thralls, Clerisy soldiers wearing armor and wielding swords.

In my mind’s eye, I saw the pews hacked to kindling. The cloth torn from the altar, flames licking at its fringe.

Mother Katherine returned holding a lit taper. She briefly shut her eyes. Then she nodded, confirming something to herself. Sorrow shadowed her face as she passed me the candle. “Artemisia, I have a task for you. You must descend to the crypt and alert Sister Julienne. She will know what to do.”

Wordlessly, I set off along the aisle. A numb blankness filled my mind as I hurried past the tall stained-glass windows adorned with images of spirits and saints, their tranquil faces downcast. Somewhere, a young novice wept and a sister tried to comfort her. Whispered prayers rose and fell around me.

“Goddess, Lady of Death, Mother of Mercy, give us strength….”

“Our flesh may be weak, but our hearts are as iron in service to Your will….”

“Lady, do not forsake us. Please, do not forsake us….”

My candle’s flame stopped wavering and stood perfectly still. All around the chapel, the rest of the candles did the same. Hairs stood up on the back of my neck. The Lady was listening to our prayers.

But that didn’t mean She would save us. She couldn’t—She relied on mortals to carry out Her will in the physical world. Whether we lived or died was up to us, and maybe She had come so we wouldn’t die alone.

I reached the banded door set into the wall of the transept. As I lifted my sodden robes to descend the stairs, I felt a dull throb of hope in my chest. Mother Katherine must be planning to call upon the relic of Saint Eugenia. Sister Julienne—had she been trained to wield it? I had never paused to wonder whether her life of privation and solitude was in pursuit of a higher purpose.

Underground, the prayers faded along with the distant pounding of the rain. Smoke swirled from the depths to twine around my shoes, eddying with every footfall. My steps echoed from the walls.

“Sister Julienne?” I called.

A faint, sucking gasp wafted up the stairwell like a draft.

I raced around the final bend—and froze. The lid had been shoved from Saint Eugenia’s sarcophagus. A soldier lay slumped against it, a sister’s misericorde protruding from his throat, the wound bubbling forth a pink froth of blood. Dead, or dying. How had he gotten inside?

The collapse. The opening had been filled, but the foundation was still awaiting permanent repairs. The rain must have washed the passage out again.

Another gasping breath disturbed the crypt’s silent, stifling air. I rushed around the slab to find Sister Julienne sprawled on the flagstones, clutching a small jeweled box. As I bent over her, she struggled to open her eyes. Blood had soaked through her robes, leaving them a sheet of shining crimson.

I dropped the candle and pressed my hands to her stomach, where the sword wound gaped. Hot blood welled between my fingers. “Stay awake, Sister Julienne. Just a little longer. I’ll bring the healers.” Even as I spoke, I recognized the futility of those words. No healer could help Sister Julienne now.

Her eyes sprang open. Swiftly as a striking adder, she seized my wrist. Her fingers were deathly cold. “Artemisia,” she rasped. “Take the reliquary.”

The box. I forced myself not to recoil. Its gilded surface sparkled with opals, fiery glints of color showing through the smears of blood. “Take it where?”

Her clouded eyes sought mine, wandering and unfocused, as though she saw through me to another plane. “We have guarded Saint Eugenia’s relic for three hundred years. It cannot fall into the grasp of the unliving. They know that the revenant cannot be freed, only destroyed. Thus they seek to destroy it. It is our greatest weapon, and without it we have no defense.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Should I take the reliquary to Mother Katherine, or do you mean that I should—run, escape with it from the convent?”

“No,” she croaked. My shoulders slumped with relief. I couldn’t imagine fleeing, abandoning Sophia and the others to die, even if staying here meant dying with them. But what she said next dashed my relief on unforgiving stones. “I pass my duty on to you, Artemisia of Naimes. You must take up the relic of Saint Eugenia. This is the Lady’s will.”