Page 87 of The Starving Saints

“Stay here,” Phosyne says. “Or leave. Whichever you prefer. I only ask that you decide now, because once you do, I can’t let you take it back. But I am going to get back what is mine.” And Phosyne looks down at her hands for just a moment. “She needs me,” she murmurs, and Treila thinks she wasn’t meant to hear.

Treila stares.

Phosyne glances up at her, and for a second, there is both the disjointed mess of a girl and the frightening lick of a flame.

“Will you stay?” she asks.

And Treila shakes her head, and slips past her to the door.

Phosyne does not call after her.

37

When the door closes behind Treila, the room settles into silence.

Phosyne gives Treila a head start. Too awkward, to meet upon the stairs. Instead, she takes a moment to breathe. Her eyes close, and she lets herself spread. Not physically, she does not sink into the stone, but she remembers how it felt to ride on a bee’s wings through the meadow, and she can see, all around her, a widening circle of—not light, it is not light, but it is visible all the same. She can feel them, her little borders. They’re small but strong. They embrace the room, making such a lovely garden for her. And then, beyond them: the whole of the main keep tower, spidering out from where she stands. Four shining beacons, fever sweet. One walks the walls. Another is close by, hunting, blood running hot. Another beacon is in the garden, and the last down in the great hall.

Only her bee-brought visitors. And they have nothing like Ser Voyne at their feet.

In between them, a riot of thinner color, all bleeding one into the next. She hears breathing, from below. So many bodies, piled upon one another. Giggles, too, at the barest edge of hearing.

Still no trace of Ser Voyne.

Ser Voyne won’t look at all like them, Phosyne reasons. She will be a solid little stone, a pebble refusing erosion.

That pebble is—there, just below her feet. Near at hand. Down, bright and shining, in the throne room.

She is alive, Phosyne feels sure of that.

Phosyne opens the door.

Her hallway is empty. There’s no trace of Jacynde, but of course, Treila would have said something if there were. And there is no trace of those hungry shadows she can sense, those hushed giggles. The twin torches she kindled from Pneio’s and Ornuo’s wool burn bright and hot, keeping them far away.

She thinks to take one with her, but can’t risk breaking the boundary that is her tower. She may need it yet.

Into the darkness she steps instead. Down, down, until she reaches the door to the heart of the keep tower.

Ser Voyne kneels there before the empty throne.

(Not a throne, Phosyne corrects absently; it’s just a chair. A chair that, when Ser Leodegardis sat in it, was still just a chair, but when King Cardimir sat in itbecamea throne. And King Cardimir is not here.)

Still, Ser Voyne kneels as if itdoescontain her liege, and Phosyne approaches obliquely so that she can get a glimpse of the knight’s face. Her brow is furrowed (but when is it not?) and she looks... tired. The light has not gone out of her, no, but where she had looked upon Phosyne with barely concealed adoration after she chose to remain with her in Aymar, now she has retreated into herself.

This is not how this woman is meant to be. Phosyne has never seen her in her glory, in her element, but she can imagine it well enough. Astride a charger on a battlefield, armor gleaming, eyes flashing with certainty and precisely focused rage. Kneeling here, at this throne (chair), adoring and ready to serve, to turn the keen edge of her focus on any enemy that dare come.

It is a lovely picture. It is, Phosyne suspects, what the Lady sees in her as well.

She thinks to greet her, breathe her name into the midnight stillness of the room, but Voyne hasn’t noticed her. Voyne hasn’t noticed much of anything. It’s likely, even probable, that something has happened between Phosyne’s tower that morning and this room now, that she has fallen once more at the Lady’s feet in the interim—and that would be Phosyne’s fault, for not keeping her close at hand. Or perhaps she has wound down, her springs uncoiled, needing to be issued another directive, another command. Phosyne doesn’t know the specific steps of the dance between them; maybe it’s only through the continued application of will that Voyne even exists, now.

An odd thought—it’s in her voice, but not her accent. It doesn’ttasteright. Taste is important. The Lady had tasted different, honey on the tongue. Phosyne doesn’t taste honey with that thought, but something spiced, like a cumin seed cracked between her teeth.

Interesting.

Some change, accompanying her transformation, her room’s? Some impingement of the unseen world onto her mind? Perhaps her leaps of intuition, of recognition, have taken on a new character with her broadened appreciation of the world. And what a leap it is, that maybe Voyne doesn’t exist without somebody to obey. Phosyne tries to follow the taste of it. She gets nowhere.

Nowhere, that is, except the throne.

It’s right in front of her now. She’s watching Voyne, so she didn’t notice when she got this close, but now her hand is on the armrest. She hesitates, but only briefly.

---