Page 40 of The Starving Saints

“Not yet,” Phosyne says, head falling back against the stone. It is cool, and the tower is dark, and she has that same feeling she did the night before, that she could very well simply slip through the floor and into somewhere else. “But she needs water, badly.” She almost asks if the girl can help carry Jacynde all the way back to her tower, but the thought of Jacynde in her territory is a bridge she cannot cross. “Get her somewhere cool and dark and quiet, get her water, stay with her. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” the nun agrees, and though she is likely as weak as Phosyne is, she does a better job of hauling up the limp body of the prioress. “What happened? All I know is that she went to see the—the king and his guests last night, and when she returned, she went up to the observatory. And nobody else thought to check on her.”

“Whereiseverybody else?” Phosyne asks.

“Preparing for the feast,” she whispers, and she sounds broken.

Phosyne closes her eyes, trying to think, to understand.

When she opens them again, she’s alone.

She’s still in the stairwell. Thesamestairwell, too, because from where she sits, slumped, she can see the pillars of the chapel, hear the humming of the bees. She must have fallen asleep, then, and the girlhas correctly taken Jacynde to safety instead of trying to help her. Slowly, stiffly, Phosyne stands up, expecting her head to spin.

It doesn’t.

She’s still hungry, of course. Still confused and frightened, too. But her body is no weaker than it was when she climbed these stairs. It’s almost as if it never happened at all, save for Jacynde’s paint that is still smeared on her fingertips.

And the martial shadow across the chapel is still there, too.

It looks familiar.

Warily, Phosyne steps into the chapel. She half expects to be swarmed by the bees that buzz through the chamber, chased out as a heretic, but they ignore her, tracing out their usual patterns, heading inexorably out past the castle walls instead of turning in. They know there is no nectar to find here.

Phosyne is halfway across the floor by the time she realizes the shadow is Ser Voyne.

Ser Voyne stands alone. There is no king for her to guard, nor the Lady, and her gaze slips over Phosyne, as if Phosyne doesn’t exist, let alone require her minding. Phosyne wants to stop and look and evaluate, but if she stops, she’s going to drop back to the floor. So she keeps walking, comes so close she can see the color of Ser Voyne’s eyes.

They’re brown.

“Ser Voyne,” she says, barely above a whisper.

Those brown eyes blink, placidly.

“Can you hear me?” Phosyne asks. Ser Voyne does not move from her post. She does not even flick a glance at her, and Phosyne’s heart sinks.

This is bad. Voyne should be lunging into action, snatching Phosyne and throwing her once more into a wall, demanding what she thinks she is doing outside of her tower, not working on their miracle. Or she should at least be sneering in irritation, waving Phosyne’s madness away like a fly. She does neither. She does nothing. And it is galling, that after a week of hating this woman’s presence, that her inattention... hurts, even more than it unnerves her. Maybe that’swhy she seizes the knight’s arm, hauls her back into the shadowed niche of the chapel.

Thatdoesget a response. Ser Voyne looks at her at last as Phosyne crowds her against the wall. She doesn’t have the strength to shove her, not like Voyne did to her out by the smithy, but Phosyne feels the echo all the same. She waits for Voyne to fight back. She may be feeling stronger, but the knight is still six inches taller and nearly twice as broad.

And Ser Voyne squirms, but... that’s it.

It’s like she doesn’t know what to do. How to lash out. She looksconfused, brow pinching, lips parting. The glaze of her eyes sharpens, and for just a moment, Phosyne sees panic.

“Ser Voyne,” she demands in response. “Listen to me.”

Where the command in her voice comes from, she cannot say. Maybe just desperation.

Wherever it hails from, it works. Ser Voyne goes still, but her eyes remain sharp, her brow pinched.

In the brown of her iris, there’s a ring of color that doesn’t belong. It’s hard-edged, like it was inked with a paintbrush.

Phosyne cannot fix this on her own. She knows that. She knew it enough to consider begging forgiveness of Jacynde, who would have her jailed at the slightest opportunity. But Jacynde can’t help her, and the feast is tonight, and she needssomebodyon her side to tell her what to do, what question to solve first. Ser Voyne is supposed to be on her side, even if that hasn’t ever worked out for her before.

She reaches up and touches Ser Voyne’s cheek.

“Can you hear me?” she asks.

Ser Voyne nods shakily. Her skin twitches beneath Phosyne’s touch. Where Jacynde was hot, Voyne is cold. Her eyelids spasm. She’s having trouble focusing, thinking.

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