The handle of the mop was much like a walking stick in my hands. I felt more secure with it, in control of myself for the first time since I’d come to the House of the Risen Sun. This was an illusion, of course, but I clung to it, needed it. The dining hall was huge, but I put my back into the work and paid no heed to the sweat that dripped down my face and made my shapeless tunic stick to my body. When S’miya finally touched my arm and told me we were done, I was surprised and disappointed it had gone so quickly.
“You do Our Lord proud with such effort,” S’miya said in an admiring tone.
I straightened to ease my aching back and thought of Shiny. “Somehow I doubt that,” I said. This earned me a moment of puzzled silence, and more when I laughed.
With that done, one of the older initiates led me to the baths, where a good soak helped ease some of the soreness I would certainly feel the next day. Then I was led back to my room, where a hot meal waited on the table. They still locked the door, and there was only a fork to eat with, no knife. But as I ate, I reflected on how quickly one could grow used to this sort of captivity—the simplicity of honest labor, soothing hymns echoing throughout the halls, free food and shelter and clothing. I had always wondered why anyone would join an organization like the Order, and now I began to see. Compared to the complexities of the outside world, this was easier on the body and the heart.
Unfortunately, this meant that once I’d bathed and eaten, the silence closed in. But as I sat miserable in my chair at the window, my head leaning against the glass as if that would somehow ease the ache in my heart, Hado returned. He had another person in tow, a woman I had not met before.
“Go away,” I said.
He stopped. The woman paused as well. He said, “We’re in a mood, I see. What’s the problem?”
I laughed, once and harshly. “Our gods hate us. Aside from that, everything’s right as rain.”
“Ah. A philosophical mood.” He moved to sit somewhere across from me. The woman, whose perfume was quite unpleasantly strong, took up position near the door. “Do you hate the gods?”
“They’re gods. It doesn’t matter if we hate them.”
“I disagree. Hate can be a powerful motivator. Our whole world is the way it is because of a single woman’s hate.”
More proselytizing, I realized. I didn’t feel like talking to him, but it was better than sitting alone and brooding, so I replied. “The mortal woman who became the Gray Lady?”
“One of her ancestors, actually: the founder of the Arameri clan, the Itempan priestess Shahar. Do you know of her?”
I sighed. “Nimaro might be a backwater, Master Hado, but I did go to school.”
“White Hall lessons skim the details, Lady Oree, which is a shame, because the details are so very delicious. Did you know she was Itempas’s lover, for example?”
Delicious, indeed. My mind tried to conjure an image of Shiny—stony, coldhearted, indifferent Shiny, indulging in a passionate affair with a mortal. Or anyone, for that matter. Hells, I couldn’t even imagine him having sex. “No, I didn’t. I’m not sure you know that, either.”
He laughed. “For now, let’s simply assume it’s true, hmm? She was his lover—the only mortal he ever saw fit to honor in that way. And she truly loved him, because when Itempas fought his sibling gods, she hated them, too. Much of what the Arameri did after the war—forcing the Bright on every race, persecuting those who’d once worshipped Nahadoth or Enefa—is the result of her hate.” He paused. “One of the gods we’ve captured is your lover. Isn’t that also true?”
I made a great effort and did not react or speak.
“Apparently, you and Lord Madding were quite an item. Word is your relationship ended, but it doesn’t escape me that you ran to him when you were in need.”
From across the room, the woman who’d come in with Hado made a faint sound of disgust. I’d almost forgotten she was there.
“How do you feel now that someone’s attacked him?” Hado asked. His voice was gentle, compassionate. Seductive. “You said the gods hate us, and for the moment I think you hate them, too, at least a little. Yet somehow I find it hard to believe your feelings have changed so completely toward the one who shared your bed.”
I looked away. I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to think at all. Why had Hado and the woman come, anyhow? Didn’t a Master of Initiates have other duties?
Hado leaned forward. “If you could, would you fight us to save your lover? Would you risk your life to set him free?”
Yes, I thought immediately. And just like that, the doubts I’d felt since my conversation with Serymn faded.
Someday, when Madding and I were free of this place, I would ask him about his treatment of mortals. I would ask about his role in the Gods’ War. I would find out what he did to people who failed to repay. I had been remiss in not doing this before. But would it make a difference, in the end? Madding had lived thousands of years to my few. In that time, he had surely done things that would horrify me. Would knowing about those things make me love him any less?
“Whore,” said the woman.
I stiffened. “Excuse me?”
Hado made a sound of annoyance. “Erad, Brightsister, you will be silent.”
“Then hurry up,” she snapped. “He wants the sample as soon as possible.”
I was already tense, ready to throw some harsh words—or the chair under me—at Erad. This caught my attention. “What sample?”
Hado let out a long sigh, plainly considering a few choice words of his own. “The Nypri’s request,” he said finally. “He has asked for some of your blood.”
“Some of my what?”
“He’s a scrivener, Lady Oree, and you have magical abilities no one has ever seen. I imagine he wants to study you in depth.”
I clenched my fists, furious. “And if I don’t want to give a sample?”
“Lady Oree, you know full well the answer to that question.” There was no patience left in Hado now. I considered resisting, anyway, to see whether he and Erad were prepared to use physical force. That was stupid, though, because there were two of them and one of me, and there could easily be more of them if they just opened the door and called for help.
“Fine,” I said, and sat down.
After a moment—and probably a last warning look from Hado—Erad came over and took my left hand, turning it over. “Hold the bowl,” she said to Hado, and a moment later I gasped as something stabbed me in the wrist.
“Demons!” I cried, trying to jerk away. But Erad’s grip was firm, as if she’d been expecting my reaction.
Hado gripped my other shoulder. “This won’t take long,” he said, “but if you struggle, it will take longer.” I stopped fighting only because of that.
“What in the gods’ names are you doing?” I demanded, yelping as Erad did something else, and it felt like my wrist was stabbed again. I could hear liquid—my blood—splattering into some sort of container. She had jabbed something into me, opening the wound further to keep the blood flowing. It hurt like the infinite hells.
“Lord Dateh requested about two hundred drams,” muttered Erad. A moment passed, and then she sighed in satisfaction. “That should be enough.”
Hado let go of me and moved away, and Erad took the painful thing out of my arm. She bandaged my wrist with only marginally more gentleness. I snatched my arm away from her as soon as her grip lessened. She uttered a contemptuous snort but let me go.