Those small eyes found his again.
He knew what the cub wanted, what all young creatures craved: love and care.
Sensing no threat, Rhun lowered his arm with a sigh. He slipped the knife back into its wrist sheath and stepped closer, dropping to one knee.
“Come to me, little one.”
Rhun beckoned, then reached slowly as the cub approached on splayed paws, comically outsized for his body. As soon as Rhun touched the warm fur, a rumbling rose from the small form. A soft head butted against Rhun’s open palm, then brittle whiskers rubbed his cold skin.
Rhun scratched under the cub’s chin, which stoked that purr louder.
He stared up at the searing sun, noting that the cub seemed oblivious, unharmed by light.
Strange.
Rhun carefully lifted the animal to his nose and drew in the cub’s scent: milk, acacia leaves, and the musky scent of a baby lion.
No hint of a blasphemare’s corruption.
Moist eyes stared up at him. The irises were a caramel brown, rimmed with a thin line of gold.
Ordinary eyes.
He sat down as he pondered this mystery. The cat climbed into his lap, while he absently stroked the velvety chin with his uninjured hand. Purring, the cub rested his muzzle on Rhun’s knee, sniffing a bit, and licking at some blood that had soaked into his trousers from his injured wrist.
“No,” he scolded, pushing the tiny head away and starting to stand.
Sunlight flashed off the silver flask strapped to Rhun’s leg. The cub pounced at it, hooking a claw around the strap that secured the wine flask in place and chewing at the leather.
“Enough.”
While the cub was clearly only playing, Rhun pushed the stubborn animal off his leg and straightened the flask. He realized he had not drunk a drop of wine since yesterday. Perhaps that weakness had softened his heart against the creature. He should fortify himself before he made any decision.
I must act from a place of strength, not sentiment.
To that end, Rhun unfastened the flask and lifted the wine toward his lips, but before he could take a sip, the lion cub rose on his hind legs and knocked the bottle out of Rhun’s fingers.
The flask fell into the sand, the holy wine spilling forth.
The lion bent and lapped from that red font. While the cub was surely dehydrated, looking for any liquid to quench his thirst, Rhun still stiffened in fear. If the cub had even a drop of blasphemare blood, the holiness in the wine would burn the creature to ash.
He tugged the cub away. The cat glanced back at him, wine staining his snowy muzzle. Rhun wiped the droplets away with the back of his hand. The cub appeared unharmed. Rhun looked closer. For a brief instant, he would have sworn those small eyes shone with a pure golden shine.
The cub butted his head against Rhun’s knee again, and when the small creature stared up at him again, the eyes had returned to that caramel brown.
Rhun rubbed his own eyes, blaming the brief illusion on a trick of the desert sunlight.
Still, the fact remained that the cub had moved in the sunlight and consumed sacramental wine without any ill effect, proving the young cat was no blasphemare. Perhaps the holy fire had spared the cub because the animal was an innocent in his mother’s womb. Perhaps it also explained why the lioness had lived through the blast, weakened but strong enough to bring forth this new life.
If God spared this innocent life, how can I abandon it now?
With the decision made, Rhun gathered the cub up in his tunic and headed back toward his camp. While it was forbidden for a Sanguinist to possess a blasphemare creature, no edict forbade them from owning ordinary pets. Yet, as he crossed the desert with the warm cub purring against his chest, Rhun knew one firm certainty.
This was no ordinary creature.
4
Words from Dante’s Inferno filled Erin’s head as she passed through the Sanguinist gate to enter the order’s private Sanctuary: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. According to Dante, that warning had been inscribed above the entrance to Hell.
And it would be fitting enough here, too.
The antechamber beyond the gate was lined by torches made of bundled rushes, placed at regular intervals along the walls. Though smoky, they illuminated a long hall, lit brightly enough that she clicked off her flashlight.
She set off along its length, noting that the walls had no elaborate frescoes as could be found in St. Peter’s Basilica. The order’s Sanctuary was known to be simple, almost austere. Beyond the smoke, the air smelled of wine and incense, not unlike a church.
At the end of the hall, a large circular chamber opened, equally unadorned.
But it didn’t mean the room was empty.
Smooth niches had been carved into the bare walls. Some spaces held what appeared to be exquisite white statues, with hands folded in prayer, eyes closed, faces either downcast or lifted toward the ceiling. But these statues could move, they were in fact ancient Sanguinists, those who had sunk deeply into meditation and contemplation.
They were known as the Cloistered Ones.
The gateway she and Christian had chosen to use to enter the Sanctuary opened into their inner sanctum. She had picked this doorway because the Sanguinist library lay within the Cloistered Ones’ meditative wing — which made sense as the proximity of such a storehouse of knowledge would be useful for reflection and study.
Erin stepped to the threshold of the large room and stopped. Surely the Cloistered Ones must have sensed the gateway opening nearby or heard her frantic heartbeat, but none of the figures stirred.
At least not yet.
She waited another moment. Christian had told her to give these ancient Sanguinists time to adjust to her presence, to see what they decided. If they wanted to keep her out of their domain, they would.
She stared across the space to a distant archway. According to the map, it marked the entrance to the library. Almost without realizing it, she moved toward it. She stepped slowly — not to be quiet, but out of respect to those around her.
Her gaze swept the walls, waiting for an arm to raise, a hoarse voice to call out. She noted several of the still figures wore clothing and robes from orders that no longer existed in the world above. She imagined those ancient times, trying to picture these quiet, contemplative forms as former warriors for the Church.
All of these Cloistered Ones were once as alive as Rhun.
Rhun had been headed to one of these niches, ready to turn his back upon the outer world, but then he had been summoned by prophecy to seek out the Blood Gospel, joining her and Jordan on this ongoing quest to stop a coming apocalypse. But at times, she saw the world-weariness in that dark priest, the weight of the bloodshed and horrors he had experienced.
She had begun to understand his haunted look. Lately she woke all too often with a scream clenched in her throat. The horrors she had endured played in a never-ending loop in her dreams: soldiers torn to pieces by savage creatures… the clear silver eyes of a woman Erin had shot to save Rhun’s life… strigoi children dying in the snow… a bright young boy falling on a sword.
Too much had been sacrificed to this quest.