Page 29 of The Starving Saints

Jacynde’s face contorts. Her lips part. Her girls shift where they stand, stealing glances at each other, at the saints arrayed behind the Constant Lady.

“And from where comes this food?” Jacynde asks, gesturing at the dishes arrayed across the table, the fruit, the greens. “Whose fields? Whose hands? This,” she says, stalking forward and grabbing up slender stems of asparagus, tender and pliant, “is gone some three months now. And there will be no currants in this abundance for another month on.”

The prioress has a point, Ser Voyne realizes with a lurch, like the shock of a cool breeze piercing the heady haze inside the hall. She knows this. Sheknewthis. When the Constant Lady came through the gates (throughthe gates? a knowing part of her whispers), there were no stores with them, no traveling companions, and though the Constant Lady is no mortal woman, surely,surely, the divine must either be far less solid, or far more understandable.

If Prioress Jacynde told her otherwise, Ser Voyne would believe it. She is not a student of metaphysics, of faith. Perhaps she is wrong. But Jacynde is afraid, and so Voyne remembers to be afraid.

This is a war. The chances that an unknown, unexpected kindness is safe and good are so minuscule she could laugh.

Voyne is lethargic from the food, the heat, but she rises to her feet all the same. Her gaze darts across the room, takes in all the details again. These strangers with their paints, their luminous eyes, their fine clothing. Their appearances, so close to the icons that are walked around the walls each day. How have they sat here, for hours upon hours, and talked ofnothingof substance?

No plans for escape. No explanations. Not even hope, not really—only distractions.

The food curdles in her belly.

Jacynde tosses the asparagus on to the floor, steps back in disgust. The few servants and her attendants look between it and her, and Voyne can see the hunger in their eyes. But then Jacynde is rounding once more on the Lady, and Voyne moves to stand behind her king, as if she can offer protection.

“Whatever you are, you are not Her,” Jacynde snaps. “Where is yourorder?”

Order. The Priory’s machines, their careful measurements and engineering, all at the behest of the Constant Lady. Constant, because She is the reason the world works as it should, in predictable ways. For a moment, Voyne feels a spike of doubt. This Lady who has brought them food—She is something wilder. A riotous wood in place of a manicured garden.

But what elsecouldShe be? Because She is certainly not human.

The king snorts, derisive. Jacynde’s attention shoots to him, then back, as if she cannot risk taking her eyes off of the Lady.

The Lady only gazes back at her, perfect yellow-painted lips frowning, hurt. A perfect pantomime. “Does it frighten you so much, that you might have been wrong?” the Lady asks.

Jacynde makes a shocked, choking sound.

“That you may have worshipped wrong all these years, imposed so many strictures upon when and how you may ask for help? I have always been here for you, Jacynde de Montsansen. But sometimes it is so hard to hear you, through all your machines. Come. Sit with me. I will take your anger into myself and give you back only bounty.”

Murmurings, from the two nuns, desperate, confused, hungry. They step as if to go to her, but Jacynde spreads her arms out, forming herself into a wall. Her anger is fracturing, though. Voyne can see it. Can see devastation, canfeelit, echoing through her with so much familiarity. Voyne knows what it is to doubt, to realize that the lens through which you have viewed the world and built your life is only one possibility.

But then Jacynde’s expression hardens. “My faith does not waver,” she spits. “And you are not that which I serve.”

The Lady’s lips curve in a perfect painted frown as She picks up a goblet of wine and holds out one fine hand. The Loving Saint rises and gives Her a piece of weeping honeycomb. He has pulled it from one of the skeps, taken from Jacynde’s girls and now buzzing with life. She has a flash of memory: a comb dripping gold onto Phosyne’s hands.Phosyne.Voyne should be with her. Watching her. And then the thought is gone, and it is all Voyne can do to keep her eyes trained on the Lady as honey slides down Her pale skin, drips into the wine.

“That can be righted. Kneel, sweet child,” the Constant Lady says, raising Her eyes to Prioress Jacynde. Jacynde moves as if to look away, then stops, caught. Voyne knows what she sees, those impossible rings of color. But unlike Voyne, she remains standing. She backs away. She turns as if to flee.

The Warding Saint rises from his seat and seizes one arm. The Absolving Saint takes the other. They hold her gently, so gently, their fingers barely pressing into her arms. Jacynde doesn’t fight, but weeps.

The Lady raises the cup to her lips.

Jacynde drinks. Her eyelids flutter.

This isn’t right.

Cold burns down through Voyne’s spine, snapping hard against the heat of the room. Her fingers close over Cardimir’s knife. It isn’t a sword, but it will do. She bares her teeth and lunges for the Constant Lady.

The Warding Saint steps in between them. Voyne’s blow lands on armor that rings strangely in the sudden silence of the hall, and the blade skips, jumps, cuts into the exposed divot of the inside of the saint’s elbow. A roar rips from the Warding Saint’s placid face, and then he catches her by the jaw, and stares into her eyes.

And Ser Voyne is on her knees again, and it is the Constant Lady bending over her.

She hears the buzzing of bees inside her skull as the Constant Lady gazes into her eyes. The spiraling colors seem to dance, and Voyne strains upward, lips parted, thoughts all in disarray. Did shereally lunge with the knife? There is no knife in her fingers. She does not smell blood. The Warding Saint still sits at the table, speaking with the king.

Jacynde is prone upon the floor, and her nuns have joined the feast.

The Constant Lady strokes Voyne’s cheek, and Voyne trembles at Her touch. “Be still,” She murmurs. “Breathe. Breathe for me, Ser Voyne.”

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