She walked away, dragging the girl dressed in white. As the women were swallowed up by dark, the girl’s pitiful cries grew quieter, and that most terrible and terminating of words came into John’s mind, over and over and over again. Tellochvovin.
CHAPTER 25
ORCHID’S LOSS
It was not far from the flickering fires and the crash of fighting into a dense dark hell of wilderness, where the dark and the shadows and the smell of winter-wet foliage caused the girl’s panic to rise, even as her eyes struggled to adjust to the deep colors of night. She was cold now, in her thin dress, but she had stopped crying. She could feel the tight trails on her cheeks where the tears had dried.
She followed Orchid through the sticking fronds of low-lying palms. Her feet sucked at the sandy mud. The metal collar around her neck never seemed to warm against her skin. In the distance she could still hear screaming, and every now and then a cheer. She had not noticed the coordinated whoops before—had they been doing that all along? Were the sounds rallying cries from the palace soldiers, or the carnival people? She wondered if Mr. Capulatio was dead.
She tried to shut everything out, the screams, the yells, the cold, the scratching underbrush. But she was more afraid here than she had been at the camp. Even on the battlefield. And she was more afraid of Orchid than she ever had been of Mr. Capulatio.
Or Argento.
Mr. Capulatio had killed her brother. Would his wife now kill her?
When they had walked a mile or so, Orchid turned slowly around. The moon overhead cast scant light onto her face, but enough that the shining glint of her eyes looked unearthly to the girl, like a rabid animal in a trashpile. She shrank back, but Orchid pulled the chain, forcing the girl’s head and neck forward. “We are in this together now,” she muttered, and reeled in the chain with her one hand. The girl could not believe how strong she was, even injured.
“No,” she said, her voice hoarse.
“Yes. I hate you nearly as much as I hate him, but we are in this together, little Sigil, and as long as you are mine, he will never have his kingdom.”
“You don’t even believe I am the sigil!”
Orchid pulled the girl to the ground, where they sat on a carpet of rotting leaves. The girl felt them sticking wetly to her thighs through her dress.
“He may have misinterpreted the passage. Or I may have. I … I don’t know. I need more time to read,” Orchid said. “To study the texts. My books—” She looked back in the direction of the carnival. For a moment it seemed like she might return for them. But then she let out her breath so slowly the girl wondered if she were trying to calm herself. “I would never get through the fray like this.” The chain. The one hand. “I am a cripple thanks to you. You will pay.”
“Would you rather I’d killed you?” the girl shrieked. She couldn’t help herself—they had walked a long way but they had not spoken. “I could have. If you kill me you’ll break the new Law of Mercy.”
“Shut up. Did you hear what I said? As long as you are mine, he will never be ascendant. It doesn’t matter what the passage says, or even what it means. He believes it. And so he is bereft without you.” She smiled. “His little fantasy of the girl on the battlefield will cost him his kingship.” Orchid spat on the ground and cradled the stump of her wrist. “O, not to worry, little Sigil,” she muttered. “I shall not kill you, not now. Who would be my servant if I did? I’m a queen, I cannot be without an attendant.”
The girl looked about for a rock. If only she could get the key from around Orchid’s neck. The woman had to sleep sometime. Then she would hit her and escape.
The moonlight made deep, ugly shadows under Orchid’s eyes. Orchid was watching the girl closely. A new expression rolled onto her face like a stormcloud, one of recognition. Her short hair dripped with moisture and blood. “Tut tut, little one. What of your Law of Mercy? How can you kill me in my sleep? Surely you are not so evil. Where would you even go? Back to him? Into the forest alone? A young girl will not be alone for long.” She laughed meanly.
She gasped. “Do you read minds?”
“Never once in all my life. But I know your heart, because all people are the same. Selfish, grasping, lustful, prideful.” Her voice was sly. “You cannot break your own Law, though, right? There is to be no killing.”
The girl could not confess she’d made up the Law of Mercy in order to spare herself the horror of de-heading Orchid, because then Orchid would kill her. But suddenly she couldn’t be sure if she’d made up the Law, or if it had been divinely sent; it seemed real now that other people had begun believing it. What would it feel like to be given a revelation?
Like this desperation?
Wonderblood had ended. She had ended it. There would be no more making Heads, no more carnivals, maybe. No more executions. She stared at Orchid. All around them were the wet smells of ferns and mosses, water flowing under the ground, the cries of night animals, shrill and sweet. The fear in the girl’s heart began to slow. The woman sitting across from her was without a hand. In the weak moonlight she could see darkness on the bandage; the wound was weeping. It was likely Orchid would die on her own. In
