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“I leave Junah… and this country… in your hands.”
Frigid winds swirled about the Saint of the Sanctist Church, enveloping her in snow that quickly solidified into an impenetrable pillar of ice. Each facet gleamed with the perfect clarity of cut crystal, with nary a bubble or crack in sight. It was a work of art, as far as tombs went. Even in death, Lady Rella demanded nothing short of perfection from herself.
Basilio stood like a great, useless lump, every bit as numb and frozen as she was. Even Lady Junah’s shoulder under his hand conveyed no warmth to his fingers. Cold and still as he was, he might as well have been the very ice that condemned Saint Rella to her icy grave.
That felt wrong. His every breath was chock-full of emotion; ring him out like a rag, and you’d fill buckets with them. Anger, sadness, fear, and aye, even joy - those were the fuel he burned to heft his axe in battle, to take a punch and keep standing, to sink his claws into life and never let go. So this numbness, this emptiness? It weren’t right.
Maybe it was because Lady Rella didn’t look dead. He’d seen more than his fair share of death. Even back when they were pups, he and Del saw paripus die in the streets every day. Starvation, sickness, hangings, and worst of all, igniter experiments gone wrong - no matter how it happened, death was an ugly business.
Trust Saint Rella to make it beautiful. In her glass coffin, like the tale of the girl who ate the poisoned apple, she made it look peaceful-like. Almost as if she were sleeping.
Even Lady Junah’s tears couldn’t cut through whatever he wasn’t feeling. Del would hate that. There was nothing that got to his big brother like seeing the singer cry. Basilio could almost hear his voice calling him a blockhead for not comforting her. But even his hand on her shoulder was there just to restrain her.
Why did he do that? Shouldn’t he want to see Saint Rella, the person he loved the most (after Del, of course) saved?
It made no sense. And puzzling things out - well, that wasn’t his strong suit, was it? That was Del’s area. But he wasn’t here.
It was Wyll collapsing to his knees that finally pulled Basilio from his funk. After all, if their candidate - their captain - kicked the bucket, Del’s sacrifice would be for nowt.
Wyll reached into his pocket and pulled out that queer hand mirror of his - the one that showed him the sleeping prince. Basilio watched in curiosity as the thorny purple vines snaking across the sleeping monarch vanished in a flash of light.
The curse was broken. Their plans were finally falling into place. And it had only cost Basilio the lives of those he valued most.
It would be worth it, he told himself. It had to be worth it, else what was he fighting for? Something like anger crept into his unfeeling heart, but even the heat of it couldn’t pierce the chill.
Wyll pushed himself to his feet then, a spark of something in those mismatched eyes of his. He immediately turned to his companions with all the authority of the kingly candidate he pretended to be.
“Junah! Eupha! Mage forms, now! I want your strongest fire magic on that pillar. We don’t have long to get it down.”
The glimmer of hope in Junah’s eyes as she quickly obeyed made Basilio’s hackles raise. “What’s the big idea, eh? Lady Rella’s dead and gone. The curse breaking’s proof of that!”
Wyll shook his head. “I won’t accept that. If there’s a chance we can save her, I have to take it.”
Hulkenberg stepped forward. “Captain, I must protest. I swore a solemn vow to see the one who cursed His Highness dead.”
“And you did.” Wyll gestured toward Basilio. “He said it - the curse breaking proves that she died. But if we can warm her up and get her heart beating, we can bring her back.”
Basilio frowned. It sounded like pure bollocks to him. Magic could do a lot of things, but it couldn’t bring back the dead. Even the most powerful igniters couldn’t pull off that feat. He would know; too many paripus had been killed just to test the latest healing igniter, with no success.
Still, Hulkenberg had objections. “Justice demands that - “
“Justice has already been served,” he interrupted. “Rella’s just as much a victim in all this as the prince. Forden was the true culprit, and he’s dead.” He turned on his heel, ending the argument without another word. “Eupha, Junah, are you ready? Don’t hold back. Burns, we can heal, but only if we can get her heart going.”
“I’m ready,” Eupha said, the resolve in her three eyes matching what could be found in Wyll’s two.
“Please let this work,” Junah whispered. “If this doesn’t work… I don’t think I can bear it.”
Basilio didn’t let himself hope.
Mage and Masked Dancer Archetypes twirled in a flurry of fancy footwork, and the icy column was engulfed in flame. A billow of steam rushed from where fire met ice, hitting them all with a wave of moist, warm air. The steam cleared to reveal Saint Rella collapsed to the icy ground. The tips of her chin-length hair and wing feathers were singed, and there were shiny red burns on her cheeks and neck. And suddenly, Basilio could feel again.
Hope at seeing her freed of her icy tomb. Fear when he realized that she was deathly still, her chest lacking the rhythmic rise and fall of breath. Anger at the people in power who put all of them in this situation.
Wyll switched up his archetype to the Mage using that jiggery-pokery of his, and knelt by the saint’s side with his hand to her chest. Lightning crackled at his fingertips.
Strohl stepped forward. “What are you doing, man? You need to heal her, not injure her more!”
“Peace, lad. I’m sure our captain knows what he’s doing.” That was Heismay. He cocked his head, his enormous ears turned toward Rella. “I can’t hear a heartbeat. If you’re going to get it beating, best get to it.”
With a nod, Wyll turned his attention back to Lady Rella. Tiny bolts of lightning arced from his fingertips to her chest in a steady, pulsing rhythm. After thirty seconds or so, he stopped and looked up to Heismay. “How about now? Can you hear anything?”
The eugeif shook his head. “Nothing.”
Wyll resumed his efforts. Even busy with that, he still had the presence of mind to give orders. A natural-born leader, him. If the prince had half a brain in his head, he’d give Wyll a fancy title when he became king. Grand vizier, or the like. “Junah, pour as much healing magic into her as you can. I don’t know if this will work, but healing her won’t hurt our chances. Basilio, when I stop trying to restart her heart, I need you to put your mouth on hers, hold her nose shut, and blow air in.”
“Eh? What are you on about, mate?”
“She’s not breathing. Someone needs to do it for her if we’re going to save her.” Basilio opened his mouth to argue, but Wyll cut him off. “There’s no time to argue. She needs you.”
If there was any ice left in him, that melted it. The idea of her - her, Saint Rella! - needing him felt as farfetched as the ideas in that fantasy book of Wyll’s. Had she felt as humbled that day, when she saved the lives of two scrawny paripus lads? He doubted it.
Kneeling down beside her, he hesitated. He’d imagined what her lips might feel like against his. He was a red-blooded man, after all, and she was… she was everything. He’d be mad not to love her, not to want her in every way possible. This, though, this felt like a right cruel parody of his deepest wishes. Her face was pale and slack, her lips freezing cold against his, even with Eupha summoning flames to warm her. There was no stirring of longing or desire in him as he breathed on her behalf. Just grim determination and flickering hope.
“You can do it, mate,” he whispered between bouts of breathing while Wyll shocked her heart. “If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
After another round of shocks, it was his turn again. He hadn’t the faintest idea whether he was doing it right or not, so he just went by instinct and gave her all the air he could. Her lips were going blue - whether from the cold or lack of proper air, he couldn’t tell.
It was during the third round of shocks that she came alive with a loud, ragged gasp. She immediately began to cough and sputter. This much, Basilio knew how to handle. He might not have brought someone back from the dead before, but he knew how to care for someone having trouble breathing. He rolled her toward him so that her head was in his lap. Some of that ice must’ve gotten into her lungs, because she retched lukewarm water onto his trousers.
His hands ached to run all over her face, through her hair. Not to feel just how soft the downy white feathers on her skin were, mind - he just wanted to help her get warm.
In the end, he didn’t need to. Lady Junah threw herself onto her sister with a sob, wrapping her arms around Saint Rella like she’d never let go.
“You’re alive! I can’t believe it - you’re really alive!”
Sandwiched between the two of them, the ishkia girl burst into tears.
For the first time in twelve years, Rella felt something akin to peace.
It was entirely undeserved; she knew that. Everything she had done since the day Sanctifex Forden made her his assassin had been fueled by selfishness and cowardice. In keeping Junah safe, she put her family over the good of the whole kingdom. In keeping the Church’s machinations secret, she allowed the corruption to fester. And when she learned that her life was linked to the prince’s, that her survival only prolonged his suffering, she selfishly chose to keep living. She told herself that if the prince recovered, another assassin would take her place. She simply had to bide her time until the stars aligned and a hero arose who could keep His Highness safe. But in her heart of hearts, she knew that was a lie. She didn’t want to die. And so the prince continued to suffer for her sake.
Even the succor she offered to the poor and broken was self-serving, a bandage over her wounded, guilt-ridden heart to stanch the bleeding. If she was to live, it had to mean something. It had to matter.
That the first two people she saved became trusted lieutenants to the very man she framed for regicide felt like a strange form of penance. She was glad Fidelio and Basilio survived to become strong, to find someone who saw potential in them. But how she wished they had found their way to someone who valued them for who they were, and not just what they could do for him. Had they found such a person earlier, perhaps Fidelio would still be alive.
But now, she could finally rest, knowing that everyone she loved - for truly, she loved all of her people, from the highest noble to the meanest beggar on the street - would be in good hands.
As she floated, formless, in darkness, her waning consciousness wondered what would come next. Would God welcome her into His arms? Or would she be plunged into a river of fire for eternity? The Sanctifex sermonized of a vengeful deity who punished those who strayed from His path. Would He punish her for her sins, or reward Her for following the will of His highest servant? The former was, surprisingly, far more comforting than the latter. She would rather be punished by a just deity than rewarded by an unjust one.
A light shone in the darkness, as though at the end of a long, unlit tunnel. The tales were true, then. The light of judgment awaited her. It would shine upon her, laying all her sins bare for the scrutiny of His all-seeing eye. She moved toward it, and found herself in an ancient stone chamber flooded with a blinding light. Her body was back with her, but somehow distant, as though she were dreaming.
The voice that called to her, to her surprise, was a woman’s. It sounded compassionate, nurturing, and sad. Almost… motherly. The teachings of the church said that God was male. But in that moment, Rella hoped that this was her God.
“O lodestar who carries burdens forced upon her. O ye anguished traveler. Thy long-stagnant stance hath finally been broken. Now choose thy path.”
No. This was not God. There were no choices in death; there was only punishment and reward.
Or perhaps… this was a test. One final trial to prove her devotion. If she chose the path of penance, perhaps God would look into her heart and see something worthy.
But oh, how she tired of proving herself. Of being the faithful servant, the dutiful daughter. All she wanted was to hear her sister’s singing one last time.
And so, once again, she chose selfishness.
“If I’m to go off to my eternal reward, I won’t rest easy knowing the harm I’ve visited upon my kingdom. And if torment is to be my fate, nothing will compare to the guilt that haunts me. I want to fix the damage I’ve caused. Nothing can erase the sins of my past, but I can atone. I want to atone.” She took a deep breath, and stared resolutely into the light. “I want to live!”
“Thank you. Thou hast chosen a noble parting.” Rella resisted the urge to scoff in disbelief at that. If this voice was giving her a second chance at life, the least she could offer in return was good manners. “O lodestar, whose light reveals the king’s own path, henceforth, thy fears and insecurities are thy light. Awaken!”
Agony ripped through her chest. She felt full to bursting, like something was growing there that would split her ribcage in two and tear her apart at the seams in its desperation to get out. Plunging her own hand into her chest was almost a relief - the pain of a bone being set, or a festering wound being drained of its infection.
The heart she tore from her own chest wasn’t one of flesh and blood, but of metal and wire. It looked like one of the microphones Junah used to amplify her voice when she performed for an audience. How might Rella’s life have been different, if only she had a way to be heard?
She was about to find out.
“Other people deserve this second chance far more than I do.” Her heart went out to the many people she would bring back, if only she could. The prince. Fidelio. Even the assassin who tried to kill Louis. At least his motives were his own, and he died for them. “I promise, I will make the world better. I will be better than I once was.”
A figure appeared behind her. Masked and wrapped in a cloak as it was, it looked like a facsimile to her disguise the night she tried to take the prince’s life. Dark brambles clung to the sleeves and hem, smoldering with guttering, smoky flames.
In her voice, that woman whispered. “The power of the Martyr is thine. The weakness that stayed thy hand shall now be thy strength.”
There was another pain in her chest - this one far more real than the last. Her eyes snapped open as she gasped. Her lungs burned, and she struggled to expel the frigid water in them. Warm hands - callused and claw-tipped, but achingly gentle - turned her over to ease her wracking cough. She rewarded that kindness by vomiting up water onto her benefactor’s lap.
If they objected, she didn’t get a chance to hear. Junah collided with her, enveloping her in the tightest embrace she’d ever felt in her life. Feeling her sister - weeping, laughing, and gloriously alive in her arms - made the feelings she’d kept under ice for so long finally rise to the surface.
So she wept. She wept for the things she’d been forced to do, and others she hadn’t allowed herself to experience. She wept in relief that her sister was safe and twelve years of blackmail and secrets were finally, finally over. She wept at the feel of a body no longer bound by magical thorns that sapped her strength and will to go on.
And that selfish part of her wept to know that her burdens couldn’t be laid down just yet.
Junah held her through it all, stroking her fingers through Rella’s hair just as Rella used to do for her when they were children. Overwhelmed as she was, she was only dimly aware of the warm, hard planes of Basilio’s frame underneath her.
When her last tears were spent, footsteps crunching in the snow made her open her eyes. It was Wyll. He held a hand out to help her to her feet. His mismatched eyes showed no hint of recrimination or blame - just acceptance. “Come on. Let’s get you to the gauntlet runner, where it’s warm.”
Her eyes lingered on the hand, recognizing everything he offered along with it. Trust. Forgiveness. A chance to redeem herself. All she had to do was reach out and take it.
So she did.
Basilio knelt over the washbasin in the gauntlet runner’s kitchen, cleaning up after a quick brekkie of griddle cakes and bidou hash. The scent of baking honey wafted from cake he’d just pulled out of the oven - a dessert to lift spirits later tonight. He moved his hands carefully through the water, trying to keep its sloshing quiet so he could hear the words being said in the small library.
Lady Junah’s voice came muffled through the window. It was clear she was trying not to be heard. “…do you mean… leave? Don’t you… at all?”
Lady Rella’s voice was even quieter. He stilled his hands and strained his ears to hear. “…just don’t… belong. After all I’ve… better this way.”
Not for the first time, he envied Heismay for his great bloody bat ears. He’d be able to eavesdrop, no problem. Not that Basilio was eavesdropping. He just happened to be the next room over, was all.
A few days had passed since they saved Saint Rella’s life. In that time, their captain and the prince had… well, Basilio wasn’t exactly sure what happened. He was still trying to wrap his head around it. The prince died, but lived on through Wyll, who had been a part of him all along. Or something like that.
Ever since then, Saint Rella didn’t seem like herself. He wasn’t so oblivious that he couldn’t see the sadness that clung to her like cobwebs. Looking back, it was right obvious that the air of despair was nothing new to her. But now, there was talk of her leaving. Fear gripped Basilio’s heart at the thought of what Lady Rella might do if that despair got the better of her. Even Lady Junah couldn’t seem to get through to her.
When Lady Junah spoke next, he abandoned all pretense at doing dishes and pricked his ears toward the window.
“You can’t leave, sister. We need you.”
Lady Rella laughed bitterly. It felt wrong hearing that from her sweet voice. “You all got by fine without me before, and you’ll continue in my absence.”
“But your magic! It’s incredibly powerful! You could take Louis down on your own if you wanted.”
“The Martyr’s magic,” she corrected gently, “not mine. And no. I can’t. You saw what happened when I tried to cast a spell. The Martyr archetype demands vitality from its bearer, not magla. I’m still weak from the curse; I expect I will be for a long time. I can’t cast a single spell without fainting.”
Basilio blinked at that. Her archetype’s spells drained her life? Like the pugilist archetype? Weird, that.
“Well… fine, but where will you go?” Lady Junah asked. “You know you can’t be seen. The whole kingdom thinks you’re dead. If they find out you’re alive…”
“It will skew things in Louis’s favor. I know,” she said quietly. “But sister, how can I possibly stay after everything I’ve done? Joining the prince’s most loyal supporters was one thing. Seeing the face of the boy I cursed every day is something else entirely.”
That guilt, he understood. He’d done plenty of unsavory things under Louis’s command. Nothing so horrible as trying to kill a six year old boy, of course. Not to mention, Del used to take on the worst of Louis’s orders to spare Basilio the pain. A protective older brother, was Del, to the very last. But his hands weren’t squeaky clean, either.
He wanted to tell Lady Rella that - to let her know that she wasn’t the only one to be tricked by someone they should have been able to trust. But that felt presumptuous. His tribe wasn’t a source of shame for him. On the contrary, he was proud to be a paripus. But a lady as refined as her would scarce want to be compared to an uneducated member of the lower tribes who pulled himself up out of the gutter.
So he settled for something simpler. He cut two slices of still-warm honey cake and plated them. Both of them collapsed a little, since he didn’t let the cake cool fully before cutting, but they’d taste alright. He took a plate in each hand and crept toward the library. With every step, their arguing grew clearer as they tried to determine whether Saint Rella would stay or go.
He didn’t want to interrupt the sisters’ conversation, he reasoned, since it wasn’t his place. But hunger had a way of making problems seem bigger than they actually were. He knew that something warm in the belly could soothe the soul better than the best medicine; that was why he dreamed of opening a diner with Del and Lady Junah, after all.
He’d just leave the two plates on the floor outside the door, rap on the wall to get their attention, and scurry out of sight before they could spot him.
That was the plan, at least. But that all flew out the window when he heard Lady Rella’s next words.
“Enough, Junah. The decision has been made. I’ll leave under cover of darkness. I’m sure I can find someplace I won’t be recognized.” A pause. Then, “Do me a favor, won’t you? Tell Basilio thank you for his part in saving me. Tell him… saving him was the best thing I’ve done since that horrible night.”
A great flock of butterflies took wing in his stomach. Lady Rella truly thought that? About him? Of all the hundreds of people she saved, it was him that stood out?
A thrill of excitement shivered through him, demanding an outlet. His first instinct was to whoop loudly. But that would give away his position in the hallway.
Clearly, his tail didn’t get the memo. It began to wag excitedly back and forth, thumping against the wall with a metallic clang.
“Sounds like you just told him yourself,” Lady Junah observed with a quiet laugh. “Come on in, Basilio! There’s no need to lurk in the hallway.”
“I wasn’t lurking,” he protested, stepping into the doorway. Lady Rella perched on top of a high bookcase. Lady Junah stood below, hand on her cocked hip. Basilio raised the two plates as an explanation. “Just thought the two of you might want some cake, is all.” He handed the cake off to the two women. For a long moment, he stood there awkwardly while they looked at him expectantly. He licked his lips. “Anyway,” he said, ears going flat with discomfort, “I’ll get out of your hair. Yell if you need anything, yeah?”
Lady Junah’s lovely, gem-like eyes darted between the two of them. “Actually, I think I’ll take my dessert to go,” she said loftily. “Basilio, why don’t you keep my sister company?”
That was unsubtle even by his standards. His face heated, his tail dropping low to drag behind him. “Nah, I doubt Saint Rella wants someone gawping at her while she eats.”
To his surprise, Lady Rella shook her head. “No, please stay. I would enjoy the company. And please,” she added, curling her legs underneath her and resting the plate on her knees, “it’s just Rella.”
He shifted from foot to foot, unsure what to do with himself. Standing when she was sitting felt awkward, but sitting at the small galley table would put him far below her perch on the bookcase. He’d be forced to look up at her. He was used to towering over most folks, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was, that put him basically at eye level with her long, shapely legs. The aubergine dress she borrowed from Junah was characteristically short, and showed inch upon inch of calves and thighs, every bit of them covered in a sheer layer of snow-white feathers so soft they just begged -
He stayed standing. “I couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t be proper, would it?”
Her brows quirked wryly. “After all I’ve done, I’d argue that it would be less proper to refer to me as a saint. I’ve acted against both church and crown.”
“True enough, I s’pose,” he shrugged. “Alright, then. Lady Rella it is.”
“Just Rella,” she insisted. When he opened his mouth to argue, she pressed onward. “Yes, I come from a noble family. I know. But you heard what sort of people they are. They sold their morals for power and influence. To me, there’s far more nobility in those who defend their principles than those who trade them away.”
He couldn’t argue with that, having said just that in conversations with Del and Louis. Actions mattered far more than blood did.
“Rella, then,” he conceded, trying not to let the intimacy of using her given name give him any ideas. She might have been brought low by her circumstances, but he was born in the gutter. They were not the same. He nodded toward her untouched plate. “You don’t like honey? I can make something else, if you like.”
She started, looking down at the cake as if it had snuck up and bitten her. “Oh! No, this is - this is lovely.” Picking up her fork, she took a delicate bite. Her eyes widened. “Basilio, that’s absolutely delicious!”
His traitorous tail was going a mile a minute behind him. He contemplated cutting the damn thing off. “Just something I threw together. I always say a bit of clobber - food, that is,” he clarified at her confused look - “makes the day brighter. You can get through a lot with a full belly.”
“So that’s why you wanted to open a diner with your brother.”
A shot to the heart, it was, hearing her talk about his dream in the past tense. Del’s death was still fresh, and he wasn’t ready to let go of that dream just yet.
“I’m sorry,” she said, obviously noticing. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
He waved a hand. “S’alright,” he lied.
Silence stretched awkwardly between them. Neither of them seemed to know what to say, and it occurred to Basilio that while he might have loved her from afar for all these years, he didn’t actually know her. He didn’t know what made her laugh, or cry, or what did her head in. All this time, he’d held onto the idea of Rella as the Saint, the healer, a rare gem meant to be treasured by someone much better than the likes of him.
Now he knew how to look for the flaws beneath the pretty facets. Weaknesses and cracks that a connoisseur would say ruined the whole of the gem. But to Basilio, those imperfections only added to the beauty of the whole. She wasn’t perfect. She was a person, with fears and insecurities, who made mistakes and loved so hard it broke her. How could he not be more in love with her than ever? His heart slammed in his chest and his hands fisted at his sides, but he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
Lady - er, Rella came to his rescue. She cocked her head curiously, gesturing with her plate. “Aren’t you going to have any?”
“Nah. I’ve had it a hundred times. Besides,” he added, patting his flat stomach, “gotta watch my girlish figure, don’t I?”
Her laugh was as musical as any of Lady Junah’s songs when it wasn’t tinged with bitterness. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Was it a trick of the light, or was there a tinge of pink showing through the feathers at her cheeks?
“Mother never let me eat before others,” she confessed. She took another bite, closing her eyes in bliss while she chewed. “She said it was rude.”
He snorted. “She’d be horrified at me and Del’s table manners, then. It was every man for himself, and our Del? He was a biter.”
“And I’m sure you were nothing but honorable,” she teased.
“Oh aye, I licked whatever I could get me hands on. Marking my territory, you know.”
They shared a laugh that felt more companionable than it had any right to.
Rella sobered, fiddling with her fork. “Perhaps this is insensitive of me,” she murmured, “but I’ve always envied what the paripus have.”
“How so?” He couldn’t imagine a single thing the paripus had that the Saint of the Sanctist Church didn’t.
“You have tight-knit communities. You find joy in the smallest things, and when you can’t find any, you make it.” She swallowed hard. “Ishkia aren’t like that. We straddle the line of the upper and lower tribes, not truly belonging to either. We’re so terrified of being treated like the lower tribes that we tear each other down so the clemar and rouissante might deem us acceptable. It’s a very cutthroat way to live. Literally, in some cases.” She curled in on herself, her wings wrapping around her as if to hide her from her own shame.
“Sounds lonely, that,” he remarked neutrally, not knowing what else he could possibly say. It never even occurred to him that someone as loved across the whole kingdom as she was could possibly feel like that. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be in a crowded room and still feel completely alone.
“It is,” she said softly.
He nodded absently. “I know we paripus have a sort of reputation. We’re a half-step above animals. We’re slaves to our vices. But honestly, that’s all just survival, you know what I mean? We need to have each other’s backs because nobody else does. We dance and drink and party at night because that’s what gets us through the slog of the day. And family? Community? We wouldn’t survive without it. But I wonder what we’d be like if things were different. Are the best parts of us because of who we are? Or because of the shite we live through?” He hesitated, then shared something he’d never told anyone. Not even Del. “I’m glad I’m not some great thinker, because that answer scares the piss out of me.”
“You don’t want your best parts to be defined by your worst experiences.” Her eyes, blue as the sea on a sunny day and just as dangerous if he got in over his head, were soft with understanding. “It scares you to think that if your life was easier, maybe you’d be a different person. A worse person.”
She put it better than he could have. He swallowed, his throat suddenly thick. “Yeah.”
She nodded and slid off the bookcase, her wings fluttering reflexively on the way down, even though they did nothing to slow her descent. She took at seat at the small table, setting her empty plate off to one side. He took the bench opposite her.
“I think about that often, too,” she admitted. “Before I… before the prince was cursed, I was a lowly acolyte - perfectly content to follow the orders of my Sanctifex without question. It was only after I did something so horrible that I truly opened my eyes to the suffering of the lower tribes. Had I not done what I did that horrible night, I wouldn’t be the saint everyone so adores today.” She reached a hand tentatively toward his. When her palm hovered half an inch over his knuckles, she stopped, uncertain. Basilio turned his hand palm side up and crossed that final distance between them. Her hands were cool, and he could feel the delicate framework of her bones through her fingers - a testament to the toll the curse took on her all these years. When she continued, her voice waned to a mere whisper. “The only reason I saved you and Fidelio - the only reason I healed anyone - was to assuage my own guilt. I loathe knowing that about myself. That the only reason I saved you was to save my own soul.”
He stared at her, incredulous. “What sort of twisted logic is that, eh?” he blurted before his brain had a second to catch up to his mouth.
Her wings pulled tight to her body, her feathers moving to make them as small as possible. Her pupils constricted to pinpricks. He was no expert on ishkia body language, but if he were to guess, he’d alarmed her. “W-what?”
With the hand not holding hers, he gestured vaguely. “All this ‘doing good things makes me feel good, so it must be selfish’ shite. It’s bollocks, entit? If you were a bad person, you wouldn’t’ve felt guilty enough to do everything you did. Matter of fact, you’d’ve found a way to finish the job to spare yourself years of suffering.”
She seemed to think about that for a moment. But of course she had a retort. “If I were a good person, I would have ended my own life the moment I realized that that was the prince’s only hope.”
He snorted. No wonder her archetype was called the Martyr. She had that down to an exact science. Her hand trembled in his. Peering into her eyes, he saw the glassy sheen of tears threatening to fall. If he was the one to make her cry, he’d never forgive himself. He gentled his tone. “You don’t need to be perfect to be forgiven, Rella.”
She blinked quickly, trying without success to banish the tears from her eyes. They clung to her impossibly long lashes like diamonds. “I haven’t done anything to earn forgiveness,” she whispered.
He disagreed. But he also knew a stubborn streak when he saw one. The more he argued, the more she’d dig her heels in. Funny how alike she and Del were. On the outside, they couldn’t be more different, but deep down, everything they did was for their family.
Was it any wonder he’d fallen for her as hard as he did?
Instead of arguing against her, he tried arguing around her. Was that even a thing? Who knew. “Look, I dunno how the whole forgiveness thing works in the church. Me and Del, we’re atheists. Probably wouldn’t be let in the church even if we wanted to. But all this talk about earning and deserving… well, that sounds like the sort of thing Louis would say. Wasn’t that long ago that I’d’ve agreed with him. But I’ve seen firsthand what happens to someone who doesn’t ‘deserve’ to live anymore. That’s not the type of world I want to live in. I dunno if we can make it something better. But at least now I’m following someone who wants to try.”
“I just… don’t know how to face him. After all the pain I’ve caused him,” she whispered.
“He wouldn’t have gone out of his way to save your life if he didn’t think you deserved to be saved. That’s sort of his thing: everyone deserves a chance. And you’re part of everyone, so…” He shrugged.
He watched dozens of emotions flit across her face. Anger, grief, love, guilt. Finally, her features settled into a look of resolute acceptance.
“I just wish there was more I could do to help,” she said mournfully. “The prince’s new body is as good as new, but me… I’ve lost so much strength.”
Seeing an opportunity, he pounced. “I could help with that, you know,” he offered. “Trust me - if I can whip Wyll into shape, I’ll have you on your feet in no time. All you have to do is stay.”
Rella’s sweet smile took his breath away. Her feathers fluffed out contentedly, giving him a glimpse of her unmistakably rosy cheeks underneath.
“I’d really like that.”