Holy Sister

Zole led them back to the north for a way then began to climb on a south-leading ridge. She called a halt where a spire of rock offered some shelter from the wind, and marvellously produced both food and water.

‘How …?’ Nona accepted a strip of dried meat and a near-full waterskin.

‘I prepared for my journey.’ Zole crammed a strip of the blackened trail-beef into her mouth and began to chew methodically.

‘You came after me,’ Nona said. After so long surviving on cell slops the leathery meat seemed to explode with flavour, her mouth flooding.

‘I followed Sister Kettle.’ Zole spoke around the rhythm of her jaws.

‘But you knew she was looking for me.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why did you come?’ Nona wanted to hear it from Zole’s lips.

‘You are the Shield. I need your protection.’ If the ice-triber was mocking her she let no sign of it show.

‘You don’t believe that stuff. It’s all made up.’ Nona forced herself not to drink too deeply from the skin.

‘Everything ever said was made up. The Ancestor, the Hope, all the small green gods of the Corridor who will die when the ice closes.’

Nona wiped her mouth. ‘And on the ice. Don’t you make gods of the wind?’

Zole shrugged. ‘Some do.’

‘And you tell stories about the future.’

‘Perhaps we have a prophecy about a black-eyed goddess who will save us all, and the four-blood child of the ice whose job it is to lead her home.’ The smallest smile quirked the corner of Zole’s mouth. She stood and shouldered her pack. ‘Time to go.’

‘Up?’ Nona’s heart fell.

‘Up.’ Zole nodded. ‘They will try to get ahead of us. The Noi-Guin will try to come at us from several different directions at once.’

‘Can’t you just drop rocks on their heads?’

‘It is … tiring.’ Zole rubbed at her wrist, where Nona had seen the devil. ‘It would be better if we do not find out whether I can or not.’

It was true. For the first time ever Nona saw lines of exhaustion in Zole’s face. The shock of it surprised her. Before she started to work wonders Zole had never seemed quite human.

5 (#ulink_aaa32811-169e-5100-9fd2-36d2e1769309)

Holy Class (#ulink_aaa32811-169e-5100-9fd2-36d2e1769309)

Present Day (#ulink_aaa32811-169e-5100-9fd2-36d2e1769309)

Nona rose with the bell, rolled from her bed, and hurried into her habit oblivious to the room around her. The rest of the novices were still dressing when she left, Ruli only just poking her head from beneath the blankets at Jula’s urging, hair in a tangle of amazing proportions.

‘Good luck today!’ Alata, flashing a grin as she plaited Leeni’s hair into a single red rope.

Nona paused only to check the doorway for malicious threads, then took the stairs four at a time. She was first into the refectory and was reaching for the bread as she slid her legs beneath Holy Class’s table. By the time Ketti joined her Nona had heaped her plate for the second time and was attacking a pile of bacon with purpose.

‘I wouldn’t be able to eat. Not with the Blade final in front of me.’ Ketti started to help herself to eggs.

Nona grunted around a mouthful. Meals at Sweet Mercy were not as large or varied as they had been when she had arrived as a starveling child. The Durns held much of the Marn coast and the Scithrowl had crossed the Grampains. With both advances slow but seemingly as inexorable as the ice, good and plentiful food wasn’t something that could be depended on, even within sight of the capital’s wall. ‘Eat while you can.’ Nona reached for her water. It was a point of regret to her that she’d proved unable to pack on any reserves. She would be the first to go in any famine, where someone like Sister Rose could lose half her body weight and still survive. Even so, she didn’t plan to give up on trying.

‘Good luck today!’ Jula sat herself opposite, eyes tracking across the various steaming bowls lined along the centre of the table. She always spent five minutes in careful consideration of her options. Then chose porridge.

‘Here.’ Ketti leaned forward and pushed the porridge bowl towards Jula.

‘I thought I might try something different today.’ Jula frowned at the mushrooms.

Ketti and Nona exchanged a quick ‘no, you won’t’ glance.

Joeli seated herself at the far end of the table, hair gleaming as if the sun had found a way through the clouds just for her. Somehow her habit looked as if it had been tailored to her personal requirements, as flattering as any ballgown. ‘Blade final! Why, Nona, you’re quite pink with excitement.’ She smiled brightly. ‘Pray Ancestor it will be a good one.’

They all ignored her. Joeli had been relentlessly nice since her return, as if they were all best of friends. Nona could almost imagine that Lord Namsis’s Academy man had rearranged Joeli’s opinions where she was concerned in addition to her memories regarding the events at Sherzal’s palace. The thread-traps scattered around the convent gave the lie to all those pretty smiles though.

Ghena came to the table, raindrops beading the tight frizz of her hair. ‘Good lu—’

‘It’s not about luck!’ Nona bit back a snarl and forced herself to lower her voice. ‘My thanks. I will try to acquit myself well.’ She regretted ever telling anyone that the test date had been set. She manufactured a smile, pushed her chair back from the table and stood to go, aware now of the tension in her limbs. Today she would face Mistress Blade, without armour, sword in hand, and her performance would decide whether she could take the Red.

A downpour greeted her exit from the refectory. She ran to Blade Hall, head bowed, crashing through the main entrance to stand dripping in the foyer. Ara waited in the shadows by the doors, a practice blade in each hand.

‘Thought you might want some help warming up.’ She offered one sword, hilt first.

‘Thanks.’ Nona slipped off her shoes and moved across the sand towards the changing room, skirting the area marked off for the test to come.

She emerged a short while later, wearing a white exercise habit to match Ara’s. The pair of them began the blade kata side by side, the slow version first, stringing together all the core movements of the form in a way that gradually warmed and stretched the muscles. Nona watched Ara move as she made her own forms. Although Nona knew her own kata met Sister Tallow’s exacting standards, somehow there was a beauty to Ara’s that made her heart ache.

‘You’ll be fine.’ Ara grinned, her breath now quickened following the double kata.

They crossed blades. Normally they would both be wearing the heavy blade-habit with a wire facemask. Today wasn’t going to be normal. Nona hadn’t any real concern that she would fail to meet the required performance. The question in significant doubt concerned her sword. She would receive her blade on taking orders, just like any other Red Sister. It should be an Ark-steel sword like Sister Tallow’s, a weapon that in the right hands could shatter a lesser blade and cleave a block from a castle wall in two. But Nona knew that none of the most recent novices to graduate to the Red had been given Ark-steel. Over the years swords had been lost and the Red Sisters’ ranks had grown. These days sisters new to their names were most often given a fresh blade. The steel for these came from the forges of the Barrons witches. As fine a steel as could be made within the Corridor, but nothing compared to that of the ancients.

‘Ready?’ Nona asked.

Ara attacked by way of answer and Nona barely turned the thrust from her face. She replied with an immediate counter-cut.

If Nona made a sufficiently good impression today she might have one of the few Ark-steel swords awarded to her on her first day in the Red rather than having to wait for an older sister to die or to set down her weapon and retire to prayer as a Holy Sister. New Reds without Ark-steel were known as ‘pinks’ in certain quarters.

Ara’s blade crashed against Nona’s, flickered away, sliced in, parried, cut. A stillness always settled on much of Nona’s mind when she sparred, and in that stillness a realization reached her.

‘Pink.’

‘What?’ Ara paused, and Nona attacked with renewed vigour.

No matter how tightly she held herself against threadwork Joeli could still pull her strings, in the way that required no magic. Just dropping the word ‘pink’ into the conversation around the breakfast table earlier had nearly made Nona bite Ghena’s head off for daring to wish her good luck …

Nona rocked back to avoid Ara’s slash and spun in behind the swing. She drew on her anger at the Namsis girl, feeding the fire that already burned there. Joeli thought to spoil her concentration, to put her out of the cold centre of her serenity where a Red Sister was supposed to dwell in the heat of battle. What Joeli failed to appreciate was that Nona had never followed that part of Mistress Blade’s instructions. When she fought in earnest she fought angry, and her rage seldom wanted for fuel.