"In the beginning, there was a Seed planted in the fields of Chaos, for Chaos is the world in its primordial form, a non-matter able to be sculpted and molded by the touch of divinity. And the Seed was the most pure and divine act, the un-accident, gestated in Chaos' own womb to grow in secret and one day become her downfall. For the Seed, who is Our Ladyship, and Our Ladyship who is the Godseed, detests above all Chaos and its infinite churning."

- Song of Provenance 1:1–9, The Book of Purity

She knew it was a dream when it started raining blood and no one else seemed fazed.

"Shit," said her companion, flipping down her silver visor and hunkering low over on her horse. Her battered armor creaked and shifted as she did so, her sheathed longsword levering up awkwardly where it rested at her hip. "Should we stop and wait for it to pass?"

From behind her, she heard hoofbeats as her other companion sallied up to ride beside her. He was squinting into the distance, a hand shielding his eyes from the crimson fall, which was rapidly darkening the brilliant fabric of his indigo cloak to black. "It's not coming down too badly. The next town is only a few hours out, we can make it there by nightfall. If we stop, we'll have to spend another night out here."

Whose blood is this? She wanted to ask, watching the red, red rain spatter down like the whole sky was sobbing, but could not get her mouth to obey. Instead, she said, in a voice not her own, "What about the roads? Will the horses have trouble with it?"

"Definitely," said the knight at the same time that the cloaked man said, "They'll be fine."

While her companions glared at each other, the dreamer's gaze lagged on the natural gutters on each side of the road, where the downpour of blood was already collecting into foam-lipped eddies, and she found herself more inclined to agree with the knight. Doubtlessly, those greedy waterways would soon chew through the packed earth of the path to widen their domain, until the poor horses were fetlock-deep in churning mud and liable to break a leg.

Mind made up, her mouth moved to declare, "We should stop. "

"Wonderful," the cloaked man grumbled, but he followed obligingly as the knight wheeled her steed leftward and led them all off the path into a shady copse of trees. The blood rain was lighter here, made so by the intervention of the leafy canopy overhead.

"You should let me take a look at that gash," the knight said as the three of them came to a stop. There was a clatter of metal as she slid off the saddle and landed lightly on her feet. "We need to watch it carefully to see if it's healing well."

"It's healing fine," the man replied tersely. He lowered himself down to his feet with pain-staking slowness, the line of his body curled like a comma over the wound concealed in the depths of his cloak.

"Ah, you're a doctor now, are you?" The knight's voice was thick with sarcasm.

The cloaked man's tone grew sharper to match. "It's my fucking stab wound, I'll tell if it needs looking at. Fuck off and leave me alone."

"You know, I wish you'd pick up hobbies besides just being so damn difficult all the time," the knight shot back, pulling off her dented helmet to reveal a long plait of white-blond hair. The dreamer observed as the downpour of blood rushed to streak down her exposed face and hair in eager red rivulets.

"Both of you," the dreamer found herself saying, with a frown, "—enough, please. Let's just set up camp so we can get out of this rain."

This blood, the dreamer corrected inside her own mind, but again, could not put voice to thought.

"Little chance of that," the cloaked man grumbled. He lifted a boot and examined the thick cake of mud clinging to its sole with a scowl. "Ground's already soaked through. We'll be laying it in either way."

"Would you prefer to just give up and drown in the nearest river then, Haskell?" the knight snapped. "I'd be happy to locate it for you."

"It must be a very boring inner mind you possess, to occupy yourself so wholly with thinking up pithy lines to hurl at me." The cloaked man undid the rolls of oilskin tarps buckled to his saddle with short, jerky movements. Now that she was looking at him next to the horse, the dreamer could see his build was on the shorter, leaner side, as though he had never quite filled out right into his frame. "Tell me, why not review your arithmetic, or something more useful?"

The knight merely grunted under her breath and turned to her own saddle, her face drawn cold and irritated. Her silvery braid shone in the light like the iridescent scales on the underbelly of a fish.

"Oh, yes," the man smirked. "The great knight can't be bothered to learn arithmetic, can she?"

"You think you're so clever!" The knight whirled around, dragging her sword from its sheath in a scream of metal. "Yes, why don't we just give up on everything else and become a little trio of mathematicians! Is that what you wish for? When the next horrible thing rises against us, shall I lay down my sword and recite my times tables at it? Will it save your life, you ungrateful whoreson?"

"Illiterate, pig-headed—!"

"Aruna," the dreamer pleaded. "Haskell. Please don't bicker, you two."

"Tch." The knight slammed her sword back into its sheath and met the dreamer's gaze. Her eyes were like two pinpricks of pure void, blacker than ink, lightless with anger. Her voice dripped with acid as she jerked her chin at the cloaked man and said, "You should have left this one in the slave yard, Ladyship."

You, the abomination.

Hellspawn, you. Demon-stuff, Child of the Mouth.

The rows of thin, sickened bodies turned your stomach. You drifted between them, your coat pulled tight around you like the lambskin around the starved wolf.

Many of the patients here did not even seem to register you. The eyes, pools of filmy jelly set in feverish faces, rolled erratically. Their breathing came short and sharp, their hands were twisted claws of skin and bone. Many of them had dug out their own flesh with jagged nails. Their thin arms resembled plowed fields, with long gutters of clotted blood torn up and down them. You did not flinch from the sight, and instead forced yourself to look at them. Look what you've done to these people, the voice in your head growled. Look how your wretched life has signed their death sentences.

"Sister," a weak voice called, and your head snapped toward them.

A girl, maybe seventeen. She looked far older; the fat had melted from her face until all that remained was sallow skin stretched over her skull, pocked with angry, weeping blisters. You fought the urge to recoil, and knew you were the most horrible girl to ever live.

"Please, a prayer," she begged you feebly.

You came closer, reaching for your rosary, feeling the beads between your fingers. The words, drilled into you with painstaking violence, rose to your lips as easy as anything. They had always been your crutch, hadn't they? At once, both the cracking whip and the balm that soothed you. "Our God who art asleep in divine slumber, hear our prayers and look upon this child—,"

"Not for me," the girl interrupted you, and you stopped in surprise. Most would not dare to interrupt a holy servant in the midst of prayer. She gazed at you through painfully cracked eyelids. Her eyes were an unremarkable brown. Not even that of rich earth, but like the scorched bottom of frying pans, or the plain stones that lined the Abbey walkways. "My brother. My little brother. He died last night in that bed."

It seemed to take all the strength she had to point to the bed next to her, now occupied by an older woman caught in the fitful sleep of the Blistered. Did she know someone had died in that bed hours before? You felt foolish as soon as you wondered it; all of these beds had likely held people as they died hundreds of times over.

You looked back at the girl's eyes, which were filling with tears. "Please pray that he rests easy, Sister. Pray he is received."

You bowed your head and began again, your obedient tongue finding a different whip, a different balm. You hated the thick sour smell of infection that permeated the air of the hospital. You wanted more than anything to be out. Enclosed spaces, bed to bed like this, with cotton sheets and bandages strewn everywhere — you had been nervously eyeing the candles around the ward all day. Fire hazards everywhere.

"His name was Dane," she supplied, when you halted in the middle of your prayer. "Dane Bring-Light."

"—bless Dane Bring-Light, your devoted child who has now passed from this world to the next," you murmured, fisting the pendant of your necklace tight in your hand. "And take him into your arms, Lady, and usher him to the land of dreams, the garden of stars and swallows that await us all. Protect him, God, and bless his sister, and his loving family, and let them not fear for your son, who now knows happiness beyond measure in your blessed kingdom. Amen."

You looked back up to see Dane's sister had fallen asleep at some point in your prayer. That would have been ten lashes if this were a service at the Abbey. You could not help but whisper under your breath, "And please forgive this girl her blasphemy, God. She is very sick and doesn't mean it. Amen."

That eased your heart some. You stepped back from the girl, and nearly bumped into a nurse carrying a tray of fresh bandages.

"Oh, pardon me," you murmured as the nurse glared at you. You could see deep shadows of exhaustion around her flat gray eyes. She stepped around you without a word. Maybe you were a glut for pain, but you couldn't resist asking, "This girl. Is she likely to recover?"

The nurse exhaled. The line of her shoulders was taut as a bowstring. "The number the Scholars say is one in ten survive, Sister." Then, bitterly, "Maybe if you pray a little more."

You did not frown. You did not make any facial expression at the chill in her voice. Just nodded and quietly left her alone to wipe away crusts of mingled pus and blood from the exposed lesions and blisters. You could not fault her skepticism toward your visit. Truth be told, you were not so sure about it either. Raphael Hold-Pure had said it was for morale. You privately thought perhaps your Order's presence in the wing was only making everything worse, if anything. Then you feared that thought may have been blasphemy and began another prayer, to set the balance right.

"Elisheba," Leda Pure-Heart said, catching sight of you hovering awkwardly in the aisle, muttering to yourself. You startled to be addressed by her, and fought to urge to see if there might be another Elisheba nearby. A being so radiant shouldn't even look upon you, such an ugly little beast. You wanted to cringe away from those big, shining eyes.

"Hello," you said stiffly. Your words abandoned you then, and you stood there like an idiot, grasping your crucifix like it might save you from something.

"How are you holding up?" Leda asked kindly, softening her voice as she approached. She settled a delicate lace-gloved hand on your arm and peered at you with concern. "Is everything going well? I know the circumstances are…somewhat grim, but really, the people here are so grateful when we come."

"Yes," you said. You had fixed your gaze to the perfect smooth stretch of pearl-pink skin between her eyebrows. It made it easier, a little.

"Some of the better ones are quite lively, too," Leda continued, smiling. "At least, that's what I've found. I come here most weeks, actually. Some of the people I've met have been so kind. When they have the strength to talk, I almost forget where we are."

She gave a sad little laugh. You wanted to save a picture of her face for study. How did she orchestrate it so seamlessly? The blend of joy tinged with grief, all neatly packed with a graceful stoicism befitting a little princess. How masterfully expressive. Your own face moved with all the wooden elegance of a guillotine.

"It's not safe," you said abruptly and Leda tilted her head in confusion — god, but you were awful, awful to talk to, awful to listen to. You gestured jerkily to the cramped rows of beds, fumbling to explain. "The — candles. It's not s–safe. Fire…fire hazards."

"Oh." Leda looked around. "Goodness, I suppose that's true."

"It doesn't matter," you said, looking determinedly into the middle distance. You willed her not to look at the twisted side of your face, letting your veil sweep forward to cover the worst of it. "There's nowhere else. For them."

Leda's eyes saddened slightly, her mouth drawing into a pained frown. "I suppose that's true, too."

"Sister," someone somewhere moaned, from within the ranks of the afflicted. "Mercy, mercy!"

"I should —," Leda looked at you with an apologetic little frown, and you nodded, and then she was pivoting on her heel to go answer the call.

You watched her go and thought that her hair looked very beautiful today, a cascading river of chestnut and sable. You thought you might like to grab a silken fistful, right at the nape of her neck, and saw off enough to hold the soft, fallen bodies of ringlets in your hands. The thought put an itch in your palms that only subsided when you grabbed your own wrist and squeezed it tight enough to feel all the little bones crunching together like snail shells. Then, and only then, could you turn away from Leda and begin your rounds again.

"Pretty girl," a man rasped at you, his eyes clouded by fever as you drifted past. You averted your eyes, your stomach turning from his feeble hand reaching for you. His nail beds were as blue as suffocation. "Don't be so cold to us. Show us a smile, girly."

Did he know you were an exorcist? Or did he just not care? You flinched away and then cursed yourself for it — being afraid of a wasting corpse in a sickbed. Weren't you here to comfort him anyway? Do your duty, horrible thing.

You circled around his bed to come closer, your hand on your crucifix.

"Well?" He surveyed you with hollow blue eyes set like watery gems in the dark hollows of his gaunt face. "What's your name, Sister?"

"Elisheba," you said quietly.

He grunted. "Go on, then, sweet. Say your prayer. Cure me."

You did, your voice pitched low and steady. And he watched you, the sick, haggard man, unblinking. When you finished, he said nothing, just kept looking at you. His eyes sank lower as he surveyed you in your oversized red coat and shapeless black skirt, down to your knit stockings and lacquered black boots.

"You look just like a girl I knew," he said, and he reached out to grab your thigh through your skirt with one skeletal hand. Not painfully, but just enough to make you stiffen, enough for your body to harden to cold, unfeeling ironwood and root you to the spot. You looked down where his thumb was making little circles on the rough fabric, wondering why you couldn't seem to feel it.

Perhaps it was happening to someone else after all, and you were only watching all of this in a dream. If this were a dream, maybe the person he was touching would draw her hungry knife and drive it into that fragile hand like a stake, let that hand scream and bleed and die pinned to the thin mattress of this sickbed. Maybe that girl would have the strength to open her mouth and howl, long and loud and ferocious, and with sheer volume, sheer rage, render this hand to nothing but cinders and ash.

But then the man dropped his hand and rolled over in his thin blanket and began to sob. So in the end it wasn't a dream after all and you and your wooden body just turned and walked away, just as a real girl would. You thought to the man, you're already dead. And wanted to smile, but didn't.

Far off in the distance, the setting sun had impaled itself on the jagged teeth of the Blackcrest Mountains, and was furiously bleeding golden light. Dominik used a hand to shield his eyes from the worst of it as he gazed east, towards Mormeral and Hallowclave. He scanned the mess of buildings, the crooked towers rising over a canopy of light-gilded mist and the squat little shacks one could occasionally glimpse in their shadows.

"No," he said finally. "I don't see it."

"Look again, it's there," Miriam insisted, pressing up against the wall of the parapet to point into Mormeral again. As she leaned out, the brisk wind whipped her glinting silver braid over the shoulder, and sent the little gilded flyaways around her face into a flurry. "It's just by that tower, I swear."

Ever obliging, Dominik looked again.

"You really don't see it," Miriam said after a pause, sounding crestfallen. She looked back at him, her face as pale and serious as it ever was, and her eyes like two disks of grey glass. "I swear I saw a mouth open. Look, don't you think there's a lot of fog over there?"

"It could also just be foggy?" Dominik suggested, turning his palms up. "Darling, if the bells aren't ringing, then it's probably nothing. Perhaps you're imagining things."

Miriam said nothing, her mouth set in a line. She'd stiffened the collar of her red woollen coat up against the cold, and one scarlet corner was trembling in the breeze, a bloody silhouette intercepting the curve of her jaw as she glanced back out into the distance.

"I saw it," she said absently, under her breath. "I know I did."

"They would tell us," he said firmly. "We'd hear. Come inside, Miri, we've got Angels to brave the cold for us and keep an eye out. We're exorcists, not night's watchmen."

At last, her shoulders slumped and she nodded. "Alright. Sorry for interrupting your dinner. I just — I thought I saw it. Good thing I got a second pair of eyes, I suppose."

"Think nothing of it." Dominik offered his arm to her, which she took with a wry smile. "I was done eating anyway. Abbey food is just how I remember it — worse now that they've begun the rationing."

"I wonder how long that will go on," Miriam mused as they walked toward the door that led back inside. "Until Her Ladyship returns, I suppose. That's unfortunate."

"Yes, well, I'm sure the people down there have it worse," Dominik said, jutting his chin towards the wall. "And I'm sure the Order of Scholars has it better. Blast them."

"Language." Her voice didn't sound particularly scolding, almost like she'd said it without noticing. "Anyway, I'm sure you're right. But I'm also sure they cut the Angels' rations before us. Our order isn't immune to the benefits of favoritism."

"True, praise God."

They reached the heavy wooden door of the Abbey's northeast tower, and Dominik slipped from Miriam's grip to pull the heavy door open for her. He gave a flourishing bow, gesturing inside. "My lady."

"Charmer." She sailed past, that silvery braid flicking over her shoulder, and he smiled to himself as he followed on her heels. He had once loved to tug on that braid as a boy. She'd been so fascinating at that age, so serious and tall – taller than any of the boys. It had felt like a prize to get her to turn that blank stare at him, however disapproving it might have been.

"You used to be the tallest girl in your class, do you remember?" He asked as he caught back up to her at the top of the stairwell. "And you had such long hair. Almost past your waist, if I remember."

"I seem to remember you had a very odd fixation on my long hair," Miriam replied, arching an eyebrow at him. She tapped the hilt of her ironwood knife and added, "It drove me to some very unfortunate solutions."

The solution in question had involved a beautiful blonde braid sent violently down to the cobblestones of the dormitories and Miriam having a very odd, choppy short section at the back of her head for a few months that Clementis had been enraged by. It had been such a display of passion, one that was so rare from such a stolid, even-keeled girl; Dominik had been simultaneously devastated and delighted. And Miriam must have been pleased with herself, because she took her lashes for what Clementis had called an impudent, spiteful act of childishness without even opening her mouth to whimper.

"Where are you headed now?" Miriam asked him, glancing sideways. "Off to bed, old man?"

"To train, youngling," he retorted without missing a beat. "There's nothing else to do, and I don't sleep well these days. Will you join me?"

"Yes, alright."

They headed down the spiral staircase of the tower, their steps in neat synchronization, and emerged out in the arcades surrounding the training courtyard. No one was around, which Dominik found only a little surprising. Some of their fellow exorcists had looked quite rattled after today's briefing meeting — he'd half-expected to see Stemenos out here, hacking some poor training dummy to bits. Instead, the clearing was quiet and still as a graveyard: the weapons racks were all locked up, the gravelly sand was undisturbed by footprints, and the dummies had been arranged in a neat, dusty line along the far wall. They looked as if they hadn't been used in ages; Dominik was reminded that that last class of exorcists had graduated almost four years ago, and none had come to the Abbey since.

"It appears we have the place to ourselves," Miriam said, striding ahead of him to plant herself near the center of the courtyard. She didn't seem as preoccupied with the odd stillness of the place. "My, this brings back memories. Do you still remember your drills?"

"Naturally," Dominik replied, taking up a position opposite to her. "I was top of my class, you know."

Miriam cocked her head, raising her hands into a loose guard around her pale face. "Come on, then."

Dominik chuckled as he shrugged off his red wool coat and unwound his blue scarf. The night air seeped through the thin cotton of his shirt, biting and snapping like invisible hounds. He clenched his jaw against it, determined to resist the chill.

"We'll go easy, won't we?" he said as he readied his stance.

Miriam's eyes were bright as polestars as she said, without a hint of sarcasm, "That is the Abbey way, after all." He chuckled. "First form, first variation, Nesterko. Begin."

They did not have to say anything then. Miriam stepped forward, assuming the role of Attacker, and so Dominik fell back obligingly into Defender. The moves came easily as scripture, flowing wordlessly back and forth between them; Miriam slowly reaching to grab him, him catching her wrist, pulling her gently forward, and miming striking her under the chin; him aiming for her throat, her side-stepping with a smile, then crouching to sweep a low kick towards him that would never connect. It was almost more like dance, in this way, except that they never touched, just faithfully play-acted the combat.

"Oh, damn," he said, breaking the silence when he stepped the wrong way, directly into the path of her punch. "Right, not left. I always forget the direction on that one."

Miriam raised her eyebrows at him, just slightly. Her lips remained tightly pressed against any threat of a smile, but her amusement was palpable. When they got to the sixth form, eleventh variation, and she ducked when she should have stepped back, he grinned.

"Ah, so close," he said, teasingly. Almost imperceptibly, she rolled her eyes.

By the time they reached the eighth variation of the twelfth form, they were both getting sloppy, not nearly as slow or controlled as they had begun. Miriam rehearsed each movement gamely, her movements made quicker and more agile by her confidence, and Dominik matched her as best he could, his breaths becoming short as she drilled with increasing speed and intensity. She had always been such a soldier, hadn't she? The ramrod-straight posture she never dropped gave her away. If not for her good fortune, she might have made a rather fine Angel. Not that he'd ever be so insulting as to tell her so.

"You're rushing," he grumbled as she was too eager to wait for him to step into the right position that he could block and nearly clipped him with an elbow.

"You're dragging," she retorted, deadpan. "You wouldn't last a minute with your Abbey self, you know."

"Would any of us?" he protested, then cut himself off before she could open her mouth. "Oh, don't answer. I suppose you've probably gotten deadlier, but some of us are in our thirties, love. You'll see when you get here — it's damn achey."

Whatever sly comment she was going to make about his age then was cut off by such a sudden and deafening eruption of noise from all around them that Dominik seized Miriam's forearms in his hands, looking around wildly for the source. Then his ears caught up, and he released her, irritated at his own reaction.

"Sorry," he said, over the noise. "I've never heard the bells that loud. I'm never under them back in Mormeral."

"Never mind that," she said impatiently, waving her hand. Her eyes had lit up at the sound of bells, and now her expression was a mask of determination as she pivoted toward the door that would lead them out the front of the Abbey. "I knew I saw a mouth open. Curse it! Come on, we're on the first patrol rotation anyway. Maybe we can beat the others to it."

"That would be lucky," Dominik muttered, but he snatched up his coat and hurriedly wound his scarf back around his neck as he jogged after her, towards whatever carnage God had in store for them. Ahead of him, Miriam's swaying silver braid glimmered like a knight's pennant, leading him forward and forward and forward.