There is a long pause that makes me think that whatever Sister Thomine was expecting, this was not it. “Well enough,” she says at last. “Sarra is skilled and competent, but also lazy and unwilling to push herself. Matelaine has less natural talent, but is far more committed. Unfortunately, her unique skills do not aid her in her tasks. Why do you ask? They are young yet. Surely the next one to be sent out is Annith?” I wish to hug Sister Thomine for giving voice to the thoughts in my head.
“Sister Vereda has taken ill.” The abbess’s words are clipped. “She is too ill to See for us anymore. I think Annith may be called upon to take the seeress’s place.”
At first, the words do not make sense to me—it is as if the abbess has begun speaking in some foreign tongue I have never heard. Or as if the thick wall between us has inexplicably distorted her words. But a faint trembling begins in my gut and spreads throughout my limbs, as if my body understands the words before my mind does.
“But Annith is our most skilled novitiate in years. Frankly, I am surprised you sent Ismae out before her, as Ismae had been here only three years and Annith has trained her entire life. Why would we waste those skills by having her be seeress?”
I hold my breath, waiting to hear the answer.
“I do not remember putting you in charge of such decisions.” The abbess’s voice is as tight as a newly stretched drum skin. “Annith has excelled in every task we have set before her. There is no reason to think that augury will be any different.”
There is a short pause before Sister Thomine speaks again, this time so softly I can barely make out the words. “But will she welcome that fate? Again, she has trained since she was a babe to be an instrument of Death. Indeed, I believe that is what allowed her to survive her years with the Dragonette—”
“Enough!” The abbess’s voice cracks across the room like a whip. “She is obedient and accommodating and always has the convent’s best interests at heart. She will do as she is told. See to it that Matelaine’s and Sarra’s training is increased so they will be ready if we must send them out. For too long we have focused on training the eldest novitiates and have not spent enough time training the others.”
My heart pounds so loudly that I can scarce hear the abbess’s dismissal of Sister Thomine, and the sound of the office door closing feels so distant it could have come from the bottom of the sea. I grasp for the solid wall behind me, then slowly lower myself to the ground. What does she mean? How can she possibly—I put my hands over my face and scrub it, trying to restore my wits.
In all my seventeen years at the convent, it has never occurred to me that being seeress was a path open to any of us. Although, thinking upon it now, I realize the seeresses must come from somewhere. But I’d always assumed it was a position given to a nun when she was too old to perform other duties. Or—well, the truth is, I have not thought about it much at all.
And why would I? I have never shown any skill or affinity for scrying or augury. Nor have I ever been taught such things. I look down at my hands, surprised to find that they are still shaking. I clench them into fists.
The abbess cannot be serious. She herself said that I was one of the most skilled novitiates ever to have walked the convent’s halls. It cannot possibly be Mortain’s will, for if so, why would He have given me these talents? These skills?
For the first time in over seven years, I find myself wondering what the Dragonette would think of this if she were still alive. No, I do not need to wonder. I know—she would never have considered such a thing. It would be like fashioning a weapon and using it to stir a pot.
I do not even know if the abbess means this to be a great honor or a punishment.
No, not a punishment, but a tempering. That is what the Dragonette would have called it, her voice ripe with her palpable desire to create of me a perfect weapon, one whose existence would glorify Mortain.
Only now it appears this weapon is to be locked away, never to be used for the purpose for which she was intended.
I slip out of the chapel and being walking down the hall. I must come up with a plan. Find some way to dissuade the abbess from acting on this notion of hers. As I turn the corner, I stumble upon a small clutch of the older girls huddling and whispering among themselves. At my approach, their gazes fix on me like hungry crows on a gobbet of meat.
Merde, but I do not wish to speak with them now. Not with the abbess’s threat still buzzing in my head like angry hornets, for this news has upended me as thoroughly as one of the lay sisters empties a bucket of wash water.
My long years of training rise up and take over, and I shove my distress and confusion behind a veil of piety and obedience. “Girls,” I murmur in a near perfect imitation of the abbess.
Sarra grits her teeth; she hates me most when I act thus, but Matelaine and Loisse greet me warmly.
“Do you know what all the furtive meetings with the abbess were about?” Matelaine asks as she and Sarra fall into step beside me.
It galls me to have to pretend that they know something I do not, but I smile brightly at her. “No, I missed the fuss. What was it about?”
Sarra lifts one eyebrow and places a mocking hand upon her chest. “Do not tell me that we know something that Saint Annith does not?”
In a movement that shocks me, my hand snakes out and grabs her wrist. “Call me saint again and you will see just how saintly I am not.” My voice is low and filled with anger that has little to do with her.
The begrudging admiration I see in her eyes surprises me almost as much as my own actions. I let go of her hand and take a deep breath. Everyone thinks that my goodness comes easily to me, that it hardly counts because I do not struggle with it, but I do. Just like rosary beads run through a priest’s fingers, so does a litany of goodness run constantly through my head: Be strong, be certain all your actions glorify Mortain, show no weakness, allow your will to bend before others’.
It is especially appalling to be called a saint when I fear that my being so obedient is the very trait that threatens to alter the entire course of my life. I force my voice back to cheerfulness. “Now, you’d best fill me in so that I may know it too.”
Sarra’s smugness disappears and is replaced by sullenness. “I do not know what it was about, only that there was a fuss. I was hoping you would have the details.”
“No, but give me a day or two and I am certain I can ferret them out.” And with that, we reach the refectory, where we put our spat aside lest the nuns notice it and get involved.
Chapter Two
ALONE AT LAST IN MY room, I give myself over to the thoughts I have held in check all through supper. There must be a way to convince the abbess I am not suited for the task she has in mind for me. That it is not the best use of my skills—skills I acquired through hard work and steel-willed determination, despite the cost to myself. Skills I was promised would be used to glorify Mortain and do His work, not be sent to fester in the dark, musty closeness of the seeress’s chambers.
The abbess said nothing about Seeing being one of Mortain’s blessings or gifts that He gives to us—she said only that it could be taught, and that I would not mind because I was obedient and biddable and had the convent’s best interests at heart. But it is to Mortain that I owe my faith and dedication, not her, although she might well be forgiven for thinking that.