Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) (74 page)
Read Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) Online
Authors: Sharon Shinn
Ellynor gasped and almost collapsed onto the floor. “But she—it’s not true! Why would she say such a thing? What did she say I’ve done?”
“You worship a lesser goddess. You only pretend to adore the Pale Mother. Instead, you claim this—this Black Mother gives you powers of strength and healing.” Shavell made a noise that sounded as if she had actually spat in the corner.
“Mystic,”
she repeated with unutterable loathing.
“Mystic,”
she repeated with unutterable loathing.
“What will happen to me?” Ellynor whispered.
Shavell pointed toward the window, which was so high Ellynor could not have seen out it, even if she had been able to stand. “Mystics burn,” she said with a certain satisfaction. “We will light the bonfire tonight.”
“Please—” Ellynor breathed, but Shavell did not wait to hear any supplication. She swept through the door and locked it with a loud and deliberate turn of the key.
Ellynor stayed huddled where she was, so cold, so lost, so abandoned. This was how she was repaid for accompanying Rosurie to the Lumanen Convent so that she would not be frightened and lonely when she was far from home! This was how Rosurie proved how much she loved the Silver Lady!
Ellynor
was to be her sacrifice to the Pale Mother.
Ellynor
must die so that Rosurie could win her place in the convent.
Ellynor
was to be her sacrifice to the Pale Mother.
Ellynor
must die so that Rosurie could win her place in the convent.
“Great Mother, sweet Mother, do not let me die by fire,” Ellynor prayed. “Come to me as soon as you can. Throw your dark blanket over my face—halt my breathing. Chill my blood in my veins. Let me die before the first spark flies. Do not make me come to you through smoke and flame.”
Justin would be crazed, she knew. He would blame himself bitterly for allowing her to go to the Gisseltess house against his better judgment. He would not want to live—that was what worried her most. He would do something rash, desperate, suicidal, when he found she had been taken by Lumanen soldiers. She had a moment of sparkling-white fear at the thought he might try to break through the convent gates in a doomed attempt to rescue her, but then she relaxed. His friends would hold him tight. Tayse and Senneth and the others, they would not let him throw away his life on her.
The irony, of course, was that she had known the minute she arrived at the Gisseltess house that there was nothing she could do. Death had come for serra Paulina, was perched on the headboard, calmly waiting. Ellynor had touched the old woman’s throat and chest, chasing away the pain, but there was nothing she could do to extend that frail life by even another day.
She had not been able to save serra Paulina and she would not be able to save herself.
She had never been so cold in her life.
Biting back a little moan, she pushed herself up off the floor, just enough to crawl toward the fireplace. There, a tiny flame was darting around a single heavy log, as if seeking, with its flimsy strength, to dislodge the wood. Ellynor knew that fire was not her friend; she knew that in a few hours she would be screaming in agony as a blaze roared around her. But right now she was freezing. She lifted her trembling hands and held them over the grate, as close to the log as she dared.
Her fingers were so cold that they put the fire out.
Whimpering, Ellynor dropped to the icy stone floor, cradled her head in her hands, and wept.
five
novices stepped into the room, their hands clasped before them, their eyes cast down. Shavell entered briskly behind them, her violet robe a dark contrast to their vivid white.
“Look upon this wretched woman and know that she is evil,” Shavell intoned, and all five novices obediently lifted their eyes and gravely inspected Ellynor. “She is a mystic, a dabbler in the dark arts, a heretic who worships false gods. What is the only fit punishment for a mystic?”
“She must die,” the girls replied in unison.
“She must die,” Shavell repeated. “Tonight.”
Ellynor was still staring at them speechlessly when Shavell herded her charges back out the door and locked it resoundingly behind her once more.
Half an hour later, another set of novices stepped inside— eight of them this time, crowding as close to the door as they could, supervised by Darris. “A mystic,” Darris said, repeating the list of crimes, but unable to replicate Shavell’s venom. She sounded, instead, sorrowful and a little afraid, and she couldn’t bring herself to look directly at Ellynor. “She will die tonight.”
The third group to arrive was led by her cousin Rosurie. This time Ellynor was prepared for them. She couldn’t find the strength to get up off the floor, but she had pulled herself together somewhat. She was sitting cross-legged before the dead fire, her bound hands folded in her lap, her tears dry on her face, her expression remote. Still, she almost gaped when Rosurie stepped through the door, wearing a proselyte’s green robe and supervising a set of much younger girls. There was Lia, crying and turning her head away; there were three novices just arrived at the convent this fall, wide-eyed and uneasy. Ellynor supposed they hadn’t expected anything like this when they begged their fathers to send them to live with the Daughters.
“Here sits the woman who has betrayed the goddess,” Rosurie said in an utterly calm voice. Her hair had started to grow back a little, but it was only about a half inch long and did little to disguise the hard, distinctive shape of Rosurie’s skull. She looked so foreign to Ellynor, so angular and other-worldly. Not kin at all.
“There stands the woman who betrayed me,” Ellynor shot back. Lia gasped and one of the other girls covered her mouth with her hand. Clearly they had not expected the miscreant to speak up on her own behalf.
Rosurie ignored her. “She claimed to love the Silver Lady when instead she worshipped a lesser goddess—”
“A goddess
you
have prayed to in your father’s house!”
you
have prayed to in your father’s house!”
“She used magic inside a consecrated place. She sought to destroy the Lestra and all her work.”
“Which is worse, Rosurie?” Ellynor demanded. “Healing a sick child or condemning a member of your family to death? Which is the true crime?”
“What is the only fit punishment for a mystic?” Rosurie asked.
“She must die,” the novices murmured, but none of them looked convinced. Lia was sobbing openly now, and she wiped her nose on the sleeve of her white robe.
“She must die,” Rosurie repeated with satisfaction. “Tonight.”
Ellynor thought that little interlude was as bad as it could get, but she was wrong. A half hour later another small delegation strode into her room: Shavell again, two proselytes, a novice or two—and the Lestra.
Ellynor was so shocked to see Coralinda Gisseltess that at first she did not realize who else had arrived. She just had a blurred impression of many different colors as the other women arranged themselves behind the black-robed Lestra. No doubt Ellynor was supposed to rise, or bow, or clasp her hands and plead, but she could not bring herself to behave as though she thought this woman was splendid and powerful. So she sat there, sullen and silent, staring up at these new trespassers, hating all of them, fearing all of them equally.
“So,” the Lestra said in that magnificent, sonorous voice. “This is the woman who has tarnished the face of the Silver Lady.”
Ellynor made no reply.
“I grieve so deeply when I realize how much I loved you,” the Lestra said, and indeed her voice sounded full of woe and sorrow. “You were my Dark Moon Daughter! You were the one who understood all the deepest secrets of the night! But your secrets were even blacker than I knew. No gentle light, no blazing moon, can illuminate your soul. You are given over to darkness.”
“I have done nothing wrong,” Ellynor said.
The Lestra appeared astonished. “Nothing wrong! You have cast spells! You have worked magic! You have practiced the evil arts that the Silver Lady most abhors! But her round eye sees everything, including your treachery. She has discoveredyou and laid bare your soul. You must be cleansed of evil through the crucible of fire. The Pale Mother will gather you up in her arms and make you anew in a brighter, purer image.”
“I don’t want to die,” Ellynor whispered.
The Lestra came a step closer, and for a moment Ellynor actually thought the older woman would lay a hand upon her cheek. “You will be reunited with the goddess,” she said in a comforting voice. “It will not be death, it will be glory.”
“It will be murder, and it will be by fire,” Ellynor retorted.
The Lestra made an equivocal motion with her hands. “The Silver Lady has room in her heart for penitents,” she said.
Ellynor felt a cruel, bitter twist of hope. “How could I show you I repent?” she breathed.
“First you must renounce that false goddess you worship so wrongly.”
Deny the Great Mother who was so generous with her power, who had shielded Ellynor from danger and lavished her with gifts? Ellynor was not sure she would be able to force the words out. And yet she had a suspicion the Dark Watcher would urge her to take the counterfeit pledge, swear the sham oath. The Black Mother understood when a lie was necessary, when it was best to conceal the truth.
But that was only the first step? “What else would you require?” Ellynor asked through stiff lips.
The Lestra’s lovely voice dropped to a soft, inviting pitch. “It is common, I know, for those who hold contrary beliefs to seek each other out. To band together. To whisper their secrets to each other. Only tell me who else among my novices believes as you do. Are there other mystics among us? Girls who question their faith and disobey the convent laws? Tell me their names. Help me to purify this place and keep it sacred for the goddess.”
It was at that exact moment that Ellynor realized Astira was part of the delegation. Perhaps the other woman moved— flinched—at the Lestra’s speech. Perhaps the Great Mother chose that moment to put her hand on Ellynor’s chin and turn her head in Astira’s direction. At any rate, suddenly Ellynor was staring at the rangy blond girl with the elegant features, her face almost as white as her novice’s robe.
Astira had confided in her. Told Ellynor about taking the guard Daken as her lover. Not as heinous as practicing magic, but a crime, nonetheless, in the Lestra’s eyes. A sin. Something she would want to know about—and destroy. The look on Astira’s face showed terror and supplication in equal parts, both overlaid with hopelessness.
Astira would have told, if she was in this position, Ellynor realized. Astira would have supplied any number of names, repeated whispered conversations, careless words she’d overheard in the hall. Astira would have said anything to save herself.
“I know of no one else who has sinned,” Ellynor said.
The Lestra frowned. “That cannot be true. Women are weak and easily tempted. There must be one or two among the Daughters who have strayed from the dictates of the Pale Mother.”
“That might be so,” Ellynor replied, “but they haven’t told their stories to me.”
The Lestra stepped back with a swirl of black skirts, anger and contempt in every line of her body. “You are lying or you are unlucky,” she said with something of a snarl. “There is nothing you can do to redeem yourself.”
Ellynor felt cold fear lance through her. “Not even if I say—if I renounce the Black Mother?”
The Lestra appeared to consider. A small motion caught Ellynor’s attention and she looked over the Lestra’s shoulder to see Astira shaking her head in short, jerky motions. As if to say,
Such a sacrifice will not save you. You are condemned to death even if you repulse your goddess
. Astira’s face was still bloodless and strained, but her expression had loosened. She looked dazed with relief.
Such a sacrifice will not save you. You are condemned to death even if you repulse your goddess
. Astira’s face was still bloodless and strained, but her expression had loosened. She looked dazed with relief.
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