Raed cleared his throat. “What now?”
Sorcha’s hands clenched at her sides, and her voice was soft. “There is a ship leaving tomorrow morning, with a captain who asks no questions. He is heading north to Ulrich. You are safe here until then.” She pulled her cloak about her and, with a look at Merrick, jerked her head toward the door.
They slipped out before Raed could say anything, but he wasn’t exactly sure what he would have said, anyway.
TWENTY-FIVE
Comfort in Eschaton
The summons to appear before the Presbyterial Council came before nightfall. Apparently attending a state funeral had not worn out its members—something that Sorcha had counted on as protection at least until the morning.
Rictun sat to the right of the glaring gap in the circle where the Arch Abbot’s chair had been. He was very close to coming to power and Sorcha knew that his position now was merely a formality. In the next week, Rictun would be the new Arch Abbot. For now, though, she was too busy fighting for her place in the Order—hers and Merrick’s—to be concerned by Rictun’s imminent promotion.
When they had slipped out of the ranks of mourning Deacons, they’d both known there would be consequences, but she had made sure that it was she alone who stood before the Council. She had said nothing about what Merrick had done; she didn’t know what it was anyway. All that they knew, all that had been reported to them by those Deacons who witnessed her, was that she had nearly used the runes against civilians—even if those civilians were about to rip her apart.
To cover up his actions, the Council had claimed the wave of sorrow that had followed was the sainted Arch Abbot Hastler intervening so that no violence would be done in his name.
Sorcha knew the beginnings of a martyrdom legend when she saw it. By the end of the week there would be miracles in the tomb and sobbing mothers taking their sick children there to be healed. Her role in this myth-in-the-making, she also suspected.
“The only reason you are still wearing the symbol of the Order”—Rictun stood and looked around at his fellow Presbyters—“is because of what you did in the ossuary.”
“Very glad you still remember,” Sorcha muttered, so far into her rage that even Merrick’s soothing presence through the Bond could not stop her.
“Deacon Faris,” Presbyter of the Young, Melisande Troupe, leaned forward, her white-gold hair cascading around her shoulders. “No one can deny that you saved Vermillion from destruction, nor would anyone have argued against your freeing the Pretender Raed Syndar Rossin, since the Emperor himself was planning to do the same thing. You are here for the use of runes on the general population—something expressly forbidden by the Charter.”
“But I did not—”
“You would have.” Presbyter of Sensitives Yvril Mournling’s gray eyes drilled through her where she stood. “The action would have occurred if it had not been for a turn in the crowd.”
Sorcha frowned. Surely Mournling of all people should know what had gone on, but something in his expression, something subtle, begged for her silence. How can he know, when even I do not? Merrick’s voice whispered in the back of her head. Even there, his tone was thin and sad.
Her throat tightened. A wild talent, then, like Garil’s, and if anyone were to discover it . . .
“I admit,” she said, tucking her shaking hands behind her back, “I did act without thought, and in a moment of self-preservation I was tempted to use my gifts on the mob.” She hung her head. “I let my primitive instincts take over, and I stand ready to be punished for it.” Hopefully they would ask no more questions before her dismissal.
When Sorcha glanced up, the look of shock on Rictun’s face made the admission worth it. He cleared his throat. “That is very well, but you have sullied the good you did. The people of Vermillion will not forget—”
Presbyter of the Actives, Zathra Trelaine, raised one scarred and crooked hand, stopping Rictun in midsentence. He stood and walked haltingly to Sorcha. As a Deacon, Trelaine had earned every one of his injuries in service to the Arch Abbot—his pain at the betrayal was deeper than most and she could read it on his face.
He looked Sorcha up and down, and the tremble in her hands worked its way up her arms. “You do not understand, Deacon Faris—control has always been our greatest concern with you. Despite your power, which none even among the Council can match, you still have a tenuous grip on it.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but then closed it with a snap. She disliked being wrong; it curdled her stomach and brought a thousand excuses to mind, but there it was—the bald truth of it.
“Your service to the Order in the ossuary was exceptional”—Trelaine’s eyes narrowed—“and I was one of the ones in this session that championed your ascension to our ranks.”
Sorcha swallowed hard—a Presbyter . . . They meant to make her . . .
Her superior shook his head. “Naturally, that is now out of the question, and you will have to remain within the Mother Abbey for a good few months until the rumbles of your actions have died down.”
A wave of relief made Sorcha dizzy. “Then . . . then I may remain a Deacon?”
Trelaine crooked an eyebrow. “You are too powerful for anything else, and perhaps with the right partner”—his emphasis on “right” brought a rush of reality to her giddy moment—“you may yet learn something.”
The Presbyter turned and limped back to his chair, apparently washing his hands of any further comment.
“But there must be punishment for such transgression,” Rictun barked. “To even contemplate . . .”
“Yet that was all she did.” Presbyter Mournling folded his hands and leaned back in his chair. “And only a day earlier she stood against a Murashev. When you are Arch Abbot, Presbyter Rictun, you will quickly learn that there is no such thing as black or white.”
Behind her back, Sorcha clenched her hands tight on each other. Working with this man was going to be punishment enough. The tension in the air was palpable; Rictun had not made friends in the Council, but he was, unfortunately, the only one of them strong enough to take up both the Gauntlet and the Strop as an Arch Abbot was supposed to do.
He smiled grimly at her. “You may return to your duties, Deacon Faris.”
It should have been a victory, but her heart was no lighter than when she had stepped into the chamber. She gave a bow to each in turn and then turned for the door. Rictun stopped her with words that cut to the core. “The matter of your partner—or rather, partners—will have to be untangled at a later date. It is quite a mess.”
As she left the chamber and headed down to the icy garden where Merrick waited, her heart was racing in her chest. The young man turned, and, despite everything, she smiled at him as if all was just as she wanted it. And suddenly she was sure of one thing: she wanted this brave young man as partner, not Kolya. She might not be able to have everything she wanted with Raed, but this was different—this was a relationship she could fight for.
They left the Mother Abbey; it bustled with life like a disturbed hornets’ nest. Merrick kept his Center open and they circled back through the streets many times before making their way to the Artisan Quarter. In the little weaver’s house they found Raed and his crew at a game of cards. The Pretender smiled at her, making her every nerve ending come alive. He was so much to her, and yet he could be nothing.
Coldly, she held out her hand to him. “It’s time to leave.”
Despite the Council’s assurances that the Emperor would have given Raed safe passage out of Vermillion, Sorcha was still cautious. She led the little group through every alleyway and double-back she knew, until at last they reached the port.