Lesser Sins

The smuggler came at noon when Sister Corine was chopping firewood. She hefted the axe, preparing to split another long upon the block, and saw the familiar magelight lantern bobbing up through the trees. Snow flitted idly through the air, landing on Sister Corine’s veil and the smuggler’s studded armor as the other woman road up the path. Sister Corine lowered the axe, blinking as the wind turned suddenly sharp. She could feel a bitter wind rising from the north. There was a storm coming.

“You’ve got a good swing there,” the smuggler said, pushing her hood back. The lantern hung from a long wooden stick that the smuggler balanced across her saddle, a masterpiece of iron and red glass. “I know a place that would take a woman and her axe and give her a good contract, three hot meals a day, and you wouldn’t even have to wear that foolish thing on your head.”

The magelight cast the smuggler’s face in deep shadow, but her eyes gleamed like stars. Bright and wild, Sister Corine thought, and dangerous like the ghouls that very same magelight drove back into the dark. She was a dangerous woman, the smugger, and a very beautiful woman, and the two facts had become emmeshed in Sister Corine’s mind. They had become one and the same, for both were forbidden, and it was certainly a sin to look upon another woman’s eyes and think of stars.

Of course, it was also a sin to barter for stolen grain and deprive the nobility of their rightful tariffs—long may the Families prosper—but the mother superior had declared it a lesser sin, on balance. The mother superior spoke often about keeping things in balance, and the importance of forgiving those lesser sins in the pursuit of their holy purpose. The Order of the Radiant Dawn had held to the sacred path since the beginning; the sisters to record the names of the divine hero-kings, and the brothers to defend those self-same heroes from the darkness that sought to remove them from their path. Even among the divine light and holy writ of the gods, there were those who chose defiance.

The smuggler, with her gap-toothed smile and shining eyes, was among them. That too was a sin, but the smuggler brought grain to the abbey when the king—long may he reign in glory—could not find it in himself to open the royal stores or compel his noble subjects to do so in his name.

A lesser sin, the mother superior claimed. But a sin, nonetheless.

“My name was written in the small ledgers,” Sister Corine told the smuggler, just as she had done many times before. She lowered the axe, resting it against the chopping block. “My task is set.”

The smuggler smiled with all her teeth, her eyes bright and watchful. Animals wouldn’t do such a thing, Sister Corine thought. Animals only bared their teeth like that as a threat.

“Come now,” said the smuggler. “If your holy write sets you to swing an axe, surely you could swing it at something more interesting.”

Sister Corine didn’t smile with her teeth. She did smile, though. She often smiled at the smuggler. Sometimes she thought of the smuggler long after the woman had departed. The ache Sister Corine felt at the smuggler’s absence seemed like a precious thing, a feeling she ought to treasure. But saying so would have been a blasphemy.

“I have your payment,” Sister Corine offered instead, and removed the pouch of coins from one of the deep pockets of her habit. She held it out to the smuggler.

The smuggler leaned forward, the magelight lantern swaying among the falling snow. She didn’t take the pouch.

Sister Corine’s arms were strong from wielding the axe and pulling water from the well and all the other tasks that had been set to her. She held out the pouch, unwavering. “I wouldn’t steal from you.”

The smuggler regarded her, the deep red of the lantern dancing across the ground as the horse snorted and tossed its head.

“You wouldn’t,” the smuggler said after a moment. “You’re an honest woman.”

“Thank you,” said Sister Corine.

“Would you judge yourself wise, sister?” asked the smuggler. “Do you think that virtue would fit your soul?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Sister Corine.

“Couldn’t you?” The smuggler leaned back in her saddle. “Ah. But I suppose that might be arrogant. Unfitting of your purpose. We couldn’t have that.”

“It would be irresponsible,” agreed Sister Corine.

“Of course. And you are a holy woman, my dear, bound so winsomely to your path. But even holy women have eyes. And yours . . .”

There, the smuggler smiled. “Yours, I think, are keener than most. That bag in your hand seems light, does it not? When we compare to all the others, I mean.”

Sister Corine didn’t flinch. She curled her fingers around the pouch, feeling the coins shift.

“I don’t decide these things,” Sister Corine said.

“No,” agreed the smuggler. “I imagine that would be the mother superior.”

“But I know the weight,” continued Sister Corine, “from all the times before.”

“As you would.” The smuggler smiled with her teeth. “We’ve done this many times, you and I.”

“I would say the amount is light,” Sister Corine said, her hand still outstretched. “On balance.”

“On balance,” the smugger replied, her voice very soft. “Why do you think that might be, sister? Surely, it’s a sin to break a bargain. Surely, it’s a sin to go against what was agreed.”

That sat between them in the cool winter air. Sister Corine’s breath fogged around her. In the distance, she thought she could hear something moving through the trees. The smuggler always brought a single sack of grain as proof and then left Sister Corine instructions on where to find the others. This time, the horse had no saddlebags at all.

“It would be,” said Sister Corine, her throat gone tight.

The smuggler clicked her teeth, looking amused.

“We are imperfect in our quest for penance. The writ only shows us the path, but we—”

“Must walk it ourselves,” the smuggler interrupted, her shining eyes narrowing. “Yes, yes, I know. Yet surely your mother superior ought to walk righteously, hmm? To stand as an example for all of us poor, imperfect sinners. Wouldn’t you agree, sister?”

Sister Corine said nothing. She remained as she was, her arm still outstretched.

The smuggler laughed softly. “Oh, but you’ve always been true. Haven’t you, sister? Pious and strong, set to your path with that blade in hand. You’ve never once lied to me, have you?”

“No,” said Sister Corine. “I have not.”

“Your people always say the light of dawn burns out the corruption before it. A purifying fire, leaving bone and holy ash in its wake. Have you ever been burned, sister?”

“Yes,” said Sister Corine. “But not where you can see.”

“Of course,” said the smuggler. Her tone was almost kind. “Your path demands sacrifice, doesn’t it?”

“Devotion is . . . difficult.”

They regarded each other for a long moment.

“I’ll forgive you,” the smuggler said finally. “In exchange for a boon.”

Sister Corine lowered her arm. “What boon?”

“A kiss,” said the smuggler, and smiled again. The gap between her teeth made her look younger than she was. “Would you do that for me, sister? And then go back to your mother superior and her holy purpose and remind the woman that Ninon Serre abides by her contracts and expects her holiness to do the same. Would you do that for me, Sister Corine?”

Snow had begun to fall in earnest, settling on the wrought surface of the magelight lantern and on the very tips of the smuggler’s eyelashes.

Sister Corine swallowed. Her chest felt very tight, and very warm.

“Yes,” she said. “I can do that.”

*

The mother superior resided among the books in the very heart of the abbey, where all the mother superiors before her had resided and all who followed would serve in turn. Only she had been allowed to gaze upon the dawn ledger, the book upon which the names of every hero-king and great leader and—indeed—mother superior of the Radiant Dawn had been written. The Word stretched back a thousand years and forward another five, each name written and waiting for its bearer to step forward and walk their destined path. The sisters of the order were tasked with copying the Word from the mother superior’s recitations, just as every abbey across the continent had dutifully recorded them for a thousand years before and would do so for five thousand after. And once that time elapsed, the gods themselves would return to the earth and issue a new writ of names. So it was, and so it had always been.

Sister Corine didn’t dare enter that sacred room, no matter the urgency. It wasn’t permitted to pass beyond the threshold and the heavy, velvet curtain that barred the way. She remained in the doorway, which was permitted, and knelt in supplication.

“Mother Superior—” she began.

A deep cough interrupted her. The mother superior’s cane tapped against the ground somewhere inside the sanctuary.

“Well?” she demanded. “Why have you disturbed me from my holy task?”

“It is Sister Corine,” she said. “I was set—”

The mother superior sighed heavily. “I know who it is, and I know your task. Why are you here and not attending to the fires?”

Sister Corine removed the pouch of coins from the pocket of her habit and laid it upon the threshold. “The smuggler would not deliver her grain. The agreement was struck, and she says it has been broken thrice, and now stands unmended.”

“That wretch!” cried the mother superior. “Have we not stuck to our purpose, our holy work? Who is she to claim righteousness upon the path? A thief, and a blasphemer? Her name was not written. It will not be remembered.”

The smuggler’s name was Ninon Serre, thought Sister Corine, and Ninon Serre had eyes that gleamed like stars in the dark, as bright and as terrible as the gods themselves. It felt like dying to kiss her. It felt like the beginning and the end of all things.

“Nonetheless,” said Sister Corine, “the bargain was struck, and broken. Are we not honest upon the path?”

The mother superior coughed; a wet, rattling sound that seemed to come from deep within her. The mother superior suffered for her holy purpose, as was right and natural.

“You forget,” said the mother superior, “that not all paths are equal within the Dawn Ledger.”

Do I? thought Sister Corine. Do I, truly?

“And she forgets,” continued the mother superior. “This smuggler. How righteously these sinners walk. That will be all, Sister Corine. May your path lead you true.”

“May your name be remembered,” replied Sister Corine. She remained there on her knees for a long time, listening to the mother superior wheeze and groan within the sanctuary. Holy work was difficult.

*

It was said the gods bled themselves upon sacred ground during the first dawn, and from this sacrifice, the first scribe took down the name of the first hero-king. All others flowed from that moment, the path spiraling out through the ages. It came from sacrifice, and many of the sisters believed the greatest sign of their devotion would be to take their own blood as ink upon the page as the gods themselves had done at the beginning of all things. In the past, martyred sisters had passed on the holy names by taking blood from their own wounds, ensuring the chain remained unbroken. It was a sacred thing to bleed upon the page, to write until the end under the purifying warmth of the sun. Sister Corine had aspired to such a martyrdom once, when she had been much younger, but her name was not written for such a path.

She found the smuggler by the woodpile, the magelight lantern scattered in pieces across the freshly fallen snow. The glass gleamed red, as did the blood. The smuggler gave a ragged sigh, her hand pressed over a deep wound on her belly.

“Do you think this was written, sister?” the smuggler asked. She looked very small then, her armor sundered and her hair slipping free from its braid. “Would you call this fate?”

Sister Corine knelt beside the smuggler and reached for the wound, but the smuggler batted her hands away.

“Leave it,” the smuggler wheezed. “Not so holy now, are they?”

“Are you in pain?” asked Sister Corine.

“Of course I’m in pain, you stupid bitch,” the smuggler snapped, her eyes going hard. “That brother of yours got me, but he wasn’t strong with the axe. Not like you, my pretty thing. Not like you . . .”

Unbidden, Sister Corine looked to the block. The axe stood proud, just where she had left it.

“Do you want to know a secret?” the smuggler asked. She smiled with her teeth. They gleamed an awful, deep red. “Do you want to know how it ends, my sweet girl?”

Sister Corine took one of the smuggler’s hands in her own, holding it tight. “Only the gods and the mother superiors know how it has been written.”

“No,” the smuggler murmured. “The gods bled and became stars. Go look at that book, sweet girl. Go and see. They bled and died and lived again, but that eternal path, that unbroken line, is a lie. Nothing is written. Nothing but the stars . . .”

Red grew upon the snow. The smuggler went quiet, and still. In time, her hand went slack as well.

Sister Corine sat there for a long time in the snow. She watched the smuggler’s eyes and how they changed. Eventually, she closed them. Blood smeared across her fingers. It set under her fingers. It stained there. She thought about ink, and words, and a path sworn never to split. Then she stood up very slowly and began the long walk back to the abbey. She took the axe from the block and hefted it in her hands as the snow began to come down heavier, and blanket the body of Ninon Serre, the smuggler who must not have been written as a hero-king.

*

The velvet curtain hung heavy before the heart of the abbey. Sister Corine stood on the threshold, the axe in hand. She thought of blasphemy and stars and the way the smuggler had smiled, and she stepped over the threshold into a world of candles and books, and the oiled bones of every mother superior who had come before lovingly entombed with their sacred pages. And at the center of it all stood an altar, and a book, and a single golden pen.

She stepped past the shelves of bones and whispering paper, past the ring of candles and the weight of the sacred, and she held the axe in one hand as she opened the book to its final page. This, the mother superior’s sacred duty, she read. The names stretched on and on until, quite abruptly, they ended. A blank expanse stared back at Sister Corine, as white and cold as snow.

“It ends?” she murmured. “It ends here?”

“Don’t be silly,” said the mother superior, stepping forth from the dark. Her cane clacked against the floor, scattering papers. “It endures here.”

Sister Corine stared at her.

The mother superior leaned on her cane. She looked very tired, and very old. “The names are chosen with care, as the gods intended. This is our path. It branches, but it doesn’t end.”

“And the names?” Sister Corine demanded. “The hero-kings?”

“Kings are born,” the mother superior said, coughing. “Heroes, oh. They come, and we write them into worthiness. Is that not sacred, Sister Corine? Is that not the path?”

Sister Corine looked again to the book. She ran her fingers along the page and murmured the names under her breath, the heroes and the martyrs and all those who had been written into their purpose. She read and she traced those lines and only at the end did she realize she had left a streak of red in her wake, Ninon Serre’s blood marring the sacred page. Not a name, and not a hero, but a mark nonetheless.

“The names are written,” the mother superior wheezed. “And the work continues. You understand that, don’t you? The weave of this world so tenuous, Sister Corine, and the gods only offered us a beginning when they bled. And she was no one. That smuggler? She was nothing at all. A lesser sin, on balance.”

“On balance,” Sister Corine repeated softly. She regarded the page, the names and that final smear of red. “Do you know, she told me I was good at this.”

The mother superior blinked. “Good at what?”

“This,” said Sister Corine, and hefted the axe. And blood ran red in the sanctuary.

In the aftermath, when the screaming brought the sisters running to the threshold, a woman shed her habit and stood naked before the Dawn Ledger. She ran her red hands over the sacred names, murmuring them all under her breath. Then she took the golden pen as the bravest of the sisters dared to cross the threshold, and she wrote a name down on the sacred page. Her ink ran red.

“What have you done?” the bravest of the sisters cried. “Corine, what—?”

The woman smiled, setting the pen aside.

“My name,” she said, “is Ninon Serre.”

***

Emma Johnson-Rivard received her masters at Hamline University. Her work has appeared in Tales to Terrify, Fearsome Critters, and others.