Page 16 of House of Dusk
“Because of the corpse?” At Sephre’s startled look, Abas gave a grim smile. “I can listen to gossip as well as anyone. The kitchen novice who brought us dinner said that the woman died of snakebite, and that her body was half covered in scales.”
Sephre snorted. “By tomorrow it will be five corpses with glowing eyes and fangs, dripping pools of poison.” Ridiculous. And yet a lump caught her throat as she recalled the reality. The girl’s thin wrist, the bracelet of carefully woven beads. Blue and green and white, forming the stylized eye of the Fates. Meant to guide the wearer home, if ever they were lost.
“Yes,” she admitted. To Abas, she could say such things. “She was a child. Barely fifteen. Too young.” She dragged in a shaky breath. “Beroe is convinced it’s a sign that the Serpent is returning.”
No doubt she was the source of the outlandish rumors. Did Beroe think that if she roused all Stara Bron to alarm, Halimede would be forced to act?
“What do you think?” asked Abas.
Sephre didn’twantto think anything about it. She wanted it to be wiped away, gone. To have never happened. She sat back, tucking away the jar of ointment. “I think I’ve far too much work in the herbarium to have time for a second cataclysm.”
The old ashdancer’s laugh held the crackle of banked embers. Abas reached for her hand, fingers fumbling, then clasping tight. She felt the tremor, but also the strength.
“Child, did I ever tell you about turnsole?”
“It’s a weed.”
“Weedis a word for things ignorant people deem useless. But everything has some use.”
Sephre eyed them suspiciously. “Is this some sort of inspiring metaphor to encourage me to believe in myself?”
Abas squeezed her hand again, then released it. A wry smile bent their thin lips. “I should know better, I suppose. You don’t need me for that. What youdoneed is my recipe for azarine ink. Now stop goggling and get out your tablet.”
Dutifully, Sephre tucked the ointment away, retrieving a small wax tablet and stylus from her satchel. Abas proceeded to dictate the instructions, then insisted that Sephre read it back to them three times to ensure she’d gotten all the details. She slid the tablet away, then went to fetch a cup of warm lemon-water. Talking had brought back Abas’s cough.
When she returned, Abas was already drifting into sleep. She set the cup on the table beside their bed, moving softly. Watching the slow rise and fall of their chest, feeling a deep, bittersweet ache of gratitude and affection and wild fury that the old ashdancer could not live forever.
It was like watching a featherfrond, the bright golden petals fading, thinning, curling into themselves, seeming to wither to nothing. And yet the nothingness was a lie. Inside were a hundred silken strands, each tipped with a tiny seed, ready to burst out in one final, transitory puff that would carry life onward, to some new and unknown soil.
Soon, Abas would be gone. They knew it, but they didn’t seem to fear it. Was it because they had done what Halimede said? Made themself pure? Or maybe they’d just been a better person to begin with.
You think no one else in the world has regrets?Sephre chided herself.You’re not so special as that.She checked the brazier to make sure the coals would last through the night. At the infirmary door she paused, glancing back over the room, slumbering in the low golden light. Two of the five other beds were filled, both elders like Abas. A month ago there had been three, but ancient, owlish Sister Glauce had died a fortnight past.
Glauce, who had been the one to take Sephre aside when she was a miserable novice, and shared her trick for surviving Vasil’s tedious serenity exercises—a layer of padded cloth secreted in her habit that she could use to protect her knees from the stone floor of the meditation hall.Serenity is a lot easier to find when you’re comfortable,she’d said, with a warm, wicked smile.
If the Serpent waits long enough, no one will be left to stophim.
Sephre grimaced. The last thing she needed was Beroe stuck in her head. Her sandals scuffed lightly along the hallway, carrying her toward the garden. She had to get back to the workshop, to see what Brother Timeus had made of the blacksap she’d left him to boil down, and perhaps get a start on compounding the azarine ink. That was her job now. That was her role here at Stara Bron.
The scuff of her footsteps became a crunch as she emerged onto the gravel path. Sephre paused, breathing deep, drinking in the green, vivid scent of her domain, holding it deep to settle her.
Ssss.
Her hand went to her hip, muscles stubbornly reaching for the sword she had given up ten years ago. Apparently Timeus wasn’t the only one who still thought of Sephre as a soldier. But she was an ashdancer now, she reminded herself.
Sparks flickered from her fingers, spilling golden light over the darkness, revealing the boxwood hedges and soft billows of flosscap. She squinted, searching for any hint of movement. Her heart thrummed briskly, but the old calm flowed through her, holding her tense and ready.
Nothing. She was an old fool, hearing things in the dark. It was probably one of the temple cats. This was Stara Bron, after all. Surely no creature of the Serpent would dare breach its walls, knowing it was full of ashdancers capable of burning them to a toasty crisp.
A pang of unease chased the thought. Not everyone in Stara Bron was a full-fledged ashdancer. The lay-servants would have returned to their homes in the village by now. But not the novices. Not Timeus. Sephre cut abruptly through the bed of mint, arrowing toward the workshop. It was so quiet. What if—
She snipped the thought like a loose thread. Worry changed nothing. She squinted into the workshop. The large double doors were propped open, and by the glow of the cooking hearth she made out a lanky figure in gray slumped motionless across the table.
Panic surged up her throat.
Then the boy stirred. One hand brushed his cheek. He murmured something sleepily. A moment later she heard a faint snore. Lined up on the table before him were a dozen freshly sealed bottles.
Sephre sagged in relief. Only a cat, then. Or a breeze in the whispergrass. Or any number of things that were not dire minions of the underworld.
