Page 55 of The Starving Saints

She is warier this time. But she does step closer, until she can once more hear his languid breathing. “You are no saint,” she ventures.

His brows lift, pleased. “I am to them,” he says, nodding down to the bodies below. “But to you, no.”

“Because you are what I desire?”

“Love. Desire. Either. Both. But no, you’re notquiteright. There’s a truth at the core of me. Just like there is to you.” He reaches out, and she’s close enough that he can trail fingers up her arm, along her collarbone. “I can see it. So can the Lady. Or She could, if She were not too preoccupied with jealousy. It’s not like Her, to miss the knife but block the stab.” Up, up, touching her neck now, then her jaw, then her lips. He traces their outline. She thinks of biting him. “ButSer Voyne is a prize, I’ll grant you that. Something so strong, turned so brittle with mishandling.”

“And so She’sjealous?” It’s laughable, but Treila remembers the fury in Her eyes in the garden.

“She thinks She is unmistakable. Entirely unique. The brightest star in all the sky. What a blow, to see Her creature mistake a grubby servant girl for her Lady. And that blow leaves Her too angry to askwhyHer creature made the mistake at all.”

He leaves the wall, drops his hands to her waist, her hips.

“Why didn’t you eat? It wasn’t what we were serving,” he asks.

“I couldn’t be sure whether it was a gift or a bargain. I like to know what something costs before I pay for it.”

“And yet your body must have been screaming for it.”

“I’m used to resisting what my body screams for.”

He leans in, lips against the shell of her ear. Treila knows better than to give in, to luxuriate, but she can still appreciate it. Still tilt her head to the side. She doesn’t let him steer her against anything that would block her escape, stands firm where she is, but she pushes her hips into his touch.

“Somebody’s told you to be careful,” he guesses. He rolls their hips together and he shudders just as much as she does. “You were hungry in the garden. But something happened between then and now.”

“I saw what you were planting.”

He pulls back, grins. “A little transubstantiation. I’m glad I had an audience. But there is something else. Trapped in these walls, you will need to eat. You know that. Unless...”

She waits. She runs her hands along his chest. She pulls at his hair again, and he sighs, eyes half-lidded.

“If you have a way out, I would suggest you take it,” he murmurs. “Whatever the cost. You won’t have the choice soon.”

“And if I stay?” she asks, knowing she won’t, but curious all the same. She’s curious about that fury in the Lady’s eyes. About what, exactly, this creature under her hands is. About how it would feel for him to don Ser Voyne’s guise again, and sink to his knees, and...

“If you stay,” he says, eyes shining in the evening light, “it is eat or be eaten. But I promise I’ll make it good.”

23

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. Somewheresafe. 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.

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