At the door she paused and turned back for a moment. “Am I permitted to perhaps know the name of my new partner?”
The Abbot’s voice contained something she might have interpreted as sadness. “Deacon Merrick Chambers. A bright young man and a highly ranked Sensitive.”
She didn’t know the name, but if he had been recently elevated from novitiate, then she wouldn’t. Sorcha itched for something to smoke or drink, but duty as always took higher priority.
As she left, she passed three other Deacons seated in the antechamber ready to see the Arch Abbot—so many audiences so early was enough to pique her interest. Sorcha recognized Durnis Huntro and gave him a quick smile. The somber man looked even less likely to smile back today, and she wondered what his business was with the head of the Order. However, her own issues were more pressing, and she did not stop to ask.
Stepping out into the corridor, she discovered she still had one more audience to pass. Presbyter Rictun, wrapped in his blue cloak, was lurking in the shadows, waiting for her. If Hastler was the kindly center of the Order, then his second in command was the enforcer. It was he who usually gave out the assignments to those Deacons on duty, and his glance down at the dispatch box in her hand was sharp enough for even an Active to interpret. He didn’t like it—not one little bit. He was a young man for the role; there were only five Deacons of Presbyter rank in the Order, and yet he was not much older than Sorcha herself. How he had managed to attain such giddy height was a mystery to her.
It could have been his golden hair and good looks; it was most certainly not his charm. “Off on assignment so soon, Faris? You really know how to go through those partners of yours. I would have thought you might be a little kinder to this one, since you married him.”
Four partners was indeed above average, but one retirement, one death and one gone mad could not be all put on her doorstep. Sorcha smiled thinly, the lack of sleep and the shock of the Arch Abbot’s audience leaving her with very little endurance for the Presbyter’s mocking ways. “Kolya will be all right in time.”
Rictun raised one eyebrow. “Terrible to get caught in a riot like that.”
His fishing was always pretty blatant but this time it was just a little too far for Sorcha. Holding up her orders, she glared at the Presbyter. “Would you like to have a look, is that it?”
His eyes locked with hers, and she remembered all the other times they had argued. Rictun rubbed her the wrong way at the best of times. Perhaps he saw the impatience in her, as his gray eyes flicked away over her shoulder toward Hastler’s rooms. “No, you’d better obey the Arch Abbot. But when you get back . . .”
“I’ll report straight in,” Sorcha snapped, turned on her heel, and indulged in a little tooth grinding as she strode away down the corridor.
This Chambers, whoever he was, had better have a thick skin, because right now she needed someone to take it out on.
THREE
The Giving of Affusion
Sorcha left the Abbot’s chambers and strode through the Devotional with a lot more certainty than she actually felt. It was cool in the stone corridors of the building, high-vaulted ceilings perhaps not the best design choice for Vermillion’s winter climate, but the building had been inherited much as the Emperor had received his palace.
She passed underneath carvings of the native Abbots who had once ruled here, their symbol of a circle of five stars pinned to their chests. Many of their stone faces had been hacked off. The wars of this continent had not discriminated against those who wanted to protect it.
In the north wing, there were still lay Brothers clambering up scaffolding to install a new slate roof to replace the one destroyed in the fire that had wiped out the remainder of the native Deacons nearly seventy years before. The Mother Abbey’s Devotional building had lain in ruin, open to the tender mercies of nature, until Arch Abbot Hastler had brought the new Order to the continent. Now three years of repairs were drawing to a close. Once the roof was in place, only the scars would be visible, not the destruction.
Sorcha paused for a moment to watch the artisans working on the northern rose window—replacing the glass they’d recovered and installing new portions where that was impossible.
“Sorcha!” The familiar voice snapped her out of a melancholy turn of thought.
A tall figure emerged out of the shadows, his hands covered in white dust, his step halting.
“Garil.” She smiled in genuine happiness. “What are you doing here?”
Sorcha knew as his gray eyes looked her over that nothing could be hidden from him; the slight slump in her shoulders and the fractional frown on her brow. Yet unlike most Sensitives, she didn’t mind him observing her. Garil had been her first partner, but despite that and everything that happened, he still held her in high regard. It always rather shocked her.
“Little Red.” He hobbled over to catch her in a rough embrace. “They poked me out of my tiny Priory with some rubbish about needing my skills for this project.”
No one since Pareth, the Presbyter of the Young during Sorcha’s childhood, had dared give her a nickname, but from Garil it was somehow acceptable. Sorcha threw her arms around him with a laugh until she realized how thin he was beneath the charcoal robes. She could feel every bone. Garil was one of the few Sensitives forced into retirement by severe injury. The perpetrators had not been the unliving, but if she ever found them, they soon would be.
“So how are you, Garil?” She gently squeezed him back, afraid that she might hurt him.
“Ah, you know.” He shrugged, an awkward movement. Despite how hard the physicians had tried, his broken pelvis and back had never healed straight. “It still feels strange to wear the gray after so long in the emerald.”
He should have stayed in Delmaire but had insisted on joining the Emperor’s expedition. He’d been old then, but still one of the great Sensitives of his age. The Bond they had shared as partners had been very strong.
Sorcha cleared her throat, feeling his sadness like it was her own. Being rated unfit for duty and having to wear the charcoal robes of the retired Deacon was something that few ever got to enjoy, yet it was obvious that Garil took no pleasure from it. She could hardly blame him; the heady rush of geist battle was addictive.
“I was in the infirmary when they brought Kolya in.” The elderly Deacon shook his head. “Most unfortunate to be caught in a riot like that.” His eyes grew distant as he undoubtedly thought of his own dark night in the alley. Why anyone would beat such a kind man within an inch of death was still a mystery.
It was becoming clear that no one was going to mention the geist that obeyed no rules or her opening of Teisyat. It seemed the paper shufflers in the Abbey would be saved any disturbance.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Very unfortunate.” Glancing up at the beautiful rose window, she attempted to change the subject. “How is the restoration going?”
Garil laughed, a short little sound that contained more than a hint of bitterness. “They really don’t know what to do with an old Deacon here.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “I think the Arch Abbot believed I was going a little crazy out there in the wilds, worried I might say too many things.”
Sorcha shrugged. “Well, you have a lot of experience, something that we lack this far from Delmaire. You know how to get people to do things.”
Garil sighed. “Even our beloved Emperor has spent years restoring the palace—so I should not grumble.”
“Then you are following an excellent lead.”
Her old partner nodded slowly, but she sensed something else; the elderly Deacon was holding back. At any other time she would have pressed him, but she had enough on her plate not to go looking for trouble. Not today anyway.