Grey Sister (Book of the Ancestor 2)

IT TOOK LESS than two hours to reach White Lake. Back in the days when her mother first left to go there Nona had always imagined it as distant a place as the moon. “It’s too far,” her mother would say when Nona wanted to go. “Much too far.” In the end though she’d taken her curious child to a handful of meetings at the Hope church and likely Nona would have been confirmed in the light soon enough. But the juggler came and everything changed.

For each mile Nona walked, her mind raced a thousand, back and forth over the same questions, the same hopes and fears. The people would have run from the village. Soldiers would have fired the buildings but it would mean more if people ran to spread the news. To lift a hand against those in the scarlet and silver meant your home would burn.

Her mother would have run. And she would have run this way, towards White Lake.

During all the days that Nona had travelled to reach the village her mind had refused questions about her mother. The old hurt had scabbed over, been sealed beneath scar tissue, and Nona refused to pick at it, not until it was time. But now there might not ever be time and Nona’s questions queued for their turn on her tongue. Accusations too. But behind all that lay the oldest memories of safe arms, warmth, love without condition. Memories that Nona treasured, however indistinct they were. A taste of something that she still sought.

The trail thickened into a track, the track into a road, and she came around the margins of the White Lake, watching the town on the far shore grow closer with each stride. Perhaps two hundred homes hugged the water, scores more stepping up the slopes behind. Quays reached out, questing fingers probing the lake’s secrets. A score of boats lay tied, half a dozen more heading in from the day’s fishing. Here and there a light burned in a window, the first of many that would rise as the night fell.

Nona spotted the Hope church on the outskirts of town, a stone-built structure that should have carried a peaked roof but instead stood open to the sky. As she drew closer she spotted rooms adjoining the back, sheltering under tiles and timber. Presumably Preacher Mickel liked to sleep in a dry bed.

The light had all but failed by the time Nona came to the church doors. They stood twice her height and were supported by scrolling iron hinges. It had always seemed odd to have doors on a place with no roof. Nona listened but heard nothing save distant cries from the quays, and laughter on the road, perhaps at the sight of a novice of the Ancestor knocking on the doors of Hope. She dismissed the thought. Few in White Lake would recognize her range-coat as part of the order, and surely not from the road. She had smeared dirt over the sign of the tree scorched into the leather across her back, and it would take close inspection to see it for what it was.

She knocked. Nothing. Above her the sky was almost dark, ribbed by the red edges of clouds. Nona climbed the wall, using her blades only twice where the stonework offered no hold. She straddled the top and looked down into the church. A slate-flagged floor supported an altarstone at the centre; otherwise the place lay bare. At the services Nona had attended the altar had sported a strange globe of brass bands, something to do with pointing to the Hope when the skies were veiled.

She eyed the door at the back. Must be where he lives.

Keot made no reply. He’d kept silent since Nona spared Giljohn. Disgusted, she presumed. She felt him moving from time to time, sliding across her skin but going no deeper.

Nona hung off the wall and dropped down into the church. The memory of incense haunted the place despite the wind moaning in through window slits. She straightened and approached the rear door. Before she reached it Preacher Mickel bustled out, carrying in both arms the brass device Nona remembered. He kicked the door shut on the warmth and light behind him and crossed half the distance to Nona before registering her presence and startling to a halt. The bands of the globe slipped from his fingers. On instinct Nona leapt forward and caught the device before it could hit the floor. She straightened and held it out to him. It was heavier than she thought it would be given it was mostly air enclosed by just half a dozen strips of metal bent into interlocking hoops.

The preacher took his globe, his mouth working but no words emerging. Shock had replaced the fierceness Nona remembered. Mickel stood an inch or two taller than her. He was perhaps thirty years of age now, his dark hair still thick but receding in a widow’s peak. “I’m looking for Myra from Rellam Village.” It felt odd to give both her mother and the village a name. “She worshipped here.”

“Who are you?” The preacher backed away to put the altarstone between them. “A demon?” He set the heavy globe before him.

Nona puzzled for a moment then raised her fingers to her face. “No, just a normal person. A poison made my eyes dark. Do you know if Myra Grey survived? What happened . . . at the village? Sometimes she goes by Myra Reed.”

The preacher narrowed dark eyes at her. “You didn’t move like a normal person. Hunska, are you? How did you get in?”

“I climbed.”

The preacher snorted his disbelief and opened his mouth before glancing around. Perhaps lacking any more believable explanation he stopped short of calling her a liar. “You’re looking for a woman?”

“Myra from Rellam.”

“Rellam?” The fear in his eyes when he had thought her a demon had now entirely made way for suspicion. “What interest would this Myra be to you?”

“That’s my business.” If he didn’t recognize her then Nona had no desire to identify herself.

The preacher touched the amulet hanging from his chain, a flat ring of grey metal, set with runes. “If this Myra worships here then she’s my business. The Hope’s business. What right do you have to ask questions here?”

Nona’s temper lashed her tongue. “Right of blood. She’s my mother!” Subterfuge had always been a faint hope, marked as she was, and having shown her speed.

“Ha!” Preacher Mickel drew himself to his full height. “Now the truth comes out! Don’t think I didn’t know you, Nona Reed, standing there in your nun’s coat with talk of blood-rights on your lips. The Ancestor-worshippers have schooled you well.” A sneer now as if remembering the child reduced the warrior before him. “When we humble ourselves before the Hope we join a greater family than any founded on seed and grunting in the dark.”

“The Ancestor-worshippers taught me that the Hope is just a star like any other, only younger and still burning white. It’s not coming to Abeth. It won’t save us from the ice.” Nona flexed her fingers before her. “And they taught me how to beat a grown man to death with my bare hands if I need to. So, I’ll ask again, where’s my mother?”

“She has given up her spirit to the Hope.” He said it with such poorly disguised satisfaction that Nona had to fight not to follow through with her threat. Had Keot seized his chance he might have tipped her into violence.

“She’s dead?” Realization hit home and Nona’s anger blew out, leaving her hollow.

The preacher’s eyes flickered towards the door to his chambers. “You should go, nun.”

“She’s in there? You’ve got my mother in there?” The conviction seized her, the truth suddenly obvious, denial easy. Her mother couldn’t be dead: there was still too much unsaid between them. They could speak now, as adults, not separated by that gulf between a child’s ignorance and a grown-up’s sorrows. She started towards the door.