The abbess sat behind her desk with a welcoming smile and eyes that took Nona’s measure. In a convent full of women honed into athletes by Blade training, and deadly with their hands, it often surprised Nona that ultimate authority rested in the palm of a motherly woman, somewhat overweight, hair streaked with grey, who wouldn’t last more than moments against the youngest hunska half-blood. But then Nona would remember how that old lady’s palm came to bear such a mass of burn scars and her question would be answered.
“Nona, have a seat.”
Nona sat and waited.
“Your performance in the Shade Trial was a triumph.”
Nona waited for the “but.”
“But I want you to think about what role awaits you in the wider world, however narrow it might be when you leave our convent. Out there you can’t always win. No one person, no matter what amount of physical skill they might have, can change the tide of a war, or deflect the uprising of a political movement. Not even the most famed of Mystic Sisters, with the power of the Path running through their veins, were single-handedly responsible for defeating nations or able to steer the populace.
“From the outside Sweet Mercy looks very small. Our job here is to teach you to deal with failure as much as it is to teach you to win. We have failed to teach you about failure. I tell you this as I fear time is running out and simply hearing the lesson may have to stand in for being shown it.”
Nona opened her mouth to explain how she had learned that lesson when she failed Hessa, but her lips couldn’t shape the words.
“You’re powerful Nona, and you’ve come into your power at an early age. The understanding that power corrupts is an idea older than the language we repeat it in. All of us in positions that afford authority over others are susceptible, be we high priests, prime instigators, even abbesses.”
“Or emperors,” Nona said.
The abbess winced. “Some truths are better left implied, dear.” She glanced at the door then continued. “The Church has power and the Inquisition is intended to keep it from corruption. The Red and the Grey are a power and among the high priest’s tasks is to ensure those who direct them are not led astray from the righteous path. Each member of the Red and the Grey is a power in themselves and it is my job to ensure they remember their strength is a gift intended for service. And of course there are the shiphearts. Each a source of vast potential . . . but do they corrupt the ones who direct that strength?”
Nona said nothing. She didn’t know the answers, saving that she was already tainted and the stain upon her had his own name.
“I tell you this, Nona, because difficult times are ahead for us all and I want you to have faith in what we’ve taught you here. What I’ve taught you. When strength is in your hands there is a temptation to lash out against what looks like injustice. But our rules are all we have to stop everyone lashing out, each to their own sense of justice. Battles are better fought within the system, even when it seems broken.” The abbess sighed. “You’re young and I’m boring you. Run along. But don’t forget what I’ve told you.”
Nona ran as instructed, but it wasn’t boredom that snapped at her heels, but a host of worries, unused to such young prey.
• • •
“READY?” THE FOUR of them stood around the well-head in the laundry room. It was now the safest route into the caves. Seven-day trips into Verity had been suspended to allow the Inquisition closer observation of the convent and its inhabitants. Brother Pelter’s watchers numbered eight now, swelled by new arrivals from the Tower of Inquiry.
“Ready.” Ara held the lantern.
“Ready.” Jula peered down the well.
“For Hessa.” Ruli nodded.
“For justice. I’m going to get Sweet Mercy its shipheart back. I’m going to kill Yisht. And Sherzal is going to bleed for her crimes.” Three impossible things, but passing the Grey Trial had seemed impossible just days ago. The abbess had cautioned Nona about failure, but she had also told her to have faith.
Nona clambered over the guard wall and began to climb down the rope. Even if escaping through the pillars unseen was no longer an option the well got them where they wanted to go much more swiftly. They’d dropped any pretence that they were respecting the abbess’s edict against the undercaves. Even Jula hadn’t blinked. It was for Hessa.
A short while later all four of them were standing wet-legged at the pool’s edge in the oubliette beneath the novice cloister.
“Saints’ teeth!” Jula covered her face. “It stinks in here!”
“A gallon of kelp juice will do that.” Ruli went to get the empty tub that Nona had failed to return and placed it beside the pool.
“Let’s go!” Jula took the lantern and led the way.
Although the distance from the novice cloister to the Ancestor’s dome couldn’t be more than a hundred yards it took nearly an hour of twisting passages and tight crawls until Jula stopped them.
“All I’ve got to go on is what you’ve told me. But if the shipheart was under the rear of the dome . . . we want to go up there. It shouldn’t be far.” She pointed up at a fissure in the tunnel’s ceiling, three yards above their heads and fringed with stalactites.
“Tough throw.” Ara frowned. She pulled the grapple from her back and twirled it around her hand. “Better hope there’s a good edge at the top.” She sped the twirling and with a grunt of effort released the iron hook vertically, trailing rope. A moment later the novices jumped back as it clattered down the fissure again.
Thirty throws later each of them had taken a turn and not once
