Of Deeds Most Valiant: A Poisoned Saints Novel

Now things will grow interesting, tiny trapped treat.

The demon had been crowing since we discovered we were all trapped. The idea that we were sealed inside what seemed to him to be a huge stew pot delighted him and made him even more unbearable than he already was. I felt far more conflicted. Was it deeply troubling to be trapped in what might be my grave? Look, I was too young not to feel distress. Whatever made the aging Engineers so casual about it wasn’t in my blood. But I was also too distracted to take it as seriously as I ought.

Adalbrand stood up for me back there. He chose to take my penalty with me.

I had known I wasn’t guilty. But even so … what if the God had judged me? What if he’d taken that moment to judge me for Sir Branson’s death or the demon’s continued life?

Am I making you fall from grace just by existing? Now that’s a sizzling thought!

What if Adalbrand had died with me because of my secret? Because of my crimes?

I shot a glance at him. Again. My eyes kept finding him like lodestones to iron.

Mine, too. By the ages, he’s a pretty one. It’s the eyes, I think. I adore a salty sorrow.

He’d taken my side. He’d stood with me. I’d only had one friend who’d ever done that and he had been slain by my own hand.

All is well and all will be well, and even my death will be well. Stop fretting so much on it. I’m perfectly content here in Brindle. He was always a good doggy.

I had thought that I was driven only by freedom and the wind and the hope that perhaps faith would find me. It turned out I was driven by something else. A deep, roiling need to belong to someone. To be their ally or friend or kin. It bit down deep and branched out wide, a tree growing a hundred years in a single gasp.

My gaze snapped back to him a second time. When his gaze met mine, it crinkled warmly around the eyes. Warmth. Friendship.

One day when I was about thirteen, I wandered too far and slipped into a stream in spring. Soaked and lost, it had been hours before I found Sir Branson again. I was cold right through and the fire that day had been like the face of the God.

This warmth is just like that.

I stumble my way through a brittle thanks. It’s not enough. Can anything be enough for someone willing to stand by me? I drag my attention immediately to the Engineers, afraid he will see all I’m hiding. That I want his nearness like I want the fire.

That’s how romance always goes. Either you find a kindred spirit or you find someone who needs saving.

And am I his kindred spirit, then? I hate my traitor heart and how it leaps with hope.

You’re the one who needs saving.

I force myself from the thought and force myself to talk to the Engineers about the journals instead.

A desire like mine for Adalbrand feels like selfishness. I’d rather go back to familiar territory. I’ve been rejected by these other paladins just like my Aspect always must be. Not surprising and certainly not threatening.

They tried to kill you. They tried to eat your bones and sup on your pain. And you call them holy? You call them brothers? Why are you not gibbering in a corner or bathed in their blood?

Revenge was the God’s own possession and it was not mine to execute. I must be wary. I must be wise. But fear could make your bones age before their time. It could cloud the mind and pause the hands and still the breath, and I dared not allow any of that. Besides, you could not ask people to be other than what they were. There was no point to that.

I was on a ship once. A ship of exploration sent out to find the rim of the ice along the sea or possibly a new continent. The ship was mired in doldrums and there was no way out and the fun I had with the men on the sea keeps me warmer at night than the fires of hell.

Really? I was trapped under the ground with a bunch of so-called “holy paladins” who had just tried to holy their way into killing me, and he figured the best way to deal with that was to tell me stories of misery and death? Wonderful.

I already told you I’d just as happily possess one of them.

I gritted my jaw.

I kept hold of the last man and with all our strength we rowed for shore, and when — after a very long time — we made it off the ever-rolling sea, he’d found he had such a taste for the dead that I —

Enough. Enough. Perhaps I couldn’t cast him out, but I could make his existence miserable if he did not cease.

How would you do that?

I’d recite the catechism in my mind from dawn to dusk, as I’m sure the High Saint did already.

I felt the demon shiver. Good.

Look, I’m not saying our situation trapped in a breathtakingly gorgeous dungeon wasn’t terrifying, but I was already in a terrifying situation and I had been since the beggar attacked Sir Branson. Living hour to hour with a bound demon who might just pick his lock and escape was not for those who couldn’t handle their stomachs twisting and their nerves getting a little frayed around the edges.

Now that I had also been singled out and rejected — albeit passively — by most of my brethren, I was in an even more precarious situation.

The causes of these worries were not going away anytime soon. Did my hands shake? I’d simply have to let them keep me sober and focused. Did my belly roll? Not a problem. There was nothing to eat here anyway.

“Look at this diagram here,” Sir Coriand was saying, but my mind was not on the books.

My eyes dragged back to Sir Adalbrand again. He wouldn’t let this descend into hell.

We shared a tight look and I felt myself leaning toward him, as if the lodestone were growing stronger. Does fear amplify everything? It certainly seemed to be amplifying it in me. I could only hope it didn’t cloud my judgment.

Hope, unfortunately, was not really my strongest attribute.

Hope in the God, dear girl, and calm yourself. Like unraveling a demon, you must take this one step at a time.

Good advice.

Deliver me from evil, I prayed. Deliver us from evil.

I almost — almost — thought I felt an echo of something in my heart, like a song one remembers but can’t quite recall.

And then Sir Owalan was there.

“The Cup is attainable. Hurry!” He squirmed as he waited for us and I hoped he was right.

Mayhap, once we found it — if we could escape this place — there would be no need to linger. We’d all be free of our orders. I could be rid of those who sought my death and they could be rid of me.

Adalbrand’s hands moved over his straps and buckles as if checking and rechecking as we gulped down what remained of our tea and gathered our things with brisk efficiency.

With my eyes drifting constantly to him, I was too aware of the graceful way his fingers moved as he eased his sword in and out of the scabbard, checking the draw.

“Ready, Lady Paladin?” he murmured to me. He seemed tense; the lines in his face were deeper than I’d seen them before.

I left the books where they sat. No need to carry them around, and the golems could watch over them. One of the golems — Suture — was collecting the wooden cups with the air of a stingy innkeeper.

“I think we should be careful not to split our forces,” Adalbrand said in his lovely, rumbly voice.

I glanced at him, and this time when I smiled, his rueful smile joined mine. It softened him and made him warm and I wanted to uncurl before that warmth and let all my secrets flow free.

So all it takes is pretty smiles and dimples to soften you? I could have offered those instead of terror.

I gritted my teeth. If the demon had nothing useful to contribute, he could go stick his opinions somewhere else. If there was terror to be found down here, it would be me. I would unleash it on anything that came after us.

Growing a spine, are we? A little late for that, I think.

“Agreed,” I said firmly to Sir Adalbrand as we joined the others in following the impatient Sir Owalan. “We should stay together.”

“Well, what’s all the fuss about then?” Sir Sorken’s booming voice asked from the front of the group.

“We went into the room and it’s magnificent,” Owalan said as he led us. He moved like a dog, dancing first forward and then back, impatient that we only moved at a quick walk when he wanted to run. “Whoever built this place had an eye for beauty, don’t you think? And for punishment? It makes me more penitent. More certain that I must bow and receive what lashes are given.”

These Penitents turned my stomach every time. I didn’t like their approach to the God. It was the opposite of mine. People think the Prince Paladins are the opposite of the Beggars, for they have wealth where we have none. But I think sometimes they are the closest to us in attitude, for both our Aspects look to the God with open hands and both practice a faith that has no actions, only uses us as conduits for the work of the God.

The Penitents, on the other hand, think their self-mutilation will reward them, that pain brings blessing, and that the God only listens to one with mortified flesh. This deprivation — though it looked like my poverty on the surface — was not at all the same. It was far more like the High Saints with their attention to every detail of liturgy.

I didn’t trust Sir Owalan. Or his putting keys into locks without talking about it first and possibly trapping us all in here to die. Or how he clearly had taken that key from the Seer’s hand, more intent on seeing what was behind that door than on keeping me from being executed for a sin I didn’t commit.

“How nice for you,” Sir Sorken said placatingly, and beside me Adalbrand snorted under his breath. He scratched the side of his face though there was only a shadow of hair there, his eyes roaming ahead of us, more impatient than the rest of him.

I rested a hand on Brindle’s head as we reached the door. Was he coming in or staying out?

And miss you making a fool of yourself over a man sworn to reject affection? I’d never turn my nose up at that kind of entertainment.

I’d glimpsed the hall into the new room on our way past, but it curved in such a way that I’d seen no more than the smooth white stone walls and empty insets where the other hall had cups.

“Was this place raided in the past?” Hefertus asked as we entered the hall in a cluster. The man was ridiculously unflustered for someone in a trap. Did he think he could wish his way out of it?

Perhaps. And perhaps you could, too.

Prayers weren’t wishes, though sometimes they felt the same.

“Can we hurry and forget the empty shelves?” Owalan asked, agitated.

“Perhaps one of us should wait with the golems,” the Inquisitor suggested when he was still just outside of the door. He stood with his body turned back the way we came, the picture of reluctance. Until he’d spoken, I’d forgotten he was there. Some people disappear into the background, but he seemed to disappear into the foreground — there, but forgotten. With his flamboyant flag of long white hair and his black fitted clothing adorned with silver, you’d think he’d be more noticeable.

I could see his point. The last time we walked through a door as a group, it had gone poorly. Why do it twice? It made sense to leave someone to watch our backs. Almost superstitiously, I looked up at the ceiling. Was it just me, or did the demon seem to be breathing?

Sir Owalan shook his head vehemently. “We need everyone. You’ll see when we get there. I can’t explain.”

“I need you to explain,” the Inquisitor said quietly. His fingers danced up and down the hilt of his sword. “Or I won’t be going anywhere.”

Sir Owalan’s dark eyebrows met in the middle. “Some things must be seen with your own eyes, Inquisitor. Stop questioning and believe.”

What a ridiculous thing to say. Worse, he trotted off down the hall the moment he was done speaking and no one could ask for further clarification.

“The golems are by the stairs,” Sir Coriand said with an assured smile. “I’m sure they’ll keep an eye on things.”

Which was no comfort at all. Did they have the ability to think for themselves?

I should hope not.

Or the ability to rescue us from this room if we became trapped?

The laughter echoing in my head was all I needed to hear from the demon.

There’s no turning back now. Hold your faith fast and ignore the demon. I’ll keep him in check.

The Inquisitor cursed under his breath, but after one longing look backward, he joined us in the hall. Before we reached the end of the hall, we found words carved into the stone of the floor. They seemed like a continuation of the verse from the plaque in the main room.

“Can you read it?” Adalbrand asked me, but before I could answer, Sir Coriand read the verse aloud.

Choose now holy vessel,

Be careful, be clear,

For the bones of others,

Will root out your fear.

Wash your cup with sorrow,

Bathe your vessel with blood,

But choose your gift wisely,

Be it fire or mud.”

“That does seem to indicate there will be a cup somewhere,” Sir Sorken said. He had his hands jammed into his belt and was looking around with a vaguely curious expression. Could I get away with that? I loved how it made him look like he didn’t care.

Sir Adalbrand snorted at that and then walked deliberately over the words like they didn’t daunt him at all. His chin was held high, eyes watchful. He had a way of walking that made him look like a hero striding through a tale. He could choose to use it or not, I’d noticed. Right now, he was employing it in full measure. I swept into his wake as we turned the final curve and spilled out into the vault beyond.

And what a vault it was. It rivaled the main hall we’d just left.

The ceiling soared up into the rock and it must have been drilled through from the top, for pinpricks of light shot down from the ceiling — so many of them that they lit the room so that the white stone was bathed all over with the soft light of the world above.

If I had thought that the statues in the main room were impressive, the ones filling this cavern were teaching me that I had dreamed too small. Lining the circular room and looming high up the walls were statues of Saints. Saints standing and sitting and praying and dying, mouths open as if about to break out into a heavenly chorus. They were carved in intimate detail and by the hand of a master — no, it had to be many, many masters to have worked so many.

Or the demon-possessed.

What?

I’m just saying that we have skills.

I doubted that. Everyone knew that the God had given to men the right to create art. The devil and his minions could only subvert what was already made.

And what would you call taking over another’s hands and will? Not subversion? Would you like to try it, then?

The figures were angelic.

Breathtaking.

The light from above bathed them in a soft glow so that every apple-cheeked curve almost seemed to blush and the dip of every throat became a well of secret shadow. The faces I saw were smitten with rapture — almost to the point of pain, necks and arms stretched in flowing lines of sinew and muscle as they reached to the heavens. Clothing was optional, included only where the folds and translucent waves could best highlight the figures underneath. But weapons were in plentiful supply, and like the statues in the main room, some were brandished, some were carried in sheaths or belts, and some were buried in thighs and biceps and chests.

Do you like them, pretty snack? Shall we make you into one?

I could barely take in the sheer decadence of this much human talent stored up in one tiny hidden corner of the great rolling earth. It snatched my breath like a clawing wind. It ought to be in a cathedral somewhere that men may marvel at it.

And yet, I recognize none of them, my girl. Are they so old that I can’t see a single one that I know? Who is that with the tri-forked beard? What maiden swoons there in the arms of that warrior and why do his limbs almost appear as tentacles?

Mayhap Sir Branson was simply as poorly educated as I was.

The demon laughed long in my mind.

They’re ours. All ours!

Who were his?

Tell me, my girl, if these are Saints, then why does this dashing one holding the sword seem to be wearing nothing but a tabard, and why does he look so lasciviously upon the maiden in the crown? Better yet, solve this riddle — why does her crown look so very like a pair of antlers?

What was he saying?

I told you! They’re ours. They belong to my twisted kingdom and they shall drive you mad!

Hefertus burst forward. “There are keys! It’s an organ.” He looked over his shoulder at Adalbrand, his eyes boyish with excitement. “Come look at this, brother! I would wager no one has played these pipes in a thousand years.”

I hadn’t even noticed the ivory keys at the far end of the room. I’d seen keys just like that once before on the great pipe organ in Saint Rauche’s Citadel. They came in layers.

“Hefertus played when he was in training. He was said to be gifted,” Adalbrand said from beside me. When I glanced at him, he looked amused, but the amusement was painted over a troubled energy. His eyes darted from Saint to Saint as if he could not place any of them either.

“Look,” Sir Coriand sounded breathless. “Their mouths are the pipes. Imagine the hands of a master here. What would Master Harkumenus’s Fifth Choral sound like played on that instrument?”

“Forget the music,” Sir Sorken said in a happy rumble. “Imagine the craftsmanship. To carve each one perfectly on the outside and also on the inside so it can sing the note? I thought the fountain was a marvel.”

“This is truly a miracle,” Sir Coriand agreed.

“I don’t like this,” Sir Adalbrand muttered. He seemed to be moving his body at an angle, as if to shield me with himself. I didn’t think he even realized he was doing it.

This man is honor carved right through. Let’s see how honor deals with this next thing, hmm, sweetmeat? Let’s see how you manage with your vulnerable soft flesh. This is going to be so delightful that it almost makes up for being trapped within a canine cage.

Did he know something I did not?

Within the ring of hundreds of ivory figures piled one upon another was a smaller ring. And now my heart truly stopped — or at least stuttered. Because these statues were familiar. Once again, they were us.

They stood — towering over the humans they reflected — on swaying lacework platforms. Those platforms hung from chains in the roof — chains constructed of something that looked like ivory stone, but stone would fracture under so much tension.

I scanned them, tension running up my spine. Everything within me screamed at me to run.

There was the Seer, missing her head. It sat at her stone feet with one of her hands. And there was the Hand of the God — not depicted as a pile of dust as one might think, but rather hanging from a carven noose, his neck plainly broken. Each of the statues extended one hand and held it out flat, facing upward — except the dead, whose hands had turned to face the floor. Leading up to each one was a stairway of lacy white stonework and bones that looked human. These stairs swayed with the platforms, like ships upon the high seas, and between the statues there were more chains hanging like the long moss that flows from the branches of trees in the deep south. They tinkled lightly against one another whenever they swayed too far.

I glanced behind me to the door, gripping my sword tightly.

Too late to run, oh, it’s much, much too late. Look!

I looked.

On the ground, and lining both sides of the path on which we trod, reaching as far back as the feet of the steps to the pipe organ, washing up in shoals that nudged the ankles and knees of the Saints, were cups. Tall and thin, squat and wide, stemmed, fluted, belled, cabochon, carven, enameled, bejeweled or plain as a farmer’s water ladle, they lay waiting.

Upon his platform, the Majester raised a cabochon cup and then slotted it into the hand of his statue. It fit with a click. And suddenly the poem made sense.

“Choose a vessel,” it had said. Easy enough.

Is it, though?

“Be careful,” it had said. Not as easy.

Caution laughs at you, little treat. She whispers in my ear and we giggle together.

I was being mocked by my own dog.

“Who’s a good boy, then?” I whispered grimly.

Brindle’s tail thumped against my leg.

Still not me.

“But which one is the cup?” the Inquisitor asked, aghast. Not too bright, our Inquisitor.

In the distance, Hefertus sat down at the instrument. I hadn’t even noticed the stone lace bench that was fitted beneath the six rows of keys. They seemed like too many for one man to play.

Unless that man had six arms. I spy with my diabolical eye someone with six arms.

I wasn’t in the mood to play games.

I’m always in the mood, but my toys never last long. It’s such a shame. Maybe when you are weak, you’ll let me in and I’ll play with you, little morsel. Maybe you’d like to be a Saint after all.

“The cups fit in the hands,” Sir Owalan called from where he stood beneath a towering version of himself, a cup in one hand hovering over the hand of his statue. “Watch.”

He set the cup onto the palm of his doppelganger. Even from afar I could hear the snick when he twisted it and it seated, and then — in a way that defied sense — his statue seemed to glow. It was faint, so faint it could be my imagination, but I didn’t think so.

“I think it will show us which one is the cup,” he said, smiling. “But it needs all of us.”

The High Saint had placed his cup, too, though now he sat at the feet of his statue, bent double in prayer.

That was three. There were six more that could be placed. The Engineers’ statues were depicted together, and their hands were joined with a place for two cups there.

“We ought to consider this with care,” I said at the same moment that the Inquisitor called out.

“How did you choose out of so many?”

Good luck reining them in, my girl. They’re already caught. Flies drawn to blood. They can’t be called back now.

But I already could see that the High Saint and the Majester had chosen cups like the one Adalbrand had shown me, short and squat with cabochon gems. They were not taking any risks.

“Choose wisely. We might not get another chance!” the Penitent called down. “We all need to make our guess and then see what happens.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t guess for us, my dear boy,” Sir Coriand called up, but there was an edge to his words.

“The icon only accepts the cup from your own hand,” the High Saint said, finally straightening from his prayers. His face was lit with holy ecstasy. “This is how we know this is from the God. It is tuned to each of us as only a creator could tune it.”

I like the proud most of all. They are always certain they cannot fall into my snare and then, trapped, they taste the saltiest.

“The instructions did indicate to be careful and clear,” Sir Sorken said in that way of his that carried across the huge booming room. “I think it best to heed them, hmmm?”

“There were instructions?” the Majester asked, at the same time that a whooshing sound went through the room.

From beside me, Sir Coriand sighed far more loudly than required.

The game is now run by the moths, the demon said from inside my head. How long will it take before all singe their wings in the flame? I hope it’s soon. I’ll drink their despair. I’ll bathe in their loathing and I’ll laugh when your heart breaks for their foolishness.

“Sit,” I said firmly. “Stay.”

The dog Brindle chose to obey.

“How will you choose?” the Inquisitor called to Hefertus across the wide gallery, his forehead wrinkling in cautious concern.

Hefertus called back as he shifted, hands hovering over two keyboards. “Easy. I’ll choose the most lovely.”

“But …” The Inquisitor looked at the rest of us, and this was the most human I’d seen him. His lips moved a few times before he finally pushed the words out. “But that is farcical. Surely, you will use a better method. Or you’ll ask the God to make your hand choose the correct one.”

“I like the pretty one,” Hefertus called, and then his hands fell to the keys. From the mouths of the Saints came a ghastly moan that was half music and half agony, and with a creaking snap, something fell behind us.

I spun. Behind us, on either side of the door from the hallway, were a pair of winged figures with swords in their hands. The sound we heard was the sound of their lifted sword arms descending. They hit the floor so hard that the room rocked and a fine sparkle of dust spat upward. Their swords, which had dangled precariously over the doorway before, were jammed across it now, and I did not think any of us could wriggle through the gaps left behind excepting perhaps Brindle.

Hefertus, unconcerned, played on. And now the mouths played hollow, breathy notes, with a yearning melancholy that wrung my heart. He perched before the great instrument, hands spidered out and shoulders rolling with every stanza he played. The light from above seemed to shiver as if the whole room breathed in the music and awoke to it. And whether it was the air forced through the ancient pipes and rippling out the mouths of the Saint statues, or whether it was some great power raining down blessing or curse upon us, dust motes spun into the air and twinkled over everything like the birth of stars.

“I think we should be looking for the real cup,” the Inquisitor said, breaking the spell.

You could bargain with me and I’d tell you which is the true cup.

But that was a trick. None of these cups was the real one. Obviously.

Or all of them are.

It amounted to the same thing.

Or you put your cups on there and you have to drink from them and you all burn up like Sir Whatever-His-Name-That-Will-Not-Be-Remembered, and won’t that be fun.

My heart was in my throat, choking me, strangling me. It wasn’t the challenge. What was picking a cup? It wasn’t being locked in, though I was. It was realizing my hand was forced, that I had no option but to play out this pantomime. That I was just a piece on a board played by hands not mine. Every shred of me fought against that, clawing up my throat and biting through my skin.

I could not accept it.

I was mistress of my own destiny and I always had been, with nothing but the road before me and the horizon behind, hands empty, heart full. The idea that I could be shuffled and prodded into a cattle chute for slaughter made my blood feel too thick and the world around me swim.

Sometimes there are no choices.

But there had to be. There had to be a choice.

The Engineers had moved farther into the room and the Inquisitor bounded after them, searching side to side like a hunting dog ferreting out the scent of the cup.

I was spinning, my mind frantic, heart in my throat.

Something gripped my arm suddenly and I was wrenched into the burning cinnamon gaze of Adalbrand. His face was hard, strength radiating from the bones of it, and I remembered, as I sometimes did around him, that he had a decade of experience that I did not have. And it showed now in his measured look. He also had the hard strength of a man given to daily training since childhood. Though I was strong and capable, too, I could feel his greater strength in how he held me.

“Fly to your rock, little bird,” he whispered to me, so quietly no one else would hear.

I clung to the feeling of his hand on my arm. I clung to how strong and real it was.

“How,” I gasped.

“Find your faith. Build your nest high in the rock and fly.”

His voice was barely louder than his breath. He made a self-deprecating moue with his mouth before leaning in closer.

“It’s what I tell myself. It’s what I think when the world seems to overwhelm me.”

He was giving me a talisman then, something of his held up against the darkness.

He had grabbed my non-sword-arm. He held it still, my sword hovering between us like a wall that could not hold in the tide. And all my wanting for warmth and closeness flared up hot and tight, washing over me even as his sad eyes burned.

The music swelled, strange and strangling, like the Saints were being choked to death as they gasped out Hefertus’s tortured song.

“We have no choice now, Lady Paladin,” Adalbrand said gently, and I realized that the way he was standing blocked me from the view of the others, kept this weakness to just the two of us. My heart swelled with the kindness of that. “We are in this. You and me both. We dance to the tune or we die under the rock.”

“Both?” I asked.

“Both.” His tone was very certain and his eyes burned with something.

Devotion. They burn with devotion. I have seen it before. But toward you or toward the God?

“Fly up to the rock, little bird. Let the God protect your heart. And let me guard the rest.”

He looked sharply to the side for a moment, as if checking again that we would not be heard, and then leaned in closer, making a kind of a shelter over me out of all that muscle and knightly strength. I could feel the warmth of his flesh radiating out to me.

“I feel it, too,” he confessed. “Something is not right and we are trapped, but what else can we do?”

“We can always fight,” I snapped, but I was snapping at myself, at my own limitations.

“We can die,” he said gently. “Or we can play our part in this.”

“I can’t seem to make myself submit to a force I cannot see.” I couldn’t quite keep the wobble out of my voice.

He shook his head. “You’re courage and fire. I’ve watched you.”

“In physical things. But I cannot grasp faith and I do not like uncertainty. How can I be brave when there is no path under my feet?”

He swallowed, and for a heartbeat, the aching look he gave me was so full of untold words, so full of bridled passion, that it shot something hot and wanting through me.

“If you have no faith then let me be your faith for now. Walk on me as your path. I promised myself to you until this quest is completed. Take my strength now as your own.”

This felt like more than what he’d promised before.

This is indeed more. He offers not just chivalry, not just alliance. I think, perhaps, my girl, that he offers you his heart.

I didn’t dare believe that.

“And what would that make me, if I fought with borrowed strength?” I asked wryly.

“A holy warrior,” Adalbrand said softly. “Like me. Like all of us, empty on our own, filled only by the light of the God.”

Adalbrand’s hand gripped my arm tighter and something in me melted.

“I’ll borrow your faith, Sir Paladin.”

He nodded and his smile grew until it was almost painful.

“So we choose cups and we place them,” I said grimly. “And we let whatever trap this is spring on us.”

“Trust I will stand with you in arms, whatever grief on us descends. Have I not stood for you so far?”

“I don’t need to be coddled,” I said. One last attempt at dignity.

“I’m not coddling you.” His voice was rough and pleading. “Is it impossible to believe that I want to defend you? That while I know I cannot have you, I want you all the same?”

I swallowed. That was … exactly how I felt and it was forbidden. He could not have it and I could not take it.

“Let me give you what I can in place of all that I cannot.”

I nodded hesitantly, but at his sad smile, I drew myself upward and stepped slightly to the side, sliding from his grip. He let me go, but I felt how his body turned to angle toward me as I moved past, how he inhaled sharply when I was close as if he wished to memorize the scent of me, how he trailed after me as I searched through the cups like a swan trails after its mate.

What had I done to this man?

What have you done, you minx?

What had I done to myself?

You’re broken. A paladin with no faith. A woman who will not take a man held out to her on a golden platter. A holy one who will not end the life of a dog to destroy a demon. Broken souls are my favorite kind.

Just for that, I chose a broken cup. And when I lifted it, Adalbrand lifted an eyebrow, but he said nothing to me, merely snapping up a black, narrow tumbler of his own. The piece he chose was carved all over with owls and ravens. Mine was unadorned except for a fat scar that ran the length of it. It would not hold water well with such a crack. I did not care.

A throat cleared and I looked up to see that the others were already in their places. Even Hefertus. The music had stopped sometime during our whispered conference and I had not noticed.

“If you’re about done defying both your aspects,” Sir Sorken said grimly, “I think you’ll find your places on the ends. And then we shall see which of us is right and which of us is dead, hmm?”