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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

WHAT IS HARROWING IS HALLOWED

B y the time we reached the village high within the Fervent Peaks, it was well into the night. It was raining, the sky stained black by clouds. The gargoyle and I were in a new cart, shoved up against bins that stank of dried meat and barrels that smelled of ale. We’d been traveling at an incline for ages now—up slopes, past hot springs, and into the Fervent Peaks, the roaring Tenor River never out of sight.

There were no cobblestone roads or brick houses. The Fervent Peaks boasted fishermen, vastly different than those who call the bustling modernity of the Seacht home. Here, the road was dirt and rock, the houses wooden and meek. Fishermen’s nets hung from walls, torchlight spilled from windows, and open doors were silhouetted by dark figures who watched us pass by. There were no sounds of greeting. Everything, save the Tenor and the wind, was quiet.

Some of the knights extended their hands in greeting and were answered in kind by men and women wearing utilitarian leather and wool. The only adornment in the village—save instruments of piscary—was a single oar, carved into the dark wood of their doors.

I murmured the Ardent Oarsman’s creed. “Only the oar, only vigor, can Divine.”

The air felt thinner. Colder. Sheets of rain stung my face, and I wrapped my arms around myself, looking up at the night sky, wondering if, somewhere, the other Diviners were looking up at it, too. Our caravan went up and up and up—

The cart bottomed out, jerking to a halt.

The road stopped upon a wide, lofty plateau, where the wind showed its teeth. Maude had said this was where the majority of the Peaks occupants dwelled, and I could see a substantial crop of buildings—houses, stables, a hall. They were crude like the ones on the road, spread out in a great circle. In the center of the circle, sloshing like a giant wet heart—

Was a basin of water.

I knew at once it wasn’t the basin from my dreams. It was too wide, too loud. A roaring waterfall poured into it from a sheer rockface, stirring the water, never leaving it still enough to appear crystalline. Still, it was beautiful—the moon rippling over its surface, the Tenor feeding it water and also taking it away.

I stifled a yawn. “What hour is it?”

“Late.” Maude dismounted from the cart. “The zealots have waited up, no doubt.”

“What zealots?” the gargoyle asked.

The answer arrived in fishermen’s attire.

Five figures, wearing leather wax-coated hoods, nets slung over each of their shoulders, came from the largest of the outbuildings. Torchlight caught in the crags of their aged, unsmiling faces. “King Castor.” They approached the head of the caravan. “Your falcon said you’d arrive yesterday.”

“Apologies.” Benji dismounted, torchlight dancing over his spotless armor. “Our business in the Seacht took longer than expected.”

The figures introduced themselves and said their names in such a way I understood at once they must be from the Peaks’ noble families. They were already familiar with Benji—perhaps from when he was a knight—but he was king now. Formalities needed to be observed.

A few of the knights came forward, greeting the figures. Hamelin was one of them. He came to a woman who’d introduced herself as Avice Fischer. She had blond hair and straight white teeth like his, and they embraced. His mother, I supposed.

The woman’s eyes moved past her son, slamming directly onto me. Then the gargoyle. Then me again. “There’s a Diviner in your midst.”

“Yes.” Hamelin stepped aside. Looked me over the way his mother had. “This is Six. She’s a friend.”

Three horses over, Rory snorted.

Hamelin bit the inside of his cheek. “The king’s friend.”

Maude tapped Benji’s shoulder. He cleared his throat, addressing the nobles in a tone so polished the words sounded rehearsed. “Circumstances have brought us together. The Diviner will be traveling with me as I visit the hamlets. A good sign from the Omens.”

“How do you imagine that?” Another noble—a tall, elderly man with a thin face. “Indeed, there are rumors that you garnered five ill portents from the Omens not so long ago at Aisling Cathedral, King Castor.” He looked down his nose at Benji. “Perhaps you are too much like your grandfather.”

The knights went quiet. Maude and Rory had twin reactions, both bristling, leaning forward, jaws taut—

“I don’t like your tone.”

It was the gargoyle who’d spoken. All eyes turned to him. And while his batlike face remained cold, his fingers trilled excitedly behind his back. He was enjoying this. “Swords and armor are nothing to stone. A Diviner has chosen to walk beside the king, and to question her methods is to question Aisling—and thusly the Omens themselves. Is that what you are doing, or is it the altitude that makes you such a mad apple?”

Bad apple , I mouthed.

The man paled. “I meant no offense to the Diviner.” He bowed his head. Said, through his teeth, “Nor the king.”

Rory leaned against Fig. “Is she the only Diviner you’ve seen of late?”

The nobles exchanged glances. “Yes,” Hamelin’s mother answered. “Should we expect more?”

My stomach fell.

“Unlikely.” Rory’s gaze flickered to my face. “She’s a guest of the king’s. Affront her in any way, the knighthood will answer. Attempt to look beneath her shroud, she and the gargoyle will respond as they see fit. With full immunity to any carnage tended.”

The gargoyle batted his eyes. “Oh, Bartholomew. He’s dreamy.”

The knighthood formed a line and moved through the village, the gargoyle and I at the back. We passed between mountain rocks and under torches. I could tell which stones were young and which were old by their smoothness, time and weather and the constant assault of rain as effective as a grindstone.

Torch flames flickered and an enormous canvas banner of the oar caught the wind, beckoning us with the whipping sounds of flagellation. Benji and his knights moved in a practiced pattern—a dance I did not know the steps to. They made half a circle, Benji in the heart of it, and the five nobles faced him.

“Torrid and unforgiving,” one of the nobles called, fingering the net upon his shoulders, “the river carves a path, always. Only the oar, only vigor, can Divine.”

Avice Fischer spoke, holding out her net. “We are said to be the most rudimentary of the hamlets—that our Peaks are without gentleness, and so too are we. Perhaps that is true. But to be hardened by our landscape, to know discomfort, and to prevail through it with vigor, is to be close to the Ardent Oarsman.” Her eyes turned to me and she nodded, like my presence had assured her. “What is harrowing is hallowed, is it not, Diviner of Aisling?”

Everyone turned to me. “I—”

Benji’s brows perked.

“That is…” I cleared my throat. “It is true. What is harrowing is hallowed.” I pitched my voice low in my finest impression of the abbess. “May you, here in the Fervent Peaks, be witness to the wonders of the Omens. Pupils of their portents. Ever but visitors to their greatness.”

The nobles nodded. Avice Fischer raised her hands to the starry sky. “Ever but visitors.”

“Ever but visitors,” Benji repeated.

“Ever but visitors,” the knighthood echoed.

Everyone began to move. We descended crude stairs cut into the rock, so wet and precarious I had to catch the gargoyle’s arm to keep from slipping. I heard a low, steady roar.

The waterfall. The basin.

There were no torches down by the water—only moonlight lit our way. More than one knight stumbled over rocks as we came to the lip of the basin. When we stopped, the knighthood spread into a line. One by one, the five fishermen threw their nets into the basin.

Benji began to strip his armor.

First off was his helmet. Then his gauntlets. His vambraces and pauldrons and breastplate. He set the pieces of his armor on the ground, and one by one the knights picked them up, as if guarding pieces of him.

When Benji wore only his padded shirt and pants, he looked like a boy who’d snuck out of bed to meet his first lover under the night sky. But his face was pale, the ruddy quality of his cheeks diminished. He had none of a lover’s mischief or ardor—all I could see was dread in his eyes.

He stripped his shirt, then lastly his pants, shivering.

“What the hell is he doing?”

“Prostrating himself.” Maude’s voice was hard, and so were her eyes.

The king stood before his knighthood and the Fervent Peaks’ nobles, stark naked. I wanted to turn my head. Wanted to look anywhere but at his cold, vulnerable flesh. And I wondered—

Is this how he felt, watching me in my wet robe, standing in the spring at Aisling?

Benji got into the basin. The fishermen’s nets were there. Wordless, he swam out to them. Wrapped himself within them.

“That water must be freezing,” the gargoyle said.

“This is what the king is,” Maude murmured. “Subservient—bereft of any creed except to be a witness, a pupil, a visitor to the Omens. A symbol of faith.”

I shook my head. “The nobles make a spectacle of him.”

“The hamlets care about their spectacles. Their gods, their ceremonies. And Benji wants to please them. So for now, that means making a show of playing along.” She never took her gaze from the king. I hadn’t noticed before, but the straps of her armor were loose. As if she needed to be able to tear it off at any moment. “He won’t freeze. He’s stronger than he looks.”

“How long will the ceremony last?”

“He’ll be in that water an hour.”

I wrapped my arms around myself, cold to my bones. Then—a warm presence moved to stand behind me, and a hand pressed against the small of my back. I knew without looking who it was.

Rory carried a silver flask. Even with its stopper in, I caught the faint scent of its contents. Sweet rot—Aisling’s spring water.

Rory dropped his mouth to my ear. “Time to be a good little soldier.”

I shivered. Turned to the gargoyle. “I’ll return shortly.”

Rory took my arm. An unreal whooshing feeling seized my body, and Rory and I went utterly invisible. When we reappeared, we stood away from the basin. Rory set the silver flask upon a stack of shale rocks, undid its stopper, then grasped my arm again, and his coin flew.

We landed high upon a ridge between rocks. It had an impressive vista and kept us deep in shadow, directly above the shale where he’d placed the flask.

“Our little lure.” Rory let go of me. Settled against rocks. “Now, we wait.”

Our lookout was cloaked in mist. I wrapped the wool cloak Maude had given me under my chin and watched my breath steam out of me.

“So.” Rory pulled a stem of idleweed from his cloak, fumbled for flint rock he did not have, then begrudgingly tucked it back. “What do you think of the Peaks?”

I shushed him with a hiss. “We’re trying to be covert.”

He snorted. “Right. Sorry.”

I looked out over the vista.

After a long pause, Rory’s voice quieted. “Thanks for what you did back there,” he said. “For saving Benji the way you did.” He blew out a breath. “You make a better knight than most.”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not.”

I kept silent. Then—“Back at the Seacht. When the water sprite bit my hand. You said compassion is a craft. That when it comes to sprites, you try to exact it.” My brow knit. “That’s not a knightly virtue, is it? It’s one of yours.”

“Who said I had virtue?”

I glowered through darkness.

Rory blew out a breath. “No sprite ever took advantage of me when I was a foundling boy. No sprite ever beat me. Used me.” I couldn’t see his eyes. But I knew they were on me. “No sprite told me I was special, then hurt me.”

I understood exactly what he meant, and wished I didn’t.

A light rain began, and I drew my cloak closer around me.

“I see you’re still not wearing those boots I gave you,” Rory said. “Worried I might take it as a sign of encouragement?”

My gaze shot to his dark silhouette. “Maude got me those.”

“Did she?”

I said nothing, and he chuckled. “Rest easy, Diviner—I’m well aware I repulse you. No need to get frostbite on your toes to prove it. They’re just boots.”

I stayed quiet.

“You’re really not going to talk to me?”

“Wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“I’m full of wrong ideas.” Rory paused. “Is this about what happened in the forge?”

“Nothing happened in the forge.”

Silence unspooled between us, pulled taut by the sound of our breathing. It was only because it was too dark out for me to see his expression, or he mine, that I asked, “Are you married?”

Rory coughed. “Come again?”

“Four fiddled with a married knight. Not on purpose—he didn’t tell her he was wed. And I thought… maybe some of you were married and not saying so when you came to Aisling, because you thought you were there for our enjoyment, or we for yours.”

I heard the slow sound of his exhale. “And if I was married? That would, what? Bother you?”

There was a monster in my gut, scratching its way up my throat. “Are you?”

He took his time answering, like he knew I was suffering and wanted to savor it. “No, Diviner. I’m not.”

The monster withdrew, nicking my dignity before settling once more into the pit of my stomach. “Is there anyone you fancy? A fellow knight, maybe?”

“That’s not done,” Rory murmured. “No bed relations within the knighthood.”

“You said the rules have exceptions. That you becoming a knight is proof of it.”

“Yes, well, there are a few tenets even I haven’t broken. I don’t fancy another knight.” I could hear a smile in his voice. “Now be quiet. We’re trying to be covert.”

I settled against the rock and set my gaze once more upon the flask of spring water below. Somewhere an owl was hooting. I could hear the waterfall roaring in the distance, a steady purr against the night’s stillness—

“Was there ever someone you fancied?” Rory asked. “Someone who came to the tor and caught your eye?”

I grinned into the dark. “Why? Would that bother you?”

He didn’t answer.

“I’ve had a few dalliances. Nothing stuck.”

“Why not?”

“Same as your knighthood. Aisling bars bedfellows. Any flirtation I had was over before it started. And knowing that nothing would last, I could never—”

I stopped short, swallowing embarrassment.

“Never what?”

“Nothing.”

He didn’t let it go. “Never…?”

“I could never get comfortable. Never feel what you’re meant to feel. You know—losing oneself with someone else. The unraveling.” My face was so warm it hurt. “The little death.”

He was silent for a beat of my heart. Then two. Three. “You’ve never finished.”

“Not with another person.”

I thought he’d laugh at me. Or be incredulous, like he’d been when I told him I didn’t have shoes. And that was my own fault, thinking I’d charted him—that I could predict his derision or humor or humanity. He opened another door to himself every time.

“Pith, you think there’s something wrong with me—”

“I don’t.” Rory’s voice was gravel. “I was wondering what it would be like. Watching you unravel.”

The night was cold, the air thin, and I was thoughtless and breathless. I turned my head away from his silhouette, my pulse clamoring—

And saw a shadow move.

They looked like rocks at first. Gray, textured skin that might easily be mistaken for long pieces of shale, like they’d fallen from the mountains and come to life. But they kept moving, three of them, crawling over nearby rocks with strange, craggy hands.

Then they sniffed the air, gray lips spread over jagged teeth, a noise like fracturing stone sounding within their throats.

I gasped.

Rory was already next to me. “More sprites.”

“What are they doing?”

He turned his coin between his fingers. “I don’t know.”

The sprites crawled over the stones like great shale reptiles, sniffing. Like watchdogs, they circled the flask until, seemingly satisfied, they retreated back into shadow. Rory and I remained entirely still, waiting, watching. Just when the night seemed to return to its idle stillness—

A figure came from the dark.

Tall, cloaked, hunched, it walked with rigid steps, its long black sleeves draped over some kind of walking stick. The figure retrieved the flask of spring water, threw its head back.

And upended its contents in its mouth.

Rory’s breath caught in my ear, and a great hollowness found my heart. I knew without seeing its face that I was looking down upon a mortal, not a god.

An Omen, lured out by the smell of Aisling’s water.

The Ardent Oarsman.