Page 86 of Sanctifier

“Quiet,” Gwyneth murmured. “We can’t miss anything.”

Ru frowned, watching the service. She found herself unable to look away from Lady Bellenet. Seated on that throne, she appeared almost inhuman. As if, with such angelic features, she had come down from the heavens themselves. Her hair shone like dark honey in the candlelight.

The harp’s music swelled, and in that moment, Lady Bellenet lifted one hand aloft. In her bare palm was the artifact.

Gwyneth gasped.

“What the devil…” Archie breathed.

Shaking, Ru looked inside herself, ran an imagined finger along the artifact’s cool surface. And as she did, she realized that the stone in Lady Bellent’s hand was not the artifact. It was a fake. Taryel’s heart was safe somewhere else.

“It’s a decoy,” Ru murmured.

“How can you tell?” Gwyneth asked.

“I can feel it.”

The woman then stood, descending from the dais with a stoic expression. The chanting stopped, and the room seemed to still, as if the Children all held their breath, as the music faded.

Ru watched, riveted. “Why aren’t I part of this?” she wondered, feeling inexplicably like a child left out of the game she had invented. “Why isn’t Taryel?”

“Probably because it’s a load of drivel,” Archie whispered.

Then, facing the gathered parishioners, Lady Bellenet began to speak.

“I, Lady Solia,” she intoned, as if reciting by rote, “came to Festra as a maid, abandoned by the world. Now, I am a wife. Upon the wicked and the nonbelievers, I bestow my light. And thus the chosen few, Festra’s Children, will journey with me to paradise in the Great Cleansing.”

The was a long pause as Lady Bellenet bowed her head, still holding the artifact aloft. Ru held her breath. And then the music started again, and the congregation murmured in unison. Another chant.

“What now?” Gwyneth asked, her fingers twisting in the fabric of her robe.

Ru couldn’t move, sickeningly enraptured by the sound of the Children’s voices, atonal and eerie.

“Let’s go down there,” Archie suggested. “Nothing useful to glean from up here but ominous chanting.”

“You’re right,” Ru said, standing. “I want to see this up close.”

They hurried downstairs to the vestibule. Light spilled out from between double doors, where the Prayer was taking place. Without pausing to question, to extrapolate every outcome that might occur as a result of her decision, Ru pushed through the doors and into that candlelit sanctum.

Everything was lit up within, golden and white. Children, white-draped and docile, filled every seat in the room. There were dozens standing in the aisles, lining the walls. There were too many to fit, and it seemed strange to Ru that they would not use the balcony. But even in her confusion, she was relieved — there were so many white-robed figures there that no one seemed to notice as three more joined the crowd.

As they situated themselves at the back of the room, Gwyneth hooking one finger around Ru’s in a quiet bid for comfort, Ru began to understand why the entire congregation was gathered together in one room.

A single Child was moving down the aisle toward Lady Bellenet, and by the time Ru and her friends had found a place to stand, the lone Child had lifted an earthen jug, allowing Lady Bellenet to make what Ru guessed were signs of blessing over it.

Lady Bellenet took the jug, holding it aloft. This was some kind of communion. The earthenware jug — its wide lip and the pattern of carvings at its base — Ru recognized it. She had dug up pieces just like it in ruined churches. Held those pieces in her hands and wondered what must have been poured out, what faith it must have watered.

The Children surged forward. Lady Bellenet tipped the jug against the first Child’s lips, and as she did, she placed a hand on the Child’s head. Then a strange thing happened — an explosion of light, blindingly white, burst outward from the Child as they drank. For a split second, it was as if every face in the chapel were lit up by the light of a star.

Ru’s finger tightened around Gwyneth’s. The courtier at the ball had spoken of the chapel lighting up. And as Lady Bellenet touched each of the Children reverently, with each explosion of light, the lady herself seemed to emit a dim glow.

The Children drank and drank, and each of the Children was engulfed in horrible blinding light, one after the other. Ru had to close her eyes each time, the light was so painful. It was so unlike Taryel’s crackling black magic or the honey-gold coils the artifact had once shown her. Lady Bellenet’s power was harsh, unrelenting.

Ru saw even deeper hollows in the Children’s eyes as they filed back to their seats; it was as if they had been scraped clean from within, over and over. And then, with horror, Ru began to recognize some of the faces. Faces she remembered being full of laughter, courtiers’ faces. Men and women who had bowed to her, cheered for her and Taryel to kiss. Fingers of ice gripped her chest as she recognized Lord Leon, his expression glazed. Georgina, so talkative at the ball, now silent and dead-eyed.

They were all empty, expressionless, with no hint of a soul within.

Desperate as she was to see the end of the ritual, Ru wanted to leave. Badly. She closed her eyes, which were streaming now from the bright flashes of Lady Bellenet’s power.

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