Chapter 58: Aiming at the Wrong Thing

Celestine was sprawled out on one of the long wooden benches when Kai ran back into the great hall, with Sunny’s coat balled up beneath her head and all twelve of the priests standing in a loose circle around her, every one of them looking unsure of what to do with their hands.

Her face had gone gray, and she was breathing so shallowly that Kai had to stand there and watch her chest for a long moment just to make sure it was still rising. Princess Seris was on her knees beside the bench, holding one of Celestine’s thin, spotted hands, and Garrick was standing at the far end of it looking more scared than Kai had ever seen him look, even in front of monsters.

"She just stopped," Garrick said. "One minute she was talking to Seris about the third step, and the next minute she just collapsed."

Elowen dropped to her knees beside Celestine and turned her blindfolded face towards the old woman, and when she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.

"She is losing her light," Elowen said. "Slowly, but she is losing it. I think she has been hanging on for a very long time, and now that the Mother has been freed, she believes she is allowed to let go."

"She can’t let go," Kai said. "She needs to stand in front of the Conclave in four days. She told me she wanted to tell them herself."

Celestine’s eyes fluttered open, and she looked up at Kai with a small smile on her face.

"I told you I would say it before I died for real," Celestine whispered. "I never said how long before."

"That is not funny," Kai said.

"It is a little funny," Celestine said, and then she closed her eyes again.

One of the priests stepped forward and knelt beside Elowen. He was young, with a round face and nervous hands, and he looked like he would rather be anywhere else in the world.

"I trained as a healer before I became a priest," the young priest said. "Her heart is very weak. She is old, and she has suffered a great deal over the past few days. She needs rest and warmth, and she needs to be very lucky." He looked down at his own empty hands. "This morning, I could have given her a blessing to strengthen her heart. But I don’t have any light left to give her."

Every person in the hall slowly turned to look at Kai.

[Kai, you have 34 divinity points]

"Thirty-four?" Kai whispered.

[You have a goddess as a true believer, Mira thinks she is in love with you, and an entire city woke up to bells it has not heard in forty years. I have had a lot to count]

"Show me what I can buy," Kai whispered.

The small golden window appeared in front of him, floating above the bench, and at the very top of it was a skill he had never seen before.

[Lesser Restoration (25 points): Restores some strength to a failing body. It cannot save someone from death. It can only buy them some time.]

"Some time," Kai whispered. "I can live with that. Buy it."

[Skill learned: Lesser Restoration. Divinity points remaining: 9.]

Kai knelt down beside the bench and pointed his finger at Celestine’s chest, and then he stopped, because his hand was shaking, and because he knew exactly what was going to happen. He had aimed at a rose and hit a desk, and he had aimed at a stalk of wheat from an arm’s length away and hit a statue across the yard. If he aimed at Celestine, the spell was going to go anywhere in this enormous building except into her.

[Kai, what are you doing?]

"Thinking," Kai whispered.

[You never think before you cast a spell. That worries me]

Mira was kneeling on the other side of the bench, holding Celestine’s other hand, and she looked up at Kai with a worried expression, as if she could tell exactly what he was thinking. Kai looked around the great hall at the priests and the glowing statue, the stained glass windows and the broken fireplace in the distance, and then he looked back down at Celestine. Every spell he had ever cast had missed the thing he was aiming at, and every single time, it had hit the thing that needed to be hit.

So he turned around, pointed his finger across the great hall at the statue of the Radiant Mother, and aimed at her instead.

"What are you doing?" Mira asked.

"Aiming at the wrong thing," Kai said.

[Kai, that is cheating]

"It’s a loophole," Kai whispered. "Lesser Restoration."

A beam of warm green-gold light shot out of Kai’s finger and flew straight towards the statue, and for one horrible second, Kai was sure that this was going to be the first time in his life that a spell actually hit what he was aiming at.

Then, about halfway across the room, the spell stopped and hovered in the air for a moment, as if it was thinking it over. It turned around and drifted back across the great hall, over the heads of the priests, and sank gently into Celestine’s chest.

The old woman gasped, and her eyes flew open, and color began to return to her face.

Princess Seris let out a squeak and nearly dropped Celestine’s hand, and Mira just stared at Kai across the bench as if she had never seen him before. Every priest in the room made the sign of the sun at the same time, and the young healer fell backwards onto the floor and sat there with his mouth hanging open.

"Oh," Celestine said, and she sat up on the bench all by herself. "Oh, my. I feel very awake."

[You aimed at the wrong thing, and it went to the right one]

"I know," Kai whispered, and he was smiling so hard his face hurt.

[I am not sure whether I should be proud of you or worried about you]

"Both," Kai whispered.

Elowen turned her blindfolded face towards Celestine and let out a long, slow breath.

"Her light is steady," Elowen said. "It will never be as strong as it once was, and it will not last forever, but it will last for a while."

"Long enough for the Conclave?" Kai asked.

"Long enough for the Conclave," Elowen said. "And for some time after that."

Celestine reached over and patted Kai on the cheek with one of her thin hands, the way a grandmother might pat a boy who had just done something both very brave and very stupid.

"The Mother was right about you," Celestine said. "You aim very poorly."

"Thank you," Kai said.

"It was a compliment," Celestine said.

Before they left the Cathedral, the young priest grabbed Kai by the sleeve and pressed a small clay bottle into his hand, still staring at him as if he had just seen a miracle. It turned out to be willow-bark tea that the priest had always made for himself, the only medicine he had left that didn’t need a blessing to work, and he made Kai promise that Celestine would drink a cup of it every night until the Conclave.

They took Celestine back to Hale’s house in one of the King’s carriages, with Sunny sitting next to her and Princess Seris sitting across from her, already asking her questions about what the Cathedral had been like forty years ago and writing down every answer. The rest of them walked, and by the time they reached Hale’s front gate, which someone had already put back on both of its hinges, Kai was so tired that he could barely remember his own name.

Hale’s cook met them at the door with a tray of bread and cheese, and when she looked at Kai, for some reason, she didn’t glare at his vest at all. She just shoved a piece of bread into his hand and told him to eat it before he fell over. He made it as far as the bottom of the stairs before he sat down, and he was fairly sure he was going to pass out right there with his boots still on.

He was just about to when the front door flew open and one of the King’s guards rushed inside, out of breath, with his helmet tucked under his arm. He hurried right past Kai to Justiciar Hale, who was sitting in his chair by the fire, and he bent down and spoke to the old judge in a low, urgent voice.

Kai didn’t catch what the guard said, but he saw Hale’s face, and it woke him up faster than any bucket of cold water ever could.

"What is it?" Kai asked.

Hale slowly looked up at him.

"The city prison," Hale said. "Every lock in the prison was blessed by the Radiant Church to keep the cells shut. When the Mother’s light was freed this morning, every one of those blessings failed." He paused and took a deep breath before he went on. "Every cell door in the prison swung open at the same moment, Mr. Mercer, and the guards could not close a single one of them. Most of the prisoners were too frightened to leave. But two of them were not."

Kai already knew what Hale was going to say before he said it, because it was exactly the kind of thing that always happened to him.

"Lord Castor Draven," Hale said. "And Elder Voss."

[Kai, I think he is still upset about his shoes]