Assassin's Heart (Assassin's Heart, #1)(23)

I slipped off my mask. Another priest took it reverently.

“We’ll have it cleaned and repaired,” Brother Faraday said.

“No!” My shout startled them. I lowered my voice. “Cleaning is fine. But the crack . . . leave it. It’s a reminder for me.”

The priest carried my mask away.

“What have you done to your hand?” Brother Sebastien seized my wrist.

I’d almost forgotten my hand. I turned it over and with some effort managed to peel my fingers open.

“What is this?” Sebastien plucked the coin carefully from my scorched palm and passed it to Brother Faraday. My burned skin cooled painfully in the air. It was red and raw. Brother Sebastien dabbed at my hand with a damp cloth.

Faraday cleaned the coin under the light of a lantern.

“It’s a holy coin,” I answered. “I was clutching it in my fear.”

“But why are you burned?” Faraday asked.

I shrugged, then hissed in pain from the movement.

“I don’t know how it burned me,” I replied to Faraday. Sebastien cut away my leathers and started to clean my shoulder of blood. “I didn’t think I’d be able to reach the monastery before the ghosts stopped me. I clutched the coin and pleaded for Safraella to save me.”

Faraday paused in his examination of the coin and stared at me, his gaze so intense I fidgeted in my seat.

Sebastien pressed his hands against my shoulders, holding me in place. “Miss Oleander, I must implore you to remain still.”

“You recognize me?” I asked, surprised.

“The coin and the mask are Family Saldana, though the mask belongs to Rafeo Saldana. The late Rafeo Saldana, if I’ve judged things correctly.” He glanced at me, then returned to my shoulder. “There are only two women in the Saldana Family, and you don’t look nearly old enough to be Bianca. Therefore, Oleander.”

“I go by Lea,” I mumbled.

“Yes, well, perhaps you should return to your discussion with Brother Faraday, as this next part will be . . . unpleasant.”

Sebastien shoved the arrow the rest of the way through my shoulder.

I grunted and the room rolled. Sweat broke out on my forehead and my stomach contorted.

Sebastien broke the shaft and removed the arrow from my shoulder.

“Some stitching on both sides and you’ll be back to normal in no time,” he said. “As long as you refrain from heavy use of this arm. I take it you are right-handed? Good, then it shouldn’t be so difficult.”

Brother Faraday diverted my attention while Sebastien set a needle to my skin. “The coin itself burned you? After you prayed to Safraella?”

“Yes. I couldn’t release it.”

“But the ghosts still chased you? I don’t understand what this means. . . .” The last bit he addressed to himself, his gaze retreating inward. Sebastien finished the stitches in my back and moved to the front of my shoulder.

“While it was burning me,” I continued, “a ghost tried to pull me out of my body, and something pushed it away.”

That drew Faraday’s attention. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure I can explain. There was a flash, like embers maybe? And the ghost was thrown away from me. I didn’t pay the flash much attention. I was trying to stay seated on my horse.”

“A miracle?” he asked. “You held off a ghost by the strength of your faith alone?”

There had been stories and tales of priests or clippers so devoted to Safraella or their own gods, so favored that the gods protected them from the ghosts. They could walk the dead plains at night, unmolested. Those of incredible, fervent faith—saints or those who saw the goddess herself in a vision—were sometimes granted true resurrections and brought back to life in their existing body. It hadn’t happened in hundreds of years. I scowled. “I’m no saint.”

Faraday blinked rapidly. He flipped the coin in his palm. “Do you mind if I keep this?”

I waved his question aside. “Have it. I have a pouch full of them. They’re really only worth the value of the coin.”

“To you, maybe, but to me it is apparent you had an experience with the goddess Herself, that She somehow deigned to answer your prayers. You must be very special, Lea Saldana.”

Sebastien, finished with the stitches in my shoulder, dressed the wound with a foul-smelling salve, and wrapped it tightly with white cloth. He moved on to my hand, cleaning it with another damp towel before slathering the burns with the same salve, wrapping my hand and pronouncing me mended.

“I don’t see that I’m favored by Safraella,” I responded to Faraday. “Two nights ago my whole Family was slaughtered by the Da Vias. If She loved us so, then why did She let us be destroyed?”

Faraday closed his fingers around the coin. “Yes, I can see how that would be . . . upsetting. But do you not also see how you were the sole survivor? How you escaped the slaughter of your Family?”

I shook my head.

Luck. It had been only dumb luck that had saved me.

And since everything had been my fault, the luck tasted like dry ashes in my mouth.

Brother Faraday showed me to a room. It was small, and sparsely furnished, but the bed was clean and my body sank into it. My mind, however, could find no rest.

I was surrounded by men of faith, servants of Safraella, and yet I’d never felt so alone. The pain in my shoulder and hand paled against the pain of my heart. Before, whenever I’d felt sad or lonely, I’d talk to Rafeo, who would be quick to cheer me with a joke. Or I’d find Val, who could make my body tremble with well-placed hands and lips.