“Is that possible?” Anskar had been led to believe the head of the Order of Eternal Vigilance was as untouchable as he was infallible.
Tion shrugged. “Probably not. Hyle Pausus is from one of the richest families in Sansor, and that makes him popular with the Patriarch. And it’s not as though there’s a lot of support for the Hooded One. Some things are just a little too grim for a cultured society like ours, and better left to the distant past that spawned them.”
After Vihtor dismissed the novices, Anskar hung back to help the kitchen hands he’d worked with as a child. Jonita, once his closest friend, wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“You look well,” he told her—though in truth she was rake-thin and her crimson skin had lost its luster. She tried to hide it, but her jaw was swollen, and there were bruises around her wrist. “What happened? Who hurt you?”
“It’s nothing. Sorry, Anskar”—she might just as well have called him sir— “I have to work.”
“Yes,” Anskar said. “I understand. Let me help.”
Together, they carried piles of dirty plates and utensils back to the kitchen, where Hubin, one of the cooks, handed Anskar a piece of freshly baked bread with some not-moldy cheese on top. Anskar smiled and thanked her. Hubin ruffed up his hair like she always used to, but there was a wariness about her that hadn’t been there before. In her eyes he was virtually a knight now.
Anskar finished eating in silence, then slipped away without saying goodbye. As he passed along darkened corridors on the way to his room, he played out scenes from his childhood in his mind. It had been so easy then. No one had called him half-blood, and he’d seen no difference between the Niyandrian servants and the people of the mainland. He’d been happy in a way—as happy as a child could be, not knowing their parents. Tion had been a sort of father to him; Larson even more so.
That had all changed, yet tonight was the first time he’d realized it. Was it because of his worry about the looming trials, or something else? Perhaps he was just growing up, he told himself, though he couldn’t stop thinking that meant he was one more step along the road to decay. Sister Hathenor’s pessimism had infected him. He was glad she was going.
A shadow stepped in front of him and Anskar yelped in surprise.
The shadow giggled. He caught a whiff of perfume.
“Sareya?”
Something struck him in the back of the head, and he staggered. He glimpsed a blur of movement—a punch. Anskar rolled his shoulder and the fist glanced off. Orix’s fist!
He backed up a step, circled to his right, but then Naul barreled into him out of the dark, slamming him against the wall. Anskar grunted as air burst from his lungs. On instinct, he slung out an elbow and caught Naul coming in. Blood sprayed from Naul’s shattered nose, and he turned away, clutching his face.
Orix charged, but Anskar dipped beneath his punch and stepped off to one side. As Orix turned to follow him, Anskar smashed a fist into his chin. Orix stumbled back, and Anskar kicked him in the liver. The Traguh-raj boy stood for a moment, grimacing with pain, then pitched to the floor and curled up like a baby.
A weight hit Anskar from behind. Legs clamped around his waist, an arm beneath his chin. He’d forgotten Sareya.
Anskar gripped her forearm with both hands to relieve the pressure on his throat. Sareya’s other hand pressed into the back of his head as she tightened the choke. He gasped. His head swam as she constricted the blood-flow to his brain.
With a desperate heave, Anskar pulled her arm down; made a sliver of space. He found her elbow with his palm, shoved up until his head popped free, then he drove her back against the wall with such force she went limp and her legs released him. Turning, he caught her by the throat. His fist shook as he raised it.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he yelled. “Fighting is forbidden!”
Sareya’s cat’s eyes glittered, and her lips curled into a sneer. Even now she was mocking him. “You started it, half-blood,” she rasped.
Anskar squeezed tighter, and she raked at the back of his hand with her nails. He wanted so much to hit her, but his fist refused to move; just wavered in front of her face.
“Scared to hit me?” Sareya said, her voice a tortured wheeze. “Your father would have done it.”
“Damn you!” He crashed his fist into the wall beside her head. “Do you hate me so much? Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
He punched the wall again, and this time his knuckles split. He winced at the pain, then struck again. Sareya let out a rattling breath, and her eyes grew dull and unfocused.
“Anskar, stop!” Orix said as he climbed to his feet, bent double and clutching his side. “Let her go. She’s choking!
“You fucking lunatic!” Naul said, voice muffled where he cupped his broken nose. “By the Five, let her go!”
“Stand down!” a man bellowed from the end of the corridor.
Booted feet pounded toward them, and the white tunics of knights appeared like ghosts from the gloom—the Seneschal with them.
Anskar released his throttle-hold on Sareya and backed away. She stumbled, gasping and rubbing her throat.
“He tried to touch me!” she wailed. “He’s always lusted after me!”
“Is this true?” the Seneschal demanded.
“Sir, it’s true, sir,” Naul said, blood from his nose dripping through his fingers.
“Liar!” Anskar said. “Sir, they’re lying!”
“No,” Orix said, and Anskar flashed him a glare. “No, sir, it isn’t true. Anskar was defending himself. We started it.”
“Why?” Vihtor asked.
Orix glanced at Sareya. “Because she—”
“Anskar struck me at dinner, Seneschal,” Sareya cut in.
Vihtor silenced her with a raised hand and looked at Orix to continue.
“She promised me …” Orix hesitated, glancing at Naul for support, but Naul merely glowered at him.
“She promised you what?” Vihtor said.
“Seneschal,” Orix said, “you have to understand—”
“She promised you what?”
Orix dipped his eyes and said nothing.
“We didn’t like what happened in the dining hall, Seneschal,” Naul said. “Anskar shouldn’t have hit her.”
“And it took three of you to right that wrong?” Vihtor said.
“Anskar hates me,” Sareya said through her sniffling. “He calls me a red-skin, a corpse-coupler. He says I’m fit for just one thing.”
“I do not!” Anskar said. “I’ve never said any of that!”
“Don’t try that act on me, girl,” Vihtor snapped at Sareya. “Anskar grew up helping in the kitchens. He did so again tonight. The servants all speak well of him.”
The Seneschal knew he’d returned to the kitchens after the banquet? And he’d taken notice of what Anskar had done as a child? It had been Brother Tion who’d sent Anskar to work in the kitchens initially. But Vihtor had known?
“I’m not blind,” Vihtor told Sareya. “I saw what happened at the banquet, before you were rightfully slapped. Don’t think I don’t know what you are. Save your passions for when you’re consecrated, and then indulge them outside the Order, like the rest of us.”