Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor) by Mark Lawrence

Author:Mark Lawrence [Lawrence, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

23

“TOUCHING THE PATH is the second most dangerous thing a person can do.” Sister Pan stalked the classroom with an energy wholly at odds with her ancient frame. “These games you play with swords and knives, poisons and acids . . . you think this is danger? You girls don’t even know the hurt that a sharp edge can do—a slip of the wrist and you’re opened to the world, blood, bone, nerves, guts, all the soft wonder of a body cut through. If you live the pain can last a lifetime, the loss . . . if you live.” She raised her right arm and gazed at the stump where her hand should be, tilting her head as if perhaps she could still see the missing fingers moving to her will. A moment later the old woman spun on her heel to face Nona. “I’ve told these girls a hundred times—it doesn’t stick. It’s small matter if they haven’t the blood for it. But you . . . you, little Nona, you might yet do it. This ill-advised connection Novice Hessa forged with you is a possible sign. Not a proper thread-bond, but an echo of one.” Sister Pan leaned in and tapped Nona’s forehead with a finger as dry and dark as a charcoal stick. “There might be a touch of quantal locked in there . . . and all we need to do is find a way to set it free.”

“What’s the most dangerous thing?” Nona asked.

“Huh?” Sister Pan blinked as if the path of her own thoughts had slipped away from beneath her feet. She stood dark against the magnificence of the stained-glass windows.

“You said that touching the Path was the second most dangerous thing a person could do,” Nona said. “What’s the most dangerous?”

“Leaving the Path, of course,” Sister Pan replied, her focus back and razor-sharp. “And why is that, Novice Hessa?” She pointed at Hessa behind her without turning her gaze from Nona.

“Because when you step from the Path you have to take great care to return to yourself and not to some other place,” Hessa said.

“Some other place,” Sister Pan repeated. “Some terrible place from which you may never return. A dark place where demons whisper unseen. A hot place where your mind will burn. A place so cold that we who remain will see the hint of its frost in your vacant eyes. A silent place where time does not venture and from which no thing ever leaves . . . You must return to yourself. What else? What else makes it dangerous, Novice Arabella?” She pointed to Ara.

“You must own what you hold,” Ara said.

“Correct.” A nod. “Every step along the true Path of the Ancestor—a path that runs through all creation—is a gift and a burden. Every step taken is a gift of the raw power of creation, every step increases the potential within you. Sounds good, no?”

Nona nodded. The stories spoke of Holy Witches filling their hands with magics that could blow the strongest door asunder, reduce rock to powder.

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