Canticle

The woman’s hand moved with confidence and precision, running the knife over Petronus’s chest. His glassy eyes stared upward, his arms spread cruciform.

When the mark of Y’Zir was complete, the woman looked up to Jakob. “Bring the child of promise to me,” she said. Then, from beneath her armor, she drew out an iron needle and a small glass phial on a silver chain.

Dipping the needle into Petronus’s blood, the woman unstopped the phial and slid the needle into it, depositing a single drop. She stopped it up and stood, approaching Jin Li Tam. Behind her, Ezra cradled her crying son.

“Your child is going to die,” she said, leaning close enough that Jin could smell the honey of her breath. “Ask me to save him and I will.” She replaced the needle and shook the phial in her fist.

Jin Li Tam swallowed. This was a darker mysticism than the Marshfolk had shown before, and some part of her mind reeled away from it. “You cannot save him. He is sick.” She felt panic growing within her.

She smiled. “Ask me to save him,” she said again, “and I will.”

Then, she turned and unstopped the phial she’d shaken. This near, Jin could see the black fluid that beaded in the bottom of the phial. “You cannot save him,” Jin said again.

Using the needle again, Winteria bat Mardic drew out a single drop from the phial. She shook the needle over Petronus, and the drop fell upon the wound in his neck. Jin Li Tam gasped at the smell of ozone that filled the room and felt the fine hair on her arms and neck lift up as the wound in Petronus’s neck began to knit itself together. His body began to drum upon the floor as his legs kicked and his hands pounded. The Machtvolk Queen sighed and stepped over him to avoid his flailing.

But even as he flailed, Jin Li Tam watched his eyes as they rolled in his head and watched the pallor of his skin flush with new blood. He sat up gasping, his eyes wild, still covered in his own blood, and reached trembling hands up to the ragged scar upon his throat, the careful mark upon his heart.

The woman turned to Jin Li Tam, holding up the phial. “Behold the grace and mercy of House Y’Zir,” she said, extending the phial toward her. Her eyes narrowed. “Ask me to save him and I will, Great Mother.”

And in that moment, nothing else mattered to her. The eyes of the Named Lands were upon her and she did not know them. She saw only her son and the miracle now offered. All her life, she’d watched her father use his children to shape the world. She’d stood by the graves of many of them, expendable arrows shot with intent into the heart of the Named Lands. And though some part of her cried out against the abomination she now faced, a louder part clamored life for her son at any cost.

I am not my father’s daughter after all.

She felt the hands relax upon her, and she knew what must follow.

Do not look to the room, she told herself. She knew what she would see there. A mixture of wrath and fear and wonder. Instead, she forced herself to her knees before the Machtvolk Queen and took the woman’s feet in her hands.

“Save my son,” she said, weeping. “Please. If you can, save him.”

Nodding, the woman turned and dipped the needle once again, taking the last drop of that dark fluid upon it. While Ezra the Prophet cradled him close, the Machtvolk Queen shook the needle over his tiny mouth. The black bead fell upon his lower lip and Jakob, firstborn of Rudolfo, ceased his crying.

And when the Machtvolk Queen Winteria bat Mardic took him and passed him to his mother, Jin Li Tam already saw the gray fading from his face and hands, replaced by a healthy pink. His eyes, clear and wide and brown, were open and focused upon her and he smiled.

In that moment, she heard a voice cry out from the entrance to the tent and looked up to lock eyes with Rudolfo.

Weeping with joy and shame, she clutched her son to her breast and wondered what price she’d paid for this miracle.

Chapter 24

Rudolfo

Rudolfo felt his legs turn to water and staggered back against the Gypsy Scout behind him. The man caught his king and steadied him upon his feet.

What he’d seen staggered him.

They’d landed where Windwir’s docks had once been, and the Kinshark had no difficulty finding a deep-enough berth close in to shore. The iron vessels-those that had not left with Charles for the Churning Wastes and Sanctorum Lux-had turned back leagues ago when their deeper keels threatened to run aground on a river that the Androfrancines no longer dredged.

From the beach, he’d run to the tent, an invisible wall parting before him as he did. He would have walked, his feet unsteady from weeks at sea, but seeing the Ninefold Forest flag turned for distress hastened him.

And now, he stood slack-jawed. He’d reached the entrance to the tent as Petronus fell and kicked his last. And he’d stood to the side, transfixed, as the woman-the one called Ria-first brought back that dead Pope and then restored Rudolfo’s son.

“I don’t know the cure,” Rae Li Tam had told him during one of her more lucid moments as the blood magicks consumed her. She’d spent her last days going over her small library and writing notes. She’d created lists for Charles of which books to find when he reached Santorum Lux. But even then, Rudolfo had known the chances for a cure must indeed be slight. To travel so far with so little result only to have it handed to him felt unfair. And to have it given in such a way. He knew it was blood magick-it had to be. Only deep bargaining in the Beneath Places could bring about that kind of power. Somehow, and for some purpose he could not quite fathom, this woman had healed his son, had saved his life.

But at what cost? He remembered the blood pipes. He remembered the smell of death and the screams beneath the knife.

Now, watching his wife as she huddled on the floor and held their son, the magnitude of the afternoon’s events settled upon him and he wanted badly to sit down, but he resisted gravity. He opened his mouth to speak, but the woman spoke first.

“Lord Rudolfo,” she said, inclining her head, “bear witness to this, for a time shall come when you are asked to give an accounting of this day.”

He blinked at her and said nothing.

She pointed to Petronus, who sat to the side, rubbing his throat in wonder with a lost look upon his face. “The last son has been forgiven the sins of his father and shall be released into exile. Look to me, Petronus.” When he looked up, she smiled at him. “Leave the Named Lands. Go east into the Churning Wastes from whence you Ash-Men came to steal our Home. Stay there. Life is your gift. Return at your peril.”

Rudolfo’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you to command him?”

She smiled and swept the room with her hand. “I am one who has proven that her Blood Scouts can strike when and where she chooses.” She paused to look to Meirov, and Rudolfo followed her. The Queen of Pylos shook with rage. “I am one who has proven that age and station do not give me pause from the course I am called to.”

“You are a murderer and an abomination to our people,” another voice said, and Rudolfo first noticed Winters, who stood now and brandished her Firstfall axe of office.

Ria laughed. “And you are a child, Winters, playing at queen with your dreams and your books and your white-haired Androfrancine boy. Bring the axe and come with me, little sister. Climb the spire and stand with me while I proclaim myself. Join me and we will take back our Home and make it what Lord Y’Zir promised us it would be in his Gospel. Take the mark upon you and find joy in servanthood and in Home.”

Rudolfo watched the anger upon Winters’s face and recoiled from it. Hanric’s loss had twisted deep in her, and the dark look she now gave Ria spoke of buried violence within her such as Rudolfo would not wish to face in a foe. “This is not the dream of our people,” Winters said. “This is not my dream.”

“Dreams change.” Ria’s eyes narrowed as she continued. “And so do the hearts of men and women. How long do you think your friends, your family, met in secret and worshiped in secret, preparing for this day? Quiet evangelists teaching and preaching what was to come to pass. The silent prayer of decades, awaiting the column of