Unsound

This is a continuation of Ciori’s story, which began with Recruits. The events preceding this snippet can be found in a previous post, A Thousand Threads.

“Wake up. The priestess is here to pray for you.”

The voice came to her, faint and distant like something spoken in a dream. Ciori shifted where she lay, trying to make sense of it. Wake up? She wasn’t sure that she’d even been asleep. Or perhaps this was sleep: when she opened her eyes the room blurred around her and when she struggled to sit up, her head spun. She was caught in some strange, unsettling dream.

“Where—” she asked, but words would not slip past the painful dryness in her throat.

Someone knelt beside her and, one hand supporting the back of her neck, brought the edge of a bowl to her lips. “Here.”

Ciori drank gratefully. The water washed the leaden feeling from her tongue but it did nothing for the fog over her eyes. She tried to focus on the person beside her to no avail. 

A man’s shoulders. Skin dark like hers, darker hair, calloused hands. “Borian?” Ciori murmured. She reached for him as he moved back, but cold metal around her wrists jerked her off balance. The man caught her before she crashed to the flagstones.

“Borian?” Somewhere in the back of her mind Ciori wondered why the dull ache in her wrists wasn’t a sharper pain. It should have been, after being wrenched back like that. “Where are we?”

The man let go of her and shifted away. “I’m Nalta,” he said, his voice too low, too rough to be Borian’s. “Stop moving around. You’ll only hurt yourself.”

Ciori stared at him. As her vision wavered in and out of focus she noticed the one thing she knew she would never see on her Borian’s face: glowing lines of pale blue across each cheekbone. Her breath caught; fragments of memory returned. “Kingsguard.”

Nalta gave her a curt nod and straightened. “The priestess Fliss is here for you. The Sanctuary sent her with last prayers.”

“I don’t—” Ciori grimaced. Words were even more difficult to string together than her thoughts. “I don’t need—last prayers.”

“Look,” he said with a short cough, “just take them anyway. There’s no Sanctuary at the mines, much less a priest to weave you any prayers. You’re lucky they’re sending some to you now.”

Ciori curled in on herself as she listened to Nalta’s steps recede. Everything was wrong. Where was Borian? Why was she here? She was certain there was… something she’d be able to remember if only her senses weren’t in such a fog.

She tried to stand, but nausea and the hands she had forgotten were bound brought her stumbling to her knees. So instead she closed her eyes, pressed a flushed cheek to the cool stone wall, and waited.

Who am I waiting for?

There were, perhaps, voices in the hallway. Then, more footsteps. Or maybe it was just the blood pounding in Ciori’s ears, an echoing beat with no distinguishable words. Where had that man set down the rest of the water? Her mouth was dry again.

“Solostë, Mer Ciori.”

Ciori turned toward the voice, struggling to bring its owner into focus. It looked like a young woman, her white priestess robes almost blinding in the fog.

“I have brought you the prayers of the Sanctuary.” The woman leaned in, so close to Ciori that a tendril of hair brushed her cheek, and draped a stole around Ciori’s neck. “Peppermint,” she whispered. She pressed something soft into Ciori’s mouth. “Eat it.”

Ciori bit down. The sharp taste of peppermint flooded her senses like a shock of cold water. She jerked back with a gasp, blinking hard. The lockup around her came into focus. Pain bloomed at her wrists where she was chained. The fog cleared from her mind: she was here for unlicensed magic, they were taking her to the mines, a priestess was here with… prayers?

Ciori’s gaze shifted to the girl before her and recognised her immediately. “Æthred?” Borian’s friend.

Æthred shook her head. « Don’t say anything yet, » she sent, eyes flashing scarlet. « I told them I’m Fliss. »

“Each prayer spoken on your behalf has been woven into this stole,” she continued aloud, “so that you may take them with you to a place where no prayers can be made. Let me recite them for you now.”

Ciori swallowed hard, clutching at the fringed and beaded ends of the stole. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the bowl of water they had given her, still half full. I finally drank from it. She remembered all too well the relentless ache of thirst that had driven her to it. In her mouth, the taste of fogwort mingled with the peppermint Æthred had given her to wake her up. It’s still in my body. And the peppermint won’t last long—I have to counteract it if I don’t want to lose my mind again.

If Borian found a way… Ciori caught Æthred’s gaze. He must have. He loves her. He wouldn’t have sent her here just for a mouthful of peppermint.

The younger woman was still reciting some kind of prayer. “… May the God who sees see your acts of penitence and mark them against your great debt.” Her voice trembled, but she never paused. “May the God who hears hear your words of—contrition and bring solace to your life—your guilty life…” 

It didn’t match any traditional Sanctuary prayer, but Æthred wasn’t a novice bound to commit every prayer to memory. She was playing a part now. If the Kingsguard had been residents of Dhul, or if they had chosen to stay at the inn, they would have recognised her and locked her up too. Even now, if they looked at her too closely…

“… and let us hold these words in silence, that we may listen for the divine response.” Æthred bowed her head, eyes closed, and tucked her hands into her sleeves.

That wasn’t the proper posture for prayer. But, Ciori realised, it will hide the flash! Quickly she followed suit.

Æthred’s sent messages began immediately. « We’re working on a plan, » she told Ciori. « We’re not going to leave you in here. »

« Is Borian safe? »

« Yes. »

« Is Nwedi— »

« Borian’s been mixing the draught for her. »

Ciori sighed in relief. They were both safe. That was what mattered. Now if Æthred could get out from under the kingsguard’s noses, Ciori would only have herself to worry about. »Coming here is too dangerous for you, Æthred.

« We needed to talk to you, and you couldn’t send. And Borian doesn’t fit these robes. »

« It’s fogwort in the water. Peppermint helps for now. But they will keep drugging it. »

« We know. Use your stole. »

Confused, Ciori ran her fingers down the woven fabric and its beaded fringe. Beaded fringe. Could it be? 

“Taelvo,” she whispered as she crushed one bead between her fingernails and hoped the double voice of magic would not carry. Ciori touched the fragments to her tongue. It burned like swallowing a lit taper. « Coal pepper! »

« It was Borian’s idea. Use it. But don’t let them find out you’re lucid. »

That would undo everything. « I won’t. »

« If you send, send to the inn. Borian is staying there with us. We’re going to get you out. »

« Don’t risk yourselves for me, Æthred. It’s not— »

« We need you. Dhul needs you. We’re going to get you out. »

With a rustle of skirts, Æthred got to her feet. “I must leave you now,” she said aloud. “Remember these prayers. May they be on your lips and around your neck as you depart. God have mercy on you, Mer Ciori.”

She turned and left without a backward glance.

Much later, Ciori lay curled up on the straw, her mouth and throat on fire with coal pepper and her senses very much awake. She’d used fogwort on enough patients to be confident in her act. Neither of the kingsguard was a wickner—she doubted they’d check for the signs of fogwort that couldn’t be faked.

Ciori heard Nalta’s footsteps from far down the hall but didn’t stir until he set a bowl down with a clunk beside her.

“Wake up. You should eat something.”

Ciori sat up, swaying a little, and let herself slump back against the wall. Her gaze wandered somewhere in the general direction of the bowl, but she made no move to take it.

Sighing, Nalta squatted down in front of her and set the bowl directly in her lap. “Here.”

In the bowl, a hunk of bread balanced atop some kind of vegetable cooked within a hair of its life. It looked supremely unappetising, but strangely it was more food than Ciori had eaten the day she went to help Nwedi. Who would have thought I’d get bigger dinners in lockup? Ciori thought wryly. She poked at the bread.

“Should eat it before it goes stale,” said Nalta. He rubbed a hand over his eyes.  

It was unusual, him staying here. Or perhaps he had done so for other meals, the ones Ciori couldn’t well remember. She tore a piece from the bread, her movements slow and clumsy. Food spilled on her clothes was a small price to pay for a clear mind.

Nalta coughed and got to his feet. “I should go,” he said, setting a hand against the wall to steady himself.

Ciori couldn’t help it. Alerted by Nalta’s cough, her keen gaze noted the sweat beading on his brow and the tightness of his jaw. She had to check for the other signs. But she couldn’t see his eyes. She had to see his eyes.

She looked around the small space wildly, as if unable to see. “Water?” she asked, letting her voice croak.

“Right. Water.”

Once again Nalta tipped the bowl against her lips, and drugged water slipped down her throat. His hand was clammy against her neck. With his face so much closer to hers, she could see the whites of his eyes.

They weren’t white.

Flaxfever.

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More of this

First snippet: Recruits
Previous snippet: A Thousand Threads
Next snippet: Stay tuned!