AT THE SOUND OF BUTTERS’S HOOVES CLATTERING ON the stone entryway, the priests of Safraella rushed outside carrying lanterns.
The angry ghosts milled around the fence surrounding the monastery, held back by the priests’ faith and the holy ground, blessed by Safraella.
The priests reached my side, and I slid off Butters into their capable hands.
“Sister, how do you come to be here so late at night?” The speaker was a man with dark skin, and hair clipped close to his scalp. He had brown, kind eyes with laugh lines around the edges.
“You mean so early, Brother,” another one said. To the east, the sun crested the horizon and the wailing ghosts faded away in the soft light of morning.
My legs wobbled, but the priest helped me to stand. “I fled across the dead plains.”
He called for another priest to tend to Butters, whose chest heaved as he tried to regain his breath.
“You have been arrow shot!” he exclaimed.
I laughed. Surely he knew I was aware.
“Come, Sister.” He lent me his shoulder. “We will tend you inside. I am Brother Faraday. When you are treated, you should tell me your tale, for it must be full of adventure and daring.”
I glanced at him and his eyes sparkled. He was younger than I’d first guessed. Maybe only a few years older than me. “I know you.”
His left eyebrow arched upward.
“I saw your request to become the Saldana Family priest.”
“Ah!”
Inside the stone walls, candlelight filled the halls with a soft yellow light. Faraday led me past a great room with a stone altar at the far end and into a small chamber with only a table and chair.
A few priests hovered in the doorway, peering past one another at me.
Someone outside huffed, and the men parted to allow a priest with a bucket of hot water and towels draped over his arm to enter. Two others followed.
One of the priests, who introduced himself as Brother Sebastien, cut my cloak away from my body, carefully removing it so it wouldn’t catch on the arrow shaft protruding from my shoulder.
He examined the wound. “There’s no easy way to do this. We’ll have to force the arrowhead the rest of the way through your flesh. Then we’ll be better able to remove the shaft.”
I slipped off my mask. Another priest took it reverently.
“We’ll have it cleaned and repaired,” Brother Faraday said.
“No!” My shout startled them. I lowered my voice. “Cleaning is fine. But the crack . . . leave it. It’s a reminder for me.”
The priest carried my mask away.
“What have you done to your hand?” Brother Sebastien seized my wrist.
I’d almost forgotten my hand. I turned it over and with some effort managed to peel my fingers open.
“What is this?” Sebastien plucked the coin carefully from my scorched palm and passed it to Brother Faraday. My burned skin cooled painfully in the air. It was red and raw. Brother Sebastien dabbed at my hand with a damp cloth.
Faraday cleaned the coin under the light of a lantern.
“It’s a holy coin,” I answered. “I was clutching it in my fear.”
“But why are you burned?” Faraday asked.
I shrugged, then hissed in pain from the movement.
“I don’t know how it burned me,” I replied to Faraday. Sebastien cut away my leathers and started to clean my shoulder of blood. “I didn’t think I’d be able to reach the monastery before the ghosts stopped me. I clutched the coin and pleaded for Safraella to save me.”
Faraday paused in his examination of the coin and stared at me, his gaze so intense I fidgeted in my seat.
Sebastien pressed his hands against my shoulders, holding me in place. “Miss Oleander, I must implore you to remain still.”
“You recognize me?” I asked, surprised.
“The coin and the mask are Family Saldana, though the mask belongs to Rafeo Saldana. The late Rafeo Saldana, if I’ve judged things correctly.” He glanced at me, then returned to my shoulder. “There are only two women in the Saldana Family, and you don’t look nearly old enough to be Bianca. Therefore, Oleander.”
“I go by Lea,” I mumbled.
“Yes, well, perhaps you should return to your discussion with Brother Faraday, as this next part will be . . . unpleasant.”
Sebastien shoved the arrow the rest of the way through my shoulder.
I grunted and the room rolled. Sweat broke out on my forehead and my stomach contorted.
Sebastien broke the shaft and removed the arrow from my shoulder.
“Some stitching on both sides and you’ll be back to normal in no time,” he said. “As long as you refrain from heavy use of this arm. I take it you are right-handed? Good, then it shouldn’t be so difficult.”
Brother Faraday diverted my attention while Sebastien set a needle to my skin. “The coin itself burned you? After you prayed to Safraella?”
“Yes. I couldn’t release it.”
“But the ghosts still chased you? I don’t understand what this means. . . .” The last bit he addressed to himself, his gaze retreating inward. Sebastien finished the stitches in my back and moved to the front of my shoulder.