A Season of Rendings Read online

  Angbar could, but he knew it was an idle question; Syntal had started flipping through the pages, this particular wonder already mundane. She's moving so fast, he thought. When she'd shown him a Rising for the first time, he had spent twenty minutes inspecting it: tapping the stairs, circling behind the glowing door, trying to wrap his mind around what it meant and how it was possible. Not Syntal. She had climbed the stairs and entered the door, taken note of what the spell did and how long it took to chant, and moved on. She was too eager for the next phenomenon, ravenous for miracles.

  "Here." She stabbed a finger at a passage in the book. "This is why."

  Angbar knelt next to her, close enough to feel the heat of her body and smell the lavender of her hair, close enough to slip an arm around her—

  "I know you can't read First Tongue," she went on, "but look. He sets it aside."

  He saw what she meant. The indicated passage had been separated from the rest, and written larger.

  "'Master these chants,'" she read, "'and seek the third wardbook above yet beyond, where the darkness meets the light in the Hall of the Council.'" She looked at him, eyes bright with ambition or challenge.

  Seek the third—

  He looked to the page, trying to comprehend.

  "The third?" Questions swarmed him; his tongue grabbed one and babbled it. "How many are there?"

  "Ten, I think. He doesn't say for certain, but reading around what he says, I think ten."

  Ten?

  The first one alone had fundamentally changed the world. It had made the sun rise in the south.

  Ten?

  "Do they all . . . will they all make Storms?"

  "I don't know. I think so. I think the Storm is just . . . it's just what happens when a Seal is opened."

  She read the confusion in his eyes and glanced away. "I didn't tell you everything, last year. Lar'atul . . . in the first wardbook, he wrote about a Sealing. This was a long time ago. I don't know how long, thousands of years at least. It was before the Church. He never mentions the Church, or the Fatherlord, or anything. Tal'aden in his time was completely different. But the point . . ."

  She looked at him. "The point is, these Storms aren't twisting the world. They're restoring it. In Lar'atul's time, everything was different. There were lots of chanters, people like you and me and Harth. But some of them decided the Pulse was too powerful, and they Sealed it." She took his hand. "See? They're the ones who ruined things. I'm just putting it back to how it was."

  "A Sealing?" What did that even mean?

  "Yes. There was a chantress named Revenia, and she got too powerful, and I think taking her power was the only way to stop her. So that's what they did, but it was never supposed to be permanent."

  "M'sai, Syn . . . slow down." Her explanations sounded rushed. Haphazard. She doesn't want to talk about this, he realized. Not really.

  At least she was holding his hand now.

  "Sorry. You can read my notes, if you want. It might be easier. They're messy, but . . ." She squeezed his hand. "You understand why I'm telling you, right? I can't tell anyone else. Even Helix wouldn't be sure about it."

  "About what?"

  "About finding the next wardbook."

  He shook his head. "Syn. Slow down. What is a wardbook?"

  Irritation flickered in her eyes, but at least he'd gotten through to her. She took her hand back and tapped the book she'd been reading from, the one they'd found in the Safehold when they arrived. "This. This is a wardbook. The book we found in the lake, that was a wardbook. That's what I'm saying. They made them to break the Seals. When I open the lock on the book, I open another Seal, and the Pulse gets stronger—more like it was."

  Is that a good idea? he wanted to say, but wasn't that exactly why she was telling him, and not the others? Because she trusted him—and only him—to side with her?

  She must have seen the doubt in his eyes. "I didn't know, when I opened the first one. I just managed to figure out the word he inscribed on the clasp, and when I said it, the book opened and the Storm happened. I was just a little girl. I didn't know what would happen. I didn't even know they'd sealed the books on purpose, or why, until I learned First Tongue and translated what he'd written. And when we got here . . . I didn't know there would be a second book! He never said anything about that!"

  "All right."

  "This is exactly what I'm scared of. If we tell them, they'll think I have all the answers, that I was hiding everything the whole time. But I didn't know, Angbar. I swear."

  "M'sai."

  "And now, he's talking about the third one. 'The Hall of the Council.'" Her gaze bristled with expectation.

  He gaped, floundering.

  "In Tal'aden! You've never heard of it?"

  "Syn, I never went to church. You know that." In fact, he'd avoided it like the plague.

  "It's the name of an old temple in Tal'aden. Pilgrims still come to see it. And the third wardbook is there."

  "M'sai, but . . . Tal'aden?"

  "We were going there anyway." The words shot between them like a wall. "There's nowhere else Helix can be pardoned."

  "Well, maybe, but—I mean, I think it's been going pretty well here. No one can find us, we've got food and shelter . . . why not just stay for a little longer?"

  Her face pinched. She stood and turned away, holding a hand toward the entrance behind them. In the room beyond, the stair of light re-formed. "Forget it," she said, scooping up the wardbook. "I thought you'd understand."

  v. Seth

  Traveling in the dark was stupid, especially through the forest, but he had no choice. If he waited for dawn, there was every chance Retash would be dead in the morning. Of course, they'd never make the Safehold by dawn. Even pushing through the nights, it would be three days, at best, before they arrived.

  He pushed anyway.

  "Do you remember Dessic?" he said over his shoulder. At the compound, he'd learned that talking to people might help them hold on. "He was in Keldale in the fall. He told me what happened.

  "I couldn't come right away, but I came as soon as I could. You may not be pleased when you see my companions, but they can help you. One of them can, at least."

  He clamped his mouth shut, feeling a fool. He'd never been one to blab his tongue. Only an idiot made noise for no reason.

  Not for no reason, Lyseira might have reminded him. Your words may be the one thing in this world he can cling to.

  He doesn't need my empty blather, Seth might have retorted. He needs food. Reflexively, foolishly, he searched the empty dark for berries or mushrooms. It was a doubly pointless thing to do: it was dark, and it was winter.

  His sister pried his clenched jaws open, and he went on.

  "You taught me to be certain. You taught me to obey. But I―" His teeth snapped the words to silence. Some things were too hard to admit aloud, even to the blackness. But in the silence he imagined Retash slipping, the lifeline of Seth's words spooling out of his empty hands.

  You've come this far to save him, Lyseira accused. Would you have him die now so you can keep your pride?

  Grimly, as if pronouncing his own death sentence, Seth said, "I don't know who to obey when everyone is wrong." The words made a crack in the dam. The next ones were easier. "Everyone is wrong. Marcus and Elmoor sentenced Helix to death for something he didn't do. Lyseira violated the laws of scripture by saving him. Syntal is a witch, and everyone who consorts with her condones it." He tasted the winter night, teetering on a precipice. "Including me."

  The words drifted into the dark, swallowed by the freezing air. Some of his oldest memories swam to mind, memories of a black river and his parents screaming. Of rain like an avalanche, drowning the life he'd known since birth.

  "The only thing I know is that Lyseira saved me, after that flood killed my parents. She had no reason to. If she had come to my home, I would've hated her. It wouldn't have mattered to me that her parents had died. Come to my home and take my food, my toys, my mother? I wo
uld've . . ."

  His mind lurched toward a black corridor, one that rewrote history to show all the worst parts of himself. He seized it, hauled it back.

  "But she didn't resent me. She welcomed me. They both did. So how―?"

  Lyseira was silent now, watching him from somewhere deep in the trees.

  "How can you expect me to turn her away? She asked me for help, and I gave it. I would give it again. Right or wrong, I would give it again."

  He hadn't realized he would sacrifice everything for her until she'd asked.

  The horse whickered, and Seth glanced back. In the dark, the litter's silhouette looked like a cape flowing from the animal's rear.

  He faced forward and said, "I know what caused the Storms.

  "The one years ago and the one in the fall. Books. Just simple books. Syntal—you'll meet her—she did it. She opened a book she found in a lake, and the first Storm happened. She lied to us, told us that the Storm had opened the book, not the other way around. But when we got here, there was another book just like the first. I tried to take it from her, but she was too fast. She said something—cast some spell. The book opened, and another Storm happened."

  He fell silent, his thoughts roaming back to those first chaotic moments after the second Storm ended: he and Lyseira on one side, Syntal and Helix on another, Harth and Angbar and Iggy trying to shout them all down.

  He remembered wondering, for a single fevered instant, if he should've killed her rather than let her open that book.

  "We talked, that night. She said she doesn't understand it. She said she didn't know it would be there. She said she needed to study it, said she'd tell us what she learned.

  "She said a lot of things." The beacon she'd seen in the woods had led straight to the book. Something had wanted her to open it.

  He ground his teeth. "I don't―"

  The horse screamed, twisted forward, and plunged into the snow. Seth whirled and saw it fighting to rise, its front right leg buried to the knee.

  Yes, traveling in the dark was stupid.

  "Easy," he said, and the animal ignored him, thrashing and lurching as it tried to break free. The litter banged around behind it, threatening to spill Retash into the snow. Seth circled to the rear, thinking to break it loose, but there was no good way to do it. If the horse kicked him, he was finished.

  "Easy, easy." The mare's screams drowned his words out. It was in a blind panic; even in the dark, Seth could tell its leg was broken. It would never get itself out of the hole it had stumbled into.

  He waited until it calmed enough to approach, then pulled a long dagger. He found the soft spot above the animal's eye and drove the weapon in.

  It wasn't a perfect kill, but it did the job. When the horse grew still he disconnected the litter from its body, Retash still strapped in and breathing.

  Seth paused in the silence, weighing his options, but it all came back to the same thing: they had no food. Retash would starve before Seth could ever get him to the Safehold.

  He turned the problem over in his mind, examining it like an appraiser with a gemstone. Finally, he started clearing space for a fire.

  Preservers didn't eat meat. The Teachings said consuming flesh defiled the body and impeded emptiness. Breaking this rule was grounds for expulsion, and Retash had never violated it.

  Two hours later, Seth tipped a bowl of horse broth toward his master's mouth.

  3

  i. Helix

  Nearly every night since Matthew's murder, he'd had the nightmares. Time and again, he saw Matthew get cut down, or heard Bishop Elmoor pronounce judgment. Every night, horns blasted in the dark as tree branches slapped against his face. Smears of nauseous light chased him through the boughs.

  But something had changed at the Safehold. The forest's curse—the same one that had nearly killed all of them by forcing them to wander in circles until they froze to death—now served as protection. Outside of his nightmares, he hadn't heard the blast of a Tribunal's horn in months. Hopefully, as far as the Church knew, he had wandered into the cursed forest and died there, just like all the travelers before him.

  Slowly, this knowledge had eased the constant cramp of terror in his mind. Slowly, the dreams had faded.

  Now, Lyseira wanted to bring them back.

  "Tal'aden?" Iggy was incredulous, as if Lyseira had just suggested burning down the forest. The thick growth of beard he'd developed over the winter turned his glare into something beady and sinister. "No."

  Behind him, Harth just scoffed.

  "You don't have to go, Iggy. You shouldn't go." Lyseira looked at Helix. "You shouldn't either. I . . . I'm just saying . . . I could go. I'm willing to go. You don't need to be there for Him to hear the whole story, and it's safest if you're not."

  Helix actually felt at home here; that was the bizarre thing. They were holed up in an ancient ruin of a temple, hundreds of miles from home in the dead of winter, but somewhere along the way it had started to feel like an adventure. Without the constant threat of the Church behind them, the bickering and accusations had died down, and everyone had actually started to feel like friends again. At times he could imagine they were camping on Pinewood Lake, like they used to do when they were younger. It was exciting providing for themselves, feeding themselves, but the notion had sneaked into the back of his mind that none of it was real, that they could just go home whenever they wanted.

  Stupid.

  Stupid, and dangerous.

  "What makes you think He'll listen to you, Lyseira?" Harth had never been shy about speaking his mind, but since Syntal had taught him to chant, he'd become even more brazen. His haphazard beard, scruffier than Iggy's, lent a tinge of hysteria to his words. "You trust them far too much. They'll capture you, drag you to the dungeons, and torture you until you tell them where Helix is."

  Lyseira turned to him, paling, and inclined her head. "They might."

  Wow, Helix thought. They had all changed since Keldale, but had Lyseira really just admitted―?

  "But if we run, we'll be found eventually. I'd rather face it head-on. If there's a chance for a pardon, I want it, for all of us. If there's not . . . then you'll know," she finished, looking at Helix again.

  It was Iggy's turn to scoff. "Yeah. We'll know because we'll see you burning at the stake."

  "They won't be able to burn me," Lyseira said, quietly. There was a certainty there that made it hard to doubt her. An image came back to Helix of Lyseira in the flames at Keldale, sweeping through the pyre to save a chanter she barely knew.

  She may be right, he realized. If anyone could escape them, maybe it would be her. Helix's faith—such as it ever was—had taken a beating at the hands of Bishop Marcus, but he had enough left to know Akir was with her. She had proven it time and again.

  He sought her eyes. "Have you prayed on this, Lyseira?"

  She nodded. "But He hasn't spoken to me, if that's what you mean. This isn't . . . I don't have some divine commandment from Akir. It's just . . . just me."

  "It could get you killed."

  "I know."

  "You really believe the Fatherlord will listen to you?"

  She hesitated, lips trembling. "I have to."

  No, you don't, he wanted to say. You can choose to be reasonable, like the rest of us. But something told him there was more to it than that. There were questions in her eyes, and she needed to answer them.

  "If I'm wrong," she went on, "I don't want to endanger anyone but myself. It's best if I go alone."

  He hated the thought of it—it was suicide, it had to be—but Lyseira would make her own choices. She always had. At least this one didn't have to involve him.

  "You're not going alone," Syntal said. "I'll come with you."

  His momentary relief collapsed beneath him.

  Lyseira shook her head. "Syn . . . I know we talked, but no."

  "I'm not letting you go there alone."

  "Syn," Helix said. "Come on." It would be even more dangerous for her than
it was for him. Surely she saw that?

  "It could have been me on that pyre, Helix. We've only survived this far by staying together."

  "But what if the Fatherlord does know about everything already? What if she tells Him, and He just shrugs and throws her in the dungeon?"

  "That's exactly why it's a good idea to be there." Syntal looked at Lyseira. "I won't come with you to talk to the Fatherlord, but I can be in the city. If you don't come back, I can try to help. Get you out."

  Iggy scoffed. "Help? Against the whole Church? If they take her―"

  "How many priests did I put to sleep last year?" Syntal demanded. "How many fights did we survive because I was there?"

  "That was luck. You can't―"

  "Luck?" Harth interrupted. "Do you even remember Keldale? The alley, or the gate? Luck or no, you wouldn't have survived that without Syn. The priests were dropping before they could invoke miracles—that's the only reason you lived."

  Syntal was strident. "They can't handle someone like me. They're powerful, sure, and they want people to be scared of them, but I've been thinking about it all winter, and they're not that scary. They're slow. They take too long to pray. I can chant in a tenth of the time it takes to them to invoke a miracle. They're not . . . they're just not ready for that. And that was just me. Imagine how much better we'll be able to defend ourselves now that Harth and Angbar―"

  "Whoa." Harth held out a warning hand. "I'm not going."

  Syntal's monologue tripped over itself. "What?" Her hand grasped at air. "But you just said―"

  "Syn, come on. Go to Tal'aden? It's suicide.

  "They think we're dead right now, I'd wager good coin. No one comes out of Veiling Green. I understand why you"—he looked at Lyseira—"might want to go. But me . . . I'd be risking my life for no good reason."

  Syntal's mouth worked like a fish gasping on a beach. Helix glanced past her at Angbar, and saw him staring at the floor. He hadn't spoken once during the entire conversation. Weird. Angbar was a lot of things, but shy wasn't one of them.

  "M'sai." Syn bit off the word. "You do what you need to do. I'm going."