Page 58 of The Starving Saints

And there’s that compulsion. She grits her teeth. “Don’t,” she snaps. “I can’t—” Because now all she can hear isuse me use me use meand that is not useful in the slightest.

“I’m sorry,” Phosyne says, but she doesn’t look it.

Voyne grimaces, steps closer. She can’t help it, so she tries to channel it. Tries to think. If she climbs up now, she’ll just dislocatePhosyne’s shoulder. So instead, she presses her hand to Phosyne’s calf. “Get in deeper,” she says. “So the rock is holding more of your weight.”

“You’ll have to push me, or I’ll just fall,” Phosyne says.

“I have you,” Voyne murmurs. She places her other hand on Phosyne’s hip. It’s warm through the clammy fabric.

She feels when the rock releases its hold on Phosyne, and in return, she heaves upward. Phosyne melts into the rock, a little bit at a time. Voyne shifts her hold, braces her feet against the floor, and tilts Phosyne forward. Forward, until her nose is just brushing the wall. It’s not like pushing somebody into sand or mud or anything but air. It’s hard to keep her balance.

And then the weight is gone. The rock is taking it.

“Quickly,” Phosyne gasps, and maybe this time it’s hurting her.

Voyne doesn’t hesitate. She adjusts her hold on Phosyne and hauls herself up, feet pushing against the wall beneath them. Her arms slide around Phosyne’s waist, her hands clutch at Phosyne’s shoulders. Phosyne feels too delicate beneath her, and she is shaking mightily. But she holds. The wall holds.

And then Ser Voyne is climbing on top of her, booted feet against her shoulders, and Phosyne is whimpering in pain, almost screaming. Voyne’s hands close around the lip of the cistern. With one last great push, Voyne lifts herself from Phosyne’s body and up into the night.

Behind her, she hears a broken sob, a splash, a thud. Voyne twists and sees Phosyne sprawled out in the shadows below.

At least she has not fallen through the floor. And as Voyne watches, she twitches one hand, sits up. Voyne looks down at her face, a pale circle in the dark, and thinks of how easy it would be to leave her.

But the thought is short-lived. She goes and retrieves the ladder. It’s not hard. There are people all around her, and they barely look at her. They laugh. They aren’t afraid.

They should be afraid.

Later,Voyne tells herself, and slides the ladder down into the cistern.

Phosyne meets her on solid ground, then collapses to her knees.

“No,” Ser Voyne says, and hauls her up, forces her to walk ahead of her. They can’t stay here, can’t linger. For now, they are unseen, but that could change at any moment. She keeps a hand on Phosyne’s lower back, shoving her along. She’s rough. “Look frightened,” Ser Voyne demands.

Phosyne does it well.

They weave through the crowd, which parts for Ser Voyne. The runners that stood in for tables are no longer parallel, and food is spread across the ground, spread across the refugees and guards and servants who roll about and laugh and cry with relief. There’s no way for them not to stand out, upright and moving with purpose, but Voyne does not see the saints. She does not see the Lady. If they are about, they are well-hidden, and if they see her and Phosyne, they see only their knight dragging Phosyne back to where she belongs.

She cleaves to that duty, because otherwise she would be lost, helpless not to go to the aid of Aymar, gone mad with pleasure and gratitude, heedless of the danger.

They reach the keep without issue. The halls are as empty as Voyne made them, when the sun was still out. Up, up, and they are right outside Phosyne’s tower when Voyne finally lets her hand drop.

24

Her tower door is open.

Phosyne tries to remember if she left it that way when she went down to the tunnel with Treila. Possibly. After all, the boys are gone. The memory makes her wince, but there’s nothing for it. There’s food for them, at least. She tries not to feel grief at the thought of losing them. Of seeing them next on the Lady’s lap.

Well, she has Ser Voyne now instead.

She pokes her head in and, seeing nobody and nothing waiting for her, slips into the room. Voyne is right behind her.

Her gut gives a renewed pang now that she’s back in a space that is ostensibly safe for her, and she goes to the box she keeps her rations in. All meat, of course, and her stomach twists at the sight. She can’t smell the feast here, her only blessing, but the memory of it, divorced from the evidence of how wrong it is, is enough to make her ache.

Treila. She will just have to wait for Treila. Beg food off her once more, and—

There is food on her workbench.

Phosyne edges closer warily, looking for signs somebody has been here before her. Treila, perhaps? But it’s not dried fruit on her workbench. It’s also not the luscious offerings the Constant Lady had tried to tempt her with. It looks like...

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