Page 21 of The Starving Saints

Voyne’s blood is sharp and metallic in Phosyne’s mouth. It’s also rich and full of life, and she should be swallowing it down

just from desperation, but instead she spits the moment she gets into the keep proper, even though the knight is likely just

behind her.

She can’t. She can’t , not after seeing Voyne eat piece after piece of a man’s arm. It’s all she can do not to vomit.

Her brain is on fire, the Lady’s words echoing in her head, out of order, recombining. Oh, I was not summoned, little mouse repeats again, and again. It brings no relief.

Phosyne didn’t call these things here, and that now appears to be the worst possibility of all.

She’s in the main garrison room, staring at the doors available to her, wondering if she should retreat to her tower, or down

into Treila’s tunnel, when she sees a shadow move against the far wall. The late-afternoon sunlight is harsh, the shadows

deep. Phosyne freezes, trapped between Ser Voyne, who must be close behind, and whoever lurks ahead of her.

Treila steps out into the light.

“Where is she?” Treila whispers.

“Close,” Phosyne confesses. “The tunnel—”

“Not when she can find us again so easily. She’ll look there first.” Treila beckons, and Phosyne comes close enough that the

younger woman can seize her wrist, draw her close. “Your best bet,” Treila says, “is outside.”

Outside, Phosyne hears singing. Joyous cries. It’s far more animate than it was when Voyne hauled her through it. She shakes her head. “If the Lady—no, that creature —sees me again—”

Treila doesn’t question Phosyne’s hasty correction; perhaps she’s already drawn the same conclusion, that these strange visitors

aren’t what they appear to be. “She won’t, there’s too much going on,” the girl assures her. “Our mistake before was thinking

we were safe because nobody was here to see us. It just makes us easier to spot. Go, hide, I’ll come to the tower tonight

and we can try again.”

“What about you?”

“The other servants will wonder where I am, if I don’t put in an appearance soon.” Treila grins, and it’s manic and cocky.

Phosyne remembers, then, to be afraid of this girl, too.

“Don’t eat the food,” she warns, glancing over her shoulder. She thinks she hears footsteps.

Treila looks, too, so she probably does. “Of course not,” she agrees. “We’ll be out of here by dawn. Now go .” She releases her grip, and slips back into the shadows.

Phosyne takes a deep breath, stomach cramped with fear as much as hunger, and ducks out into the yard, back into the masses.

Most are still seated, still gorging themselves on impossible food, but some now, finally, are on their feet. They are singing

and dancing, celebrating. Two nuns, their heads bare, their habits discarded, smear honey on each other’s lips. Phosyne stares

at them for too long before moving onward, looking for somewhere she can sit and disappear.

But if she sits, she will stand out if she does not eat, and she is certain she should not eat. Even before she saw that limb at the Lady’s table, recognized that it could not belong to any ungulate,

noted the eight wrist bones arrayed around it as decoration—

Well, the Lady had very clearly wanted her to eat, and that alone is enough to put her off.

She finds the stairs down to the lower yard, takes them with her shaking, unsteady legs. There’s no sound of Ser Voyne behind her, and Phosyne lets herself slow a little, take each step with care. If Voyne is not behind her, then she’s at the Lady’s feet again. Broken, certainly. Twisted, undoubtedly. Whatever spell has fallen over Aymar that makes the king not question his visitors, that makes starving people wait to eat until granted permission, rests heavily on everybody who Phosyne saw in the great hall the night before, eating the first offerings of impossible food. And it rests heaviest on Voyne.

And does this food taste of you?

I do provide.

Phosyne stops, mouthing the exchange again. The pieces rearrange themselves. The food is the method by which these minds have

been ensnared, yes, but why ?

Because the food is of the Lady—that is, because the Lady provided it. Because to sit at somebody’s table, to let them feed

you, is to create a bond. This is more literal, perhaps, than the usual bonds of hospitality, but she can see it clear enough:

this castle, its inhabitants now belong to the Lady, because they have accepted Her gifts. Longed for them. Rejoiced in them.

And though the king welcomed the Lady into Aymar, somewhere in the mix he has lost his primacy. The Lady should be a guest,

except, of course, that She is their rescuer, and beyond that, to all appearances, their deity. Even if She is not the Lady

in truth, the king clearly believes Her to be so.

Aymar, Phosyne realizes, no longer belongs to the king.

It’s territory. Territory and fealty and Ser Voyne’s loyalty, transferred to another.

Phosyne starts pacing again, nerves afire with every connection she makes. She almost doesn’t see the ripple in the crowd,

so wrapped up in horrors is she. But there it is, people parting, and Ser Voyne is once more looking for her.

She cannot let Voyne take her back. Of that, she is certain. But she is too frail to fight, to run. All she can hope for is

to confuse Voyne long enough to evade capture, slip back into the crowd.

She ducks behind one of the cisterns.

There are six throughout the lower yard, all rising three feet or so above the ground. They are covered now with tarps, to stop the hot air from stealing more water than it returns, but the one Phosyne hides behind has its cover rolled back. Water for the feast. Water from the rains that stopped months ago, topped up with as much as could be drawn up from the fouled well, cleansed with her invention.

Water that was not provided by the Lady.

I have tasted this water, and it is sweet, but it wasn’t always so.

Now it tastes of you.

“Oh,” Phosyne says. She remembers both times Voyne drank from the cup the Lady had given her. Both times, she had faltered.

Grown confused. Looked at Phosyne, and Phosyne had felt she was so close to understanding again...

And then another bite of food, and it was gone.

Ser Voyne is close now; Phosyne can hear her panting breath. There’s nowhere to run where Voyne will not find her. Maybe,

if she had gone down to Treila’s tunnel instead of out into the yard, she could have hidden. But there is water in the cistern

below her, and there’s a way in.

Phosyne hopes she is seeing reason, not madness.

She hauls herself over the edge of the cistern.

She lets herself fall.

The cistern is not deep, but the water level is low, not enough to form a cushion. Phosyne lands hard. There is water enough to cover Phosyne’s nose and mouth, but she’s too stunned to move, even as she feels herself choking. She has

to sit up. She has to move out of the way. She has to—

Ser Voyne stares down at her.

Phosyne flinches, and is finally able to roll over, push herself up, cough out the water in her throat. She forces herself

to look up. “Well?” she rasps. “Are you coming, Ser Voyne?” It’s a challenge she’s almost too afraid to make, but she needs

to test this. Needs to get her down here.

She watches Ser Voyne pace around the rim like a dog in a cage. And then, just as Phosyne begins to worry, the knight leaps

into the cistern.

Voyne is stronger, better fed, and she lands on her feet, unsteady but upright. She is trembling with barely constrained—what?

Rage? Or more confusion? She prowls closer, and Phosyne flattens herself against the wall of the cistern.

It’s hewn from stone. She can disappear again, if she needs to.

She thinks she can, anyway. She just doesn’t know how far she can go. A wall is one thing; the bedrock of an entire castle

another. There isn’t a walkway on the other side. Oh, but this was a bad idea, and Ser Voyne is close now, getting closer,

stinking of spices and meat and sugar, and there is murder in her eyes.

Then it’s confusion again. Water beads along her brow. Sweat, surely, but the cistern is also humid, the water warm from the

sun. If the air out in the yard was already thick to breathe, this is like drowning.

Slowly, Phosyne lowers herself to the ground. Into the water again. It’s only a little over a foot deep, but she hunkers down

into it, cups her hands beneath the surface.

Ser Voyne kneels, too. Reaches for Phosyne’s throat.

Phosyne makes herself lean forward into it, and lifts her hands between them, to Ser Voyne’s lips.

“Drink,” Phosyne says, as Ser Voyne’s fingers brush her neck.

Ser Voyne hesitates. Licks her lips.

Bows her head and sips.

Her eyelids flutter. The lingering anger in her brow goes slack. Her hand leaves Phosyne’s neck and cups Phosyne’s hands instead,

bringing them closer to her. The water is running out Phosyne’s fingers, but Voyne drinks and drinks, guides their hands down

to scoop still more water, drinks again , mouths at Phosyne’s palms even as the last of the water drains away.

Ser Voyne shivers. Shudders. Quakes. Bows over Phosyne’s hands and presses them to her fevered brow.

And then she sobs.