Chrism leaned forward and tilted his wrist with a skill honed over millennia. The pool of blood became a channel, rushing from his flesh into a thick stream. The repostilary caught the flow as it poured forth.
Dart kept her gaze focused on keeping the wide mouth of the receptacle positioned to accept the god’s gift. Her trembling continued to bobble the jar a bit, but not a drop was spilled. The repostilary filled.
Chrism studied the flow. “That should do nicely, Dart.” She flicked a gaze in his direction. His lids lowered slightly. A glow bloomed softly on his wrist, moonlight through a break in clouds. Chrism had cast a blessing upon himself. The blood stopped flowing, dripping away, healed.
“The bit of linen, please,” Chrism said.
Dart let go of the repostilary with one hand and reached for a folded slip of green Kashmiri linen. She snatched it up and held it out.
Chrism turned his wrist toward her. She dabbed the blood from his skin. No sign of her stabbing wound remained.
Clutching the repostilary, Dart finished her ministrations, wiping the last drops away. The bit of linen would be burned upon the brazier outside the chamber, a fire continually stoked for this very purpose. The residual Grace in the scrap of cloth was too capricious, dangerous, unpredictable, apt to be used in dark rites by black alchemists. Such items had to be purged regularly, including Chrism’s daily garments after the slightest soiling by sweat or bile, the same with his bedsheets. Even forks and spoons were cleansed in fire to burn off any residual saliva.
Her focus on Dark Graces brought her back to the afternoon in the gardens, to the murder of the woman named Jacinta, turned to ash. She pictured the cursed black blade-and the man who had wielded it, a lord she knew by name now after inquiring discreetly.
Yaellin de Mar. Another of Chrism’s Hands.
Dart knew nothing else about the man, avoiding him at every turn. The man oversaw the aspect of black bile, the solids passed by Chrism into a crystal chamber pot, twinned with another pot that collected the god’s yellow bile each morning and night.
Dart had gone over the murder in the gardens… and Jacinta’s final words. Myrillia will be free! What did that mean?
It was the woman who had brought the cursed dagger onto the grounds. Once exposed, she had seemed to throw herself on the dagger to keep from being captured. Why? And what role did Yaellin have in all this? If innocent, why hadn’t word of the encounter in the garden spread, especially here in the High Wing?
Dart had her own secrets, too many already. She wanted no others. So she had spoken to no one about it, not even Laurelle. What could she say? How could Dart accuse or slander a Hand who had been in service to Chrism for going on his second decade?
Distracted by these black thoughts, Dart missed the roll of a drop of blood from Chrism’s wrist. It fell toward the stones. Wincing, she watched the ruby jewel splatter-not against the floor, but upon a bronze nose. Pupp had darted forward, catching the drop in midair.
Rather than passing through her ghostly companion, the droplet found substance. With the touch of blood, Pupp grew momentarily solid. His bronze nails clicked on the stone floor. His molten form settled into ruddy plates and a mane of razored spikes. Dart felt the heat of his presence like a stoked fire.
She froze.
Chrism’s eyes had returned to the view out the window as Dart had finished her ministrations, but now he stirred in his seat. Pupp stared up at the seated god. His eyes flared brighter. His tongue, a lick of flame, lolled out.
As Chrism leaned forward, the droplet of blood sizzled on Pupp’s nose and burned away. A tiny dance of smoke marked its passage. And Pupp’s form turned just as smoky.
“What’s that scent?” Chrism asked. He withdrew his arm, placed his palm on the armrest, and shifted upward, staring around the room.
Dart waved a hand through the puff of blood smoke, clearing her throat. Pupp shook his head like a wet dog and trotted back across the room.
Chrism failed to note his passage, but his nose remained crinkled.
Dart quickly bowed her head. “One of the other Hands must be cleansing the utensils from your last meal, my Lord. In the grand brazier outside your doors.”
With a worried crinkle of brow, Chrism settled back to his seat, but not before glancing one more time around the room.
Keeping her head down, Dart carefully plugged the repostilary with its crystal stopper and returned it to the wyrmwood box. She then folded the scarf over the box, and though her knees threatened to betray her, she stood smoothly.
“You did very well, Dart.” Chrism returned to his watch on the flowing river below his window.
“Thank you, my Lord.”
“Take the repostilary to Matron Shashyl. She’ll instruct you from here.”
“Yes, my Lord.” Dart backed toward the door.
As her fingers touched the door’s latch, Chrism spoke again, only a mumble, still staring out the window. “We must be watchful… all of us.”
“So tell me every bit,” Laurelle said in a rush of breath and silk, sweeping into Dart’s chamber. “Was it terrifying?”
Dart closed the door behind her friend. Laurelle was dressed in a white cotton dress, belted with silver silk, a match to her slippers. Dart had changed out of her own finery and back into a more comfortable shift that fell about her like a sack. She found its plainness a comfort.
Laurelle fled to Dart’s bed and perched on its edge. Her eyes glowed in the last rays of the sun. Beyond her windows, the deeper bowers of the Eldergarden already shone with moonglobes and dancing fireflits.
Dart settled to a spot on the bed beside Laurelle. She took a pillow and hugged it to her belly.
Laurelle fell back to the crimson coverlet, arms flung out. “To see a god cry…” she murmured. “His tears shone like molten silver. I feared collecting them. How my hands shook! The tiny crystal spoon quavered in my grip.”
Dart listened as Laurelle related her own first collection of Chrism’s tears. It was a heady day for both of them. Dart still felt a twinge of unease. Pupp had almost been seen, made solid by the blood of the very god she served. It awakened her own fear of discovery.. not only of her strange ghostly companion, but of her corruption.
Blood… why did she have to be chosen for blood?
“So tell me,” Laurelle finished, sitting back up. “Did his humour glow with Grace? Did you swoon? I’d heard back at the school that some Hands faint away when drawing their first blood.”
Dart glanced to her friend. “Truly?”
Laurelle’s eyes widened. She reached a hand to Dart. “Did you faint?”
Dart shook her head.
“Then what happened? You have a great look of worry upon you.”
Dart stared into her friend’s eyes. Perhaps she could tell all to Laurelle. About Pupp, about the murder in the gardens, about her own defilement. Instead she found herself relating the event in dry tones. She spoke of Chrism’s kindness and patience, of her own nervousness, of the successful draw. Laurelle listened to all with rapt attention.
Dart made no mention of Pupp… nor of Chrism’s final cryptic words. We must be watchful… all of us.
“It all went well, then,” Laurelle stated as Dart finished. “Why the long pout?”
Dart shook her head. “I… I’m just tired. It was trying. See.. seeing the blood and all.”
Laurelle’s fingers squeezed hers. “But you didn’t faint. You should be proud.”
Dart offered a weak smile. It was all she could manage.
Her sour mood dulled the shine from Laurelle but failed to subdue her entirely. “Come,” she said, standing abruptly and drawing Dart up by the hand. “Matron Shashyl has promised us a special feast to celebrate our first day. It’s to be served in the common room. All the Hands will be there.”
Dart now felt a swoon threaten. All the Hands…