Page 67 of The Starving Saints

Phosyne says nothing. Waits for Ser Voyne to understand the obvious.

Her shoulders sag a few seconds later. “We can’t assume that,” she says.

“No, we can’t. We don’t even know what they want.” Except obedience, from Voyne, and—what, from Phosyne?

Attention?

The Lady had addressed her like a pet, but not exclusively (not like the king does); there was an eagerness to be seen. To be listened to. And She had allowed Phosyne to dig in her heels and refuse Ser Voyne, up until a point. It had amused Her.

She had wanted to know more about the water. What else might She like to know?

“The water is a good place to start,” Phosyne says, rubbing at her brow. She leans against the curved stone wall, inches away from the breadth of Voyne’s body. She feels sheltered there. Hidden. “It serves two purposes. It keeps everybody alive a little longer, and it might loosen the hold on them, like it did on you. But how can we distribute it? There are too many mouths, and the Lady will see the change, I am sure of it.”

“And we do not have unlimited stores,” Voyne murmurs. Her brain is engaged now. She leans in to Phosyne, conspiratorially, even curves her body slightly around Phosyne as if to hide her. “But we can hope for rain.”

“It’s not just water, though. It must be purified. By my hand.” She considers. “Or by my powder, as it may be. Perhaps we start from the powder, not the water.”

“Perhaps.” Voyne gazes down at her with something very like hope, then pulls away, shaking herself. “This is no place to discuss strategy.”

“No,” Phosyne agrees. Thinks to sayleadon, but stops herself shy. No more commands, no matter how innocently meant; she must be more cautious.

They begin to climb once more.

They reach the final curve of the staircase without issue, and Phosyne sways on her feet, exhausted, as she takes the last turn.

Prioress Jacynde lies motionless in front of her door.

Her skin is as red with heat as when Phosyne last saw her, her brow as paper-dry. She is alive; of that much, at least, Phosyne remains certain. But how she came to be here makes less sense. There’s no sign of the young nun—or anybody, for that matter. There is only Jacynde, eyes shut, body still except for the fluttering of her pulse in her throat.

Behind her, Ser Voyne swears and takes a step back. No doubt thinking of the chapel, remembering now with a clearer mind what it was like to carve out the woman’s tongue. “I—I can’t—”

“Then don’t,” Phosyne says. She thinks. They can’t just step over the body, leave the prioress here alone. And she suspects Voyne will adjust, once the shock has subsided. “She needs water. I guess we are starting from there after all.”

It’s probably not safe for Ser Voyne to go to the cisterns alone, but it’s not that much safer if Phosyne goes with her, either. Or for Phosyne to go on her own. But it will give them more of the lay of the land, of how many sleeping bodies have fallen scattered and strange across the yard.

“Consider it reconnaissance, as well?” she adds, making sure to force her voice into a questioning lilt at the end, to make sure it isn’t a command.

A glance over her shoulder shows Ser Voyne looking relieved.“Yes,” she agrees. Looks down at Jacynde a moment, swallows heavily. And then she rolls her shoulders. “I’ll be back soon.”

She looks like a knight again when she strides off. It’s comforting. Phosyne watches until she disappears around the curve of the stairs.

Right. Jacynde, then.

Phosyne pushes open her door and drags the prioress’s body inside and over to her own pallet. It is surely nothing like the bed Jacynde is used to, Phosyne is only too aware now of how it stinks, but she has no other real options. She gets a rag, dips it in the little water she still has, and lays it against the side of Jacynde’s mouth. She’s no doctor, but she figures that should help. At the very least, if this insensate sleep is anything but natural, it should break through it.

But the water does not, in fact, miraculously restore the woman to consciousness.

With a groan, Phosyne sinks to her knees beside the woman and mops the water over her exposed skin. There’s no fresh blood around her mouth, at least. Whatever Voyne did is done.

It’s strange, to wash Jacynde’s exposed scalp. To have this woman, prickly and powerful and angry, limp beneath her hands. Once, Jacynde was Phosyne’s entire world (though Jacynde barely noticed Phosyne until Phosyne had already begun to slip away). Her sermons and preferences and biases had shaped Phosyne’s life and belief. Had guided her through her faith.

Her faith is...

Her faith is complicated, even without considering the form of the Lady walking the castle walls Herself, instead of being carried as a statue in a litter. She’s fairly sure that her faith wasn’t always so complicated. There must have been months,years, when it was as simple as breathing—or, at least, simple enough that she could wrestle with her doubts within its confines. But then her mind had started to turn, and her research had shifted from waterwheels and pulley systems to the basest nature of water itself, because she’d heard itwhisper.

Not literally, of course. But she’d been helping test a new dam design, ruminating on how much she could convince a river to changeits nature, and then the sun had caught on the water a certain way, and she’d been able to taste it without dipping a hand in to drink, hadheardthe quality of the light on the surface and down, lower, where she could not see.

From there, everything had fallen apart. Fallen together. She’d given up on structure. Her duties became less and less important than her theories, and she began acquiring books: fiction books, and recipe collections, and alchemical treatises that would have gotten her excommunicated.

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