Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 137226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
I glance behind me at Andor and Kirney just in time to see a servant on the landing below carrying a stack of books. She drops them when she sees the men, and Kirney has to act fast, jumping down the flight of stairs and jamming his thumb against her throat before she can scream. Her eyes roll back in her head and she collapses into his arms. He swiftly lowers her to the floor in a heap.
The woman I’m holding whimpers.
I give her a warning look. “She’s not dead and you won’t be either as long as you comply,” I tell her, but the fear in her eyes says she might act without thinking. When Daughters graduate they still have to take a vow of silence, but they’re allowed to grow their hair and eyebrows back, which makes me think this girl is still new to the order.
She lets out another pitiful whine and when I press the blade against her throat, she opens her mouth and shows me…
Nothing.
Her tongue has been cut out.
I swallow hard, feeling nauseated.
“Brynla, we have to keep moving, let Kirney handle her,” Andor whispers to me. Then he glances at the girl’s open mouth. “Fucking drages, she has no tongue.”
“Is this what they do when you become a servant?” I ask her frantically. “Is this what they do now to the Daughters of Silence? Do they cut out your tongue?”
She nods, tears streaming down her face, her lips quivering as they close.
“Fuck,” I swear. I feel stretched too thin, my whole body starting to shake. They had threatened a few times that perhaps harsher discipline would be needed one day for all the Daughters, a way to guarantee their servitude to the convent after graduation.
“Brynla,” Andor says again, moving to the side as Kirney comes up to my left and quickly reaches over and presses his thumb against the girl’s forehead. She immediately slumps against me and I let her sink down against the wall.
“Time to go. Stick to the plan,” Andor says, grabbing my hand with one hand as he grips the door handle with the other. “They’ll wake up in a bit completely fine. But someone else will discover them any minute and we need to be out of here.”
I can barely take in what he’s saying as he opens the door and we’re staring at the long, wide expanse of the chapel of the Sisters of the Highest Order. It’s nearly all dark, except for a few sconces flickering here and there, and the dragon statues that flank the obsidian-tiled hall reach up to ten feet in the air, some nearly brushing the ceiling beams. At the end is the entrance to the chapel, where the fermented herbs smoke from hanging spheres.
The doors to the chapel are open. The hall is silent and empty.
Andor pulls me inside and Kirney quietly shuts the stairwell door behind us before we hurry to the shadows beneath a lumbering elderdrage statue, hidden from sight of anyone who might pass.
“Are you all right?” Andor whispers to me.
I shake my head. “No. I’m not.”
“They’ll recover with only a headache,” Kirney assures me.
“It’s not that,” I say in a hush, aware of how silent this place really is. “It’s that her tongue was cut out. Can you imagine?”
“But it didn’t happen to you,” he says quietly. “And what’s one way to get back at this institution? Steal the prized possession that will give us the upper hand. Now come on, lavender girl. Let that anger fuel you. That’s what it does best.”
He’s right. I need to hold myself together. I give them a determined nod. “All right. Eyes on the prize, then.”
Unfortunately that means waiting in the shadows for the right opportunity to come along. We wait for a while under the dragon, breathing in the herbaceous air, studying the other dragon statues across from us, our wet clothes still dripping onto the tiles in a slowing rhythm. I can’t help but think about my time spent here, drowning in rage and grief, feeling so fucking lonely that I thought I would die. I suppose in some ways I’m proud of myself for actually surviving it and eternally grateful to my aunt for helping me escape.
She would have loved this, I think to myself, and for the first time since she died, my heart swells with gratitude for her, and the pain is kept at bay. She would have loved to join this team. She would have led the charge.
Footsteps break up my thoughts.
“Listen,” I whisper to the guys, but obviously they’ve already heard it from a mile away. The footsteps keep coming, growing closer, originating from behind us and down another hall. They build and build, along with small chatter that reminds me of squeaking rats. The older Daughters are no longer bound by the vow of silence, and I think this makes them talk more to make up for it.