Grey Sister (Book of the Ancestor 2)

Zole reached the bed and drove the last couple of novices away with a glower. The Argatha prophecy had been a constant in Sister Wheel’s Spirit classes for almost three years now, and she had managed to infect a fair proportion of the convent with her zeal, including most of the novices. At least the ones who didn’t know Zole.

“You’re making friends almost as quickly as I am.” Nona stood and stripped off her habit.

Zole shrugged. “None of them are bleeding.”

Nona knelt to dig in her bag for her nightdress. Keot could sink from view for a few moments and knew enough not to be seen. Nona had explained to him that the nuns would seek to burn him out before throwing her from the convent—over a cliff if she were unlucky. Nobody tainted by a devil could stay in service to the Ancestor, even after the taint had been driven from them with hot irons. Sister Wheel’s lessons had left no room for doubt on that account.

“Welcome to Mystic, shrimp.” Darla came to the foot of Nona’s bed, somewhat comical in her tent of a nightdress, her arms, thick with muscle, straining out of short frilly sleeves. “Nice entrance.”

“I do my best.” Nona stepped out of her underskirts and pulled her own nightdress over her head as fast as possible. In Grey dorm they mocked her for being shy, but it was Keot who prompted the haste. Also she was shy.

“She threatened to kill Joeli before she’d even reached her bed,” Darla said to Zole. “And she didn’t even have a crowd trying to get in her way.”

Zole looked up from her bag, one hand wrapped around the carved tooth of some sea-monster. “Good. I do not like that Joeli.”

“You don’t like anyone,” Nona said.

Zole shrugged.

“And besides, I didn’t threaten to kill her.”

“‘I will make a ruin of your life,’” Darla quoted through a broad grin.

“That’s maiming at best,” Nona said. “And I seem to remember my welcome to Grey wasn’t too warm either.”

Darla kept her grin. “That was just a kicking. Joeli’s a whole lot more dangerous. A thread-worker can mess you up. And she doesn’t even need to do that. She has lots of friends. Too many novices in this class are thinking they might not take their vows, just go back to their families. And when you start to think like that you also start to think how helpful it is to have friends like the Namsis.”

“A devil got my tongue,” Nona said. “I should have held it more tightly.”

I spoke truth. The fortress of you is built of such moments, they are stones dropped into the well of your tomorrow.

Shut up.

Nona checked the bed for spiders and other welcome gifts then slipped under the blanket, yawning. Darla laughed. “Get your beauty sleep, Shield.” She slapped the bed. “Long day tomorrow. You’re with the big girls now.”

All around the room novices were climbing beneath thick blankets, Alata sleeping alone until Leeni got her merit certificate in Spirit. Something Sister Wheel seemed to be taking particular pleasure in denying her. Joeli Namsis wore only her tawny skin to her bed, perhaps proud of her woman’s body. Nona looked away. She would miss Ara’s presence in the bed beside hers, close enough to reach out and touch. She yawned again and stared at the shadow-dance across the beams above her. At heart she was still a child of the Grey and no matter how warm a room might be she would never be at ease with nakedness, even in the bathhouse. Ruli had taught Nona the steam-weaving trick that she had first shown them at the sink-hole in the focus moon, and when possible Nona wore a robe of steam around the bath-pool. Keot hid across the sole of her left foot at such times.

Shadows are nothing. Talk to me instead.

Shut up.

You should thank me. Your enemies make you what you are. Your foes shape your life more than friends ever could. This Joeli is good practice.

Nona ignored Keot and watched the shadows. Most novices with marjal blood could make them dance to their own tune, but such tricks were put beyond her reach the day she cut her own shadow loose. The day she launched it at Yisht to try to save Hessa. She had failed. She had lost both her friend and her shadow, and Yisht had escaped with the shipheart. Sleep came slowly as it always did, fighting to overcome the anger. She finally fell asleep wondering where her shadow might be now, and dreamed of being lost in dark places.

3

“IN MYSTIC WE use edged steel.” Sister Tallow spoke to Zole and Nona above the clash of swordplay as the other novices sparred in widely spaced pairs across the sand of Blade Hall. She held two naked blades, forge-iron rather than the Ark-steel of a Red Sister’s weapon, but visibly sharp. Each had the same curve as a sister-blade and each was the same length, about as long as a man’s arm from shoulder to fingertips. “There are some lessons that must be written in scars.”

Sister Tallow offered the hilts. Nona took hers, clumsy in her new gauntlets. Like her new blade-habit the gloves were reinforced with strips of iron sewn into the padding. They wouldn’t stop every hit but they would lessen the chances of blood being spilled.

“It’s a good sword.” Zole swung hers then circled the point in front of her.

Nona lifted her own, finding it heavier than the blunted Grey Class blades. She felt awkward in her blade-habit, as if she were wading in the bath-pool. Red Sisters wore black-skin but that had been scavenged from the hulls of the ships that carried the four tribes to Abeth and was worth more than its weight in gold. Far more. An experienced Red Sister had to die or become a Holy before a new one could get her armour.

“You two spar. I’ll watch.” Sister Tallow pointed to a clear patch of sand. “No showing off. We have serious and dangerous work ahead of us, and I would rather send you on to Holy Class with the same number of fingers and eyes you had when you arrived in Mystic.”

Nona squared up to Zole. The ice-triber stood as tall as Sister Tallow now, her gerant blood perhaps starting to show. Nona remained a head shorter. She supposed she was around fifteen but when she came from the village she had scarcely realized there were dates and certainly hadn’t known on which one she had been born.

“What are the rules?” Nona asked. Behind her thoughts Keot yammered for blood and made his opinions on rules quite clear.

“No killing thrusts.” Sister Tallow stepped back.

“That’s it?” Nona had no more time for inquiry. Zole pulled the mesh-mask over her face and moved to attack. Nona pulled her own down and lifted her sword.

Zole came in fast as she always did, offering no quarter. Sister Tallow never had to lecture the girl on controlling her temper. Nona wasn’t sure Zole had one. Ara said if they cut the Chosen One open they’d find ice at her core.

Nona’s world narrowed to the flickering of blades and the clash of iron. With her speed matched Nona had to rely on training, on the memory that Sister Tallow had imprinted on her muscles. Deeper than that even—on her bones. She mounted a desperate defence against the stronger girl, acutely aware that the edge she met with her own could open ruinous wounds, even slice a limb off, gone in the blink of an eye, beyond repair. Zole would hardly care if she took all four fingers from Nona’s sword hand at the knuckle.

“Stop!” Sister Tallow raised an arm.