Page 57 of The Maiden and Her Monster

The infirmary sat on the outskirts of Valón, as far as possible from the river bisecting the city.

Many people feared the water could transport the sickness.

Unlike the Yahadi Quarter, which sat at Valón’s southern plains, the infirmary was so far north, the distant Orzegali mountains grew more imposing as they approached.

A nurse escorted them to a back room.

“Put these on,” she said, offering them pieces of cloth which had been dipped in rose oil. “The smell is rather unpleasant.”

Malka pressed the cloth to her nose. The rose oil was concentrated but could not drown out the putrid scent of dead bodies which came from a room they passed. She peered in. Stacks of the dead rotted away on top of one another.

“They are dying so fast we don’t have the time to dispose of them all properly. At the end of each week, we roll them out and bury them together.”

Malka’s heart ached. For the Yahad, the dead should be buried as soon as possible, and she wondered if the Ozmins were the same.

But there they were, decomposing without the earth to welcome them back.

She wondered what became of Hadar’s body; if the Yahad who remained had given her the burial she deserved.

Tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked them away.

The room holding those with the Mázág sickness was the largest in the infirmary, with at least forty beds placed side by side. In each bed, a sick patient.

“Come,” the nurse said. “Eli?ka is this way.”

They must have passed a dozen beds before they arrived at Eli?ka’s. The room was hot and stuffy, and they shed their cloaks. Imma’s workroom always overheated, so Malka had planned accordingly, borrowing an elbow-length blouse from Chaia.

When Eli?ka shifted onto her back, Malka gasped. She was so pale, Malka barely recognized her. Her veins had blackened and bulged hard, blood struggling to flow through them. Her cheeks were a sallow green, eyelids thin as paper.

“I know,” Eli?ka croaked. “I’m obviously the epitome of health.” Not even the sickness could hide the sarcasm from her voice.

“You were fine only days ago, I can’t believe it,” Malka lamented.

Eli?ka shrugged. “Sévren will say I’m being punished for helping you commit treason. But I do not believe that. If anything, Triorzay, bless His name, is keeping me alive because of it.”

Nimrah settled her hand on Eli?ka’s knee. “Stay alive, Eli?ka, you must.”

Eli?ka raised her brow. “Why, Nimrah, I did not think you cared so much about me.”

“I don’t,” Nimrah said, though she did not move her hand. “Only I know you hide more secrets besides those under your floorboard, and we are in need of them once again.”

Eli?ka huffed a laugh and spiraled into a coughing fit. When it subsided, Malka offered her the glass of water from her side table. Eli?ka accepted it and sipped. “Should have known you’d come here wanting something. Like Vilém and his damn surveys.”

Nimrah cracked a smile. Malka was relieved to hear Eli?ka in good spirits. She certainly didn’t look well, and years of helping Imma with her patients meant Malka had become familiar with the stages of sickness, and when someone was not long for this world.

“Eli?ka, I… please know that if I could, I would try and heal you as I did Amnon.” Malka kept her wording vague, in case of prying ears. “But I brought some herbs, and if you’ll let me, I’d like to try and help you.”

“I know, Malka,” Eli?ka responded with a yawn. “Tell me what you wish to know.”

“Sévren has ordered Malka’s mother to die for a crime she did not commit at the Lé ? rey celebration,” Nimrah said.

“They have taken her into a prison held deeper in the earth than the castle’s main dungeon.

They say she is in a cell underground, where she can only stand prostrate and do nothing else. Do you know of such a place?”

Eli?ka’s face was incapable of growing any paler. “I know of it.”

Nimrah dropped her voice low to guarantee they would not be overheard. “Do you know how we can break someone out? The same way you led us to the secret entrance to the prison in the confe—” The tip of Nimrah’s flesh ear reddened. “The confessional.”

“I’m sorry, my girl. That place is so hidden, I’m afraid they did not even put its location on the maps. The architect had it spoken to the construction workers, who spoke of its location to King Ordobav, who passed the location through the generations in whispers.”

Malka’s heart sank. “There has to be a way.”

Eli?ka blinked sleepily. “Guards are always the most vulnerable when they are away from their usual posts. You say she will be taken to the Lé ? rey celebration? You’d have much more luck freeing her there than in that hell of a prison…”

Nimrah rubbed the nape of her neck, a physical emulation of Malka’s distress.

What Eli?ka suggested sounded impossible. Though, so had the possibility of freeing the Maharal. Of holding Yahadi mysticism in her fingers. Only she no longer had magic to aid her. It was gone. Another thing to grieve, another thing to mourn.

Eli?ka drifted back to sleep. Nimrah went to shake her awake again, but Malka caught her wrist.

“Let her sleep. She needs it.”

Nimrah’s eyes fell to her arm, and Malka let go quickly, hardening her face.

One of the nurses entered the room, refilling a patient’s glass of water and dampening their forehead cloth again. Nimrah waited until she left again to speak. “I’m not sure how wise it will be to wait until the Lé ? rey celebration to free your mother.”

“Do we have another choice?” Malka questioned. “You heard Eli?ka. When we freed the Maharal, Sévren did not yet know you were back. He didn’t know me. Now, he knows us both. He knows what we did, and he will be far more careful this time.”

“There’s something…”

“What is it?” Malka frowned. “You’ve obtained what you wanted out of this deal, now you no longer wish to help me, is that it?”

“Just…” Nimrah made a frustrated sound. “Let’s go back and talk about this.”

“I promised I’d try and help her,” Malka deflected, unpacking her herbs, and settling them on Eli?ka’s bedside. “You’re free to go.”

Nimrah lingered, as if she wanted to say something. Malka waited for a reproach, a curse, a denial. Instead, she stayed silent, and turned to leave.

Before she could, a familiar voice sent a phantom chill up Malka’s spine.

“Ah, so it is the Yahadi girl and her monstrous golem, once again.”

Two guards trailed behind Sévren as he approached, his red robes vibrant against the tempered steel of the guards’ armor.

He wore the same charismatic smile each time Malka saw him, the same disquieting slit of his eyes.

Malka wanted to take away his mouth the same way he had taken the Maharal’s fingers, painfully tearing through each nerve and tendon.

“I see your bruises are healing nicely, girl. Though I’m afraid that the cut on your cheekbone might scar.”

“What are you doing here, Your Grace ?” Nimrah asked, mocking his honorific, though her voice was sickly sweet.

“I am a connection to Triorzay. He speaks through me, and I convey His will. It would be a disservice to the people of Valón if I did not hear the laments of the sick, would it not?”

“Yes, of course. We all know how well you care for the ill,” Nimrah responded, crossing her arms.

Sévren grinned. “Oh, golem. You doubt me but believe me when I say I want nothing but the best for Ordobav. I want nothing but the best for our retired laundress, Eli?ka.” His eyes drifted to Eli?ka’s sleeping figure and he frowned.

“It is so sad to see her like this. How interesting that Triorzay has bestowed this punishment on her now, and it is you two I find here at her bedside.”

Malka’s insides tilted, unsure if Sévren had discovered who helped them locate the dungeon, or if he was slotting the pieces together now. If he knew Eli?ka had aided them, Malka wouldn’t underestimate his ability to uncover Chaia’s and Vilém’s involvement. She felt sick.

“How curious,” Sévren remarked, eyes glancing between them, “that you both share the same lettering carved into your arm.”

Malka glimpsed her exposed skin, then Nimrah’s, whose sleeves had ridden up her arms when she had crossed them.

“I had wondered how you appeared again, after your beloved rabbi promised you would not return. If I recall correctly, he, too, has Yahadi lettering carved into his skin. It was hard to miss as our doctors sewed up his amputated hands.”

Sévren grinned the same way Abba did when he held a winning hand in the card games he had played with the other men in Eskravé. They had bet jewelry and trinkets instead of money. Malka never forgot the rage that had flushed his cheeks when he lost his pocket watch.

“Two Yahadi villages were destroyed because of you. I know you convinced Ev ? en to order the raids.”

Sévren shrugged, undisturbed that Malka had accused him in front of his guards.

“You can blame me if it makes you feel better. Though I am not the one who threw stones at windows or stampeded my horse over those poor Yahadi children. I merely gave those Paja members permission to be angry. You understand why they’re angry, don’t you?

” He motioned around the room. “It is the same reason why all of these people are here—the plague.”

“And you’ve convinced them that the plague is the fault of the Yahad, have you?”

“I have not needed to convince them of anything. The Ozmins are not sheep, Malka. They have simply put the pieces together.”

“And what pieces are those?” Nimrah asked.

Sévren scanned the room. “Funny, how so many Ozmins are dying in this infirmary, when yesterday you Yahad were out dancing in the streets celebrating. What else are people supposed to think, when more and more Yahad are coming into power, and more and more Ozmins are dying?”

Anger simmered Malka’s cheeks. The infirmary was run by the Church, so it made sense the sick Yahad would choose to stay home and either recover or die there. The Ozmins, who saw their people sick and suffering, did not see this. Did not choose to see this.

“That’s not true, and you know it.”

“Is it not? Do you have proof?”

The condescending way he spoke the words made Malka shudder, his snide confidence stripping her of speech.

She had commanded the earth, killed a soldier twice her size, but those few words on the archbishop’s tongue made her faulter.

Could she prove Imma’s innocence? There was no way.

Yahadi magic didn’t work the way Archbishop Sévren and Father Bro ? ek had described, but that didn’t matter.

It was a Yahad’s word against the Ozmini Church.

They were empowered by the crown, money, and fear.

Sévren had left the room, yet Malka didn’t notice. She stared at the place he had stood, hands curled into fists.

“Malka,” Nimrah said tenderly, placing her hand on her shoulder. She felt the gentle caress of the golem’s thumb, the softness of her name in her breathy voice. It was too much.

Malka came back to herself and shrugged Nimrah’s hand away. “Leave me!”

Nimrah’s lips thinned and her eyes cooled. She walked away without another word.