Page 1 of House of Dusk
CHAPTER 1
SEPHRE
The new novice had been skulking at the edge of the garden for nearly a quarter hour. If he was trying to hide from her, he was doing a poor job of it. Sephre pretended not to notice, busying herself filling a basket with fresh, green leaves from the spindleroot bush. Brother Dolon had been having headaches again, and she was nearly out of his tincture. Then there were the yearly draughts of cold medicine still to brew. And the mint wanted thinning before it devoured the entire garden.
She watched the novice through a feathery screen of greenery as she worked. He seemed to be muttering something to himself. Stiffening his shoulders, he took one step out along the crushed-shell path. Only to catch himself, jumping back, as if he’d stepped on a scorpion. After the fifth time, she lost patience.
“If you stay there too long, the bees are going to fill your ears with honeycomb,” she called out.
Not an idle threat. The novice did have quite large ears, jutting like the handles on a wine cup. He reminded Sephre of a sapling that had sprouted suddenly tall and skinny in a riot of new growth.
He gulped, darting forward, the short dark twists of his hair quivering. The braids were unusual, but perhaps he was Scarthian. Stara Bron might be located within the borders of Helisson, but it served all the lands of the Middle Sea. Then again, she’d always heard Scarthians were bold and reckless, and this boy was...not that.
Zander had been half Scarthian. The thought caught her, an unexpected bolt, making her wince until she shoved it back into the past, where it belonged.
The novice apparently took this as a reaction to his own approach. “Sorry!” He made to retreat, not noticing the watering pail.
Sephre seized the boy’s arm, catching him just before he toppled onto her carefully tended patch of gauzebloom. “Careful! No, don’t run away, boy. I’m not angry at you. But I will be, if you squash my flowers.”
He made his way gingerly and somewhat sheepishly out of the verge, taking refuge on the far side of the worktable. “Sorry, sister,” he mumbled. Fates, what was the agia thinking, letting a quivering sprout like this into the temple?
Such arrogance,she chided herself, remembering her own floundering novitiate.She had come to it much older, of course, well into her thirties, with a lifetime behind her. A bloody, shameful lifetime that ill-suited her for this work. And yet she had done all that Agia Halimede asked of her. She had put in her time. Nine long years of service. Perhaps one day it would be enough.
Sephre directed her attention back to the novice, who seemed to be taking her silence as censure. “What’s your name, lad?” She wasn’t used to speaking gently. To speaking at all, really. It came out sharper than she intended, so she added a rusty smile.
“Timeus.” He started to dip his head.
“I’m not the agia,” she said, halting him. “You don’t need to bow to me, Brother Timeus. Just tell me why you’re here. Did Sister Obelia need more parsley for tonight’s supper?”
“N-no.” Timeus straightened, clearly making a valiant effort to gather his nerves. “Sibling Vasil sent me. They said you needed someone to help with the herbs and medicines. So that’s me. I’m the helper. That is...if you’re her. I mean, if you’re Sister Sephre.”
She smothered a sigh. This was the fifth “helper” Vasil had sent her in the past year. The last boy barely made it three days before displaying a potentially lethal inability to distinguish between oregano and deadly nightshade. Before that had been the promising girl who had fled her vows after reconciling with her spurned sweetheart. Or had it been the lad with the paralyzing fear of bees?
She considered simply sending the boy away, but that would only bring Vasil down on her. Or possibly the agia herself. And who knew, maybe Timeus would surprise her. She tried to recall whether she’d even seen him before. Last Sephre knew, there were five novices at Stara Bron, none of them a tall spindle with overlarge ears. This boy must have only just arrived.
She really should stop calling him “boy.” He must be at least seventeen. The same age she’d been when she enlisted.
Another dagger, catching her in the chest. Sephre breathed deep, filling her lungs with the spice of leaf and root, the sweetness of the honeysuckle that hung from the trellis behind her. Listened to the hum of the bees. One of them buzzed closer, circling Timeus’s head. He didn’t seem to mind. Well, that was something.
“Yes, I’m Sister Sephre,” she admitted. “And I do need help.” She held out the basket. “You can finish gathering the spindleroot. Be careful to pinch off just the newest. See how they’re paler green? Those are the ones you want. Leave the others. And don’t step on the roots.”
Timeus took the basket reverently. Sephre returned to the worktable, watching from the corner of her eye. He wasn’t as bumbling as she’d first taken him to be. Clearly mindful of her direction, he moved slowly around the bush, pausing before each step to check for the thin, tangled roots that gave the plant its name.
She felt him watching her, in turn. Slanting surreptitious glances when he thought she was busy with her mortar and pestle. She knew she ought to say something, but her conversation skills were as rusty as her smile. Maybe that was why Vasil kept sending her apprentices.
“Have you worked with plants before?” she asked. She had to make some effort, or Vasil would give her one of their disappointed looks next time she saw them, and probably try to talk to her about her feelings.
Timeus shook his head. “My parents are weavers. My eldest brother, too. And Rhea—she’s my twin—enlisted. She’s going to serve in the third wing,” he added, wistfully.
Sephre held her breath for a moment. Released it. Ridiculous. She could talk about such things. The war was over, and so was her part in it. She was an ashdancer now. Warmth flared in her palms, a reassuring heat, warning back the shadows of her past. “Was soldiering not for you?”
He bent his head, making a close study of the spindleroot. “They cast me out of training after the first week. They said I didn’t have the talent for it. I suppose I don’t have the talent for most things.”
She wanted to box the ears of whoever had taught him this. “Talent is overrated. Skill is what matters. And that only comes with time and practice.” And a willingness to make mistakes and learn from them. Something she herself should keep in mind. She nodded to the basket. “You’re doing fine work with that.”
His smile was fearsome. “Thank you, Captain! I mean—” He clapped a hand over his mouth. Unfortunately, it was the hand that had been holding the basket, which went tumbling to the ground, spilling a drift of leaves across the dark earth.
His brown eyes were wide. Aghast, but also appallingly curious.
