“If we deny who we are, we’ll destroy ourselves,” Eira said. Steel hissed as she drew her sword. The blade gleamed when she held it up to the sliver of pale light. “The Church needs us more than we need them. And we’re far more powerful than the Templars ever were.”
“But we exist as a legacy of the Templars, and just as quickly we could be condemned as heretics.” Cian let her own gown slide to the floor. “Conatus exists in secret, and therein is a source of our power. The Church and nobles legitimize our existence, helping to keep us hidden. We couldn’t serve the world as we must without their aid.”
“Couldn’t we?” Eira snorted, gazing at her blade. “Our so-called benefactors spend so much time engrossed in their own conceits, we hardly merit their attention. The Circle cowers when it should command.”
Cian looked up from belting her own tabard. “Command whom? We are servants of the earth, not kings of it.”
Eira sheathed her sword, shaking her head. “I’m speaking out of turn. Of course you’re right. We serve the world as we should.”
“I don’t blame you for being frustrated, Eira,” Cian said. “But we have so much more than many others born to our lot.”
“You wish me to be grateful that I’m not a swineherd’s wife?” Eira laughed.
“Or a nun?” Cian smiled.
“We’re little more than nuns.” Eira’s laughter faded. “We’ve given up as much as any man or woman who’s taken holy vows.”
“Says she who declares love as nothing more than a fool’s errand,” Cian said, assessing her sister with a sly gaze. “Has a gallant young knight captured your elusive heart? Barrow perhaps? He’s very handsome—though given the way he fights, I’d wager he’s akin to a wild boar in bed.”
She waited for Eira to throw her a chiding glance and remind her that the men of the Guard were supposedly as chaste as its women, and maybe she’d even laugh, but Eira only scowled.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Love is a fool’s errand, and I’ve no time to worry over which of the Guard are handsome or ugly. I only care how skilled they are with a blade,” Eira said. “But my view of love is shared by few. How many do we lose because of the Church’s edict—men and women alike?”
“The Church again.” Cian frowned. “I wish you would leave your anger, sister. The edict doesn’t dissuade the Guard from seeking love. Your enemies are elsewhere and much more dangerous than the abbot.”
“It dissuades women,” Eira said. “We are here only because the plague left us orphans.”
“And the Church took us in,” Cian continued, raising her eyebrows. “Father Michael saved us and brought us to Conatus.”
“Father Michael serves God and Conatus. He understands what would happen if we didn’t exist.” Eira glared at her sister. “The abbot only serves his coffers.”
“And the abbot is not the Church,” Cian said. “He’s simply a greedy man, though a powerful one.”
“I know that’s true.” Eira’s shoulders slumped. “Still, I can’t bear much more of him.”
“But now he’s gone and we can get back to our business,” Cian said. “Come now. We can’t be late for the ceremony.”
Eira ran her hands through her long copper-colored waves. “I’ll have to leave it down, I suppose.”
“Yes, you will. We don’t have time to braid our hair,” Cian said, shaking her own unbound strawberry-blond locks. “Just be grateful the nobles haven’t given us those headdresses the Spanish noblewomen currently favor. They’re horrid.”
Eira shuddered. “I’d sooner wear a net full of live pixies on my head.”
“That we could arrange.” Cian grinned. “But they’d pull all your hair out.”
“And then I’d have to wear a headdress,” Eira said with a rueful smile. “I can’t win.”
“No, sister,” Cian said, glancing over her shoulder as she passed through the doorway. “You probably can’t.”
Eira hesitated after Cian disappeared into the hall. Her fingers wrapped around her sword’s hilt, its shape familiar and reassuring in her hand. It had been the same for twenty years. From the day she and Cian were called to join the Guard, they’d been asked to disguise themselves. When the nobles or church officials visited the stronghold, they were forced to dress and act as the other women did. Even after they had been invited to join the Circle, they could not exert their authority in the presence of strangers. Instead they followed when they would usually lead, submitted when they would rule.
Twenty years, Eira thought. It wears thin. There must be another way.
• • •
One of the carriage wheels dropped into a deep rut in the mud-slick road, making the vehicle lurch. Agnes gasped and clung to her mother while Ember leaned forward, trying once again to catch a glimpse of the countryside. It wasn’t much of a road they were following, but likely a cattle drovers’ track. Despite the well-built structure of the carriage, the horses labored hard to drag it forward across the rough terrain. Ember braced herself against the door, pressing her face against the small slit where cool, mist-filled air poured in.
“Stop fussing, Ember,” Ossia Morrow said, stroking Agnes’s cheek. From her sister’s perpetual cowering, Ember thought, one wouldn’t have guessed that Agnes with her pale skin and flaxen hair was the older of the two girls. Yet she boasted eighteen years to Ember’s sixteen.
Ember forced herself to sit up straight, though she longed to be free of the armored carriage that bore them from her father’s lowland manor to the solitary fortress of Tearmunn. The trip had been infuriatingly slow, and time was working against them. Ember was required to be present at Tearmunn on this Oestara—the spring equinox that followed her sixteenth birthday. The roads in the south had been choked with pilgrims making their way to cathedrals and holy sites for Easter. Though they’d stepped aside for the char branlant and its entourage of horsemen, there were still enough travelers filling the roads to hinder their party’s progress. No doubt some of the pilgrims had taken extra time clearing the road, stealing a few more moments to gawk at the company of knights who escorted them—both serving to ward off bandits and to signal to the outside world the gravity of this trip. Ember was sure that villagers’ whispers filled the air long after they’d passed.