Mortal Heart

ONCE I AM OUTSIDE IN the hallway, I stop and lean against the wall, trying to keep panic and desolation from weighing down on me. I press my fingers against my eyes and force myself to take slow, deep breaths, but it does not help. My whole body aches, as if my very bones will burst from my skin.



I have always believed that if I did everything the convent demanded of me, I would be rewarded with my only desire in life—to go forth from the convent and serve as Mortain’s handmaiden. It is the guiding principle I have built my entire life on.



If, as the abbess has always claimed, she is my ally, then how can she foist this unwanted fate upon me?



Before anyone can see me, I make my way to the back of the convent, where the wine cellar is located. My footsteps slow as I draw near. Sybella used to laugh at me, thinking me too afraid to steal wine from the cellar. But the truth—the truth I worked so hard to conceal from both her and Ismae—was that it was not stealing, but the cellar itself that held so much terror for me. Terror born of long nights shut inside, with no scrap of blanket to warm myself or bite of food to eat. A confinement so solitary and harsh that it took me three days to find my tongue after my first night there.



Terror, I remind myself, that I used to make myself stronger, tougher. The idea that it might not have made me strong enough is unthinkable.



But in addition to all that terror, one of my moments of greatest joy occurred in that room, and I cannot help but wonder if that joy is in some way tied to the abbess’s decision to groom me as seeress.



The Dragonette quickly and harshly dismissed the event, and I came to believe what she claimed: that I had merely imagined it. I put it aside, buried it with all the other small shames and mortifications of my childhood. But now, now I wonder if perhaps it was real after all. While I always held out some small shred of hope that it was true—that the Dragonette was wrong, and it hadn’t been my fevered desire to please her that caused it—today for the first time, I want desperately to believe it was not true. Because if it was, then perhaps I am uniquely suited to act as seeress after all.



I stop in front of the rough wooden door and glance both ways to be certain no one is nearby. As my hand reaches out for the latch, my heart begins to beat too quickly and I must remind myself that there is nothing to fear. No one would dream of shutting me in there again.



But the mere idea that they think to shut me in the seeress’s chambers for the rest of my life is just as bad.



Squaring my shoulders, I step into the cellar, letting the cold of the room—and a rush of painful memories—settle over me like a mantle.



The first time I was locked in here, I was but two years old, punished for daring to cry when Sister Etienne had been sent out on assignment and I missed her.



The second time was when I’d seen the cook butcher the hen for our evening meal and so refused to eat it. I was locked in the cellar with my bowl of chicken stew and not allowed to come out until I had finished every last drop.



When I was five, I was locked in the cellar yet again, this time for balking at butchering the hen we were to have for our supper. While the other girls closest to me in age were simply scattering feed in front of the hen house or collecting eggs, the Dragonette had decided that I must begin practicing the art of killing. My hands were too small to get a decent hold on the large ax, and the lay sister who had to hold the hen still had no stomach for the task, wishing instead to do it quickly herself and be done with it. And so I faltered, whether through lack of strength or lack of will or simply because I did not understand what was required of me, I no longer remember. What I do remember was being locked in the wine cellar with the wounded chicken and forced to watch its slow painful march toward death, a much more painful death than would have been granted it had I been strong enough.



I spent the first hour sobbing in remorse-filled terror, afraid the chicken would drag itself over to me and peck out my eyes. When that did not come to pass I cried for the chicken itself, and for its obvious agony. At last my tears ran out and I simply sat with my back pressed against the cold stone wall, chilled and shivering as I watched the chicken die.



During that long, horrifying night, at some point I realized I was no longer alone. A tall, darkly cloaked man was there as well. That should have frightened me even more, seeing an unknown man in the heart of our womanly cloister, but I was so relieved at not being alone with the dead bird anymore that it never occurred to me to fear him.



He was long-limbed and graceful and dressed all in black. Even though he lowered himself to the floor next to me, there was something proud and stately in his manner. When I saw him, my hysterical dry sobbing hiccupped to a stop. He quietly took my hand in his, although my fingers were so cold I could not feel it, and sat next to me, saying nothing. But I was no longer alone, and that brought me great comfort.



I remember falling asleep eventually, leaning against his shoulder, and when the door opened in the morning, they found me sleeping soundly on the floor with my head gently pillowed by a rough hempen sack.



It wasn’t until we went to church that morning and I saw the marble statue in the sanctuary that I recognized the hooded, cloaked figure. It was Mortain Himself whose arm I’d drooled on while drifting off to sleep.



Excited by this, I could not wait until the Dragonette summoned me to her office later that day. I told her all about my nocturnal visitor. I thought she would be overjoyed by this sign of His pleasure with me, but instead, the corners of her lovely mouth turned down with disapproval. “You are lying,” she said.



“No!” I was distraught and more than a little terrified that she would think so.



“Ah, but you are, for you wish yourself to be special. I’d expected more from you than cheap lies.” Her eyes—always so shrewd and piercing and full of her confidence in me—filled with tears, and I was shamed beyond measure that I had caused her such pain. Feeling lower than the grubs that root in the convent midden heap, I fell to my knees and begged her forgiveness.



Now I cross to the wall where I once thought I’d dozed with Death. It is blocked by a stack of small barrels and kegs so that I cannot sit down and lean against it like I did those many years ago. Instead, I reach out to touch the wall, trying to resurrect that moment in my life.



But nothing comes. There is no strong visceral reaction, no sudden clearing of memory, no true answers flaring to life at the touch, and I am left hoping it was nothing more than a child’s overwrought imagination coupled with a desperate need to worm her way into a demanding abbess’s good graces.



If it was not, then I am well and truly suited to being the seeress. And as much as I love Death, I do not think that I love Him enough to entomb myself in the convent before I have even lived.



Chapter Eight



I DO NOT SLEEP AT all that night and instead imagine that the walls of my room are drawing closer, pressing down on me, nearer and nearer until they threaten to force all the air from my lungs.



The morning brings little relief, for we are all trapped inside yet again. Today we are confined to the convent armory under the sharp-eyed supervision of Sister Arnette. Winter’s storms and damp salt air will corrode the fine steel of our weapons, dulling the blades, and mildew the soft leather harnesses and sheaths if we do not tend to them, so today we sit with crocks of goose fat and bags of fine sand, polishing every metal surface in the armory.



It is the perfect task for me—a mindless activity that requires little thought but allows for my physical restlessness. Just as the rag in my hand circles over and over the fine steel of the knife blade, so too does my mind polish the few options available to me so that they are bright and sharp and clear.



I can acquiesce to the abbess’s wishes, as I have always done. Or I can . . . What paths are truly open to me?



I try to think if I have ever heard tell of a handmaiden of Death refusing to serve or choosing to walk away. I have not, but with my newly awakened cynicism about the convent and its motives, I’m not sure the nuns would pass down such tales, even if they existed.



I could simply leave. Sneak off in the dead of night and run away.



Except I feel certain the abbess would use all the power at her disposal to bring me back.



Or perhaps, as old Sister Appollonia used to claim, Mortain Himself would send His horde of hellequin after any daughter of His who dared to defy Him. I think of Ismae’s letter and shudder.



I set down the knife I have just finished polishing and pick up another. I swipe the rag in the yellow goose fat, then dip it into the dish of fine sand.



But am I defying Him? That is at the root of my uncertainty. Has He asked this of me, or is it the abbess’s will?



If it is His will, am I willing to turn my back on Mortain and all He has meant to me? Forget all the times He has been there for me? My faith, my dedication to Him, is as much a part of me as my arm or my leg or my heart.



It is hard not to question my own motives, for I realize now that I have been trained since birth to blame myself as thoroughly as I have been trained to wield a blade. It is so easy for the sisters to imply that it is my obedience and willingness to surrender my will to Mortain that is being tested—but what if that is not what is being tested at all?



What if that is what they tell us so we will not question their own selfish motives?



As I set down the polished knife and pick up the next one, a wave of desire hits me, so strong that it causes my hands to tremble. I want to use this blade. All the blades here in this room. That this could be taken away from me leaves me nearly breathless.



Then an entirely new realization dawns on me, and the fingers clutching the slender stiletto’s handle grow white. What if this is a test from Mortain Himself rather than from the convent? A test for me to prove my commitment to Him, prove my unwillingness to be diverted from His plans for me?



What if, instead of surrendering, I am supposed to fight for what I want? For surely Mortain does not fashion His handmaidens into such strong weapons and then expect them to topple in the first stiff breeze.



And how am I to know which it is?



Next to me, Sarra rubs her nose with the back of her hand before reaching for another knife. “You look like you’re planning to stab someone with that, not polish it.”



Keeping the knife clenched in my hand, I look up at her and allow every bit of anger and frustration I am feeling to show in my eyes. She blinks and leans imperceptibly back. Good, I think, then smile, a movement so brittle it is a wonder my cheeks do not shatter.



The armory door opens just then, admitting a gust of frigid air and Sister Thomine. When she steps into the room, her gaze goes directly to Matelaine. “The abbess would like to see you in her office,” she says.



Matelaine looks shocked, then worried, and I do not blame her, but something in the way that Sister Thomine will not look at me causes an alarm to begin clanging inside me like a distant bell.



Matelaine rises to her feet and brushes back her long, bright red hair. “But of course,” she says in a contrite tone, already apologizing for any wrong she has done.



As she and Thomine leave the room, I carefully resume polishing the knife. I feel the other girls glance my way, curious that Matelaine is being called to attend the abbess. Even Sister Arnette’s gaze lands upon me, but I carefully keep my head bent and do not look up. For some reason, I think of Sybella and how she was sent back out before she had fully healed. All of us, even the nuns, could see that she wasn’t ready yet. For a while, I thought it was due to the innate skills she’d arrived with, and perhaps tinged somewhat by the fact that she and the abbess clashed from the very beginning, like an angry cat dropped amidst a pack of dogs.



And then I remember Ismae, who had no innate skill except for the thin veil of anger she wore and her resistance to poison, and I am filled with a sudden desperation. I glance over at Sister Arnette. She is helping Loisse, who has managed to cut herself on a blade in spite of knowing better. Like a single ray of sun forcing itself through the clouds, a realization dawns—I no longer care, at least today, if I anger Sister Arnette or any of the nuns. An urgent need to know what the abbess is discussing with Matelaine drives me to my feet and pushes me toward the door.

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