Shay stood at the edge of heaven and wondered what it would be like to soar. She imagined herself in freefall, her skirts and sleeves sweeping up like wings as she plummeted through the clouds and into the shadows of the heavenly isles. Past the Mistwilds and down to the underworld, where no one, not even the Saints, could ever reach her. Where, if she were lucky, her little brother awaited her with a smile on his face and forgiveness in his heart.
Lightning glowed through the storm clouds, followed by a long pur of thunder. A harsh wind whipped a few loose curls across her face. The slanting rain made it stick. Shay brushed them hastily aside, peering downward. Though the clouds and Mists were thick, the wind was strong enough to open up a brief glimpse of the world below—the violets and greens and teals all the more vibrant for the gray of the sky. Not for the first time, Shay wondered what it was like, down there. To breathe the air of growing things. To have any surroundings other than barren stone hills and barren stone houses.
She imagined herself there, in the world below, not in the underworld this time but in the very physical and more assuredly real realm of the Wilds…treacherous and deadly though they were.
It made her feel alive. Too bad a commoner like herself could never survive it.
Breathing the scents of ozone and wet rock deep into her lungs, Shay released them in a trembling sigh.
Not today, she decided. But perhaps tomorrow.
It was her mantra. The one thing which had kept her going for the past three years—the promise that she could end it all, at almost any time she chose. That, indenture or no, her life belonged to her alone.
Turning from the island’s edge, Shay lifted her skirts and made her hurried way back to the manor.
Grettia, her vulture-lke frame sagging against the servant’s entrance, awaited her—smoking a long-stemmed pipe with a spiteful glimmer in her eyes.
“Almost late,” sneered the house keeper’s favorite chronie, pulling the pipe from between her lips to jab its stem in Shay’s direction. She exhaled a cloud of black smoke, and Shay decided she was rather more like a scrawny, horrible dragon than a vulture. “I’m beginning to think you like the lashings, Twelve.”
Shay cast her eyes down.
“If you’ll please excuse me—”
Grettia twisted her lips, considering her options. Shay imagined the decision was a challenge for her. The woman loved few things more than an underling’s punishment. Fortunately for Shay, one of those things was keeping her mistress happy.
“Why not?” The wretched carrion-eater of a woman stepped aside, sticking her pipe back between her teeth as Shay brushed past her. “There’ll be plenty of whippings where you’re going, I’d wager.” The words were chopped and slurred, spoken from between her teeth.
Shay stopped in her tracks, her back to the other maid as she hacked up a horrible, rasping laugh. But Shay didn’t turn around, didn’t ask what she meant. She knew better than to take the bait.
Before living there, Shay had admired Heatherstone Manor. The way it was ugly, but in a proud sort of way. Now, of course, she despised it. Built partway atop a sudden upthrust of stone and partly at its base, the manor proper stood at the summit. Practically a tower, its five floors with their narrow stained-glass windows leered out from beneath the overhang of a heavy crenulated rooftop. The servant’s quarters, however, began at the hill’s base and scaled its side. The windows were tiny and smoke-stained, the whole structure lop-sided.
They had to climb what felt like at least eleven thousand stairs to get from the kitchens—first floor of the servant’s quarters—to the main dining room on the second floor of the tower. At least my legs are strong. Shay imagined kicking the housekeeper in the face and hummed a little tune for the occasion. Snatching her apron from a hook, she made for the scullery with just a hint of a spring to her step. It would feel so good, crushing that pasty, mean face right in.
The thought kept her spirits up as she dusted and scrubbed toilets and sinks, mopped the floors, and emptied trash canisters. The whole while, the accompanying tune grew more elaborate as she added lyrics in her head. The novelty almost distracted from the pain in her back as she stretched the half-healed wounds from her last lashing. It even almost distracted her from the fear of whatever it was Grettia had been yammering about. Almost.
Finishing the last of the tasks required to earn her breakfast—cleaning the room of the Sainted family’s youngest son—Shay edged toward the door and pulled it open a crack, listening. Hearing no one, she pulled it open a touch more and peered through. Empty. Though the family was occupied elsewhere, as scheduled, it was important to check that none had popped back in to grab or do anything. Servants were not to be seen by the eyes of Saints, nor to look too closely upon them in turn—save oath-sworn valets and handmaids.
Stepping out into the hall, Shay made her careful and quiet way to the servant’s stair, where she resumed her humming. No chance of running into a Saint there, and it was finally time for some food.
But the entrance to the kitchen was blocked. Swallowing her face-kicking song, Shay picked up her skirts and gave the housekeeper—whom she’d nearly run into—an apologetic curtsy.
“M-mistress Haldegard. Good morning. How are—”
“Hush,” said the woman, rather younger than her crony but much more intimidating. Her bronze-colored hair was pulled back so tight and oiled so well it shone like metal, and Shay wouldn’t have been surprised to find out she’d been a heartless automaton all along. “Come with me. And you won’t be needing that apron. Put it back.”
Shay bit back a complaint. She liked the apron. Without it, her drab gray uniform dress was unbearably plain, its only embellishment the glyphic number 12 and the letters HSM sewn in black and white thread on its left sleeve, just over the shoulder. After doing as she was told, she scrambled back to fall into line behind her mistress, who turned from her at once.
Shay’s hands and lips trembled. What is this? What’s going on?
She didn’t dare ask. There was absolutely no chance of an answer, though the odds of getting slapped were decent. Instead she did her best not to tremble so hard that her teeth clattered and gave away her cowardice, all while racing to keep up with Haldegard’s preternaturally fast pace.
Shay hyperventilated her way up the weirdly uneven stairs, and was thoroughly winded by the time they reached the top level of the servant’s wing. It belonged almost entirely to the housekeeper herself, so Shay seldom did more than pass through it on her way to the tower. It felt strange to stop there, even stranger to step into the mistress’s receiving room. A man waited there, a stranger.
No, Shay corrected herself—eyes fixing next upon the silver-eyed crow perched on his shoulder. Not a man, a Saint. A Saint with his hood down, who looked her full in the face upon her entrance.
For a moment, the sight of him shocked her to stillness.
The subtle glow of his brown skin was especially notable in the dim light of the headmistress’s lair. The single lantern flickered, barely enough light for a commoner to see by. But then, the housekeeper always did fancy herself more akin to a Saint than the rest of them.
The true Saint certainly didn’t seem to mind, judging by the hood—though still, it was strange of him to take it down in their presence. He looked middle-aged, yet not—having that aged agelessness which so many of his kind possessed. His dark hair, though black, shone like the rest of him. He wore mostly black.
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“Here she is,” said Housekeeper Haldegard, curling her hand in Shay’s direction as she swept up to face the Sainted stranger, head bowed. “Our offering.”
The stranger turned to Shay, glancing down his nose at her.
“Your tribute is three,” he said, his gravelly tone smothered in warning.
Shay could swear she felt the housekeeper cringe, though the woman was just out of sight behind her.
“She is worth three. I have been told to give you this,” grovelled Haldegard, sour and obsequious at once. A sickening mix, and Shay already wanted to throw up. Head bent, the housekeeper stepped forward to hand the man a small scroll before stepping hurriedly back again. “Your superiors will be pleased, we promise you.”
Though his lip curled, the Saint broke the seal and opened the scroll. His eyes narrowed as they scanned it. Tilting its head to peer at the message with one round eye, the crow seemed to read it as well. It made a soft sort of chuffing sound. Rerolling it, the Saint stuffed the missive into a hidden pocket. Then he leant in toward Shay and breathed deep, almost as though he were scenting her. His eyes narrowed further, brow furrowing as he withdrew. The crow shuffled around on his shoulder before switching to the other and cawing.
“Be that as it may,” said the Saint, “you will inform your superiors that there is only a small chance she’ll be chosen. If she is not, you owe us three more. Her Age?”
“Twenty-two,” replied the housekeeper at once.
Shay stepped back.
“What’s going on here…mistress?” she stammered, only just managing to remember to address the housekeeper properly. To do anything else invoked disaster. “Has my indenture been sold? Am I to serve another? Where—”
“Be quiet, girl,” hissed Haldegard.
“She will,” said the Saint, wrapping one iron-gripped hand about her upper arm. “We’ll be in touch.”
He pulled her along with him to the door, and Shay knew better than to try to fight him.
They didn’t stop once as he drew her up into the manor proper and out of it, ignoring her questions and squeezing her arm so painfully with each one that she stopped asking them.
The airship was huge, an artfully predatory-looking behemoth of lacquered wood and saintsteel, secured at the high docks at the other side of Heatherstone Hill. Shay’s escort yanked her through its low entrance and into a narrow corridor, finely appointed but dimly lit. He pulled her down a stairway, at the bottom of which he stopped before a heavy door. He pressed his hand to an oval panel of silver affixed to the wall, and the door opened into a windowless cargo hold. There, instead of crates, were packed at least fifty people. Most, by the looks of them, were low-caste commoners like herself, dressed in the traditional uniforms of indentured servants with their household letters and glyphic numbers.
Silent, unmoving—aside from the occasional blink of an eye and the steady rise and fall of their chests—they watched as the Saint shoved Shay forward.
Despite his earlier warnings, she gasped.
“What’s going o—”
The crow screamed. The stranger placed his palm to her clavicle, fingers spread wide—and from that point erupted a force that froze the words on Shay’s lips and locked her in place. She couldn’t move save to breathe, to blink, and to swallow. She tried to overcome it, to calm herself. But it was impossible. Imprisoned in her own body, every particle of her being screamed, though the sound was stifled within her. The horrible Saint turned his back on her, strolled away. The bird twisted its head around, watching her until the door shut between them.
Shay felt the blackness come for her, and she welcomed it. But it was a dreamless dark. When she opened her eyes again, it felt like no time at all had passed. Yet it must have, for her surroundings had changed. The cargo hold was gone. She lay on what felt like cold, damp stone, in what looked like a low chamber—also stone, cold and damp. She still couldn’t move, and so could not turn her head to see to either side.
But she could hear others breathing nearby. Short, shallow, panicked breaths like her own.
Renewed fear erupted in her chest, heating her from the inside out. Her heart beat at her ribs. All the rumors she’d ever heard of Saints practicing ritual human sacrifice, rumors she’d scoffed at, chased one another through her thoughts. The air smelled of something sweet and leafy which took her a moment to recognize—flowers. She’d heard that some Saints grew them in greenhouses and others even brought them up from the Wilds for very special occasions, important ceremonies. Like ritual sacrifices, perhaps.
Let it be quick, then. Let them send her at once into nothingness, where there was no fear. Or else to her brother. Give her the chance to finally apologize. To tell him—
Somewhere nearby, hinges screeched, and there was the long scrape of a heavy door being opened. Footsteps. A beleaguered sigh.
“Four peasants, a bastard, and a Montagal. What a selection.”
“Be silent, Aster. Nicos? The queen.”
There was a series of sounds then, only some of which were identifiable. Wood against wood, shuffling steps. A soft fluttering. From the corner of her eye, Shay thought she saw a poisonous green glow. It was gone a moment later, and then back again. Something hovered above her, something roughly the size of a butterfly and silvery, but which emenated a shade of green so vivid it was unnatural. Before she could make out any details or even begin to guess at what it was, it dropped downward and just out of sight.
“A peasant. Of course,” said the same beleaguered voice from earlier. Another one hushed them.
The green glow still lit the periphery of Shay’s vision. Then something sticky touched the edge of her ear. She would have screamed, if she’d been able to, as the sticky something began to force its way into her ear canal, into her head. Instead her screams echoed silently inside her mind. Her desperate, raging desire to pull the thing out—whatever it was—didn’t reach so much as a single unwilling muscle.
There was a burst of pain in her inner ear, absolutely excruciating and then suddenly gone. Replaced by nothing but a cold sense of pressure that spread from her ear to the rest of her skull. And then the pressure, too, was gone. An ice-cold tingling sensation danced across her skin, surged through her veins. Shay convulsed, and in doing so, discovered she could move again.
She shot upright.
Everything was bright, so much brighter than it had been only just a moment before. Everyone breathed so loudly and so distinctively—the people lying prone on the stone floor in a row to either side of her, the Saints clustered behind her—that she could distinguish one from the other.
Shay had no idea how she knew the people behind her were Saints before twisting around to look at them, but doing so confirmed it. There were four of them, three men and a woman with a pale-eyed raven on her arm. They didn’t just glow, they radiated color, as though surrounded by an aura of fine, iridescent mist. It took her a moment to focus past that to see their faces—most of which were soured by varying degrees of disdain.
The two figures lying at the end of the row on the floor stood up. They were young nobility, by the look and dress of them, though not yet Sainted. One of them, a young man in his late teens, glared over at Shay. His lips puckered as though he might spit. But instead he just made a sound akin to it and stormed from the room. The other, either of angelic gender or one which wasn’t visibly apparent, just stared at her with dark, intelligent eyes before turning away to follow the first, bowing their head to the Saints as they passed.
The others, the servants, lay still on the floor. Aside from their eyes—wide and rolling in terror and confusion—they were as Shay herself had been a moment before. Imprisoned inside themselves. Their sweat had a bitter scent to it, and something inside of her told her it was the fear.
“We’d best leave her now,” said the foremost of the Saints, the woman with the raven. “The first gets rather messy, I’m told.”
Anger spiked through Shay’s heart, and for a moment, somehow, she forgot to be fearful.
“Where are you going?” she hissed, finding herself suddenly on her feet and facing them. The movement had been fluid, instantaneous.
“What’s going on?” she demanded, an unnatural resonance to her voice. Faint, but distinct. Jarringly so. “What in the Mists—”
The Sainted woman smiled, her gray-green eyes shining as they caught the light of the lanterns.
“Welcome,” she said, “to Sainthood.”
She turned away and made for the door. The others looked disapprovingly at Shay for another heartbeat and then they, too, turned to go. An instant later, they were gone—shutting the door and locking it even as Shay threw herself after them. She pulled at the handle at first, even knowing it was useless, then pounded on the door.
“Come back!” She screamed with her strange, horrible new voice. “Come back here and tell me what’s going on!”
But of course, no one did. Behind her, the three others on the floor began to stir. To sit up. To stare at Shay.
“D—do any of you know what’s going on?” she took a step toward them, lightning-quick without meaning to be. They all leapt fearfully back, wide eyes reflecting her image back at her. An image she should not have been able to see in such clarity, at such a distance.
So it’s true.
She shone like a Saint, but what was more…there was a silver cast over the top of her otherwise brown skin, coils of silver in her otherwise dark hair. Her once-hazel eyes glowed a toxic, brilliant green.
“What have they done to me?”
Her jaw fell open. Her hands trembled. She looked at them, and still she didn’t recognize herself.
She took a faltering backwards step, still staring at her hands.
“What—”
And then the hunger hit.