Page 56 of The Starving Saints

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, butjoy, 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 feasthasgotten 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 knownow, 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’tfeellike 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, sheknowsshe 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.”

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