Page 56
Story: The Starving Saints
Her head hurts so badly.
And then she hears Phosyne calling for help, and she’s up, and moving, and has her hand clapped over the other woman’s mouth in an instant. “Quiet,” she rasps, and drags Phosyne back under the shade of the tarp, away from prying eyes.
Phosyne lets her.
Voyne licks her lips, trying to find more words where the one came from. “If somebody hears you,” she says, haltingly, stumbling over each syllable, “then She can hear you, too.”
That Voyne feels not just panic, butjoy, at that idea? That is reason enough that it can’t be allowed to happen.
Phosyne nods, and Voyne releases her. It’s hard to stay standing, but she forces herself to, forces herself to meet Phosyne’s eyes as she turns to peer up at her. “Welcome back,” Phosyne says.
Voyne flinches and looks away.
“I doubt anybody heard me. The feast had gotten loud,” Phosyne adds, as if trying to placate her. And that makes sense. Voyne has just hauled her bodily to the Constant Lady’s table, and before that nearly strangled her. Has been her minder and her jailer. Of course she fears Voyne.
Freeing her mind, however she did it with the water, is only a tactic to stop Voyne from pursuing her further. Nothing more. It is not—it is not kindness.
Voyne takes a few deep breaths, makes herself focus. Phosyne is right; the feasthasgotten loud, with raucous singing, squeals of laughter. It sounds like they’ve been rescued, but Voyne knows Etrebia still waits beyond the gates. She’s known that all along, but for the last day, it hasn’t mattered at all.
“There’s no ladder,” Phosyne says, drawing her back to the cistern.
“It’s kept out of the water,” Voyne replies automatically. Logistics steady her. “And there’s only one left. Not here.”
“Then how do we get out?”
Voyne hazards a glance at her. She looks weaker than she did a day ago. Her eyes appear sunken. Her hair is dry now, but it’s plastered to her forehead. “How did you intend to get out, when you jumped in?”
It’s hard to tell in the dim light, but Voyne thinks she blushes. “I hadn’t thought that far,” she admits. “Was more focused on testing a hypothesis.”
Voyne looks down at the water.
“Yes,” Phosyne confirms.
“Later. Explain it to me later.” She wants to knownow, but the longer they stay here, the weaker Phosyne will get, and the greater the chance of the Lady coming to look for them. Voyne steps back, looks around. The walls are hewn stone, not even blocks that might have toeholds, but slippery, undulating, unbroken rock.
She should have suggested steps be worked into the sides, back when Etrebia first cut them off here, and they’d set about improving the cisterns. More fool her.
Water sloshes as Phosyne leaves her side and goes up to the wall itself, just outside where the tarp covers, no doubt so she can see up to the rim. She places both hands flat on the stone and stares forward, bullheaded, then looks up. Voyne watches as she touches the top of her head, slides her hand against the stone level with it. She steps back, regarding it and the empty space above.
She looks at Ser Voyne.
“Come here,” she says.
Ser Voyne jerks into motion.
She has no control over herself as she stalks through the water, and it makes her breath come sharp and thin. It doesn’tfeellike prowling the keep for the Lady (though remembering how, exactly, it felt is like trying to grab hold of a dream), but she is sure it didn’t feel this wrong. This uncontrollable. No, she’d thought she was in perfect control.
Right now, sheknowsshe is a puppet.
She reaches Phosyne. She bares her teeth. “Don’t do that again,” Ser Voyne growls. It’s half warning, half plea.
Phosyne stares, confused. Then she nods. “No, of course not,” she says. She licks her lip, brow furrowing in thought, before finally turning and gesturing at the wall. “If I lift you, can you reach the top, do you think?”
Voyne snorts. “I don’t think you can lift me.” But the idea does have merit. “Reverse it. I lift you up, you go get help, get a ladder.”
“And I get dragged back to the great hall again, and you’re stuck here until your Lady comes to fetch you?” Phosyne’s tone is not kind, but Voyne figures she earned that. She’s right, after all: when they go up, Voyne needs to be first out. She needs to assess the situation, figure out the best options available. Otherwise, they’ll both be lost again, and Voyne isn’t sure if she can claw her way back without the madwoman at her side.
“You’re right,” she concedes. Best to be practical and honest, here, even if she’s burning with shame, immolating from the inside out. Even if her head still hurts and her mind threatens to spin apart at the slightest breath. “The problem remains, however, that you haven’t eaten in days and, even if you had, the heaviest thing you’ve lifted in a month is your chamber pot.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56 (Reading here)
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131