“Can you call us a coach?” Sabine turned to the Chaplain, who was using a cloth to polish the windows. “Silas, I’ll need my robe. We’re going into the city.”
The Chaplain frowned. “Whatever for?”
“I cannot sit idly by while the Second Son turns the tides against me,” Sabine said. “We are going to remind Velle why its loyalty belongs to Her.”
“This energy is curious,” the Royal Chaplain mused, once Brianne had skittered away. “What has come over you?”
Sabine leveled her gaze. “Do you disapprove?”
“It depends,” Silas said, studying her intently, “on what you intend to do with this newfound mettle.”
“I intend to stand up for myself, Silas. To ensure that the districts’ chapels remain in our possession.”
“Very good, Maiden,” the Royal Chaplain said, bowing her head slightly to hide her smile.
They began their tour in the Arts District, where the chapel was tended to by a young girl called Freya. The New Maiden’s arrival left her aghast.
“I would have dusted!” she shrieked, wringing her hands apologetically. “I’ve been busy touching up paint.”
On the far wall was a mural of the New Maiden and Her Favoreds, its colors eye-catching even from the farthest pew. It was obvious where Freya’s brush had recently been—the rich, earthy browns of the New Maiden’s hair, the corn silk of the halos that hung above the Favoreds’ heads, the deep gold of Sebastien’s eyes. Sabine shivered as she took in the Second Son. There was something eerily familiar in his stare, although she could not place it. No matter where Sabine stood in the church, Sebastien’s eyes seemed to follow.
“Are you alone here?” Silas asked the girl, who looked to be about Cleo’s age.
Freya shook her head. “My aunts run service. I haven’t taken my vows yet.”
“But you wish to?” Brianne asked.
“Oh yes.” Freya took a shy step toward Sabine. “Sometimes I pretend my tears are magic,” she confessed, brown eyes shining. “It makes me feel powerful instead of afraid.”
The sentiment stole Sabine’s breath. She had never imagined that her ability, which to her had been a burden, might offer another comfort.
“You are powerful, Freya,” she said, pulling the girl into an embrace. “You cannot even fathom how strong you are.”
Sunlight streamed through the window of the carriage as the group headed onward, hope bright on Sabine’s tongue. She had been right to leave the safety of the royal chapel, to immerse herself in the outside world. But her optimism was extinguished when they entered the Manufacturing District, to find propaganda plastered to the doors of masonries, the wide-winged moth mocking her from all sides. The messages were ones she had seen before, but still, they made her ache—a finger pressed hard onto a bruise. The sun slipped ominously behind a cloud as they approached the house of worship.
The sanctuary had been stripped bare. The pews had been pried up from the floors, likely chopped into hobby wood for the artisans. The candelabras had been stolen, surely to be used for forging. The hymnals had been shredded, the leather covers stripped away, the paper left behind to litter the floor. The craftspeople were resourceful, at least, to reuse Her resources so intentionally.
After all, “She provides” could mean a number of things.
Shaken, the Maiden, the princess, and the Chaplain continued to the Garden District, the queendom’s most affluent neighborhood. While the afternoon air was fresh, Sabine’s stomach soured as she took in the posters pasted to tree trunks and shellacked to the front doors of the spindly stone church. The poster read:
Tears and feeble platitudes do not a savior make.
Faith belongs in stronger hands, to those who will not break.
The Second Son’s messages were growing more pointed. More personal. If Sabine allowed the posters to affect her, she was giving the prophet exactly what He wanted. So instead, she turned her attention to the church doors. They were bolted shut. The silver padlock glittered mockingly in the afternoon light, so reminiscent of the chain that had kept Harborside’s chapel closed for most of Sabine’s life.
The New Maiden rattled the handles of the towering oak door, kicking at the wood furiously with the heel of her boot. Passersby stopped to whisper and stare openly at her distress.
The first time Sabine had set foot in the Garden District, she’d been a peasant out of place in the lavish apothecary shops. Now, despite the fact that she had arrived in a palace coach wearing hand-dyed silk and gold hairpins, she was still an intruder—a girl who did not belong. The chain on the chapel door only reinforced that truth.
Silas placed a hand on her arm. “Don’t waste your energy.”
“But Her people are barred. I am barred from my own house of worship.” Sabine slipped out from beneath Silas’s hand, unwilling to be soothed. “And for what? Because He is jealous?” She used a thumbnail to peel the poster off the chapel door in long curling strips. “He is poaching my followers, using my Church to do so.”
“It’s not such a loss, Sabine,” Brianne said, chewing on her thumb. “These are the worst of the constituents anyway.”
But it would be a tremendous loss if He lured them into His fold.
Bark flaked from the trees as she ripped posters from their nails, crumpling up the parchment and discarding them on the cobblestones. She moved methodically down the street ripping down the sheets and shredding them into scraps that floated away on the wind. She was making a scene, but she did not care. The polka-dot wings of the moth winked at her in the wind.
Sabine’s darkness would have hissed at her furiously, the way that Silas and Brianne called to her now, but she could hardly hear their voices, so focused was she on the deadening silence in her head. The quiet was consuming, echoing upon itself, over and over again. She was the New Maiden, a prophecy completed, but instead of possessing divine rights, Sabine was empty. She had even been stripped of her shadow.
Tearing down traces of the Second Son was the only thing that allowed Sabine to feel anything at all. And so she continued, ignoring the citizens who had paused their errands to watch as the New Maiden wreaked havoc on the city’s wealthiest district.
This outburst was the opposite of what she had intended do. Sabine had meant to reclaim, not to destroy. But she would not stop—could not stop, it seemed—until Silas strong-armed her into the carriage, until Brianne called for the driver to take them back to the castle, until she was alone in the stable yard with bloody fingernails and a ringing in her ears. In that moment, all she wanted was to find the one person who could reach her the way her darkness once had.
She did not have to go far. Sabine had taken no more than a single step before Tal strode out from the stables, hand on the hilt of his sword. He looked her up and down. “What happened to you?”
Sabine gritted her teeth. “That obvious?”
“Afraid so.” He waved a hand vaguely at her expression, which nearly made her laugh. For so long, her emotions had not been visible on her face. Instead, they had been scrawled across her skin, coursing through her veins. It was almost a relief to have her feelings present themselves more overtly, in a way that made others comfortable enough to engage in turn.
“Well, don’t worry,” she said, sniffing. “I won’t weep in your company. Some find that offensive.” She bristled again at the thought of the posters’ pointed jabs.
“The Book of the New Maiden testifies that She was emotional, too.”
