Page 115 of The Rebel and the Rose
Find the acolyte.
Kill her.
Bury her body.
They were almost at Ra’azule, and Ransom was sick to his stomach. Nadia wasn’t faring much better. Both of them had spent much of the journey trying to sleep off the terrible rattling in their skulls, the sense that something was amiss, without a sense of what it might be.
Caruso had taken their impromptu getaway in his stride, driving the carriage for much of the day’s ride west under the assumption that they were still following the king’s orders. Albeit with a sudden, inexplicable urgency.
It was nearing dusk by the time they reached the trading village of Ra’azule. Ransom was riding out front with Caruso by then, hoping the fresh air would ease the fog in his head. A hush came over them as they crested the western hills and watched the town appear below them. Streetlamps flickered like a sea of golden stars, illuminating a patchwork of tall, narrow houses painted in every colour of the rainbow. They formed a crescent around a grey lake that seemed to go on for ever. The mist there hung low and thick, like froth skimming the surface.
Somewhere beyond floated the Isle of Alisa. And on it, their target. Ransom’s fingers twitched as they drew nearer, the job so close at hand that the worm in his head grew bigger, until he could feel the weight of it pushing out against his skull.
As the sun set, the mist became a dense silver fog. Down on the strand, they commandeered a small rowing boat and pushed it into the water. They sat facing each other, Ransom on one side, and Nadia and Caruso on the other, their knees touching as they moved away from the dock and into the belly of the wide grey lake.
Ignoring the endless water at his back, Ransom kept his mind on the task and not the yawning hollow in his heart, the sense that he had left something vital behind him. It was starting to hurt this feeling, the pain now spreading from his head to his chest.
‘Nervous?’ said Caruso, watching him as he rowed.
‘No.’ That wasn’t it.
‘Is it the whole murdering-a-saint thing that’s got you on edge? We can always toss a coin to the Alisans on the way out. Let them pray for our doomed souls.’ He snorted at his own joke.
Nadia punched him. ‘Shut up and row.’
‘Fine.’ Mumbling, Caruso picked up the pace. ‘What is up with you two today? You’re miserable company.’
That’s because I am not in control of myself. The thought was gone before Ransom could catch it, gobbled up by the slimy black worm in his head.
Find the acolyte.
Kill her.
Bury her body.
The water whispered as they moved through it. Deep into the fog they went, the lights fading until Ransom could scarcely trace his friends in the moonlit mist. And then lights began to flicker, the Isle of Alisa winking at them.
The island was smaller than Ransom expected, populated by dense thickets of trees and crowned by the priory itself, a sombre-looking building hewn from grey stone. Candles guttered in its arched windows.
They docked at a small wooden pier and made for thepriory, this mournful monolith that stood alone in the moonlight. Soon, they found themselves standing before a pair of large wooden doors. On either side, stained-glass windows portrayed Saint Alisa. In the first, she was a young girl, washing the feet of a plague victim. In another, she was old and hunched, holding the hand of a sickly child.
‘We should have stayed in Marvale,’ muttered Caruso. ‘This place is giving me the creeps.’
‘Is it weird that I feel closer to hell here than down in the catacombs?’ remarked Nadia.
Find the acolyte.
Kill her.
Bury her body.
Ransom swung the door knocker.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
The echo carried across the island.
Caruso slipped a vial of Shade from his pocket.
