Page 15 of The Starving Saints

The night cools around Phosyne as she rocks on the wall of Aymar castle.

She has called the Constant Lady and Her saints. She has done the impossible. The divine does not walk upon the earth like

humans, like dogs, like creeping bugs. If it were that simple, there would be no wars, no disorder in the world. And yet her

prayer, her desperation...

Perhaps it was only coincidence. Perhaps it is the Priory that has done something unprecedented. But she knows that can’t

be true; she knew it when she saw Jacynde absent from that room. Knew it even when she spoke with Jacynde the other day, when

she realized that any success of hers would be something beyond what mortals were meant for.

Magic. Intercession. A summoning.

Will it even matter that she has called their Lady?

A miracle so profound may be indistinguishable from horror. Phosyne certainly feels horrified.

Every step away from her faith and toward an understanding of the unseen world has done a little more damage. First, she was no longer so fascinated by the exactitude of the bee space’s measurements that she couldn’t see the alchemy in how honey was formed, or in the transformation from egg to larva to winged beauty. From there she pursued her heretical texts, ignored all guidance, all advice, broke with the Priory and abandoned her nun’s name and chose to call herself Phosyne. To that point, it was all theoretical, but then she cleaned the water, and that... that began to break the order of things. Her pursuits are anathema to the divine structure of the world, even if Phosyne believes them to be more true. Her sisters might even now be waiting for her in her tower room, and she has only escaped them and the flame by the barest margin.

And yet there is nowhere else for her to return to. It is the little world she has made herself, a refuge from all the rest.

Feeling like she is walking toward death, she makes herself stand up. Her knees wobble. She pitches forward, and uses the

momentum to keep on toward her tower.

Each step is harder than the last, though. The weakness she felt earlier in the day is back a hundred-fold, fed on her guilt

and shame. She reaches the upper bailey without falling, but it is a near thing. She weaves in the darkness, closes her eyes,

and when she opens them again, she is at the base of one of the towers. Not hers, but close.

She stares at the spiraling steps.

Up seems impossible, but down is easier. She stumbles down the steps, into a pocket of darkness. Her head is spinning. Her knees

are weak. If she just sits a little, rests, she can put herself back together again. She needs to construct an argument that

will sway Ser Voyne and all the rest, and she doesn’t think I may have summoned them from someplace dangerous will get her the results she wants.

She sinks to her knees, then keeps going, helpless to stop herself. One breath she is upright, and the next she is laid out,

aching, skin tight over her bones. The stone below her is cool, at least, and drains some of the heat away, but she cannot

move, and she cannot think , and oh, this is bad.

Walking this much was a bad decision. She didn’t have the strength for it. She hasn’t walked so far since chasing after Pneio,

and she has only eaten less and less.

She lies there for a long time, hoping that the strength will come back to her. It doesn’t. She should call out for help,

but she doesn’t want to explain what she’s doing down here. Instead, she imagines her little pallet and wonders, if she dreams

about resting there, if she’ll wake up there when she opens her eyes again.

Unlikely.

She forces her eyes open again a few minutes later; she’s fairly certain she heard footsteps, though she doesn’t know how long ago. A girl with blonde, curling hair peers down at her. She can’t be more than twenty, but Phosyne sees something in her eyes that makes her twitch and roll away with a weak moan.

“You’re Ser Leodegardis’s madwoman, aren’t you?” the girl asks.

Yes, she supposes she is.

The girl leans in again, her face too close for comfort. Then her nose wrinkles. “Stay there,” she says, and then she is gone.

Phosyne doesn’t particularly want to follow orders, but she can’t get her legs to work again. She’s tired. She’s so tired , the panic having stolen every last drop of her waning strength.

She half expects the girl to come back with Ser Voyne, or not at all, but when she returns (how much later? Five minutes?

Five hours? Phosyne can’t be certain), she is carrying a little pouch. She crouches down beside Phosyne and from that pouch

pulls—

Dried fruit.

Phosyne’s mouth would water, if she weren’t such a dried-out husk herself.

“You realize you’re dying, right?” the girl says.

Phosyne manages a weak smile. “Aren’t we all?” she whispers hoarsely.

The girl quirks a brow. “Fruit will help. I’ve been there before.” Echoes of Ser Voyne. How many in this castle have come

close enough to death to learn from it? That means something, Phosyne thinks, but can’t discern what .

Maybe just bad luck.

“Please,” she says, when the girl doesn’t move to put the wrinkled fruit between her lips. “I don’t know if I can get up.”

The girl looks her over, appraising. “You can,” she declares. “For a little while longer, anyway. Probably doesn’t feel like

it, though.”

There’s an undercurrent of something sharp in her words. Cruelty , Phosyne realizes. “Please,” she says again, more forcefully this time. “Or—or send for Ser Voyne. She will want to know

where I am.”

“She’s a little distracted with our visitors,” the girl says, smiling. It doesn’t look like a real smile.

Then again, much of the room doesn’t look like a real room. The darkness is emptiness, and if Phosyne doesn’t concentrate very hard, she thinks she’ll fall through the floor. She pays attention to its solidity. It’s very hard. Her back hurts.

The girl waggles the fruit. “I’ve only got a little of this left,” she says. “So in return, I want something from you.”

“Oh,” Phosyne says. Blinks owlishly up at her.

“Glad to see you understand,” the girl says, that not-smile still on her lips. “They say you’re a heretic. Is that true?”

Phosyne winces. “More or less.” She’s thinking of Pneio and Ornuo and their new guests. Yes, that probably counts as heresy.

Then again, if she can summon whole people now, she really should be able to summon food. Fill this little room with cabbages.

No, better to focus on not falling through the floor.

“Focus, please,” the girl says, but she doesn’t mean about the floor. Phosyne squints up at her. “I want a way out.”

“I’m afraid,” Phosyne replies, “that I’m fresh out of miracles.”

The girl looks at the fruit, then takes a bite herself.

Phosyne groans.

“A way out,” she repeats, hoping the girl has more of an idea than that .

From the way her brow pinches, she does. “There’s a way down ,” the girl says after a brief silence. “To where the well fills. But there’s—” She falters. Reorients. “I can feel a breeze,

but it’s coming through a very narrow crack.”

“I’m told picks work well on stone.”

That not-smile is back, wider this time. “But we melted down all the iron,” she says.

Ah. So they did. Thank you, Prioress Jacynde , Phosyne thinks. No iron. No iron makes this harder. Makes...

A thought almost sticks in her mind, an idea, something that makes her deeply uncomfortable. But then it’s gone again.

“I don’t know,” she says, closing her eyes tightly. She doesn’t want to see the girl finish off that bit of fruit. “Stone is... I can’t say with any certainty what to do. I know a little about water. That’s all.” She needs to offer up something, though, if she’s going to get back up to her tower. Maybe, if she gets that far, she can confess to Ser Voyne, and then the knight will slit her throat and go to fix this whole mess.

That thought is far more comforting than it should be.

She tries to wet her cracked lips; it doesn’t work. But she does open her eyes, looking at the faint suggestion of shapes

above her, stone pressed against stone. Stone below her, too. It’s very solid, but she knows she could fall through it, if

she isn’t careful. That must mean there’s space there, even if she can’t see it.

“You give up?” the girl asks.

“No,” she says, surprising herself, but her mind is already working. Space inside the stone, so if it could be reconfigured—but

how?—wind can pass through it, water can pass through it—stone becomes rubble, becomes gravel, becomes pebbles, becomes sand—

They have no iron, but they have water and air and, Phosyne thinks, flame. Flame.

“I need more information,” Phosyne says, slowly, “but I would presume its... dark down there?”

“More or less,” the girl says.

Strange . No time to consider it, though. “I can give you a candle,” Phosyne says, looking back to the girl’s face. “It will burn

without ceasing. The wax won’t run out.”

“It’s a tight squeeze,” the girl says, but Phosyne can see a little light behind her eyes, eagerness, desire. Oh, yes, this

might be enough to get a few nibbles. “How easily is it snuffed out?”

“It isn’t,” Phosyne says, lips twisting in a return not-smile. “Only water works.”

“Good,” the girl says. “Oh, very good. Here,” she says, and presses the bit of fruit to Phosyne’s lips at last.

She tries to chew it. It’s hard. It’ll take a bit of time, but she can just hold it in her mouth, let it soften, ooze. Her

throat is so dry, though. She’s not sure she can swallow.

The girl takes out another bit of fruit, pops it into her mouth. Phosyne can’t help her pained whine, to see it disappear. But the girl holds up one finger, chews, and does not swallow. She just chews and chews and chews, and then she bends down and presses her lips to Phosyne’s. Phosyne’s jaw drops open in shock, and the girl’s tongue is there, pressing the sweet mush into her mouth, liquid with saliva.

Phosyne nearly chokes, but instead manages to swallow.

“Better?” the girl asks, sitting up. Her eyes sparkle in the dim light.

“Better,” Phosyne whispers, weakly.

“Good.” She pulls another few bits of fruit from the pouch, but doesn’t chew them, thankfully. Instead, she presses them into

Phosyne’s palm. “Take your time getting up,” she says. “But try not to fall asleep, not until you’ve eaten it all. Can you

get out of your tower again, once Ser Voyne has you back?”

“Probably not,” Phosyne says with a grimace.

The girl considers, then nods. “Right. Well, she’s not there now. Tell me where the candle is.”

“No,” she says, and tries to sit up. The girl moves to stop her, but Phosyne manages to get upright. Her head spins. “No,

it’s not safe to go in there on your own. Help me up. Help me up and I’ll give you the candle, show you how to light it.”

And Pneio and Ornuo wouldn’t have an opportunity to slip out and wreak further havoc.

The girl doesn’t like this option (her scowl is not at all hidden), but she grudgingly wraps an arm beneath Phosyne’s shoulders

and heaves upward. For all her poise, it’s immediately clear that she, too, is weakened. They get to their feet but it’s a

near thing, both of them holding tight to the other’s clothing.

Walking is harder, but they manage. The only real problem is the stairs, which are too narrow to climb abreast. The girl winds

up behind her, pushing, hands firm on Phosyne’s lower back. The world tilts wildly. They climb.

When at last they reach the king’s chambers, they can hear soft voices inside, and the girl pulls Phosyne hard against the

stone wall. Then she stops, and Phosyne realizes she must not know where the entrance to her tower is.

Phosyne steers them through the shadows to the little door that leads up and up and—there are no guards, no sign of Ser Voyne—into

her fetid rooms.

They really do stink. It’s embarrassing. The girl behind her is trying to be stoic, but she twitches with the first tremors of vomit.

Phosyne pulls away and staggers to her workbench, where the candle is still burning. It’s the second one she’s made; the other

is upended in a cup of water, because the moment she takes it out, it starts to burn again. This one is a little more polite.

When snuffed, it stays snuffed.

She holds it up. “Here, watch carefully,” she says. The flame trembles because her arm is trembling. She sits down on her

stool before she can fall.

The girl waits in the doorway, watching. The door, at least, is closed behind her.

Phosyne upends the candle. It continues to burn. Wax does not drip from it. The girl’s eyes go wide; apparently she didn’t

really believe Phosyne until this moment.

Phosyne looks at the inverted flame that does not dance up , that ignores the rules of the world, and then she dips it in the cup of water. The flame disappears without smoke.

As she pulls it out, she finds she’s feeling better, a little firmer, a little more real, because the girl is staring with

naked want now, want and interest that Voyne hasn’t matched even while watching the same impossible demonstration. “To light

it again is a little tricky. You can’t light it from another flame, or it will be just a candle. It will melt, it will gutter.

Instead—” And here she rolls the words around in her mouth, hesitating just shy of revealing her secret. It will likely make

the girl afraid.

Still, it’s how the flame is kindled. “Instead, it needs blood. Possibly my blood. I don’t know yet; Ser Voyne won’t let me

test it on her.”

The girl’s face transforms, eyes widening, lips parting in a real smile, and Phosyne files that away for later. For now, she picks up a little lancet, pricks the tips of her forefinger and

thumb right through the existing scabs.

“It also needs a little sulfur.” Her blood is sluggish, but as she rubs her fingers together, it spreads out, slickens. She takes a pinch of the foul-smelling yellow powder from a little jar and it soaks up the blood hungrily. “And a note. Can you sing?”

“A little.”

“How well do you know your hymns?”

“A little.”

Phosyne casts her a curious, appraising look, then shrugs. “The opening note of ‘On Breath,’” she says. “Can you sing it for

me?”

Nothing.

Phosyne turns back to the candle, sings it herself. It’s a clear note, high, higher than feels right for this, but it does work. She feels the change in her fingers, where the bloody slurry shifts, realigns. She pinches the

wick of the candle.

As she pulls her fingers up and off, it flares to life.

The girl is staring now. Phosyne picks up the candle and holds it out to her with her non-bloodied hand. “Take this down,

look more closely at everything, and maybe you’ll find a way out you missed. If not, find a way to get to me again. I’ll keep

thinking.”

Cautiously, the girl creeps closer and takes the candle from her. She cradles it in her hands. Tests the flame, then hisses

and pulls back; it’s hot, of course. Real flame. But it continues to burn even as the girl tests it, waving the wax back and

forth. No guttering, no faltering.

Phosyne sifts some of the sulfur into another, empty jar. She holds it out. “Take this, so you can douse that as needed and

get it lit again.”

“Thank you,” the girl says, slipping the jar into a pocket with nimble fingers. “I assume I’m not supposed to tell anybody?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Phosyne says. She grabs one of the bits of fruit, pops it in her mouth, chews. She closes her eyes in

bliss. She moans a little. “But you seem like the type who’d like to hide that. The candle. You don’t want them seeing the

flame, seeing where you are.”

“No, not really,” the girl agrees. Phosyne hears her move, but not toward the door. She feels warmth, a little ways from her

back, and then hears the hiss of the flame extinguishing once more. “I’m Treila,” the girl says, directly behind her.

“Phosyne.” Strange, to tell somebody else her name. She hasn’t done that in a long time. It makes her feel a little more solid, or maybe that’s the fruit. She opens her eyes, leans back, looks up at the shadowy young woman.

“You should eat the honey,” Treila says, and points to the chunk of comb, now covered in dust and detritus.

“I’ll think about it,” she says, but doesn’t mean it. It’ll serve better as an ingredient, anyway. “Stay away from the guests ,” she adds.

“I’m no fool,” Treila says, hiding the doused candle, retreating to the door. “Why do you think I want to get out?”

Phosyne has to concede she has a point.