After the sounds retreated, Hen moved to the farthest corner and ducked behind a barrel, waving for Piret to join him. “What do you think?” he whispered once she did.
She shook her head. “Some kind of storeroom, like this one?”
“Are we supposed to solve it like a puzzle?” Hen hoped not. He didn’t have the patience for puzzles, never had.
She considered. “Possibly. Though the priest did say to wait, and priests don’t generally encourage disobeying a direct order.”
Hen eyed the metal door, frowning. “You’re probably right,” and he wasn’t happy about that, either. Maybe he was just living for the distraction of this absurd situation, since it was keeping him from bawling his eyes out like a child. But how could he not wonder what was on the other side of that door?
Piret sat down and pulled her knees up to her chin, then wrapped her arms around them. “I didn’t think I’d be so sad,” she whispered.
Hen settled in and pulled his legs up beneath him. “I know. Thanks. For—the Prayer. I couldn’t.”
“I know,” she replied in kind. “It felt almost cruel, for some reason. To say it. And yet, I am grateful. For everything, not just Lyla.”
Hen’s mind swirled dangerously, so he remained silent.
After another few moments, Piret said, “You were amazing this week. I know it was hard.”
“You were too,” Hen said. “And thanks for having faith in me. Even after I, you know. Fucking… fell apart in front of you.”
She snorted quietly. “It was kind of nice. That you felt like you could.”
Hen wasn’t sure he’d had a choice, but he appreciated the sentiment. They settled into a thoughtful silence, side by side on the floor as their candle flickered. Twice more, the same pattern of noises came and went on the other side of the metal door: scraping, cart wheels, footsteps, heavy objects being moved, whispering, scraping.
By the time Sister Eva reappeared with a new candle, her old one had burned down to a nub. It must’ve only been an hour, two at most, but it felt like she’d been gone three days. Hen jumped to his feet, but his knees cracked from being folded up under him so long. “Ow.”
“Sister, there you are!” Piret was almost breathless with relief. “We started to think you were playing a joke on us.”
Her face was deadly serious, though. “I wish I was. No, what I’m going to show you is the truth, and I need you to be prepared. What’s left of your charges—it’s through that door.”
Hen and Piret exchanged a quick glance. Piret said, “I don’t understand. They’ve inherited by now, surely.”
Sister Eva shook her head. “They’re dead.”
Hen braced himself against a barrel with one hand. “They can’t die; they’re gods.”
“That’s why I have to show you,” she replied quietly. “I’m sorry for it; I chose you two because I know you truly loved your charges. But this is the only way.”
“No.” Piret shook her head, big eyes gone even wider than usual. “I don’t—I don’t want to.”
“You must, child.” Sister Eva approached the metal door and took a large, clanking key ring from somewhere in her robes. “Prepare yourselves.”
“We don’t believe you,” Hen’s voice felt and sounded choked. “This is a test. Of our faith and duty.”
“Again, I wish it was.” With a click, Sister Eva unlocked the door and shoved it open with her shoulder. Her candle revealed a small chamber, empty but for six long, possibly wooden boxes. If they were stone, it was no stone Hen had ever seen, pale but threaded through with brownish veins.
Sister Eva led the way, her candle revealing another metal door—the scraping sound they’d heard earlier, no doubt—and a long passageway on the other side of the chamber. “That leads down through the mountain and to the ocean,” Sister Eva said. She set her candle on one of the boxes and turned to another. “We must be quick.”
Hen shook his head, dread constricting around his heart. Piret backed up, her hands out in front of her. “I don’t want to see,” she whispered.
He took her hand, and she halted but didn’t look happy about it.
Sister Eva removed the covering from one of the boxes. She passed her candle over it, and Elvi, her lips gray and slightly parted, her skin paler than the palest marble, looked out of it. Her eyes stared, unseeing.
Hen’s knees gave out, cracking to the stone floor with a spike of pain. Piret rushed to the box and knelt beside it, reaching inside. “Elvi? Elvi? Wake up. Please…”
But they both knew Elvi was dead.
“How did this happen?” Hen asked in a voice he didn’t recognize. It was almost as if he was watching from above, watching someone who looked like him try to understand what he was seeing.
“We’re told they bodily ascend into heaven, where they join the other gods and watch over the City,” Sister Eva said. “So why are they secreted out through the catacombs to be burned on a pyre?”
“It can’t be…” Piret sat back on her heels, staring into Elvi’s blank eyes.
Hen stumbled forward and, with a shocking clatter, knocked the lid off one of the other boxes. It was Kertu, his dark eyes empty and cold, his face grotesquely pale.
“Shh, please, don’t—” Sister Eva rushed toward him.
Hen was halfway to the next box, by then. He knocked the lid off it carelessly and fell back to his bleeding knees. He reached inside to touch Kass’s hair; his fingers came away sticky. “Kass…” was all he could say. Kass’s dark eyes saw nothing. His normally red, inviting lips were blue and stretched thin, his deep bronze, glowing skin dull and chalky. Hen couldn’t comprehend it. He lifted his own hand and examined it; a brownish clump of something clung to his fingers where he’d touched Kass’s hair.
“I’m sorry,” Sister Eva whispered, kneeling next to him. She reached into the box and tilted Kass’s head slightly. The source of the brown stuff, clumping blood, was evident from the gaping wound in Kass’s neck.
“What could’ve done this…?” Hen wondered. Swords, knives were clean; this was a tear, as if he’d been attacked by some large, sharp-toothed animal.
“Yes, that’s the right question,” Sister Eva whispered. “That’s the work of a god. Or at least, that’s what it thinks it is.”
“I don’t understand,” Piret said, her voice pleading. Her own fingers were bloody now too, from where she’d moved Elvi’s head to see her wound. “How… why…?”
