Maude gestured at the mold. “I’ll sleep better knowing the next time you face down a mountain sprite, you’ll be dressed for it. I’ll send this to Petula Hall at the outpost ahead. The more time my blacksmith has with it, the better. You have impressive measurements.”

My head snapped her way. “For a Diviner, you mean?”

She fixed me with a reproving glace. “There aren’t ghosts in my words, Six. No rot hiding behind the scent of flowers. When I insult you, you’ll know it.” She nodded at the box. “You have a strong body to match a valiant spirit. That was all I meant.”

Her honesty, bereft of cruelty, shamed me. “I can’t pay your armorer.”

“Don’t lose your tail feathers—we’ll work something out. Unless you find your Diviners before it’s finished.”

“I’m sure another knight could make use of it if I don’t.”

There was something in her eyes I couldn’t read. Not derision or hunger or pity… “It’s not like your gossamer, shapeless enough to fit anyone. No one’s going to wear this armor as well as you.”

I realized what it was after she’d walked away. Kindness.

There’d been kindness in her eyes.

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER SIXTEEN WHAT IS HARROWING IS HALLOWED

By the time we reached the village high within the Fervent Peaks, it was well into the night. It was raining, the sky stained black by clouds. The gargoyle and I were in a new cart, shoved up against bins that stank of dried meat and barrels that smelled of ale. We’d been traveling at an incline for ages now—up slopes, past hot springs, and into the Fervent Peaks, the roaring Tenor River never out of sight.

There were no cobblestone roads or brick houses. The Fervent Peaks boasted fishermen, vastly different than those who call the bustling modernity of the Seacht home. Here, the road was dirt and rock, the houses wooden and meek. Fishermen’s nets hung from walls, torchlight spilled from windows, and open doors were silhouetted by dark figures who watched us pass by. There were no sounds of greeting. Everything, save the Tenor and the wind, was quiet.

Some of the knights extended their hands in greeting and were answered in kind by men and women wearing utilitarian leather and wool. The only adornment in the village—save instruments of piscary—was a single oar, carved into the dark wood of their doors.

I murmured the Ardent Oarsman’s creed. “Only the oar, only vigor, can Divine.”

The air felt thinner. Colder. Sheets of rain stung my face, and I wrapped my arms around myself, looking up at the night sky, wondering if, somewhere, the other Diviners were looking up at it, too. Our caravan went up and up and up—

The cart bottomed out, jerking to a halt.

The road stopped upon a wide, lofty plateau, where the wind showed its teeth. Maude had said this was where the majority of the Peaks occupants dwelled, and I could see a substantial crop of buildings—houses, stables, a hall. They were crude like the ones on the road, spread out in a great circle. In the center of the circle, sloshing like a giant wet heart—

Was a basin of water.

I knew at once it wasn’t the basin from my dreams. It was too wide, too loud. A roaring waterfall poured into it from a sheer rockface, stirring the water, never leaving it still enough to appear crystalline. Still, it was beautiful—the moon rippling over its surface, the Tenor feeding it water and also taking it away.

I stifled a yawn. “What hour is it?”

“Late.” Maude dismounted from the cart. “The zealots have waited up, no doubt.”

“What zealots?” the gargoyle asked.

The answer arrived in fishermen’s attire.

Five figures, wearing leather wax-coated hoods, nets slung over each of their shoulders, came from the largest of the outbuildings. Torchlight caught in the crags of their aged, unsmiling faces. “King Castor.” They approached the head of the caravan. “Your falcon said you’d arrive yesterday.”

“Apologies.” Benji dismounted, torchlight dancing over his spotless armor. “Our business in the Seacht took longer than expected.”

The figures introduced themselves and said their names in such a way I understood at once they must be from the Peaks’ noble families. They were already familiar with Benji—perhaps from when he was a knight—but he was king now. Formalities needed to be observed.

A few of the knights came forward, greeting the figures. Hamelin was one of them. He came to a woman who’d introduced herself as Avice Fischer. She had blond hair and straight white teeth like his, and they embraced. His mother, I supposed.

The woman’s eyes moved past her son, slamming directly onto me. Then the gargoyle. Then me again. “There’s a Diviner in your midst.”

“Yes.” Hamelin stepped aside. Looked me over the way his mother had. “This is Six. She’s a friend.”

Three horses over, Rory snorted.

Hamelin bit the inside of his cheek. “The king’s friend.”

Maude tapped Benji’s shoulder. He cleared his throat, addressing the nobles in a tone so polished the words sounded rehearsed. “Circumstances have brought us together. The Diviner will be traveling with me as I visit the hamlets. A good sign from the Omens.”

“How do you imagine that?” Another noble—a tall, elderly man with a thin face. “Indeed, there are rumors that you garnered five ill portents from the Omens not so long ago at Aisling Cathedral, King Castor.” He looked down his nose at Benji. “Perhaps you are too much like your grandfather.”

The knights went quiet. Maude and Rory had twin reactions, both bristling, leaning forward, jaws taut—

“I don’t like your tone.”

It was the gargoyle who’d spoken. All eyes turned to him. And while his batlike face remained cold, his fingers trilled excitedly behind his back. He was enjoying this. “Swords and armor are nothing to stone. A Diviner has chosen to walk beside the king, and to question her methods is to question Aisling—and thusly the Omens themselves. Is that what you are doing, or is it the altitude that makes you such a mad apple?”

Bad apple, I mouthed.

The man paled. “I meant no offense to the Diviner.” He bowed his head. Said, through his teeth, “Nor the king.”

Rory leaned against Fig. “Is she the only Diviner you’ve seen of late?”

The nobles exchanged glances. “Yes,” Hamelin’s mother answered. “Should we expect more?”

My stomach fell.

“Unlikely.” Rory’s gaze flickered to my face. “She’s a guest of the king’s. Affront her in any way, the knighthood will answer. Attempt to look beneath her shroud, she and the gargoyle will respond as they see fit. With full immunity to any carnage tended.”

The gargoyle batted his eyes. “Oh, Bartholomew. He’s dreamy.”

The knighthood formed a line and moved through the village, the gargoyle and I at the back. We passed between mountain rocks and under torches. I could tell which stones were young and which were old by their smoothness, time and weather and the constant assault of rain as effective as a grindstone.

Torch flames flickered and an enormous canvas banner of the oar caught the wind, beckoning us with the whipping sounds of flagellation. Benji and his knights moved in a practiced pattern—a dance I did not know the steps to. They made half a circle, Benji in the heart of it, and the five nobles faced him.

“Torrid and unforgiving,” one of the nobles called, fingering the net upon his shoulders, “the river carves a path, always. Only the oar, only vigor, can Divine.”

Avice Fischer spoke, holding out her net. “We are said to be the most rudimentary of the hamlets—that our Peaks are without gentleness, and so too are we. Perhaps that is true. But to be hardened by our landscape, to know discomfort, and to prevail through it with vigor, is to be close to the Ardent Oarsman.” Her eyes turned to me and she nodded, like my presence had assured her. “What is harrowing is hallowed, is it not, Diviner of Aisling?”