Page 121 of The Starving Saints

“Better than what happened to the king,” Treila mutters.

Voyne stills. Turns on her heel. “The king,” she repeats.

Treila grimaces, ducks her head. She hadn’t meant to—but Voyne will find out soon enough, if they survive this. “Dead,” she says. “Eaten.”

She does not mention Phosyne’s hand in it.

But as if summoned by the omission, Phosyne’s voice rings out through the halls. It is overloud, too loud to come from mortal lungs, but it is one clear note: the first note of “On Breath,” the one Treila has used to light her candles. She shivers with it, and Voyne’s head snaps up, to the stairwell that leads to Phosyne’s tower room.

Eyes stare back at them.

Too many eyes, Treila notes, sliding in between that shadoweddoorway and Voyne, head tilted to one side. Painted, flat faces. Frescoes in the dark. They crowd the stairwell, their teeth bared, sharp and stinking of rot. Shreds of pale flesh still linger in some of their maws. Traces of the Loving Saint. Of her generosity.

She takes a step toward them.

“Treila—”

“Ignore them,” Treila says. She lifts her chin a fraction of an inch, grins. “They know who feeds them.”

And as she takes another step, they part like hunting hounds, spilling out of the doorway in two ranks, creating a path.

Voyne joins her, but stops short of the door, looking back at the shifting lines. At how they strain. The tip of her blade lifts from where it is pointed to the door.

“I made a promise,” Voyne says. “To paint the earth with their blood.”

And Treila sees again Voyne with her back to the darkness, to the crack in the stone. Considers, then places a gentle hand on her elbow, urging Voyne back another step, until they are out from between the beasts.

“Let me,” she says, in Voyne’s ear, and Voyne lowers her blade once more.

Treila looks out at the creatures, so hungry and ready to rend and tear. They so enjoyed the blood of their own. And they trust her. She has given them food; she has taken ownership, of a sort. The only sort these beasts seem to understand.

She tongues the stain still on her teeth and says, “Slake your thirsts, loves, on each other’s flesh.”

They lunge in an instant, and then there is only red and white and gold, paint slashed across the stone, and Treila shuts the door.

Voyne regards her with something between fear and admiration. It looks good on her.

And then she turns and climbs.

At the top of the stairs, the door to Phosyne’s tower room hangs open, and inside are two figures, both draped in silks, both glowing in the dim light. The Lady is wreathed in flowers, in full icon regalia,and Phosyne stands before her, rigid, face tilted up, eyes wide as she clutches at a candle. The light that dances upon the wick is every color imaginable, and those colors are echoed in Phosyne’s irises.

Treila backs away.

But Voyne is right behind her, and the knight clasps her tense shoulder as she, too, takes in the scene. The Lady has not seen them, is even now murmuring to Phosyne in a low and teasing tone.

Phosyne flinches, as if in pain. She releases her grip on the candle, and it stays fixed in the air, hanging motionless. Her hands tremble as she splays her fingers. She is focused wholly on the pillar of wax.

The world remains steady. Voyne shifts her grip on her blade and steps forward.

The Lady still does not see them, but the movement catches Phosyne’s attention, and her head turns, lips parting. Her brow creases.

She wails, and the world shudders.

50

Ser Voyne stands in the doorway, and Phosyne shakes apart, desperate for a miracle.

She is glorious in steel,truesteel and not the Warding Saint’s weightless imitation, sword flashing, the way she looked down in the yard the day of the food riot, the day Phosyne was given to her.

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