take it out on.
THREE
The Giving of Affusion
Sorcha left the Abbot’s chambers and strode through the Devotional with a lot more certainty than she actually felt. It was cool in the stone corridors of the building, high-vaulted ceilings perhaps not the best design choice for Vermillion’s winter climate, but the building had been inherited much as the Emperor had received his palace.
She passed underneath carvings of the native Abbots who had once ruled here, their symbol of a circle of five stars pinned to their chests. Many of their stone faces had been hacked off. The wars of this continent had not discriminated against those who wanted to protect it.
In the north wing, there were still lay Brothers clambering up scaffolding to install a new slate roof to replace the one destroyed in the fire that had wiped out the remainder of the native Deacons nearly seventy years before. The Mother Abbey’s Devotional building had lain in ruin, open to the tender mercies of nature, until Arch Abbot Hastler had brought the new Order to the continent. Now three years of repairs were drawing to a close. Once the roof was in place, only the scars would be visible, not the destruction.
Sorcha paused for a moment to watch the artisans working on the northern rose window—replacing the glass they’d recovered and installing new portions where that was impossible.
“Sorcha!” The familiar voice snapped her out of a melancholy turn of thought.
A tall figure emerged out of the shadows, his hands covered in white dust, his step halting.
“Garil.” She smiled in genuine happiness. “What are you doing here?”
Sorcha knew as his gray eyes looked her over that nothing could be hidden from him; the slight slump in her shoulders and the fractional frown on her brow. Yet unlike most Sensitives, she didn’t mind him observing her. Garil had been her first partner, but despite that and everything that happened, he still held her in high regard. It always rather shocked her.
“Little Red.” He hobbled over to catch her in a rough embrace. “They poked me out of my tiny Priory with some rubbish about needing my skills for this project.”
No one since Pareth, the Presbyter of the Young during Sorcha’s childhood, had dared give her a nickname, but from Garil it was somehow acceptable. Sorcha threw her arms around him with a laugh until she realized how thin he was beneath the charcoal robes. She could feel every bone. Garil was one of the few Sensitives forced into retirement by severe injury. The perpetrators had not been the unliving, but if she ever found them, they soon would be.
“So how are you, Garil?” She gently squeezed him back, afraid that she might hurt him.
“Ah, you know.” He shrugged, an awkward movement. Despite how hard the physicians had tried, his broken pelvis and back had never healed straight. “It still feels strange to wear the gray after so long in the emerald.”
He should have stayed in Delmaire but had insisted on joining the Emperor’s expedition. He’d been old then, but still one of the great Sensitives of his age. The Bond they had shared as partners had been very strong.
Sorcha cleared her throat, feeling his sadness like it was her own. Being rated unfit for duty and having to wear the charcoal robes of the retired Deacon was something that few ever got to enjoy, yet it was obvious that Garil took no pleasure from it. She could hardly blame him; the heady rush of geist battle was addictive.
“I was in the infirmary when they brought Kolya in.” The elderly Deacon shook his head. “Most unfortunate to be caught in a riot like that.” His eyes grew distant as he undoubtedly thought of his own dark night in the alley. Why anyone would beat such a kind man within an inch of death was still a mystery.
It was becoming clear that no one was going to mention the geist that obeyed no rules or her opening of Teisyat. It seemed the paper shufflers in the Abbey would be saved any disturbance.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Very unfortunate.” Glancing up at the beautiful rose window, she attempted to change the subject. “How is the restoration going?”
Garil laughed, a short little sound that contained more than a hint of bitterness. “They really don’t know what to do with an old Deacon here.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “I think the Arch Abbot believed I was going a little crazy out there in the wilds, worried I might say too many things.”
Sorcha shrugged. “Well, you have a lot of experience, something that we lack this far from Delmaire. You know how to get people to do things.”
Garil sighed. “Even our beloved Emperor has spent years restoring the palace—so I should not grumble.”
“Then you are following an excellent lead.”
Her old partner nodded slowly, but she sensed something else; the elderly Deacon was holding back. At any other time she would have pressed him, but she had enough on her plate not to go looking for trouble. Not today anyway.
In the name of distraction Sorcha tried him on his favorite subject. “Do you think the native Order would appreciate what we are doing to their Abbey?” She said it in jest, trying to get his grim mood to lift, but the old Deacon shrugged.
“They left so few records it is impossible to tell. I do know that when they were cut off here for so long, their ways were rumored to have grown a little strange.”
During her training, history had been the bane of Sorcha’s life, but now her interest was a little piqued; the looming statues of those who had come before seemed somewhat more than mere rock today. She knew that in the dark ages Saint Cristin had landed in a tiny boat on the new continent and founded the native Order, but that was as far as her knowledge went. Garil had studied everything he could about the founding Deacons, yet even he didn’t have all the answers.
The conversation had strayed into uncomfortable territory. “Perhaps if our Order stays here for six hundred years, we too will be considered strange,” she offered.
Garil’s great bushy eyebrows drew together, and he looked away. “Maybe we already are.” His voice was a low rumble, and Sorcha restrained an inappropriate smile. Her old partner was not taking retirement at all well.
“You at least have earned some rest, Garil.”
“Maybe so,” muttered her old partner as he glanced up at his workers. “But back in Delmaire . . . Well, there are more gray cloaks. Here . . .” The rest remained unsaid. Here there were very few old members of the Order.
Garil shifted uncomfortably, and she realized he had more than his share of aches in badly healed bones. The wintry air she found pleasantly bracing would not be so kind to him. Her ire rose toward whichever clerk had thought this a good project for an old man.
“Surely they don’t need you to watch glass getting slotted into place.” She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Keep me company to the infirmary?”
He shot a look up at the artisans and then laughed. “These young people know what they are about, and I could do with some more tincture for my old skin. It gets so thin, you know.”
It would in fact be for the pain, but his pride wouldn’t let him admit that. Sorcha knew full well what Garil was like. Together they strolled out of the Devotional toward the low stone building that housed the infirmary. A low lavender hedge contained a physic garden at the front, where lay workers were rushing to gather the final autumn plants. To the right were the drying rooms, and the apothecary where potions, tinctures and rubs were prepared. The scent that wafted out of the open doors was so soothing Sorcha almost forgot why she was going there.
Garil patted her arm. “I’ll let you go and find your husband. Give him my best.”
He was about to wander away, but she held on to him a moment, a twinge of concern tickling her conscience. “Is everything all right with you, Garil?”
Was it her imagination, or did a tiny muscle near his eye twitch? “As well as can be expected . . . you know, in this weather.” He rubbed his leg and glanced up as if he was expecting rain. “Well, must get in.” Garil turned
