“I know you do. Me too. And I am—but.” Piret looked up at him, a crooked smile on her face. Her eyes were wet but there were no tear-tracks on her face. “Even guards have feelings.”
Hen couldn’t stop crying. His cheeks felt salty and wet, and he hated it.
She reached up and wiped his face with her sleeve. “I’m proud of us, though. We did our duty to them. That’s all that ma—”
Movement outside the alcove made them both stop and tense. A priest stepped into the faint candlelight and nodded. Then moved nearer.
Hen and Piret stepped apart at the same time, Hen wiping his face and trying to blink away tears. “Sister,” Piret said.
When she came nearer, Hen realized it was the priest who’d caught his eye during the procession. And, come to think of it, the priest who’d been watching him and Kass in the See for the past few full moons. “I knew I recognized you,” he said, trying not to sniffle.
The priest smiled. “Sister Eva. You’re Piret. And you’re Hendrik.”
They shot each other confused looks but nodded.
“Come with me, please,” the priest said.
Piret said, “Sister, we didn’t mean anything—”
“You’re not in trouble, don’t worry.” The priest turned. “I have a special mission that requires your help.”
Another look passed between them, and Hen was sure they had the same thought: Does this mean the priest guard wants us? It was prestigious, almost as high up as it could get, immediately post-inheritance. But did it happen this quickly? Did they even get a minute to mourn or celebrate or whatever they were meant to be doing now that their entire purpose in life was over and done?
Of course, no one would ask a priest anything so impertinent, so Hen kept his mouth shut and followed the priest just as Piret did. Sister Eva, dark robes billowing, led them past several other darkened alcoves before turning into one nearer the altar. To Hen’s surprise, it held a door he’d never noticed before, which the priest opened and gestured for them to go through. It led into a tight, cobwebby dark hall. Sister Eva produced a candle from her robes and lit it, then squeezed past them and led the way to a—
Well, it was a hole in the ground, there was nothing else to call it. Now that Hen’s eyes had adjusted, he could see the perfectly squared, stone edges of it, and—yes, stairs, more like a ladder than stairs, really, that descended into its depths.
Sister Eva hiked up her robes in one hand, then placed the candle into it. With her other hand, she steadied herself on the ground as she began her descent. “Follow me, please,” she said when only her head remained above floor-level. “It’s not far down, I assure you, and perfectly safe.”
As if a pair of guards would be afraid to go anywhere a priest would. Hen snorted, but Piret obeyed Sister Eva with a shrug. Hen, left alone in the dark, had no option but to do the same. Soon all three of them were at the bottom of a shaft about five times his own height.
Sister Eva’s little candle flickered as she turned, then started down yet another, even tighter hallway. This one, unlike the See with its smooth, polished granite, was made of smaller, rough-hewn stones, not unlike the ale cellars in the Tavern District. Hen trailed his fingers across the stone, and they came away dusty, as if this hall had been unused for some time.
When they reached a small open chamber full of barrels, Sister Eva leaned into a rusty metal door and put her ear against it. For a long moment, she was silent. Then she stood erect, brushed off her robes with her free hand, and set her candle on one of the barrels. “This is the catacombs, if you were wondering.”
“I was, rather,” Hen said dryly.
Piret elbowed him. Hard.
Hen made a face at her.
But Sister Eva only smiled. She had a pale face and inquisitive, dark blueish eyes like the ocean. “It’s been a difficult day for you, I know. But I need you to see what’s really happening here. It won’t be easy, and I’m sorry for it, but if anyone can help us, it’s you two.”
“Help the See?” Piret asked, hesitating.
“In a way. Help all of us, really. The people of the City.”
“That’s more of a god problem than a guard problem,” Hen said.
“That’s what I want to show you. That it’s not a god problem,” Sister Eva replied. “Please remain here for the next hour or so, and quietly. You mustn’t be discovered. No matter what you hear on the other side of this door, do not give yourselves away, please. I’ll return and explain everything, then.”
“About…what’s really happening?” Hen experienced a wave of nausea, for some reason. Sarcasm aside—he couldn’t help it, when he was in a foul mood—it was pure instinct to obey a priest without questioning. And yet, this felt…wrong.
“Yes, here, in the See and with your charges. It’s not what it seems, and it’s time people knew,” Sister Eva said, lifting her chin slightly.
Piret and Hen exchanged a look. But Piret said, “Of course, Sister. We’re yours to command.”
Sister Eva nodded. “If you’re discovered, ask them to come find me and I’ll get you out of it. But don’t be discovered. It’ll ruin everything. And steel yourselves. What you’re about to see won’t be easy.”
Before Hen could understand everything she’d just said, Sister Eva went back the way she’d brought them. In the dark.
Piret leaned against the stone wall, eyeing the flickering candle dubiously. “We don’t think she’s—you know. Disordered? Do we?”
Hen shook his head, trying to clear the fog of sadness and confusion and think about the situation clearly. He wasn’t sure he could, however, since the situation itself was so damned obscure. “She seems like any other priest,” he admitted. Imperious but polite, commanding and to the point, knowledgeable and mysterious. “Maybe it’s some kind of test?”
“To see if we’re priest guard material?” Piret nodded but slowly. “It could be. I can’t think of anything else.”
Hen glanced around at the barrels, most of which were covered in inches of dust. “Where in all the burning hells are we?”
“No idea, except that we’re under the See somewhere. I didn’t even know there were catacombs.”
“I’d heard of them, but I thought they were a myth for—” A scraping sound from beyond the metal door cut Hen off, and he held up a hand when Piret opened her mouth. He mouthed the word, quiet, as a reminder.
Her mouth snapped shut. She eyed the candle then the door, which was solid metal.
He shook his head. She nodded. No need to extinguish it. Yet.
The sound of cart wheels on stone emerged next, then footsteps, and something heavy dragging across the floor, like the moving of furniture. Muffled voices followed, two or three of them, but in unintelligible whispers. Then the cart wheels again, and the scraping—possibly another metal door?
