Page 23 of The Starving Saints

Voyne shakes in the shadow of the cistern wall.

They need to move. That is clarion clear in her mind while little else is. They’ve been here for too long. The sun was still

up when she followed Phosyne down this way, and now it’s not. The air is thick and hot, but the water is cooling quickly.

She’s shaking, and not entirely from her thoughts.

But her thoughts are terrible enough to keep her pinned, huddled up into a little ball. She feels it all at once: the Lady’s

lips on hers, the glory of being seen, of being valued, once more. Jacynde’s faithless tongue held tight in her hand while

the woman sagged limp beneath her, unable or unwilling to defend herself. The cut of the knife. Sitting at the Lady’s feet

in the garden, pouring out her heart, only to see the Lady across the way instead. Confusion. Desperation. Apologies, begging,

a gentle hand against her head. Blood and honey on her hands, people crying as she hauled them to the feast, then forgetting

to cry as soon as they were placed at their seats.

Phosyne’s weight across her shoulder, in her lap, the cut of her teeth into Voyne’s finger. The Lady, laughing, barely caring

about Voyne at all.

And the clear taste of water, the feel of Phosyne’s throat beneath her hands, the sudden loss as she evaporated into stone.

Confusion.

Confusion.

Confusion.

She’s crying again. She needs to stop the tears, needs to stand up, needs to get out of this cistern and take Phosyne with her. Somewhere safe. Somewhere she can think, and they can talk, and perhaps find a plan to salvage all of this.

If it can even be salvaged. Voyne isn’t sure it can be. Maybe it’s that uncertainty that keeps her shivering on the ground.

Or maybe she’s just too tired to move. Too tired to fight.

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, but joy , 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 feast has gotten 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 know now , 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’t feel like 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, she knows she 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.”

And Phosyne hasn’t lifted even that since Voyne took over her care and feeding.

Phosyne won’t look at her as she asks, “Do you have any better ideas?”

“No,” she admits. Still scowling, she thumps her hand against the rock.

Then she looks over at Phosyne curiously. “The chapel,” Ser Voyne says. She only remembers snatches. Less detail, even, than

what she has done for the Lady, if only because it felt like her mind was being teased out through the fault lines of her

skull. So many conflicting demands, concepts, desires. But she remembers Phosyne’s hand on her cheek. Her body against the

rock. And then—nothing. Just the wall.

Seeing Phosyne outside the chapel, fleeing.

Phosyne, now, swallows thickly, then grimaces. “I already tried,” Phosyne says. “It isn’t working, whatever it was I did. And in the chapel, there was a place to land on the other side. I’ve already thought that one through.”

Voyne tries to follow the logic, what it must mean. Phosyne, inside the chapel, then outside. It’s impossible, but so is her

leaving Cardimir’s side voluntarily.

(Was it voluntarily? She remembers a knife in her hand, and—)

The thought is gone, but it leaves her burning again. Ser Voyne splays her fingers out against the wall, slick with algae.

“I am not interested in waiting here to be reclaimed,” she says, as much to herself as to Phosyne.

Then she grabs Phosyne’s hand and presses it to the stone in the exact same place. Phosyne is forced to stumble closer, and

Ser Voyne cages her in, broad chest against her back, arms on either side of her.

“So try harder,” Ser Voyne growls in her ear.

Phosyne struggles against her, and Voyne’s breath gusts hot upon her neck as she stares at the madwoman’s hand—

And her hand disappears into the rock.

Phosyne goes very still, and Ser Voyne gasps, staring at what is now a stump. No, not a stump, because a stump would not meet

so evenly with the wall it presses into.

“Oh, fuck ,” Phosyne whispers, and then she’s struggling. Hyperventilating. Her head knocks back against Voyne in her panic, and just

as Voyne reaches to steady her—

Her hand emerges from the rock. It’s barely there for a moment, a memory more than a real thing, and then it is flesh and

blood and uninjured.

Phosyne flexes it, and every piece moves as it ought to.

Voyne takes a step back, then another. It’s too much. Too much to see, too much to understand. But Phosyne looks over her

shoulder at Voyne and her eyes are alight with the same fervor Voyne saw in her when she created her everburning candle, and

if Voyne has any hope of untangling what has happened to her, she needs this impossible creature on her side.

Phosyne puts her hand flat on the wall again. She lifts the opposite foot up and braces her toes against the rock, too.

“Do it again,” she whispers.

This time, Voyne feels the compulsion crash into her. Her shoulders rock as she tries to control her breathing, resist it.

But it doesn’t work, because she’s too busy being confused that Phosyne wants this, wants her to cage her against the wall, exude all of Voyne’s greater physical strength and all her intimidation.

But then she remembers Phosyne against the chapel wall, and how, at first, Voyne was certain she was enjoying being choked.

Her breath hisses out between her clenched teeth, and Phosyne shudders. Her hand and foot sink into the wall. Voyne pulls

back, a fraction of an inch, and when Phosyne tugs, she can’t pull out of the rock.

“This is what you wanted?” Voyne asks, feeling lightheaded.

It pulls a mad little laugh from Phosyne, and she’s already pushing up, getting her free foot against the wall, her free hand

extended. Without help from Voyne, she sinks in again. She starts to drop, as if the earth remembers to clutch at her, but

when she’s got the original hand and foot free, the stone firms up once more. She’s suspended from the wall. She is part of the wall.

Voyne thinks she’s going to be sick.

Phosyne does it again, and again, then stops halfway up the wall, looking back over her shoulder. She’s grinning. Voyne can’t

look away.

The part of her that is all logistics and tactics, however, can still speak. She hears herself say, “This has the same problem

as before. You’ll be exposed up there. Alone.”

But maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe all that matters is Phosyne gets out, and all the rest will fall into place.

Phosyne purses her lips. “Go up first,” Phosyne says. “Use me as—as a handhold. A ladder.”

And there’s that compulsion. She grits her teeth. “ Don’t ,” she snaps. “I can’t—” Because now all she can hear is use me use me use me and that is not useful in the slightest.

“I’m sorry,” Phosyne says, but she doesn’t look it.

Voyne grimaces, steps closer. She can’t help it, so she tries to channel it. Tries to think. If she climbs up now, she’ll just dislocate Phosyne’s shoulder. So instead, she presses her hand to Phosyne’s calf. “Get in deeper,” she says. “So the rock is holding more of your weight.”

“You’ll have to push me, or I’ll just fall,” Phosyne says.

“I have you,” Voyne murmurs. She places her other hand on Phosyne’s hip. It’s warm through the clammy fabric.

She feels when the rock releases its hold on Phosyne, and in return, she heaves upward. Phosyne melts into the rock, a little

bit at a time. Voyne shifts her hold, braces her feet against the floor, and tilts Phosyne forward. Forward, until her nose

is just brushing the wall. It’s not like pushing somebody into sand or mud or anything but air. It’s hard to keep her balance.

And then the weight is gone. The rock is taking it.

“Quickly,” Phosyne gasps, and maybe this time it’s hurting her.

Voyne doesn’t hesitate. She adjusts her hold on Phosyne and hauls herself up, feet pushing against the wall beneath them.

Her arms slide around Phosyne’s waist, her hands clutch at Phosyne’s shoulders. Phosyne feels too delicate beneath her, and

she is shaking mightily. But she holds. The wall holds.

And then Ser Voyne is climbing on top of her, booted feet against her shoulders, and Phosyne is whimpering in pain, almost

screaming. Voyne’s hands close around the lip of the cistern. With one last great push, Voyne lifts herself from Phosyne’s

body and up into the night.

Behind her, she hears a broken sob, a splash, a thud. Voyne twists and sees Phosyne sprawled out in the shadows below.

At least she has not fallen through the floor. And as Voyne watches, she twitches one hand, sits up. Voyne looks down at her

face, a pale circle in the dark, and thinks of how easy it would be to leave her.

But the thought is short-lived. She goes and retrieves the ladder. It’s not hard. There are people all around her, and they

barely look at her. They laugh. They aren’t afraid.

They should be afraid.

Later , Voyne tells herself, and slides the ladder down into the cistern.

Phosyne meets her on solid ground, then collapses to her knees.

“No,” Ser Voyne says, and hauls her up, forces her to walk ahead of her. They can’t stay here, can’t linger. For now, they are unseen, but that could change at any moment. She keeps a hand on Phosyne’s lower back, shoving her along. She’s rough. “Look frightened,” Ser Voyne demands.

Phosyne does it well.

They weave through the crowd, which parts for Ser Voyne. The runners that stood in for tables are no longer parallel, and

food is spread across the ground, spread across the refugees and guards and servants who roll about and laugh and cry with

relief. There’s no way for them not to stand out, upright and moving with purpose, but Voyne does not see the saints. She

does not see the Lady. If they are about, they are well-hidden, and if they see her and Phosyne, they see only their knight

dragging Phosyne back to where she belongs.

She cleaves to that duty, because otherwise she would be lost, helpless not to go to the aid of Aymar, gone mad with pleasure

and gratitude, heedless of the danger.

They reach the keep without issue. The halls are as empty as Voyne made them, when the sun was still out. Up, up, and they

are right outside Phosyne’s tower when Voyne finally lets her hand drop.