The Diminished. Kaitlyn Patterson Sage

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       CHAPTER SEVEN

      VI

      A single day was not enough time for me to find my balance after my whole world had turned upside down. The anchorites tasked Curlin—her shaved head, seemingly ever-multiplying tattoos and newfound piety still startling, even after all this time—to be my shadow in the hours before I was to board the ship at dawn. I didn’t like to think about how they’d managed to get a captain to agree to give me passage, or what that would mean for me on the journey ahead, so instead, I focused my ire on Curlin.

      I suppose the anchorites thought I might’ve tried to run, despite the fortune they’d taken from me and I from the sea. I might’ve, too—the weight of the secret pearls in the pouch around my neck whispered to me of escape, but I knew all too well how far the temple’s reach extended. How far the Suzerain could see. There was nowhere I could hide if they wanted to find me. My stash would have to go with me to Ilor.

      Curlin shifted from one foot to the other in the doorway of my bedroom, her arms crossed over her chest. The new tattoo on her knuckles was red and tender-looking. Yet despite the vast chasm that’d opened between us since she’d joined the Shriven, I could still read Curlin’s face as easy as any book.

      “Dzallie’s eyebrows, Curlin. Come in or don’t, but stop looming there like an ass. We’re alone now.”

      Curlin made a sour face, but came in and sat on my bed. Her eyes avoided the side of the room that’d once been hers. I shoved my spare set of clothes and the few small bits and trinkets I’d collected during my childhood into an ancient bag and sat back on my heels, glaring.

      “Now what?” I asked. A long day and a longer night stretched ahead of us, and I’d nothing else to occupy my time until I left to board the ship that would take me to Ilor. There was no one who’d care to hear my goodbyes, no one who’d care that I was gone. The only person in the world who’d ever given me a second thought was on the other side of the ocean.

      My heart beat a little faster at the possibility of seeing Sawny again. I wouldn’t hate seeing Lily, either, though I could only imagine the look on her face. She’d thought herself rid of me, after all.

      Curlin’s dark blue eyes searched my face. “There’s still time, you know.”

      “Time for what?” I asked.

      “Time to change your mind, idiot,” Curlin snapped. “They’d still take you. It’s not so bad. Better, at least, than what you’re walking into. Do you really want to spend the rest of your short life hauling stones until your fingers bleed or your back breaks? You’ll never make it twenty-five years. I bet you’ll hardly last one.”

      I ran my hands through my still-damp hair, working out the snarls and doing my damnedest to stay calm. “Do you have no recollection at all of the promise we made?”

      “Of course I do, but—”

      “I’d rather die than break it,” I said, cutting her off. “I would rather die than turn into a monster like them. Like you.”

      Curlin’s brows furrowed, and she set her jaw. I’d gotten under her skin. I couldn’t help but dig a little deeper.

      “At least in Ilor, I’ll be near Sawny. Near someone whose word actually means something.”

      “Actually,” Curlin said slyly, her voice taking on a cruel, musical edge, “you won’t. They’re sending you to the far side of the islands. They know the kind of trouble you two get into together. They’d never chance letting you see Sawny again. You don’t deserve a reward like that after what you did.”

      Bile rose in my throat. There was no one in the temple who could possibly care that much about my only friendship. “Horseshit,” I said. “They’re sending me away to die quietly. Where I won’t embarrass the Suzerain when the grief breaks me.”

      Curlin scoffed. “If the Suzerain knew what you’d done, that you’d stolen pearls from them, you’d be waiting for an execution block, not a ship. Count yourself lucky that the anchorites care enough to protect you. Though I’ll see Hamil dry the seas before I understand why.”

      “Are you going to tell them?” My nails dug into my palms, suddenly wondering if Curlin had truly changed that much.

      It would be the right thing for her to do. Her loyalty had been to the Suzerain since she’d taken her vows. There was a part of me that hoped some flicker of our friendship still warmed her, though. Just a little.

      “I could. One more dimmy given over to the gods and goddesses to excise in their mercy,” she pondered, her voice icy and distant.

      “Don’t talk like that,” I said, my voice a hoarse whisper. “We were friends once, Curlin, and you’re a gods’-cursed dimmy, too. Remember?”

      “No,” Curlin said. “I’m Shriven now. Shriven of all sin. Past and present. No more rules. No more holding back. My only task is to protect the faithful. I am not cursed, but forgiven. Each time I do violence, I bask in the glory of the gods and goddesses, for I act as the arms of the Suzerain, and they are the embodiment of the gods and goddesses.”

      Curlin crouched in front of me, looked me in the eyes and raked her sharpened nails across my face. Pain shot through me, and even as I forced myself not to flinch away from her, the tears that’d welled in my eyes snaked down my cheeks, mixing with my blood.

      “You could have been saved, Vi. But you’re too stupid to save yourself.”

      “Get. Out,” I snarled.

      She smiled at me coolly. Unable to contain my fury for another moment, I spat in her face. Shock played over her features like wind over the ocean, and before I could even process what I’d done, she’d stood, lifted one booted foot and kicked me in the gut, sending me sprawling backward. Air gusted out of me. It had been a long time since someone’d caught me and given me a proper beating, but the red-hot blaze of pain was uncomfortably familiar.

      She was gone, with the door slammed closed behind her, before I’d gotten my breath back.

      * * *

      In the gray light of the predawn, I walked the foggy streets of Penby for the last time, surrounded by the women who’d colored and shaped my childhood. Sula and Lugine flanked me on either side. Bethea walked in front, her two canes clattering on the cobblestones, and Curlin trailed behind. No one had remarked on the three slowly scabbing wounds on my cheek where Curlin’d scratched me, but I was well aware of them, especially as the icy air stung the tender skin.

      I would’ve left Penby on my sixteenth birthday anyway, but instead of heading toward a freedom I’d chosen, clouded СКАЧАТЬ