‘I can see what you will do before you do it. You must know this by now.’

Yisht thrust as soon as she came in range. Nona turned the blade from her body, almost losing hold of her own. The sword felt dead in her hand, her frozen fingers barely able to tell they gripped a hilt. She tried a swing, a clumsy effort that Yisht knocked aside with contempt.

‘Hunskas … so proud of their quickness, so simple to undo.’

Nona attacked again with little hope other than to stop Yisht launching attacks of her own. With the cold in her fingers Nona felt as if someone else were wielding her sword. Once, twice, three times Yisht blocked swings so clumsy that Sister Tallow would weep to see them.

‘Time to end this nonsense.’ Yisht pressed forward.

Nona took a step back. Her footing was so unsure she hardly dared move, a fact which by itself removed any advantage of her speed.

Yisht feinted left then cut in towards Nona’s sword arm. Nona blocked the blow just barely but lost her grip on her weapon. As the sword tumbled from her fingers an icy gale howled in from the right, building swiftly past hurricane towards something altogether worse. The vent blast lifted both of them from their feet, and it came edged with more than ice. Glittering amid the blast in the shipheart’s light came a dozen and more of the throwing stars, some torn from the ice that Nona had jammed them into, others vomited up from the depths to which they had fallen.

Nona slowed the world to a crawl. Keot had told her that Yisht knew every move she made against her ahead of time, but Nona had dumped the throwing stars too far ahead of this moment for Yisht’s precognition to reach. The act that now propelled them was not of Nona’s making. Yisht might be able to explore the next few seconds of any human’s future but when it came to the dropping of an apple from a tree, or the roll of die, she had no more warning than any other person.

As the throwing stars hurtled forward Nona twisted her body to avoid them, ducking her head beneath the flight of one star, pulling her hand from the path of another. She couldn’t avoid them all. One of the projectiles sliced her side as she lacked the traction to move away. Yisht, however, hung as if frozen, held in the jaws of fate. One star hammered into her chest, another into her left wrist, and a third hit her forehead, just above her right eyebrow.

The blast slammed both of them against the far wall of the gallery. Yisht slid to the floor. Nona dropped too.

A wheezing laugh echoed behind Nona as she lay stretched out across the ice, all of her hurting.

‘You cannot kill me.’

Nona glanced back at Yisht, sitting propped against the gallery wall, almost lost in the darkness. A knife in one hand. The ice-triber, seemingly dazed by the impact, tugged at the star embedded in her forehead. The steel point came clear of the bone with a squeaking noise and blood trickled into Yisht’s eye. ‘I cannot die.’ She tossed the weapon aside. She sounded like Raymel had at the last. Nona had run him through, stabbed him a dozen times, and yet the devils inside him refused to let him fall. It had been Yisht’s own sigil of negation that had finally broken their hold … and been destroyed in the process.

‘Yes.’ Nona’s fingers found the hilt of Yisht’s tular, lying where the wind had dropped it, a yard to her right. She drew her remaining knife and stabbed it into the ice, gaining purchase to spin around. ‘Yes you can.’

Blood had blinded Yisht on the side the blow came in from. She raised her hand even so, but the knife slipped from her fingers. Nona didn’t know if Yisht were too dazed to properly mine the future, or if the circumstances simply gave no chance to evade the blow. All she knew was the rush of relief as the tular sheared first through Yisht’s hand and then her neck. Her severed head followed the sword’s arc and bounced away into the darkness.

15

Present

Holy Class

Ara and Ruli were waiting at the agreed spot by the statue of General Isen in Grampain Square.

‘Thank the Ancestor!’ Ara threw herself at Nona. For a long moment Nona held her, breathing in the gold of her hair, grateful for the security of her arms.

Ruli hugged Jula wordlessly, leaving Markus standing somewhat bemused, surrounded by embracing novices.

‘There were a hundred soldiers at least!’ Ara broke away, glancing at the streets joining the square. ‘We couldn’t stop them. They ran straight at the cathedral doors.’

‘Well, they didn’t get us,’ Nona said.

‘And we got the book!’ Jula stepped back from Ruli and dug in her habit. Her face fell. ‘I had it! I know I had it.’

‘Jula!’ Nona’s stomach made a cold fist.

‘Kidding.’ Jula produced the book with a flourish.

‘Jula!’ Ruli shoved her.

‘We’d better get back.’ Ara’s face grew suddenly serious. ‘Whoever got those soldiers to raid the archives isn’t going to stop there …’

‘They’ll be waiting for us at the convent! We’re all going to be banished!’ Ruli grabbed hold of Jula again, as if she might somehow save her. Her mood had oscillated between carefree and hysterical ever since leaving the convent that evening, as if the gravity of their situation kept returning despite her best efforts to drive all thoughts of it away.

‘We’ve done nothing.’ Nona frowned, concentrating. ‘At worst we’ve been out after hours. If we get back up top unseen we’ve just been out by the sinkhole moon-bathing.’

‘Until they find the abbess’s seal on you!’ Jula said. ‘I can’t believe that she hasn’t missed it yet. Just wait until she has to confirm a new nun and finds it missing …’

‘Confirmations happen on high holy days. We’ve got weeks.’ Nona managed a confidence she didn’t feel. The opportunities to get close to Abbess Wheel were few and far between.

‘Fine. Well, what about this?’ Jula waved Aquinas’s Book of the Moon at her. ‘One look at it and we’re all done for.’

‘So we make sure they don’t get a look. We hide it before we get back. Perhaps you can find what we need and memorize it.’

‘I liked the whole Argatha prophecy better when it was supposed to be a four-blood who saved us.’ Jula frowned at the tome in her hand. ‘Not four shiphearts, the Ark, and some poor idiot who has to memorize a whole damn book. Just one four-blood. Nice and simple.’

‘I miss Zole.’ Ruli let go of Jula’s habit and stared at the ground. ‘Even if she wasn’t the Chosen One …’

Nobody had anything to say to that and for a moment only the wind spoke.

‘I have to get back,’ Markus said. ‘Lovely to meet you all, novices.’ He brushed some of the mud from his robe.

‘Brother Markus.’ Ara inclined her head.

Markus bowed his head in return then looked at Nona. ‘I did you a great injustice at the Academy. I hope that account is now settled.’

‘It is,’ Nona said.

‘I’m not sure any of us will survive the next month.’ Markus raised a hand to forestall any patriotic objection, though none appeared to be forthcoming. ‘But if we do survive, then whether it’s under Durnish overlords, the Battle-Queen’s dominion, or our own glorious emperor, long may he reign, I would like to meet you again, Nona Grey.’