Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor 1)

‘Look to your own, sister.’ The man’s voice. They were in a much smaller room than the testing hall. Nona kept her eyes shut, not moving for fear of interrupting their conversation.

‘To my own?’ Sister Pan raised her voice in outrage.

‘Proxim Luta wasn’t following some clandestine order. You saw her. She had to be dragged from the hall, raging. Even the damage to her shadow didn’t cow her,’ the woman said. ‘One of those empaths from the monastery put that anger there. You need to be talking to the priest, or to Brother Jax at Saint Croyus.’

‘I don’t believe for a moment that a servant of the Ancestor, brother or novice, would—’

‘But how did she fight it? There are no Path-magics that would do that … are there? How did she damage Luta’s shadow?’ The woman returned to her original question. ‘And why is she so sick from such minor cuts?’

‘She fought it off because she’s marjal,’ the man said.

‘And she’s sick because of the blood-war raging in her.’ Sister Pan’s voice. ‘The marjal is fighting the quantal.’

‘Blood-war,’ the man said. ‘Exacerbated by the use of marjal enchantments close at hand … I wonder what set it off, though? It’s normally some significant challenge to the system. That Mistress Shade of yours is a marjal prime, no? But would some basic shade-work be enough to spark this off?’

‘The girl touched Raymel Tacsis two weeks ago,’ Sister Pan answered, adding somewhat dryly, ‘Didn’t your Academy men leave the boy full of demons?’

A pause. ‘That would do it.’

The woman spoke up. ‘Marjal versus quantal is always the hardest of the battles.’ She sounded unconvinced. ‘But, even so, I’ve never read of a case so bad. Her metabolism was dangerously out of alignment. She must have been in agony. I don’t see how—’

‘She’s three-blood. She’s a full hunska.’

‘Ancestor bleed me!’

A moment’s silence held the room and kept it.

‘Three-blood?’ Doubt in the man’s voice. ‘You realize what—’

‘I understand better than you know, Rexxus Degon.’ Sister Pan sounded her true age for once.

‘You had better get her back to the convent before the emperor hears of it. And tell Nevis. He’s the best high priest you’ve had in a while – not that that’s saying much. You’ve at least a chance with him on your side.’

Nona heard the words but couldn’t put them together in her mind, not in a way that would fit. If she were a three-blood … Did that make her the Chosen One? What did it make Ara? She turned her thoughts to something more easily grasped. ‘I’m not poisoned?’ Nona opened her eyes. The ceiling above her lay the pale blue of a sky she had never seen and stuccoed plaster decorations reached across from all sides like strangely intricate and angular clouds.

‘You’re not poisoned.’ Sister Pan leaned into view. ‘And how long have you been eavesdropping?’

Nona sat up. ‘But I’ve always had my blades …’

‘Your?’ It was the woman speaking, an Academic with long grey hair and a white robe.

‘Blades.’ They had carried her to a sanatorium not unlike Sister Rose’s. She was lying on one of a row of beds in a low-roofed gallery.

‘Blades?’ The woman furrowed her brow.

With a smooth motion Sister Pan produced from her habit a knife, the serious kind, nine inches of dark steel, honed for gutting. ‘Show me.’ She held it out.

Nona reached forward, thought of the sick, wet snapping when Raymel broke Saida’s arm, and drew her hand across the knife, close but not touching. Sister Pan grunted at the effort required to hold it steady, and when Nona withdrew her hand three bright lines lay scored across the steel, three corresponding notches in the cutting edge.

‘Remarkable!’ The older Academic, Rexxus, who had overseen the contests, moved forward to examine the damage.

‘I’ve always been able to do it …’

‘We call that a sport,’ the woman said. ‘An isolated marjal talent. Self-contained and unconsciously generated. It’s not that uncommon in children before the blood properly manifests …’ She frowned at the knife in Sister Pan’s grasp. ‘Though flaw-blades are of course almost never seen.’

‘Orren of Manners Reach can sustain a mobile flaw-wall …’ Rexxus’s gaze remained on Nona’s hand. ‘This though …’ He shook his head. ‘Get her back, sister. Quickly and quietly.’

37

‘They carted you out of there in such a hurry!’ Ara sat on the end of Nona’s bed. ‘We were really worried!’

‘I rode a donkey home!’ Hessa eased herself into one of the chairs that Sister Rose had brought into the sanatorium. ‘It’s not as much fun as I’d thought it would be. My backside hurts worse than my leg now!’

Ara shot Hessa a look. ‘Mistress Path and I had to walk! And she’s at least a thousand.’ She looked around the room. ‘You should just get your own bed in here. It seems like you spend half your time in the san.’

Nona pursed her lips. It was almost true. She did feel that she was Sister Rose’s best customer. Her gaze wandered to the garden. Ice hung from every bush. ‘If this gets any worse they’ll send us on the ranging. We need to deal with Yisht before then.’

‘Or tell the abbess,’ said Hessa, exasperated.

‘The abbess doesn’t want to hear,’ Ara said. ‘She’s got a blind spot for Yisht. I don’t know why. And Sister Wheel? Sister Wheel seems to love her. I keep seeing her whispering in Yisht’s ear.’

‘She would want to hear if the shipheart was about to be stolen!’ Hessa exclaimed. ‘Without the shipheart we’re no different to any other convent. Half the quantals would never touch the Path again, marjal touches wouldn’t be able to shadow-weave, it’d take a prime at least. And I doubt the abbess would stay an abbess for long if she lost it.’

‘Look, we’ll tell the abbess if that’s the only way.’ Nona really did not want it to come to that. ‘But what if I can stop Yisht without having to admit I broke into the undercaves and stole from Sister Apple’s stores? If I can do that before the ranging …’

‘You need to get better first,’ Hessa said. ‘What happened to you? Did you take the cure despite everything?’

‘No.’ Nona patted her habit above the pocket that held the vial. ‘Rosy isn’t sure what was wrong with me, but it seems to be better now.’ Sister Pan had sworn her to secrecy about her marjal blood. The nun had said she would tell the abbess, but no one else for now. The first three-blood in a hundred years would drive the Argathians into a frenzy. The mob would want to carry her to the Ark on their shoulders. They would camp outside the pillars. And what the emperor and his sisters might do to own her … Sister Pan didn’t say but the implication was that it might be bloody. The Academic, Rexxus, had agreed to keep the matter confidential but Sister Pan didn’t seem to have much faith in his assurances. In addition, with such an audience of Academics to watch the contests it was entirely possible that one or more among their number would unravel the puzzle over what had happened and deduce the truth independently. ‘I can leave as soon as she’s given me one more check-over.’