Though Laurelle’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes moist with tears, she waved such a thought away, struggling for a dismissive demeanor. “I’m not a piddling firstfloorer.” She bent and ripped her stocking, which earned a shocked cry from Sissup, who was not from such a rich family. Laurelle used the snatch of lace to bind her wound, which had almost stopped bleeding already.
It truly was not a deep scratch. Pupp had barely nicked her.
Laurelle inspected her handiwork, then nodded and stood.
A smatter of applause rewarded her effort. “She’s so brave,” Jenine murmured to Dart as Laurelle left with Margarite in tow. The nigglish prank on Dart had been all but forgotten.
Almost . . .
Matron Grannice appeared at the doorway, ringing a small bell. “To your classes now, gentle lasses! No dawdling. Don’t keep the mistresses and masters waiting.” She worked down the two rows, adding her usual litany of warnings. “Sharyn, make sure you keep your ankles covered when climbing the stairs. Bella, if you stain your petticoat with ink again, I’ll make a washerwoman out of you. And Hessy . . .”
The scolding continued, trailed by a chant of, “Yes, mum,” as the girls fled the commons, heading to the morning teachings.
Dart held her breath, staring at her laden plate.
Matron Grannice stopped behind her. Though Dart kept her back turned, she sensed the sour look. “Why are you always such a stubborn and willful child?”
From under lowered brows, Dart glanced to the door and saw Laurelle standing there, staring back. At her side, Margarite waggled fingers toward Dart, smiling at her predicament.
“Answer me,” Grannice barked.
Dart met Laurelle’s eyes and mumbled, “I don’t know, mum.”
“And why do you always speak as if you’re carrying a cheekful of nuts?”
“Sorry, mum.” Dart watched Laurelle nod back to her. Satisfied that the prank would not be laid at her feet, Laurelle left with Margarite, but not before Dart noted a glimpse of something deeper in the other girl’s eyes. It was not satisfaction, nor shame. It made no sense, but Dart could not dismiss what she had seen. Always off to the side, Dart had learned to read the subtleties in another’s features: the narrowing of an eye, a pursed lip, a flush of color on a cheek. But what she saw in Laurelle still made no sense.
Why would Laurelle envy me?
Matron Grannice interrupted her reverie. “It seems there is only one way to straighten this arrogant bent. And that is to learn from those even more willful than you.”
“Mum?”
“It’s off to the rookery with you! Perhaps a morning of scooping droppings, scrubbing floors, and spreading hay will temper your demeanor, young lass.”
“But classes?” Dart sat up straighter. “We’re to practice for the moon’s ceremony.”
Grannice let out an exasperated sigh. “You can practice with the ravens.” Dart’s ear was grabbed and she was hauled to her feet. “You know where the pails and brooms and brushes are. Now off with you.”
Dart hurried from the room with a rush of her skirts. She saw the last few of the other girls heading down the stairs, giggling and laughing, clutching books to their bosoms. They were fifth- and sixthfloorers heading down to the courtyard and classes in the neighboring towers. She watched them disappear, then faced the spiraling stair that led upward.
“To me, Pupp,” she mumbled and began the long climb toward the rookery in the roost atop the tower. Her companion clambered past her, trotting a few steps ahead. The flow of his molten body seemed agitated. Pupp was clearly excited by the adventure.
They climbed the fourth and fifth floors, then past the levels that quartered the mistresses and matrons and healing wards, then up past levels vacant and dusty. At last, she reached a door at the top of the tower.
Beyond it lay the rookery.
Pupp nosed the solid squallwood door, then passed through it as if it were mere smoke. The only material that ever seemed to thwart Pupp was stone.
Continuing after her friend, Dart tugged the latch and hauled the way open for herself. She had to lean out with her slight body to fight the door’s weight and ancient hinges. The door squealed open, setting the ravens inside to flapping on their hundred perches and nests. Screeched complaints echoed across the cavernous stone chamber.
She ducked through and pulled the door behind her, leaving it cracked open to allow the outer hall’s torchlight to filter in. The only other illumination came from the twenty guano-stained windows high up the walls. The remainder of the room was cloaked in gloom. Large eyes reflected the meager light, stared down at her. The birds did not like their slumber disturbed.
When not aloft, carrying messages, the residents here kept busy at night, keeping the Conclave grounds clear of mice, rats, and voles. The birds were also a source of eggs and meat for the kitchens.
Crinkling her nose at the stinging smell of the place, she crossed to a small cupboard inset against one wall. She would stink like the rookery all day. Inside the cupboard were buckets, brushes, and brooms in their usual places.
She tied her skirt around her knees and set to sweeping the old hay and dried droppings. It was mindless work.
As she swept, Pupp chased after the broom’s straw bristles, biting playfully, his razored jaws passing harmlessly through the bristles. Still, his determined efforts drew a smile from her.
“Stupid dog . . .” she mumbled with a grin.
With the floor finally swept, Dart still had to give the planks a good scrubbing on her hands and knees, then break one of the stacked bales of hay and spread fresh straw as she had done so often before.
Wiping her brow, she crossed to the corner pump and cranked the plunge handle. It was hard work drawing water up from the midtower cistern. As she labored, something warm and wet slapped against her cheek. Scowling, she wiped it away.
Raven shite.
She glanced up toward the rafters. “Thank you for your blessing, Lord Raven.” With a shake of her head, she set to the pump again, hauling its handle up and down. Sweat trickled down her back. The day was warming out of morning toward midday.
She could only imagine her fellow thirdfloorers practicing their curtsies and bows for the ceremony, learning the proper responses, and reciting the Litany of Nine Graces. She sang out as she pumped, naming each Grace as she pulled and its property as she pushed.
“Blood . . . to open the way, seed or menses to bless, sweat to imbue, tears to swell, saliva to ebb, phlegm to manifest, yellow bile to gift, and black to take it all away.”
As she finished, water flowed from the spigot into the bucket. She allowed it to overflow. She’d need an entire bucket to wash the floor.
With her pail full, she straightened. Hot and moist from her effort, she crossed to a ladder and pushed it toward one of the high windows.
Just a little breeze and a bit of freshened air . . . then I’ll get back to the chore.
She climbed the ladder. Once at the opening, she shoved her head through. Only now did she notice how much her eyes and nose burned from the reek of the rookery. She took deep, gulping breaths.
All of Chrismferry lay sprawled below her. The city spread in walls, canals, and roofs all the way to the horizon. It was split in halves by the mighty Tigre River, shining silver in the sunlight. It was said that the city was so wide that it took a man on foot ten days to cross from one end to the other. There was a common response when one spoke about its vastness: The world is the city, and the city is the world.
Gazing from the window, Dart saw it was true.
Set like a jewel in the heart of the first of the Nine Lands, Chrismferry was the hub around which the world turned. The entire surrounding countryside, from shore to shore, fed the city, barging up from the coasts, carting down from the fields, flown in on the potbellied flippercrafts. The city was insatiable.
And at the center of it all stood the great castillion of the eldermost god, Chrism. Dart, resting her chin on her fingers, sta
red at the walled and towered fortress. A vast thousand-acre garden spread out from its southern side, shadowed by the castillion itself. Wooded, it looked more like a forest than a garden, fitting for a god of the loam.
And like Lord Chrism himself, his castillion was both noble and humble. Its walls were thick white granite, quarried locally, and unadorned. The main keep had been built on the site of the original ferry bridge that once forded the Tigre River. The structure rose up from both shores and spanned the waterway in between. The center halls were held above the river by giant, ancient pillars, all that was left of the original bridge. Even its nine towers, the Stone Graces, shared the river. Four rose from the north bank, four on the south, while the last and tallest rose above the river itself. These towers were the same white stone, simple, yet reassuring in their solidity. The only bits of decoration anywhere were the carved silver gates to the castillion, depicting the great Sundering, the moment when the kingdom of the gods had been shattered and they appeared among the lands of Myrillia.
Dart sighed, dreaming of stepping through those brilliant gates someday. Until then, there were floors to clean.
As she turned, the sharp creak of hinges startled her, loud in the stone space. Ravens stirred and squawked in complaint.
Dart hopped down from the ladder, fearful of being caught idle. She found the gloom of the rookery suddenly oppressive. The door lay cracked open, wider by a handbreadth. But no one was in sight.
“Good morrow!” she called. “Is anyone there?”
There was no answer. Slowly her straining eyes began to pierce the darkness. Shadows retreated. She saw no one. Must have been a crosswind . . . tugging at the door.
She turned to gather her pail and brush. As she bent away, the tower door crashed shut.
Ravens screeched. A few took wing, crossing from one perch to another. Plops of guano rained around the room.
The loss of the filtering torchlight from the hall drew the shadows toward her again, eating away the room.
“Is anyone there?” Her voice was meeker this time, her throat tight with fear. “Please . . .”
Footsteps answered, crossing toward her.
She fell back against the stone wall.
“There’s no need to fret, little kitten.” The voice was soft and deep. A figure appeared out of the gloom, large and broad shouldered.
Dart recognized the voice as Master Willet, a scholar of the Conclave. As he stepped into the patch of sunlight flowing from the window, she saw he wore the usual sashed black robe of the Conclave, his hood thrown back. As was customary for the mistresses and masters, his head was shaved to the scalp.
Dart stepped from the wall and curtsied with a half bend of a knee. “Master Willet.”
He waved her out of the gloom under the window and into his patch of sunlight. “Come, child. What are you doing up here all alone?”
Dart slumped forward. “Punishment, Master Willet.” She curtsied again, in case he hadn’t seen her first one.
“So I’ve been told.”
Dart felt a rush of heat to her cheek. Her humiliation knew no end.
“It seems you’ve been a slovenly pupil. Needing additional tutoring. I was sent up here for a private lesson.”
“Ser?”
He stepped closer. A hand rose swiftly to her cheek. The back of his knuckles slid along her skin.
Startled by his sudden touch, she fell back a step—but fingers snatched on to the collar of her shirt. She was yanked toward him. His other arm encircled her waist and pulled her tight against him, lifting her onto her toes.
“Master Willet!” Tears rose to her eyes, confused, terrified.
“Not a word, little kitten.” He leaned down to her ear, his voice suddenly savage. “Not now, not later, not ever.”
She struggled. Lips found her throat, pressing and hungry. She smelled garlic and spiced meats on his breath.
“No!” she cried out.
A hand struck her across the face, stinging, shocking. She tasted blood in her mouth.
“Not a sound, little kitten.” His words were both angry and strangely thick. He shoved her to the wall, pinned her between the stone and his heavy body.
She knew what he intended. Here at the school they were trained in all the humoral fluids, including the handling of a god’s seed or menses. As such, they were instructed in the private ways of men and women. It was no great mystery.
But it was a mystery forbidden to them. To serve a god, a handmaiden must be pure, untouched. Once bedded, all hope of such honor was gone. Just last year, a secret tryst between a young man and woman, both fifthfloorers, had been discovered. They had been whipped, then banished from the Conclave.
“Not a word,” he growled again, fingers at her throat. His other hand reached down between her legs, under the tied edges of her skirt. Fingers tore at her undergarments, ripping and pulling.
Tears ran down Dart’s face, burning with shame and horror. She couldn’t breathe. She stared over the master’s head as he panted and pawed. A hundred pairs of eyes stared down at her from the rafters. Silent witnesses.
And there was one other.
Pupp ran in circles at her feet, passing through her flesh, biting at her attacker, but his razored teeth found no purchase. The bit of energy he had used to scratch Laurelle must have wasted his reserves.
Dart felt just as helpless.
Below, fingers found what they had been searching for, cupping against her skin. She had been touched like this in the past only by healers testing her virginity. But now it was rougher, horrific. A scream built behind her ribs.
Then the hand moved away.
“Now for your lesson,” he groaned at her. “To show you how to please a god.”
She was forced to the floor, on her back. He straddled atop her, pulling up his robe. He wore nothing underneath.
He kneed her legs apart and shoved her skirts above her hips.
She fought against him, but this only seemed to make him grunt harder and his eyes glint more feral. She sobbed and choked and even tried to bite at him. She would lose more than her virginity here on this floor. She would lose all her hopes for herself, for her future, for the only home she knew.
But there was no stopping him. He was huge, outweighed her by ten stone. All she could do was cry and sob. Terror had taken all her strength away.
She turned her face. Pupp lay near her head. His eyes glowed with fury. Though forever silent, Dart imagined him whining, sharing her pain and terror.
Then she felt Willet shove inside her, ripping her, breaking her. Blood flowed. The scream burst from her lips, but he was ready even for this. A fistful of her own skirt was shoved into her mouth, gagging her.
“I am your god!” he moaned.
Pupp was again on his feet, diving through her body, his touch cold. He shoved down between her legs, his frigid wake ebbing some of the pain. When he reached her belly, ice flared. The momentary agony vanished, washed away. She felt nothing below her waist.
Still, Willet continued to rut into her, pounding and pushing, grunting and panting.
Dart squeezed her eyes closed, wishing herself away. But there was no escape. She could smell him, hear him, feel his lips on her neck.
Then the monster arched back from her, gasping out through clenched teeth. Dart cringed, but Master Willet’s cry of pleasure suddenly transfigured into a scream of pain. He fell back from the cradle of her thighs.
Dart opened her eyes in time to see an arc of blood spout from the man’s groin, fountaining up like a stream of piss.
But the man no longer had anything with which to piss.
Nothing lay between the man’s legs.
The same was not true of Dart. Still numb, unable to move her legs, she watched Pupp crawl out of her belly, rising up between her thighs, covered in her own blood. The small creature spat out a limp chunk of flesh: the man’s prick and sack. Pupp had bitten it all off from inside.
“Pupp . . .” she moaned. Fee
ling returned to her, agony flaring, as her friend climbed free of her.
Only then did she notice Willet’s eyes grow wide with horror. He was staring at Pupp, seeing her monstrous friend for the first time.
It was the last thing he ever saw.
Pupp leaped at the cowering man, becoming a blur of blade, spike, and razored teeth. He drove into the man’s belly, burrowing straight through. But Pupp was no longer a ghost. Flesh sizzled and burned with the touch of his molten skin. Curved spikes tore through flesh and bone.
A horrible howl accompanied the slaughter.
On hands and knees, Dart fled to the far side of the room. She had worked in the kitchens. She had seen meat ground into sausages, metal churning organ to pulp.
This was the same.
In moments, butchered to scrap, nothing remained of the man.
Pupp crawled free of the pile, shaking blood and bits of gore from his spiked mane, coughing up gouts of scorched meat. With a final shudder, his body blazed into brightness, a burning ember blown to life.
In that moment, Pupp shone with a terrible and fierce beauty. An intelligence beyond her friend stared into this world as a keening wail filled the chamber.
Shadows thickened and billowed outward from his form, sweeping through the room. Ravens, silent sentinels until this moment, shattered from their perches in a panic of wings and feathers. As a flock, they dove out the windows and were gone.
Alone now, Dart cowered, trapped between horror and panic.
But no further harm came to her.
The shadows fell under their weight, sinking to the floor and vanishing away. The piercing wail vanished with them.
Pupp remained in the center of the room, his blaze doused to its usual ruddy hue. He was now clean, unsoiled—as was the rest of the rookery.
Numb, Dart watched Pupp cross the spotless floor, trotting to her side as he had done all her life. He sat at her feet and groomed himself with a flaming tongue.
Dart reached a trembling hand out to her friend. But her fingers passed through him. He had gone ghostly again. How?