Vespertine

Sometimes, if you want to save other people, you need to remember to save yourself first.

If there’s one thing I can always rely upon, it’s the reassuring dependability of human idiocy. Give your kind a century or so, and they’ll happily repeat the exact same mistakes that nearly wiped them all out a few generations before.

I wished I were better at speaking. All those thoughts were in my head, but I didn’t know how to get them out.

I’ll have you know that I’m very good-looking by undead standards

Me, the goat, the revenant, we weren't very different from each other in the end. Perhaps deep down inside everyone was a just a scared animal afraid of getting hurt, and that explained every confusing and mean and terrible thing we did.

They would martyr me themselves to satisfy their hunger for a saint.

Perhaps the decisions that shaped the course of history weren’t made in scenes worthy of stories and tapestries, but in ordinary places like these, driven by desperation and doubt.

The first humans who got possessed, the ones who went on to become saints; they weren’t all strong enough to control unbound spirits, were they? They couldn’t have been. At least some of them must have fought with their spirits the same way I do.” “Yes,” the revenant said, after a long, ancient-feeling pause. “They were our friends.” “Then does that mean we’re—” “You had better not push it, nun. I can possess you whenever I want. I could do far worse than make you murder someone. I could make you try on hats.

This dream again,” he murmured breathlessly. “My favorite.” “Which dream is that?” My voice sounded hoarse. “The one in which Saint Artemisia stands over me in judgement.” “I told you, I’m not a saint.” “Even in my dreams,” he said softly. “you never cease arguing with me.” He said this with distant wonderment, as though it were a quality he admired.

The mere idea of having that conversation made me want to crawl into a hole and die.

The revenant had devoured the populations of entire cities; it was also the entity who ordered me to eat my pottage.

Humans simply love inventing superstitions and then getting killed because of them. Or better yet, using them as an excuse to kill other humans.

You treat that beast better than you do yourself,' it commented sourly, watching Priestbane nose through the pile. 'He's a good horse. He carried me all day. He doesn't deserve to suffer because of the things I ask him to do.' 'Have you ever considered that your body carries you?

The revenant noticed me sizing up an escape route. “You had better not, nun. Ideally the priest won’t be looking for you at all, but he certainly won’t be looking for a version of you that’s voluntarily socializing with a group of humans. Also, I want to try a pastry.” I felt obscurely betrayed.

You see, here is the Lady’s grace. It has been here all along. She has shown me Her grace in a drink of water when I was thirsty and bread when I was hungry and a bed when I was tired, not through miracles, but through the kindness of those who stood to gain nothing from helping me. It is through the hands of strangers that She has carried out Her will.

Do you truly want my judgement?” I asked. That caught his attention. His eyes grew clearer, sharper. I wondered if he realized he was awake, but his eyes held a fevered intensity that I doubted he would let me witness if he thought this was real instead of a dream. “Yes,” he answered, very quietly, so quiet I could barely hear. “You aren’t a good person, but I think that you could be if you tried. So perhaps you should try.” For a long time, he didn’t respond. It wasn’t until I stood up to leave the room that he spoke. “Thank you,” he said softly and seemed to mean it.

You do realize there’s nothing mystical about ravens, don’t you? They don’t gather around convents because they’re divine messengers of your goddess. They come because that’s where humans bring the corpses.” “That’s fine. If he’s leading us to corpses, that’s where I want to go.” “You must be popular at the nun parties. Do you have any friends? Just out of curiosity.

Perhaps I hadn't realized the worst part after all. Back when I'd made the offer, I hadn't known the revenant would talk so much.

I understood now, away from my convent for the first time since I had arrived there, that the longing I had felt that day and many days since was homesickness. Homesickness for a place I had never been, for answers to questions I carried in my heart but for which I had no words. I hadn’t recognized it then, because I hadn’t understood what it felt like to have a home.

I turned the final page. RATHANAEL THE SCORNED, read the lettering. Above it hung a skeleton twined in a ragged shroud, with two pairs of tattered, crowlike wings. Its fleshless skull grinned out at me, the eye sockets bound behind dark wrappings. It held an iron torch clasped in front of its rib cage, the top spiked like a crown, the flames roaring up, enveloping its body and wings in fire. The silver of its form had a dark, tarnished look like an old mirror, but I couldn’t tell if that was intentional or a result of the gilt flaking with age. Some powerful spirits held objects, like riveners did swords. It represented something important about their nature, but I had no idea what a torch might signify and doubted the revenant did either—only how ironic it was that I’d ended up with the revenant associated with fire. I absorbed its deadly visage, trying and failing to match it with the voice in my head. The revenant had devoured the populations of entire cities; it was also the entity who ordered me to eat my pottage. “I’ll have you know that I’m very good-looking by undead standards,” the revenant remarked.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about humans, it’s that your kind loves to gossip. Nuns are no exceptions, by the way. The ancient and terrible knowledge I harbor about Sister Prunelle’s bunions would make even you beg for mercy.

Is it true that spirits can’t remember anything about their human lives?” “Yes,” it answered tartly. I had never considered before now that someone would have needed to speak to a spirit to learn that information. I had always merely accepted it as one of the Clerisy’s teachings. “So you don’t know whether you were a man or a woman in life.” “No, and I don’t see why it matters. Humans are so tedious. Oh, you have dangly bits. Congratulations, you’re going to put on armor and swing a sword about. Oh, you’ve ended up with the other kind. Too bad—time to have babies or become a nun.” It wasn’t exactly that simple, but I decided that I didn’t want to argue about the Clerisy’s hierarchy with a Fifth Order spirit. Also, it had a point. “It would be useful if you did remember something. We still don’t know why your soul turned into a revenant.” “No doubt because I was horrifically nasty and evil,” it spat.

He looked up. “Is something the matter?” he inquired, in a cold and imperious tone. “Forgive me, Father. You’re the first man I’ve seen in seven years.” When he only stared at me, I clarified, “The first living man. I’ve seen plenty of dead ones.

They couldn’t do much against unbound revenants, granted, aside from tickle us a little—but I can’t emphasize enough how distracting it is to have someone tickling you in the middle of a battle. It completely spoils the mood.

Perhaps deep down inside everyone was just a scared animal afraid of getting hurt, and that explained every confusing and mean and terrible thing we did.

It thinks humans are all idiots.' 'That's an understatement,' it hissed.

I can’t accept it,” I answered. “Accept what?” I wasn’t certain I could put my tangled, poisonous thoughts into words. It felt blasphemous to even try. “That—that there can be such a thing as…not necessary evil, because evil is never necessary—it can’t be—but…acceptable evil. Hurt and cruelty that the Lady would allow in service to Her will. Like the goat in Naimes,” I said, dimly aware I’d never told the revenant about the goat and it would probably think I had lost my mind. “She wouldn’t make someone kick the goat.” The revenant was quiet—a careful, pained pause. “Nun,” it said. isn’t that what She’s done to you?

Being trapped inside your body isn’t the panoply of delights you imagine. Oh, pardon me, you’re a nun. Silly of me to suggest that you’ve ever imagined a single delightful experience in the entire span of your dull, miserable, hateful nun existence.

If the Lady was playing a game, a great game, a game of life and death, then who was Her opponent?

I knew then that we really were going to be all right, because I had survived it before, and I would survive it again.