Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

To reach for power beyond what has been given to you is the greatest sin.

—The Book of Mortal Law, Tract 78

At first, the whispering was just a soft susurrus, the bare suggestion of language without any detail filled in. The sound reminded Lore of flies buzzing, of suffocating dirt, the soft fall of flesh rotted from bone. But after a moment, words conjured themselves from the shapeless noise.

Just one phrase, over and over and stopping abruptly, stuck in a replicating loop. The words started slurred, then grew sharper edges, became crisp as an elocution exercise despite the stillness of dead tongue, dead lips. “They’ve awakened,” the unmoving corpse whispered. “They’ve awakened they’ve awakened they’ve awakened—”

The King’s face was pale. He looked surprised, almost, surprised and nervous, like he hadn’t entirely expected this to work. His head swung to his twin. “Does that mean—”

Anton held up a hand, and his brother closed his mouth, swallowing the end of his sentence. The Priest Exalted’s gaze flickered from the corpse to Lore’s face, calculating.

Lore stared into the not-dead child’s black eyes, the gape of that unmoving, whispering mouth. “Stop,” she rasped. “Please stop.”

The body fell back, eyes still open, limbs slack.

She snapped her hands closed, just like she’d done with Horse, just like she’d done with Cedric, breaking the threads of Mortem that bound her to the corpse.

Then Lore bolted.

August’s voice chased her out the door, echoing in all that stone, but Lore paid the King no mind. She tripped over her hem, hit her knees, skinning them beneath her skirt. A heaving breath in and another out, trying her best to keep the bile in her throat from surging. The white, necrotic skin on her fingers slowly leached back to living warmth, the gray of her veins fading with each breath. Her heart lurched in her chest, beating so hard it almost hurt.

“Get up, girl.”

Anton’s voice was as cold as the stone against her palms. Lore rubbed the back of her wrist over her mouth, deliberately taking her time before she straightened and glared up at the Priest Exalted. The sun through the skylight blazed his gray hair into a halo, obscured his features.

“Ready for round two?” Lore nearly spat it. As humanity suffused her again, chasing out death, so did a righteous anger she couldn’t totally explain—the thought of that child, of how she’d disturbed his peaceful rest after something terrible happened to him, made shame prick up and down her spine. “Are there any other corpses you want to disturb while we have the time? Maybe we can climb up to the top and see if I can get some dead marquess to sing the national anthem—”

“That’s quite enough,” Anton murmured, his expression still hidden in shadow. “This is exactly what we brought you here for. Don’t start having a conscience now.”

“Rich, coming from a priest.”

“I told you before. The Bleeding God understands that sometimes the rules must be bent for the greater good. For the glory of His promises to be fulfilled.” Anton’s hand lifted, a finger tracing over one of the golden rays on his pendant. “He forgives His faithful, always. For everything.”

Lore swallowed. Tightened her fists in her skirt. The shame didn’t dissipate, but she managed to shove it down, push it somewhere to stay until she dealt with it later.

“I failed,” she said, shaking her head, returning to the matter at hand instead of an existential one she couldn’t parse yet. “We learned absolutely nothing about what’s happening in the villages.”

They’ve awakened.It still reverberated in her head, that awful whisper from a dead mouth. They’ve awakened.

She’d asked the dead boy what happened to him, and she didn’t think the dead could lie. It was an answer of some kind, but not one that made any sense.

“It doesn’t matter, on this first attempt.” August waved a hand as he stepped through the small door of the vault, ducking so his crown didn’t knock into the lintel. Despite his look of confused near-terror when he heard the corpse speak, he looked in good spirits now, almost excited. “You made it talk. That’s what we wanted.”

Her brows knit. “But I didn’t—”

“In time,” August said. It might’ve been reassuring coming from anyone else. From him, it sounded like the extension of a sentence. “We’ll try again.”

“The body won’t keep,” Anton said quietly. “It will have to be moved.”

“Burn it.” Another wave of August’s hand, careless. “There will be another.”

“Yes.” August’s eyes flickered to Lore, then away. “Now that Kirythea has begun, I don’t expect them to stop.”

“So you’re still convinced it’s Kirythea?” Lore asked.

“Who else could it be?” August pulled his flask from within his cloak and took another sip. Anton’s nose wrinkled, but the Priest Exalted didn’t comment on his brother’s indiscretions. “And speaking of Kirythea—did you attend Bastian’s soiree last night?”

“Sure did.” Lore stared at the door to the vault behind him. It gaped open enough for her to see the body prostrate on his plinth. “But I didn’t find out anything important, so it wasn’t exactly a success.”

“In time,” August repeated. “You’ll learn something in time.”

Anton’s pendant swung, the garnet blood drop sparkling. “Well,” he said, redirecting the conversation away from Bastian, “not to worry. We’ll try again. Perhaps a different corpse will have more to say. This one was just a child.”

August nodded, once.

Lore felt sick again. “So I… what do you want me to do while…”

“Enjoy the Citadel, Lore.” August turned around, headed back the way they came, to the narrow tunnel and the alcove-lined hallway beyond. “You’re an officially introduced member of the court. Make friends, find lovers, amuse yourself as you see fit. Just make sure you do it all while staying near my son.”

Behind August, the muscles on the unscarred side of Anton’s face tightened.

“And I’ll let you know when we have another corpse for you to raise,” August continued. “I’m sure it won’t be long.”

Lore followed the King back into the tunnel, unsure of what else to do. The Sacred Guard, she noticed, once again didn’t acknowledge them at all. The end of his bayonet gleamed wickedly sharp in the sun through the skylight.

She picked at the threads in her tailored gown. “Your Majesty, I know I’m supposed to get close to Bastian, but if I had a directive, any clue at all to what kind of information you think he’s passing on…”

“You’ve been given your directives.” The Sainted King mounted the short staircase at the end of the tunnel, pushed open the door. The hallway beyond glittered, the alcoves holding all those Bleeding Gods shimmering like miniature suns. “Are you implying you aren’t up to the task?”

The implications of that didn’t need to be spelled out. Burnt Isles if she was lucky, pyre if she wasn’t.

“No.” Lore shook her head. “No, I’m up to it.”

“Good.” August turned his back on her and strode down the hallway, the orange-and-gold cloak he’d worn at morning prayers fluttering behind him. He didn’t give her a deadline for a report, she noticed. Apparently, he was content to wait until she had something concrete to tell him.

The doors to the vaults closed softly behind her. When Lore turned, Anton peered at her from his one gleaming eye. Then, with a tilt of his chin, he asked, “How old are you, Lore?”

Her brows drew together, confusion bringing a quick answer. “Twenty-three.”

“And your birthday is near midsummer, correct? Your year of Consecration.”

It still made her uneasy that he knew so much about her. Lore nodded again and started walking toward the end of the gilded hall, toward the rest of the Citadel.

Anton fell into easy step beside her. “We’ll have to make sure you’re given a proper ceremony, since you’re part of the court now. Even if it is currently under false pretenses.”

“That’s really not necessary.”

“Oh, I think it is.” He swept past her in a rustle of pale robes, opening the door before she could reach it. “Bastian is probably out on the green somewhere. Go find him.”

With that order, Anton glided away into the depths of the Citadel, headed to whatever holy duties occupied him during the day, leaving Lore alone in the vault corridor.

For a moment, she just stood there, among all those stone Apolliuses with empty chests and hands full of garnet blood. Then, Lore drifted to the end of the hallway, out into the expanse of the Citadel proper. She retraced her steps, going back to the door that led to the green space and the North Sanctuary. No one else was in the halls, all the courtiers dispersed to wherever they spent their innumerable leisure hours. Just as well. Her mind was too tangled up to make a convincing duke’s cousin.

She’d been given a direct order to find Bastian, but she’d take her time. She had scads of it, apparently.

The sun was high in the sky, now, and bright enough to make her squint. Lore wandered off the path immediately, her feet pointing toward the manicured forest to the left of the cobblestones. Not a real forest—it was planned down to the leaf, designed just so, nothing wild about it. But it was close enough.

Lore stopped once she was under the trees, closed her eyes, took a deep breath of green and dirt. It smelled so clean within the walls of the Citadel, a difference she hadn’t really noticed until now. She was used to the scents of people crowded together, of sea brine, of soot and trash and grime. But here, the air smelled crisp and sharp, as if it were fresh-scrubbed every morning.

With a sigh, Lore sat heavily down on the grass. Green stains marred her knees nearly instantly, and she cursed, situating her legs in front of her though the damage was already done. Another sigh, and she let herself fall back, head cradled by the soft loam. Her eyes closed; the summer sunlight filtering through the branches above lit the network of veins in her eyelids, a lurid map of capillaries.

It reminded her of the catacombs. Of that awareness waiting at the edge of her grasp, pushed just far enough away to let her function. She almost couldn’t believe she’d lived so long without the barrier Gabe had helped her build. It was as if by finally channeling Mortem when she raised Horse, she’d opened a floodgate. Being within the walls of the Citadel tempered it a bit, but her sense was still stronger than it had ever been before, increasing as the days marched on.

Each day that drew her closer to her twenty-fourth birthday.

Raising the dead child had battered against her mental shield, and though it still held fast, she could almost taste Mortem at the back of her throat, empty and ashlike. Her fingers itched, as if the threads she’d wound around them had left an indelible burn on her skin, as clear as her moon-shaped scar. It pushed on her from all sides, an encroaching void, a vast and terrible storm of nothing.

That’s what was so awful about it, really. The lack of anything. Death was a yawning chasm, a hole with no bottom. Lore wished she was capable of the easy faith the Church taught, capable of thinking there was a Shining Realm waiting once this life was through.

Pointless. Even if there was, she’d never see it.

Lore shuddered. Despite the clean air and the nice clothes and the plentiful food, despite the illusion of safety being here under the King’s protection brought her, the prospect of raising another dead body was nearly enough to make her run for the docks, for Val and Mari, and beg them to take her back. She’d forgive them everything, if she just didn’t have to use Mortem again.

“Fuck me,” she swore softly.

“You’ll have to ask more nicely than that.”

Her eyes flew open—a dark human-shape bent over her, the sun behind it blurring their features. But then the unnamed shape sat back, and she caught the edge of an irreverent grin, the toss of a dark curl.

Bastian’s eyes went to the grass stains on her knees. “Though perhaps someone already took you up on it?”

Well, she wouldn’t have to go looking for Bastian. The Sun Prince had found her.

Lore scrambled up, brushing grass out of her hair and trying in vain to find a position that hid the green stains. “My deepest apologies, Your Highness—er, Sainted—”

“Just Bastian, please,” the Sun Prince supplied, cutting short her stuttering search for the proper honorific. “And no apologies needed. One’s first season in court is generally laced with indiscretions.”

“I’m afraid my only indiscretion here was… was falling asleep.” Lore waved a hand at the bower the trees made, lit in soft golden light from the sun above. “It’s such a nice day, and we were up so late only to wake at sunrise…”

“You’ll get used to it.” Bastian’s smile crinkled his eyes. They weren’t black, like she’d first thought. Up close, they were maybe a shade lighter than his dark hair, whiskey-colored. “I heard my father took you to the vaults. I’m surprised he indulged your curiosity, to be honest—many courtiers want to see them when they first arrive in the Citadel, but generally, August denies requests for tours.”

He was far more observant than was convenient. “He was asking me about my mother,” Lore said quickly, barely thinking the words through before they left her mouth. “She’s… she’s in poor health, and was considering the possibility of a Citadel vault when she passes.”

Bastian’s brow arched. “I’m sorry to hear it,” he said. “Pardon me for being so uncouth as to speak of money, but I didn’t know the Remaut family had relatives well-endowed enough to consider a vault within the Citadel. Most minor nobles opt for the common vaults just outside the Northeast Ward—they’re by far the nicest of the exterior burial grounds.”

Lore gave him what she hoped was a confident smile, though the inside of her head sounded like the horns they blew on the docks when the weather took a turn. “We’ve been saving.”

He still grinned, but there was something calculating in those gold-brown eyes. “You and everyone else. What a pious woman your mother must be, to be such a good citizen even in death.”

The blade in his tone made her feel safe to answer in kind. “A shame, really, that one must pay an exorbitant price to be a good citizen.”

The Sun Prince chuckled, still an edge to it—an edge turned away from her, though, a sword they both wielded. “A shame, indeed. Enough to make one think the Church didn’t care so much about ensuring all the pious reach the Shining Realm, bodies intact.”

“Only the pious who can pay.”

“Precisely.” Bastian offered out his arm. “Come. Walk with me to the stables. If anyone asks about the grass stains, we’ll tell them you fell off a horse.”

She thought of the woman she’d seen him with in the gardens yesterday, his lips on her shoulder. If anyone saw her with Bastian and grass stains on her skirt, the conclusion they drew would have nothing to do with that kind of riding.

When she took the prince’s proffered arm, she could feel his muscles move beneath his silken sleeve. More defined than she’d expect from a pampered royal; an incongruous roughness, like the scar through his eyebrow and the calluses on his hands.

Lore and the Sun Prince strolled casually down the clear paths cut into the forest, winding trails carefully designed to look natural while being anything but. A slight breeze fluttered at Bastian’s hair, worn down, waving dark against his shoulders—just on this side of too-long to be in current fashion, though she assumed that however Bastian wore his hair was how the entire court would in a month’s time. He smelled like red wine and expensive cologne, one that Lore’s untrained nose couldn’t pick out the notes of.

“I’ve petitioned my father over and over again to waive the fees associated with a vault burial,” Bastian said as they took another turn, the edge of the manicured forest appearing up ahead, “but he’s adamant that we need the money for the upcoming war with the Kirythean Empire.”

Lore’s shoulders tensed, but she kept her face impassive. “Oh?” she murmured. “Does he think a war is imminent, then?”

“He’s thought a war was imminent for as long as I can remember.”

“The Empire has drawn steadily closer.” Close enough that she’d heard hushed talk of possible war down on the docks for years, fears of conscription and bottlenecked trade.

“And yet,” Bastian said, “they’ve never invaded.”

“Perhaps they’re waiting for something.” Lore kept her eyes ahead and her voice light. “Information, maybe. An opportune moment.”

“Information would be difficult to acquire.” His eyes slid her way. “August only trusts a select few with military secrets. I don’t even know most of them.”

She forced a laugh. “Surely that’s not true. You’re his heir.”

“And how he hates that.”

They ambled along quietly for a moment, Lore’s palm clammy on Bastian’s sleeve. The fabric was soft and billowing and would probably show sweaty prints when she lifted her hand away.

“Imminent war or not, I think it’s deplorable to charge your citizens for a decent burial. There should at least be exceptions for extenuating circumstances.” Bastian glanced at her from the corner of her eye. “All this mess with the villages, for instance.”

Her teeth clamped on the inside of her cheek, stirring her mind for a way to pry that wouldn’t seem suspicious. August had said that most of the bodies from the villages were disposed of—that had to mean burned, regardless of what their personal choices for burial had been in life. Shademount and Orlimar were both small villages where most of the citizens were subsistence farmers. According to the Tracts, you entered the Shining Realm in whatever state your body was left in, so being burned meant you didn’t enter at all. The Church wouldn’t concern themselves with absorbing the fees of a vault burial for poor villagers.

“I’m rather surprised the Church doesn’t advocate for more equitable burial practices,” Lore said. “Entry to the Shining Realm should hinge on piety, not money.”

“Especially since most of the nobles won’t see the Realm’s lintel, whole-bodied or not.” Bastian smirked. “The Church and the bloodcoats might close their eyes against the amount of poison coming into the Citadel, but I doubt Apollius will.”

Lore gritted her teeth, thinking of Cecelia and her cup of belladonna, of the flask always by August’s side. “Ah, the justice system.”

Bastian’s snort became a full laugh. “It’s certainly a system. Unsure if justice has much to do with it.”

The forest opened on another garden, smaller and less regimented than the one on the other side of the Citadel. Similar to the forest, it was a careful pantomime of wildness, a contradictory illusion of free nature. Colorful birds nested in the bushes, and a few peacocks strutted through the foliage.

They strolled on past banks of brightly colored flowers and tiny gleaming pools full of shimmering fish. A few other courtiers were out taking morning constitutionals or playing lazy games of croquet, but beyond inclinations of heads, they didn’t interact. Lore assumed most of the court had fallen back into bed after sunrise prayers.

“Speaking of the villages,” Lore said, redirecting the conversation to something that might actually get her information instead of just make her angry, “I heard they were all dying overnight, with no sign of sickness or poison. But surely that can’t be the case?”

“It is as far as I know. But I have my own theories.” Bastian reached out and stroked a passing peacock’s violet head. The bird pecked at his hand, and he gave it a halfhearted swat. “I think the Mortem problem is to blame.”

Her toe stubbed on one of the cobblestones; Lore clenched Bastian’s arm and regained her footing, just barely managing not to curse. His forearm was rock-hard under her palm, a fact she was irritated with herself for noticing. “Oh?”

“No poison, no sickness, no trace of attack?” He shrugged, making the muscle beneath her hand ripple distractingly. “Sounds like Mortem to me. Why, would you not agree?”

“Not really, no.” Lore shook her head. “The bodies wouldn’t be whole, if it was unchanneled Mortem. They’d be in advanced stages of decay, or gone altogether.” Mortem leaks had been a problem during the first few years after the Godsfall, though they weren’t really a threat anymore. Not since the Presque Mort were founded and the Arceneaux line built the Citadel over Nyxara’s tomb.

Bastian gave her a considering look. “You know more about Mortem than the average courtier, Lore.”

So casual, so even. But she knew it wasn’t. Dammit. He’d handed her a shovel and she’d happily started digging. “I find it an interesting topic.”

“Morbid, too.”

“Interesting and morbid often coincide.” She shrugged. “Besides, anyone who pays attention to their history will come to the same conclusion. The accounts of the Godsfall and the years after are well documented. We know what a body looks like after coming in contact with raw, unchanneled Mortem from an outside source.”

“Fair.” Bastian plucked a lone peacock feather from where it’d gotten tangled in a bush, sticking it behind his ear at a jaunty angle. Another trend in the making, she was sure. “But couldn’t it be channeled into something that caused the deaths? Something that descended on a village, killed them, and left no trace?”

“I don’t think so. The Spiritum in a person wouldn’t allow it.” Lore had never heard of channeled Mortem being used to outright kill someone. Channeling death into a living body was difficult—the aura of Spiritum, of vitality, that surrounded every living thing made it next to impossible. Weaker auras could be overcome, like those of plants or very ill humans, but not healthy ones.

If someone was using Mortem to kill those villages, it was in a way that Lore had no context for. And she had a good amount of context, all things considered.

“Clearly, I’ve been remiss in not consulting another scholar.” The peacock feather apparently itched; Bastian pulled it from his ear and twirled it between his fingers instead. “No one else I’ve discussed this with has been as learned as you.”

Lore gave him a small, shy smile, conjuring country cousin, conjuring no threat and don’t take me too seriously. “There isn’t much to do at home. I find my amusements where I may.”

He cocked a brow and looked pointedly at the grass stains again. Lore pinched his arm, fighting a genuine laugh.

“Lore!”

Gabriel walked hurriedly down the path, like he’d been trying to catch up without running. Still, he was slightly out of breath when he reached them. His eye darted to Bastian, then to her, brow rising as if he was annoyed that she was following her orders so closely.

“Remaut, nice of you to join us.” Bastian took the peacock feather from behind his ear and swiveled it flirtatiously beneath Gabe’s chin. “I was just taking your cousin to the stables. Don’t worry, she already had the grass stains when I found her.”

Gabe’s eyebrow climbed farther. Lore gave him a smile that felt more like a grimace.

“Come along.” Bastian tightened the bend of his arm, trapping Lore’s hand. “I have a curious new acquisition. You two will be the first I’ve shown it to.” He gave Lore a brilliant smile. “Honestly, between this and inviting you to the masque last night, I’ve been quite the social director. Perhaps I should hire myself out to the mothers of spinsters.”

“I’m sure August would love that.” Gabe fell into step on Lore’s other side. It felt somewhat like being escorted by two abnormally tall cats, twitchy and standoffish.

“Probably as much as Anton loves you coming back to court. I’m sure he wasn’t pleased about losing his star channeler for a season.”

Gabe said nothing, arms politely behind his back, though those polite arms ended in fists. Lore thought of the conversation she and Bastian had as they danced, about how Bastian had attempted to orchestrate Gabe’s freedom for the summer, not knowing that Anton had planned it already.

But the awkward transition gave her an opening, a place to speak about the two ruling brothers of Auverraine with someone who would know more about their relationship than most. “August and Anton…” she began, feeling out how she wanted to word it. “They don’t seem to get along. Why is that?”

“Anton didn’t become the Priest Exalted until after his vision.” Gabe jumped in to answer, though he had to know she’d meant the question for Bastian. The man was apparently incapable of not immediately rising to Anton’s defense. “But August has been the heir since he was born, Apollius’s chosen. Naturally, it led to some tension.”

“Like children fighting over being Father’s favorite,” Bastian scoffed. “Anton’s vision was certainly convenient.”

Gabe shot him a dark look. “Are you implying it wasn’t true?”

“Remaut, I don’t even know what the vision was, and neither does anyone else.” Bastian reached across Lore to clap Gabe on the back. “I’m just saying that it’d have to be quite the fucking thing to make me fall face-first into a brazier. Though I suppose Anton did get magic in the bargain. You win some, you lose some.”

A muscle twitched in Gabe’s jaw, but he didn’t comment further on the veracity of Anton’s vision. “The Arceneaux line had magic already, according to the Tracts.”

“Which is one of many reasons why I don’t waste much time on the Tracts.” Bastian held up one hand, exaggeratedly flexed his fingers with a wicked glint in his eye. “I have been told I possess magic fingers, but the context wasn’t anything holy.”

Gabe rolled his eyes.

The gardens slowly tapered off, giving way to a wide green field. Horses wandered placidly, not held in by any fence but the Church wall about a mile away, cutting up into the blue sky. It seemed even the livestock in the Citadel were creatures of luxury.

The stables were up a slight hill, a structure of shining wood nicer than anything Lore had ever lived in. Purple-liveried servants guided muscled mounts in exercises around a gleaming ring. Another man-made pond shimmered in the pasture like a jewel.

“Gods dead and dying,” she murmured.

“A devotee of the equestrian arts?” Bastian asked, a lilt in his voice that said he was teasing.

“I could certainly be persuaded to become one.”

The prince laughed, pulling her toward the stables. “That’s one of you. Gabe hates horses.”

Lore glanced back at the man in question. His eye was narrowed at the side of Bastian’s head, since the Sun Prince still wouldn’t face him. “I don’t hate horses.”

“You told me so.”

“Yes, when I was eight. After falling off a rather formidable stallion that you dared me to ride. Most people mature between eight and twenty-four, and their particular hatreds change.”

“I hated roast peahen when I was eight, and I still hate it now.”

“I said most people.”

Bastian waved a flippant hand.

The inside of the stables was just as well made as the outside. Horses whickered at Bastian as he passed, and he patted their noses absently, headed toward the very back of the building.

A gaggle of children were crowded around the last stable in the row, some dressed like the offspring of courtiers, others as if they were employed by the stables. None of them spoke, all with wide eyes, staring at whatever was housed there. “Move along,” Bastian said, but it was soft. Lore expected the children to scatter when they realized who he was, but they just stepped aside, eyes still glued to the creature in the stall.

When they approached close enough to see, Lore understood why.

Horse. It was Horse.

But it couldn’t… it didn’t make sense, didn’t follow any of the rules of Mortem she knew. Dead was dead, and unspooling the magic of it from a body couldn’t change that, there was no possible way to pull all of it out. A dead thing couldn’t regain a semblance of life, couldn’t exist on its own. She’d seen the animal fall after she snapped the threads, seen death come back over the corpse.

But something must’ve changed between then and now, because here Horse was.

Lore was frozen. Her hand was still on Bastian’s arm, but she couldn’t feel it. Horse’s eyes shone milky and opaque, his throat still gashed. He nuzzled at Bastian’s outstretched hand and made a sound that would’ve been a whicker, had his vocal cords been intact.

“Quite a specimen, isn’t he?” Bastian’s eyes slid to her, dark in the shadows of the stable. “I call him Claude.”