Retribution Falls

Mats were laid out in a circle around it. A skylight let in the glow of the moon.

A meditation chamber, Frey guessed, backtracking. The Awakeners were very keen on meditation, Crake had told him. Sitting around doing nothing took many years of practice, he’d added with a sneer.

Other doorways let out on to other corridors, which took him to a small study, a filing room full of cabinets and paper, and a classroom with desks in rows of three. Any windows he saw were set high up on the wall, too high to look through without using a stepladder. Obviously interest in the outside world was discouraged.

He soon came upon a room with a stone table, red-stained blood-gutters running down it. Frey’s alarming visions of human sacrifice faded when he remembered that many Awakeners used the reading of entrails to understand the Allsoul. As he was wondering how it all might work, he heard the distant whisper of footsteps and female voices in conversation. Someone was up, even at this hour. It was difficult to tell if they were heading his way or not, but he returned to the hall to be safe, and then went up the stairs.

The problem of actually finding Amalicia once he was inside the hermitage hadn’t greatly troubled Frey during the planning of his daring infiltration. He’d been sidetracked by delicious visions of what an army of cloistered girls might do when a man turned up in their midst. In the face of that, the details seemed rather unimportant. But now he realised that he hadn’t the faintest idea where his target was, and his only option was to keep nosing around until something presented itself.

There was another small concern that had been nagging him. It had been two years, more or less, since Amalicia’s father sent her to the hermitage. Granted, the point of a hermitage was to keep acolytes in isolation for twice that, but still, two years was a long time. He wasn’t even certain she was here at all. Maybe her father had forgiven her and let her out?

No. He didn’t think so. He knew Gallian Thade’s reputation, and forgiveness wasn’t something he approved of.

Besides, Amalicia herself had said as much, in the last letter she’d sent him.

Moilday Firstweek, Thresh, 145/32

Dearest one,

Through the investigations of those still loyal to me and sympathetic to our cause, I have discovered the location of the hermitage to which my father intends to condemn me. He is sending me to the Highlands. I enclose the co-ordinates, which I am sure your navigator can decode, as they are mysterious to me.

Please forgive the cruel and shameful words I wrote in my last letter. I see now that you were wise to flee when you could, for my father’s mood has not improved. He still swears terrible vengeance, and likely will desire your death until the day his own comes. My heart should break if harm were to come to you. My anger was not towards you, but towards the injustice that made me my father’s daughter and you a man born without noble blood. But our love makes mockery of such things, and I know it will make you brave.

Find me, Darian, and rescue me. You have your craft, and we have the world before us. You will be a great man of the skies, and I shall be at your side, the way we always dreamed.

This letter will depart by my most trusted handmaiden, and I hope it will reach you and find you well. There will be no further opportunity to communicate.

With love everlasting,

Amalicia

Well, I got here eventually, Frey thought.

At the top of the stairs was another corridor, and more doors on either side. Each one was a private study cell, with a small lectern on the floor, a mat for kneeling, and a window slit, high up. There were more classrooms, and a door to a library, which was locked. He was just about to try the next door when suddenly a voice came to him, startlingly close.