For thirty long seconds under Nona’s guidance Kettle spent her reserves of speed with reckless abandon, piling Scithrowl bodies in broken drifts. Behind her Sisters Tallow, Iron, and Rock organized a fighting perimeter. Even Abbess Wheel took a place, wielding her sword with savage glee and a degree of skill that reminded her flock that she had once passed the blade-test. They fought in darkness now. The sun had gone down on a day that would be long remembered, though it seem unlikely that any of them would see another dawn.

In the midst of her circle of carnage Kettle paused. ‘Where are …’ Nona struggled to remember the names of the quantal novices from Mystic Class. ‘Sheryl and Haluma?’ She loaned power to Kettle’s voice and a marjal compulsion that demanded an answer.

‘Here.’ Sister Oak coughed the word bloodily from where she lay with one arm around the corpse of a young girl. ‘There.’ She nodded to a wounded novice, propped against the wall.

Kettle reached Haluma in three strides. She knotted her fingers in the back of the novice’s habit and hauled her to her feet. Blood spilled down the girl’s leg from a deep cut but she had hold of her wits.

‘I am going to throw you at the Path. You are going to take what you need and open a way back to our lines. Understand?’

‘N … no.’ The girl stared at her wide-eyed. ‘What are … what are you talking about, Sister Kettle?’

Nona set the palm of her other hand to Haluma’s forehead, reached out with the shipheart’s power, and shoved the girl at the burning line of the Path. She felt Haluma’s first step, watched as she ran on, trying to tame her speed, nudged her back when she started to fall. After eight steps Haluma missed a twist completely and jolted back into her body. Immediately she started to shake apart. Nona clasped both hands to the sides of the girl’s head, pressing hard to support her weight but pressing still harder in ways that mattered more, holding her together.

‘Own your power.’

And Haluma did.

An instant later she released it in a blast of light and heat. The channel that Haluma cut through the Scithrowl lay littered with blackened body parts but was otherwise clear.

‘Drag the wounded!’ Through Kettle, Nona grabbed the nearest novices and shoved them towards the backs of the last few Scithrowl between them and the emperor’s soldiers. She moved back through the convent group shoving one after the next towards the defensive line until she found herself face to face with a shocked Sister Tallow.

‘Keep the passage open until they’re through.’

‘Sister Kettle?’

‘Do it!’

Nona moved on, pressing Ketti and Ghena into dragging Sister Oak. They had to pull Sheryl too as the nun refused to release the girl’s body, unable to admit that she was dead. The sudden wave of emotion that seized both Nona and Kettle, seeing Oak cling to the novice’s broken corpse, threatened to shake Nona back to her flesh. She held tight.

Wheel ordered other able-bodied novices to pull away more of the injured. Alata hurried past with Leeni in her arms and Scithrowl closing on her. The closest man hurled his spear. Using Kettle’s hunska speed, Nona caught it and hurled it back without reversing it. The wooden haft felled its former owner, knocking the helm from his head and shattering the orbit of his eye. Kettle cast around for Apple. Had she been taken back to the defenders’ main line? There was no time. Too many soldiers crowding in. Nona summoned twin flaw-swords again and threw herself into the advancing mass of enemy warriors.

‘Nona!’ Something hit her, bounced off and shattered. ‘Nona!’

Nona had the feeling that the person had been calling her name for a while. She blinked the violet light from her eyes and looked up.

‘Nona!’ Regol stood at the edge of the chamber against one of a number of tapestries depicting great seascapes. He had a vase in one hand ready to throw. It looked very valuable. A stained-glass ocean decorated the dome above them. The first stars had started to show in a black sky.

Nona spun around. Her eyes fixed on two marble statues of wrestlers sizing each other up across an archway leading from the chamber. More statues, alternating with portraits, punctuated the corridor leading away from the exit.

Regol’s been bedding some Sis whore. Force him to speak the truth.

Nona felt her face contort with the ugliness of her suspicion.

Cut his lying tongue out.

She turned back towards Regol with a stare that should have transfixed him.

Kill them together.

‘I hate you!’ The words broke from her, dripping venom.

Nona snarled, shaking her head to rid it of the voices. She tried to bite down on their anger, it was something she didn’t own. With an effort she lowered her gaze from Regol’s confusion to the stains rising slowly up her wrists from where her fingers made contact with the shipheart.

‘Stay here! If you follow me I’ll kill you.’ And then without looking back, she turned for the archway and began to run.

24

Holy Class

Nona ran the length of the hallway to the bronze doors at the far end. Two of the guardsmen who had delayed Sherzal’s men were still on duty. Nona slowed to a walk as she drew closer. Nothing in her appearance qualified her for entry and the two men were drawing their swords before the unease they felt at the shipheart’s approach turned to fear and then terror. The slowness of her advance allowed them to retain enough of their wits to be able to unlock the doors. They ran through, leaving the doors wide open behind them. Nona followed them.

She gathered her recollection of what she’d seen through Ruli’s eyes and it proved sufficient to get her to the iron door of the library. Considering the lock, she pulled its thread without so much as a twitch of her fingers. Once in she took the last lantern, upended the reading table and struck a leg from it. A flaw-blade jabbed into the far wall soon uncovered the hidden alcove. Nona didn’t waste time on the complex tangle of threads that might or might not yield to her efforts and undo the lock for the stairs. Instead she simply set the wheels to the same numbers that Sherzal had. She squeezed through and was already a third of the way down the square spiral of steps before the door in the library floor had finished opening.

Her devils spoke with separate voices now, their opinions tearing at her in ways Keot had seldom been able to. Ignoring them, Nona hurried down the long corridor. The Ark-lights still shone but she spared no time to marvel at them. She held the shipheart in one hand with the lantern hanging from her wrist. In the other she held the table leg which she repeatedly threw ahead of her and retrieved. The process stopped when the leg came apart mid-air, reaching the ground as a scattering of neatly sliced cubes.

The far end of the corridor looked to be closer than Nona had thought it should be, and there was no door there. Rather it was as if a blank wall had risen up since the others passed this way, sealing the passage closed.

Nona went to the sidewall where Sherzal had tapped out her rhythm and did her best to reproduce it. Nothing happened. She cut the muddy hem from her tunic and tossed it forward to check if anything had changed. It fell to the floor in pieces. She snarled in frustration. One of her devils tried to turn it into a scream of primal rage while others fought to take hold of her limbs.

Nona bit down and focused her will. She sat and rolled the shipheart to the opposite wall where it would exert less pressure on her thoughts. After a moment to regroup she reached for her clarity and for her serenity. She pictured Amondo’s hands moving as they would have to if the juggler were to sustain not three or four balls in the air but nine. She passed the image of the missing flame and the lines of the falling moon from one side of her mind to the other. The keys to both trance states circulated through her, drawing every worry, every demand and secret terror, into their orbit as she achieved both states simultaneously.