Page 89 of The Starving Saints

And then the flavor of cumin blossoms between her teeth, fills her mouth, overwhelms the taste of Ser Voyne’s skin and brings with it the certainty that they are not alone. Phosyne pulls back, looks up, and sees a waiting audience of eyes, a hundred of them,more, all watching, all set above grinning, hungry mouths.

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Phosyne goes rigid and cold beneath her hands.

Voyne tamps down the twin surges of rage and relief, jams her knee into the hard wood of the throne to still her swirling thoughts. Whatever bewitchment Phosyne is under, she is under it just as deeply, and it takes all her willpower and her anger to pant out, “Seen them at last, have you?”

“They aren’t moving.” Phosyne’s voice has shifted tones, from thick with want to nervous curiosity. Her hand is still on Voyne’s shoulder, though, stroking, possessive.

Voyne shudders. “That doesn’t mean they won’t. They were likely waiting for us to be—”

Distracted.

“Don’t move,” Phosyne says, and the compulsion is a punch to her gut. Voyne lets out a low whine. Something flickers in Phosyne’s eyes, then, and she offers a small smile. “Sorry. Youcanmove. I just—if we stay like this, it holds the moment. If we move apart, they may strike.”

It is logical. That doesn’t mean Voyne likes it.

Beneath her, Phosyne is clad in fine silk. She smells like flowers and gives off a subtle, pleasing warmth. She doesn’t seem quite real. “What happened while I was gone?” Voyne asks, thinking of the flames outside Phosyne’s door. “You said—you said you made a place for us?”

“The Lady came to teach me.”

Voyne jerks back at that, and their audience murmurs, titters, and Voyne thinks she hears claws upon the stone.

Phosyne’s hand drops from her shoulder but takes her wrist,squeezes in warning. “It’s okay,” she says. “I took what I needed and no more. The room is safe, now. We need only return to it.”

And get away from whatever madness has led to Voyne wanting little more than to rest her head in Phosyne’s lap.

Unless that madness is coming from her, learned at the False Lady’s knee.

Voyne cannot trust her. Of course she cannot trust her. There is a buzzing in her ears, growing louder, impossible to ignore. She is kneeling at this throne, and Phosyne is upon it, and—

She needs distance. She needs to think. More than anything, they both need to be gone from this place before the creatures watching them get bored and take their hesitation as a chance to lunge.

“Behind you, please—my sword. I could not reach it. You must give it to me.” The throne has held her ever since the False Lady left her here as, what, an offering?

Phosyne looks as uncertain as she does, but she at last lets go, twisting and leaning over the edge of the throne, peering behind her.

Phosyne’s fingers clutch tight at the back of the chair. Her knuckles turn white in the gloom. “I don’t see a sword, Voyne,” she whispers.

The buzzing is so loud.

“It must be there. Ser Leodegardis—he said—”

“Come,look,” Phosyne orders, and Voyne lurches forward, angry and thankful both.

Until she looks.

On the floor, Prioress Jacynde lies dead, run through with a blade. WithVoyne’sblade. At least, Voyne is halfway certain it’s her blade—whose else could it be?—but it is covered top to bottom with a lattice of comb. Honey mixes with Jacynde’s blood, and the wax cascades over the corpse, binding it to the sword and to the floor both. Only her face, twisted in agony, is still recognizable.

Bees crawl along the whole tableau, a dark and shimmering mass. Their buzzing merges with the whispered breaths and laughter coming from the shadows.

How long? How long has Jacynde been there? How did she get here from Phosyne’s care? She should have been safe. Shouldn’t be—skewered—

But how didn’t Voyne notice this, when the False Lady taunted her? She never got close enough, she tells herself. The buzzing was already in the air. Wasn’t it?

Would she even know if the monster had bridled her again, compelled her to kill?

Yes, she tells herself, but for all her bucking anger, she can’t be sure.

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