Of Deeds Most Valiant: A Poisoned Saints Novel

I come awake with a start.

It is night. Darkness surrounds me except for a lit candle in a pool of wax about halfway between myself and a pair of beautiful, treacherous, demon-loving eyes.

I leap to my feet in a heartbeat and have to catch myself against … against an altar made of woven bones? I cringe back from them. I could almost swear some are human.

“What is this place?” I manage to rasp. It’s not exhaustion or fear that roughens my voice. It’s unmitigated wrath.

Fury and hatred twist up in a pair, writhing through my belly and up to my heart. I’d fallen for her. It was safe enough to admit that now. Now that she is become my sworn enemy. Now that the sight of her twists me right through with hatred and disgust.

I am a devil, for I have fallen in love with one.

An aching sadness joins the rest of my collection of sorrows.

“A grimivoir, apparently.” There is an ironic twist to her mouth, amplified by the sharp, flickering shadows of the candle. She sounds resigned, as if she has already read the book of my heart and knows how the story ends.

She stands, with me, as if she can’t let me get the upper hand by being taller. Her armor is gone. She is wearing what she slept in last night: leather trousers and a light linen tunic. She’s lost her braid entirely and her loose black hair tumbles across her shoulders and down her back. If she wasn’t still carrying the sword, I’d wonder if she is the same woman. She looks haunted. Brittle.

Why is she carrying a sword? Unsheathed. Naked in her hand.

I draw my own blade with slow care. I want to let her know I will not fall to her sword easily while also trying not to provoke her to immediate attack.

I have told her I cannot forgive. I have seen her soul stained through with the keeping of a demon. She will know what must be done next.

“What is a grimivoir?” I ask, stalling for time, getting my bearings. I will not fail in this. I just do not wish to succeed at once. Could I delay it a year, I would.

I look carefully around us, trying to assess without losing track of her. I do not dare let her strike first. I’ve seen her fight. I’d be lucky to bring her down along with me if she landed the first blow.

I roll my shoulders as I think about trying to match my strength to her speed, my experience to her ferocity. We will likely both die. Am I ready to meet the God and give an account?

We’re neatly trapped on a platform two long strides wide in every direction from the center. The odd stone bench, the books, the candles, and the spine-like carvings that serve as a rail around the edge provide no escape. There is not enough light to see farther than that, though a faint glow above suggests possible starlight and the echo of my words tell me this is a large place. I might be able to climb the bookshelves on one side of us, but to what end?

There is not much room to move here and there is no sign of the others.

“Have we been banished here?” My words echo slightly, as if the room finds them humorous.

She snorts. She is laughing at me. I feel the muscles of my face tighten in annoyance. Her mockery will be her last emotion. Is that what she wants?

“In a way,” she says, shifting her weight onto her back foot.

Good. She knows she is threatened. She will not be a helpless innocent when my blade crashes through her. This is right. This is fitting. This is how justice is served. Something tickles the back of my mind. A little voice asking me if perhaps Sir Kodelai had these very thoughts only yesterday.

She is grave as she goes on, “This is the second trial. The room that was behind the door after the walls shifted. You can’t see it now, but it’s a library — or rather a grimivoir. Books line a cylindrical room that stretches high to the ground above our heads and reaches farther down than I could guess.”

“You didn’t throw anything into it to check?” I ask, lifting a mocking eyebrow. Bitterness twists my every word. “A loose stone? Your innocence?”

“I didn’t,” she says, and she shifts again, this time uncomfortably. I’m aware of her every twitch and shift. Only because I soon must attack her and slay her, not because she draws me in like the smell of sweet fruit in summer. Not because her every movement lulls me like music well composed. Not because she is enchantingly feminine and lovely in this terrible place. “The Majester tested it by flinging his own body into the depths — or so Sir Coriand would have us believe. I am not so certain.”

I flinch back from that.

“The Majester is dead?” My words sound hollow. I still feel his map burning in my pocket.

“I should hope so.” She sounds bitter, too. Perhaps I am not the only one swimming in misery. Well. That credits her. She can still feel regret. Is that enough to absolve her? Not nearly. “If he lives, then he suffers. He fell a very long time before I heard his body hit.”

I grunt at that. “And the others? Where are they?”

She seems to harden with resolve when she says, “They completed the task and left. They’ll be back. They return every so often to check on my progress.”

I pause. My thoughts must catch up to my circumstances.

It is unlikely that the Vagabond would fail at a task the others have succeeded in. She has purposely refused the task — whatever it is.

There are only two reasons she might do that. She could be taking a moral stand against the evil of this place. I dismiss that immediately. No one who fosters demons in their pets would stand on principle against evil.

That leaves only the other choice. She has stayed for me — whether because she vowed to work with me, or out of misplaced compassion, or to keep my mouth from revealing her depravity.

She is a fool.

“You know I have to kill you, don’t you?” I ask her, and my deep sorrow flows through my words. “You will not dismiss the demon. You will not kill the dog. You’ve suffered evil to take a foothold.” My voice nearly breaks, but I take it in the grip of my determination and force it to be firm. “I have no other choice.”

Her chin stiffens and for a moment I see conflict on her face. And then she laughs — sudden and sharp — and she throws her blade to the floor. It crashes to the ground and I wince. She’s certainly notched the blade.

“I’m going to die one way or another,” she says, still laughing darkly. In the darkness, I think I make out a bruise on her cheek, but it is hard to be certain. “Whether at your hands, or slowly on this platform, or when their precious clock runs out. Perhaps your blade is a mercy. Are you offering me a mercy, Poisoned Saint?”

She spreads her hands and arms wide, open and ready. I can see her heart beating wildly under her light linen shirt. The candlelight exaggerates the movement, and I have to swallow hard to dismiss the image of her vulnerability. I cannot afford pity.

Do not suffer the witch to live, is one of our tenets. And a witch is not a creature from a story — a poor beggared, bedraggled woman just trying to survive. I’m arrested for a moment at that thought and my eyes flick sharply to her golden-brown ones before my train of thought returns. A witch is not an elderly woman who knows herbology and the curing of ills with plants and poultices, or the art of tricking chickens into laying again, or of finding still waters, or of birthing children stuck in the passage. No, those are common misconceptions. A witch is, and always has been, a man or a woman who plays with the arcane, who draws up demons from under the earth and sets them to dance in fire and cruelty across its surface — who permits them life.

Just as Victoriana has.

I must act before I lose my resolve. Those wry marigold eyes are softening me like butter in the sun. I dare not let them melt me entirely.

My dedication is to the God. My vow is to act and live in his name. No earthly thing has the right to subvert that. I will fulfill my duty, even if it guts me. Even if it drives me to madness.

Everything in me twists painfully and the broken arm I took from this lovely sinner throbs with the pain I borrowed from her. I lean into the pain, into the sorrow. I let melancholy build and froth.

I am poisoned with her ills and poisoned with the thought of her death. I swallow it down and it twists me from sternum to tail. Twists and twists and wracks me but I dare not let it wrench me from my course.

In such attitude are the most valiant deeds always done — in sorrow, but in earnest.

I lunge forward, sword held perfectly for a killing blow. She juts her chin farther out but she does not flinch. The air flows around me, dragging as if to stay my hand. Every sharp moment lengthening out to feel like an hour in passing.

I will plunge my blade through her heart.

I will end her now.

I will — she glows suddenly, a subtle tremor of gold.

I gasp, pulling my strike at the last second.

NO.

The word — intangible and with the distinct flavor of holiness — echoes firmly through my mind and I pull my arms back so forcefully that I wrench them. I’ve stayed my blow in time, but the momentum of my torso flings me forward even as I drag my arms backward and release my grip.

My sword clatters to the ground with hers, the sound of metal on metal singing out.

My balance has deserted me and my body crashes into her. Breath sawing raggedly, we stumble backward together.

One of her arms wraps around me instinctually. The other must catch us against the rail and turn us, because we do not fall over the side. Instead, she bends our momentum into a spin and we wheel away from the rail, bodies forced together in a clinch. We tumble to the ground to land on a bed of books. She has spun us so that she lands under me. And her chest heaves as violently as my own. Her look of shock mirrors mine. And when shock twists into relief within me, I see it twisting within her, too.

“It seems the God will not permit me to slay you,” I say slowly, wonderingly, and my voice is breathier than I expected it to be.

“It seems so,” she agrees, panting. “And that is a problem since he has done nothing to prevent me from turning the course of my heart toward you.”

Is it braver to admit that now — to me, her would-be murderer — or to have spread her arms to receive my killing blow?

This seals it. She will be my undoing. She is more of a trap than this place ever could be.

I can bear it no longer.

I kiss her.

It is not a soft, hesitant kiss, as perhaps it should be. It is not sweet and savoring as I might have dreamed of in the dark of the night. It is violent and immediate. A confession and an anguished plea all in one. And when I break away from her lips, my eyes smart.

My voice sounds half like a snarl. “If he will not permit me to kill you, then he must suffer me to love you.”

“Must he?” she asks, pushing a hand against my armored chest. My heart seems to thump against my breastplate, my breath trapped between my lips as her tongue had been only a moment before. The whole world is too hot. Her wicked lips curve into a wry smile. “That seems a terribly twisty way to look at things.”

I let out a huff of air as I fight desperately for control, to regain mastery of mind and body from this drunken moment that snatches and claws at both.

“It is the only way I have,” I confess, and then I place my forehead against hers with slow deliberation — a chaste choice amid a sea of lustful ones — and I shudder a gasp when I feel her fingers twist into my hair, tugging lightly.

But she is not content to let things lie.

“And what of my evil deeds? What of the demon I permitted to live?”

I groan in misery.

But I kiss her again before I answer, and this time I am tender about it, mindful, gathering her into my arms as something precious, and sitting us both upright. I am also thorough. And it is only when we are both breathless and gasping that we break apart and meet each other’s eyes. It’s a moment of such painful cherishing. A tiny stolen snatch of life as a drowning man snatches a last breath. I think I’ve put my whole heart into this moment. It’s a pitiful heart, guilt-stained, broken, and rotting in some places, but hot with desire, tremulous with hope.

“What have you done?” she asks me, a little shakily. “Are you not forsworn against affection? First, you fail to kill me, then you confess love to me, and now you do as you have vowed not to?”

I clear my throat, draw back a little farther, though one hand remains on her waist, unwilling to leave her. “Yes.”

“You have kissed me. And you have done it with aching sweetness.”

I feel raw and open as her words drag my actions into the light. Anyone on the outside would judge me a fool for falling so hard, so fast, and in such circumstances. I hardly understand it myself, but I have learned not to question what is plainly true.

“What does this mean for you?” she pushes.

I open my hands wide. “I have lost all the focus I have built up to heal others — which was little after expending myself as I have these past days and nights. If someone needs healing, I will not be able to help.”

She looks at my hand, and is that wistfulness I see when she takes it gently in her own and removes it from her waist and hands it back to me? It is not rejection. She has told me her heart is mine for the treasuring.

“Then I think we dare not do that again.”

And I should be glad she is sensible and has saved us both. But I do not feel glad. I feel as though I have been left for dead upon the battlefield. I am bereft.

I pull myself to my feet and turn my back to her.

I do not know what to say. It feels like lying to agree to that. I busy myself with pretending to flip through one of the books on the altar. What is this rubbish? One look at one of the woodcuts within and I toss it from our perch. I don’t care if we need it later. No one should ever look at a book such as this.

“Adalbrand?”

My name on her tongue seizes my breath in my chest.

“Mmm?” I dare not permit myself words. They will only trip me.

“Will it come back?” She pauses. She sounds concerned. “Your power? Have I damaged you forever?”

I turn abruptly, startled by the choke in her voice.

“No.” The word gasps out of me instinctively and I nearly touch her again, my hand rising to cup her face, only to fall away again.

Her hair is tousled from my kisses. And her cheeks are flushed in the candlelight. I realize, as I had not in my passion, that her lip is swollen and the skin just under the corner of it is purpled with a bruise. I cannot heal it.

“Not forever,” I say distractedly. “Has someone hurt you?”

She reaches two fingers up to gingerly prod at the bruise.

“Hefertus,” she says a little wryly. I don’t know what my face does to show my vitriol, but she hurries to add, “The Engineers told him about the demon. It would seem all good men of faith want me dead once they hear that.”

I swallow and lower my hand and say very carefully, “I think now would be a good time to try explaining it to me.”

A spark of fear shoots into her eyes and her gaze flicks to our swords still lying on the floor, unclaimed.

“I told you we were casting out a demon when it jumped into Sir Branson.”

“You did,” I agree gravely.

She bites her lip. “I had to kill him. He was trying to kill me and I couldn’t get the demon out and I would have died. And then the demon could have rampaged anywhere, hurt anyone.”

I nod. That part is all understandable. It is the other part that doesn’t sit well. The part where she didn’t also kill the dog.

“But when the demon jumped into the dog, I was able to subdue Brindle.”

“But you didn’t cast the demon out,” I say carefully, trying not to accuse. It is an effort so great that I should be Sainted on the spot.

“I couldn’t.”

I wait. If the God did not want her dead for her misdeeds, then he must have a reason. This time it is she who turns her back and drifts to the rail.

“And then Sir Branson’s soul was in the dog, too. And I didn’t have the heart to kill poor Brindle when that meant saying goodbye to Sir Branson forever.”

I feel myself soften with understanding. The old man I’d seen with the dog and the demon. I’d almost forgotten about him.

“Goodbye?” I echo, not sure what else to say.

She spins and looks at me and she swallows hard. “They speak to me. Both of them. All day long.”

“Saints.” I run a hand over my face. What must that be like?

“Yes.” She twists her fingers through her disheveled hair and looks at the ceiling.

She is beautiful, this mess of a woman. Beautiful and clever and terribly troublesome, and my fingers itch to hold her again. Her kiss still burns my lips. I want the taste of her back in my mouth. I want the feel of her back in my arms. What shall I do? I am ruined by her.

“His insights are true sometimes. But he lies to me, too. The demon, I mean.”

“He’s why you can read Ancient Indul,” I say, finally understanding.

“He lied about this place. He calls it an arcanery now. A monastery — but for those who worship demons.”

I inhale sharply through my nose.

Her wry smile twists even more. “Exactly. What do you think we’re building as we go through each step of this carefully laid out puzzle?”

“I dare not guess.”

She takes a step forward and I inhale again, and this time I draw in her musk and sage scent. “Do you believe that men make their own demons, Sir Adalbrand?”

I pause, and when I speak it’s with deliberate care. “In war, sometimes. In life, also. We terrorize ourselves.”

“I don’t mean, do people bring their own downfall. I don’t mean it figuratively. I mean in actual living breathing certainty. Do men form and shape and hammer out demons in their likenesses and then unleash them on the world?”

It’s a thought worthy of consideration.

My mind is racing through texts I have read, through accounts. There was a war in Ghentav years ago. Before my time. They ran out of food. When they finally were overrun and the attackers found what was behind the walls … well. One of the scribes who had written the chronicles had died at his own hands. Another had killed and eaten a third scribe even though there was plentiful food by then. After that the records had grown … murky. Our aspect had buried the records in clay pots in a church cemetery, deeming them unsafe for a regular library. Had they made a demon on those fields? Had it fought for them and turned on their attackers? Had it turned on them?

“Perhaps,” I say, still thinking.

“I think we do,” she says in a small voice. “And a place like this makes me wonder if we made all of them.”

“All of … what?”

She speaks slowly, her marigold eyes sober and liquid in the candlelight.

“I think that we — humans — we made every demon that ever was. We manufactured them as a bowyer carves out the shape of a bow. We sculpted them as an artist sculpts a bust, with careful attention to every detail. We breathed life into our sins and hates as the Engineers breathe life into their golems.”

I inhale sharply at that, too. I do not hold with golems. And what she is saying troubles me.

“Is this why you are still sitting on this platform when the others are gone?”

“Is it more of a sin to craft a demon when I know what I’m doing? Is it more of a sin than not killing the dog the demon is already in?”

“Why don’t you kill it? Don’t tell me it’s to keep the voice of your dead paladin alive. I know that is not all the story.”

She looks tired. “If I kill the dog, then the demon will leap, and then I’ll have to kill another man. And another. And another. Because until I figure out how to cast this one back into hell, he’s a danger to everyone. He’s not coming out just with prayer.” She juts out her lower lip. “I could keep my hands clean. I could be a Saint. But then who will die for that? Whose soul will be made foul because I wanted to keep myself unbesmirched?”

I am considering this.

“Surely you understand.”

“I understand?” I can’t keep the disbelief from my tone.

“You kiss very delectably for a man sworn against it.”

I swallow.

“I’m not …” I cough, awkwardly, not sure where to put my gaze. “I’m not entirely sworn against it.”

“You‘re not.” She doesn’t believe me.

“Are you entirely sworn against taking coin offered you?”

“No.”

“And yet that is riches.”

“I am forsworn from hoarding it.” Her smile is wry.

“Even one or two coins?”

“No.”

I give her a wry smile of my own. “Then consider this my two coins.”

She thinks, tapping her chin with one finger before raising one brow. “I’ll consider it whatever you want it to be if you’ll do it again.”

She is tempting me and it is working.

“Here?” I ask, gesturing tightly to indicate our surroundings. “In an arcanery where we are forced to breed demons or die buried under the ground? Here, in the dark, on a teetering platform? Here, where men might have died in this very trial?”

She swallows and looks away. “The Majester. Whether he fell or was pushed by Sir Coriand.”

“He was pushed,” I say gravely. I have no doubt about this. “Never underestimate a man who will keep a half-living slave.”

She looks back at me and I can tell she wants to say something but she doesn’t.

“Say it,” I urge.

She shakes her head, laughing ruefully.

“Say it.” I am firm this time.

“Fine, let it be so. Here is what I have to say: I ought not to take from you what is not yours to give. You are forsworn affection.”

She is correct, of course, in every way. By rights, she should be dead at my hand, and I should have a demon in a dog to contend with. But the God has stayed my hand. And by doing so, he has left me only two paths: ignore her entirely, a thing that cannot be done with her demon dog and her insistence on bucking the course others try to set for her, or embrace her. I have made my choice, the God have mercy on me.

I swallow and commit to it.

“If we live through the turnings of this monastery, then we will both emerge on the other side with a shared problem — three of them, to be precise.”

This gets her attention. “What three problems?”

“Firstly, that we have sworn to stay by each other until the cup is returned to one of the aspects. A cup, I might point out, that is not here and likely never has been.”

She nods steadily. “Yes.”

There is no fear or panic in her eyes, and I feel my brows lift. It’s not a paladin thing to fear commitment, but even so, I am essentially revealing to her that we are bound together indefinitely, and she does not recoil from that. Interesting. I am … a little … flattered by this.

“Secondly, that there is a demon in your dog which we will need help to remove, and it must be kept a secret until we find that help.”

“We?” Her tone is hopeful, and I feel a spark of hope ignite in response.

“We,” I say with certainty.

“Thirdly, that you have sworn to never forgive me.” Her eyes meet mine sharply and I feel hot again.

I take her hand. “I renounce my vow. I forgive you in all fullness.”

“Your resolve was very weak,” she teases.

“But only because of the third problem.”

“Fourth,” she corrects, as she steps closer, and now our breath is mingling. I don’t let go of her hand.

“No, that was your problem. I have not confessed to it. I knew from the moment my hand was stayed that forgiveness was granted to you.”

“Then tell me, what is your third problem?” Her gaze stays anchored to mine. I am losing myself in marigold eyes.

“My third problem is that I have fallen hopelessly in love with you.”

“That is a problem.” She looks a challenge at me. “What are you going to do about it?”

I draw nearer and nearer to her as I speak, until my lips are brushing hers as I say, “It is especially a problem since I have already kissed you once, and I have had no time to recover from the event, so it harms nothing at all for me to do it again, right now.”

This time it is she who presses herself into me and takes my lips in hers. I taste her excitement as if it is my own. I draw in her desire with the softness of her lips and the warmth of her breath and the silkiness of how her long hair tangles around me. Her strong, work-roughened fingers grip my face, and her nose slides against mine. I close my eyes and beg to lose myself forever.

This should wash me of none of my guilt. That is the domain of the God alone. And yet, in some indefinable way, it does. It makes redemption feel possible. It creeps down into my fibers and tells me that my shame need not blemish my honor forever.

I should not find forgiveness in the arms of a woman. I should not find hope in her kiss. That should be tainted with the stain of lust and be tangled up with my failures, my shortcomings, and my broken vows.

It is not. There is something about this that glows like the light that surrounds my brothers when we pray. There is some mystery here that salves wounds and binds broken souls.

I do not question it. I thank the God it exists and melt into the relief that has not been my companion in more than a decade, and into the warmth I never thought I’d feel again, and I try to thank her with how I kiss her. I try to say all the things I don’t dare allow to touch my lips. I try to make promises I may never be free to keep.

There’s a thump and we spring apart, gasping.

“You can’t wait in the darkness forever, Beggar girl,” Sir Coriand’s voice rings out. “Eventually, you will have to come to your senses and play. Or, if you are very unlucky, one of us will solve this riddle soon, and turn the room, and you will be trapped forever in this empty, yawning tomb.”

“Did I hear correctly, Engineer?” I call back. “Did you murder the Majester General?”

There’s a silence that is just a breath too long.

Sir Coriand’s voice is far too familiar when he replies. “You’re back, Poisoned Saint. What a relief! Your friend Hefertus has been worried about you.”

“I’m surprised he’s not here,” I say in a light tone. “I would have expected loyalty from my old friend.”

“Oh, you know the Princes,” Sir Coriand says lightly. “Lacking common sense. Besides, the Beggar is just like her beast. She stands over you and growls. Did she tell you she leapt from her own island to join you on yours? A brave thing to do, if foolhardy. Maybe you can do the same for her. Make the sacrifice, light the candle, and put it and a book on the altar, and you can come eat the soup that Cleft has brewed for us. It’s mushroom. The golems collected a lovely crop of morels before we were all brought down here. We’d nearly forgotten about them in the excitement. I think you’ll find it aromatic, hmm?”

It has never surprised me that the blackest of souls have the lightest of voices. They carry no burden for no conscience weighs them down. Some might think that a blessing. I know it is not. My own father flew high and light, free of consequence or shame, until he was burned by the sun and crashed to the depths. I should pity him, but I do not find it in me to feel warmth for a man who treated my mother as he did.

I wonder when Sir Coriand will crash.

“I won’t join you,” Victoriana calls out. “You know that.”

“Convince her, Poisoned Saint. A day and a night have passed and we have but a single day and night left on the clock. What do you think might happen when time runs out and our doom comes after us?”

“No less than we deserve,” Victoriana mutters.

“I heard that, Beggar. Think what you will, but you are no Saint, and even if you were, I would not care what you thought.”

And then he is gone, his footsteps stomping away across the stone, and we’re left in silence again.

“They come every hour by my estimate,” Victoriana said quietly. “I think they are growing frantic. They aren’t sure if the puzzle isn’t being solved because they have the wrong answer or because I won’t join their game.”

I pause. “They are going to lock us both in here? With me helpless and you dissenting?”

She laughs darkly. “They have killed three paladins and another died for their secrets. What do they care about adding two more?”

“And you think these murders were all done by Sir Coriand?”

“The Majester kept talking about a voice telling him what to do. I thought he meant a demon, or that he was crazy. But what if he was talking about a literal voice? What if it was the Engineers calling down to him in the chaos?”

That was plausible. “And the Seer? The Engineers stayed up top.”

“As far as we knew. What would have kept them from sneaking down when no one was watching?”

I grunt. Those are solid points.

“Then we have to decide,” I say. “Eventually they will crack the code and they will spin the walls again, and we will be trapped in here while they move inevitably to what must be the last trial.”

She’s nodding, a look of determination on her face. I must choose my words with care.

“We can stay here and die on principle.”

Her eyes take on a dangerous gleam. She doesn’t like the “or” dangling in the air. I say it anyway.

“Or.”

I wait for her to master her anger, and only when she cocks one eyebrow do I continue.

“Or, we play their game for now, and we look for a way to stop them. And when we find it, we destroy everything made in this place. Because if we don’t, then who will? Shall we let them succeed without us and leave someone else to face the demons they create?”

She looks like she’s bitten into something sour. “I’ve already crossed too many lines. I was hoping not to sully myself with this.”

I nod, but I stay silent. Sometimes people just need to talk an idea through.

“I don’t like compromises.” She looks torn. “I know you likely don’t believe that after the dog, but I don’t want to take another step in the wrong direction. And what about next time? How many times will you say, ‘Just one more thing. Then we’ll stop them.’”

“Only this time,” I promise.

“Likely, that’s what the people of the past said the first time. When the first denizen of hell was drawn up from the earth.”

I nod. How can I deny that this is a terrible idea when it so plainly is? And yet, here we are.

“Principles are good things. Worth standing on. Worth dying for. But sometimes, if you want to achieve a thing you must be practical.”

“Says the man who took a vow of celibacy because a girl died, even though her death was not his fault.”

I let out an exhale that is almost a rueful laugh.

“I am no Saint, Lady Paladin,” I murmur. “Did I not prove it by kissing you? But I have been in enough sickrooms and on enough battlefields to know that sometimes there are two good things and you may only choose one, and sometimes there are two bad things and you must choose one, and today we are faced with two terrible choices, and my brave Vagabond, I fear we must choose one.”

“I’d already chosen death,” she says steadily.

I nod. I understand. I do. But I would rather have her with me.

“I’m asking you to choose otherwise. Come with me. Help me stop the others. Help me stop what they are making.”

“And afterward?” she asks a little wistfully.

“After we are all dead?” I ask wryly.

And this earns me a startled laugh. “Yes, after that.”

“Then walk with me in Paradise,” I say softly. “I have never been very good at being alone. I fear that even the halls of the God may be lonely places.”

“Shush now,” she tells me, and places a finger over my lips. “No blasphemy.”

“As you say, Lady Paladin.” When she removes her finger, I try to be gentle with my words. “I have vowed myself first to the God and now to you. Do not ask me to sit and watch you die.”

“You may yet see it, if we fight,” she says, but she retrieves her sword from where it lies.

A slight smile edges my lips as I lift my own sword, check the blade — shockingly, it is undamaged — and return it to its sheath.

“We will fight. Side by side,” I tell her gravely. And I am both regretful at the thought of what we must do next and excited for the challenge. I’ve always been like that — pawing the earth at the mere suggestion of a race, sniffing the air at the hint of a hunt. “And I must build back my faith and focus. I dare not let it slip again.”

She nods gravely. She knows. I doubt she has a coin to her name. How could she not know?

“After this last kiss,” I say, and when I lean in, my breath catching in my throat, I let my lips brush hers as I plead, “Just one more. For a blessing.”

“Bless you, then, supplicant,” she whispers the formal words and lifts two fingers, but her words dissolve as her tongue meets mine and we taste each other with exquisite slowness. And I know we are both savoring the embrace that is likely our last, drawing from it fortitude for what comes next. When it eventually must end, it ends in her huffing laugh.

“Go with my blessing,” she murmurs.

“I feel very blessed,” I say somberly. And it is worth teasing her to get a second dose of that laugh. “And now what do we do here?” I ask her. “What ingredients go into this terrible brew?”

She faces the altar with a glare.

“We’re supposed to give something up. I think the High Saint gave up his voice.”

“For which, I’m certain, the others are grateful.”

She snorts. “It has to be worthy and something that no longer serves you. I think Hefertus gave a finger. I do not know what I shall give. I rather like my fingers.”

“I have a suggestion,” I say, my tone wry. “Why not give up your lies? I would prefer them long behind us.”

She looks at me defiantly. “Only if you offer up your guilt. It chafes me. Surely, after all these years, it chafes you, too.”

I shrug my agreement.

She grabs a book from the shelf at random and without looking at it, slams it on the altar. It is very thin, the cover ragged and torn. A burned hole goes straight through the front cover. Ironic, that her book looks so much like her. She looks a challenge up at me, and without breaking eye contact, I draw my own book from the shelf and thump it on top of hers. I think mine is thick and gold edged.

She snorts, grabs the candle from the floor, and puts it on top of the books.

I open my mouth, but before I can ask her what comes next or if this will even work with the pair of us bending the rules of sacrifice, the platform rocks, and then a faint glow seems to form around it and we begin to drift along the shelves. It’s too dark to gauge how quickly the island moves, but move it does, and I find that against all odds, I am sorry. I will miss that place along the shelves where she bared her heart to me. I should feel guilty for that. But I gave my guilt up.

And now I must show her that the choice we made was worth it all.

“We are of an accord now, Poisoned Saint,” she reminds me as our island docks against the cliff face that had been opposite us before. “We are one. Don’t let them divide us. I think they will try.”

“They don’t kiss like you do,” I tease in a low undertone.

“How do you know?” she asks me, lifting a scandalized eyebrow. “Perhaps that will be the next trial.”

“A kissing contest?” I smirk at the absurdity of it.

“It could happen,” she says lightly.

And I like being teased by the Vagabond. I like it enough that I lean in over her shoulder as we disembark from the island and cross single-file to the cliff and I whisper in her ear.

“If that happens, I shall fail, for I refuse to kiss any but you.”

“Don’t be hasty. Cleft might offer,” she retorts.

But though I narrow my eyes and give her a dark look, my heart is far happier than it has any right to be in this God-forsaken place.