Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

The one who can stab you quickest is the one to whom you give a knife.

—Kirythean proverb

Lore paused. Then she laughed.

It was a rough and rasping sound, her mouth still dry from the cotton gag. Lore hung her head and laughed until it ran the risk of becoming a sob.

“My help?” She shook her head, though it made her temples throb. The chloroform had knocked loose a bitch of a headache, worse than any hangover. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, priest, but wanting help from an unsanctioned Mortem wielder is more than a little light heresy.”

Anton’s expression was almost amused, at least on the side of his face that could show expression. “Heresy can be forgiven, when it’s for the greater good.”

Behind Anton, Malcolm still stood with his scarred arms crossed, face unreadable. But at the word heresy, the line of Gabriel’s mouth went flat.

“The Bleeding God knows our plight and gives us benediction to do as we must in His service.” All this in a low, pleasing baritone, as if Anton was reciting a prayer. Maybe he was; the Book of Prayer was thick as every hell and seemed to have an entry for everything. “Indeed, it is a vital part of the Presque Mort’s work, the marrow to its bone. We submit ourselves to darkness, knowing that in the end all shadow will be eclipsed in light, as the Buried Goddess was eclipsed by the glory of the Bleeding God.”

That didn’t seem to have worked out so well, what with the Mortem still leaking from the goddess’s dead body and all. “If you’re asking me to join your cult,” Lore said, “my answer is a resounding no.”

It was Anton’s turn to laugh, a sound as court-cultured as his speaking voice. “Oh, no,” the Priest Exalted chuckled. “That’s not what we want at all. It takes a person of a very… specific… temperament to make it as one of the Presque Mort.”

She gave him a beatific smile. “And I’m too pretty.”

Malcolm turned his face away, fighting down a smirk. Gabriel didn’t react at all, that one blue eye blazing at her.

Anton raised a sardonic brow. “You are unscarred, yes. Clearly, your abilities with Mortem didn’t come through an accident, not like ours did.”

That skated a bit too close to close to the truth for her tastes—they might be willing to overlook her power if they needed her for something, but she’d like to avoid revealing where that power came from. Lore shifted in her chair. “What do you need me for, then?”

All the laughter was gone from Anton now, both the handsome and the scarred sides of his face stoic. “You’ve heard of the village, I presume.”

Everyone had heard of the village by now. Lore nodded.

“And what exactly have you heard?”

“Not much.” She lifted her hands behind her as much as she could against the ropes, twiddled her fingers. “I might remember more if you untied me.”

Anton’s placid expression didn’t change. He waved a hand, and Gabriel stepped forward, ducking behind Lore’s chair to cut the knots that held her. The Presque Mort moved silently, stiffly. She smelled incense again.

When she was free, Lore sat forward, working her wrists back and forth. Malcolm watched her warily, and she held up her hands like surrender. “No weapons. Relax.”

He didn’t. “It’s not the weapons I’m concerned with.”

“You’ve channeled Mortem before,” Lore replied, opening and closing her fists. “You know it’s no picnic. I’m not in a hurry to do it again.”

Malcolm eyed her for a moment longer, then gave a begrudging nod.

Marginally less sore, Lore sat back. “I heard a whole village died overnight. Shademount, to the southeast.” Shademount was one of the smaller villages in Auverraine, more an outpost than a proper town. It was the last Auverrani settlement before reaching what was formerly Balgia, a small duchy now part of the Kirythean Empire. Lore had never been there, obviously, but she’d had Shademount-brewed beer. It was very good. She guessed no one would be making it anymore. “The people had no marks on them, no sign of poisoning or sickness. They just look like they’re asleep. Some think it’s a sign of Apollius’s disfavor.”

“And what do you think it is?” Anton folded his fingers across his middle, like a teacher quizzing a student.

“Mostly, I think it’s all rumors. Maybe one or two got sick and died in the night, maybe a whole farmhouse full, but a whole village? Horseshit.”

“Not horseshit,” Anton said levelly. Priest he might be, but he didn’t stutter at all over the profanity. “Truth. All of it.” A pause. “Though there have been two villages, now. It happened again two nights ago. Orlimar. Slightly bigger than Shademount, nearer Erocca than Balgia.”

Another village on the southeastern border, close to another country conquered by the Empire. Lore swallowed.

Anton’s eye glinted as he leveled an unreadable look her way, something vaguely sinister in the curve of his mouth. But it was gone quickly, covered by a mask of nondescript pleasantry. Behind the Priest, Malcolm and Gabriel were mostly expressionless. Gabriel kept raising his hand to his eye patch, though, like it itched.

“That’s interesting,” Lore said finally. “But I fail to see how I can help you with it.”

“The same way you helped your unfortunate equine friend in the Northwest Ward this morning,” Anton replied. “Reanimation.”

The word fell like a stone in the quiet room. Lore gaped, the uncomfortable feeling of returning circulation forgotten. “I…” She stopped, shook her head, jangling free more of that chloroform headache. “Listen, it’s not something that I do frequently, and the comedown is really unpleasant, so I’d rather not—”

“You’ve done it more than once already.” Anton nodded and waved a stately hand, as if presenting her with her own success. “It’s not an ability you can simply wish away. Wouldn’t you rather do it in the employ of Church and Crown, where a pyre isn’t imminent?”

Thatwas a threat, despite his genteel tone. She sat back in her chair, instinctually putting distance between the two of them.

The scar tissue massing the left side of the Priest Exalted’s face moved as his mouth stretched to a cruel smile. “When you have unholy skills,” he said, “it is best to put them to holy purpose.”

“Don’t you have some unholy skills of your own? Surely one of you could do it.” Incredulous laughter ticked at the back of Lore’s throat. “You can channel Mortem, can’t you? All of you can, that’s your whole purpose.” Her newly free hand cut through the air, jabbed toward Gabriel. “He can feel it! There has to be someone in your damn cult that can raise the dead; leave me out of it!”

Gabriel’s one visible eye narrowed. “Necromancy is beyond our scope.”

“And that is the crux of our issue.” The garnet on Anton’s pendant winked in the candlelight as he shifted in his chair. “While our order does have the ability to channel Mortem, none of us are capable of resurrection. Not like you.”

The logical questions hung thick in the air, the why to the how. But they remained unspoken. The four of them sat in silence, Anton’s and Malcolm’s faces implacable, Gabriel’s slightly pinched.

When it became clear the silence would only break if she did the breaking, Lore sighed. “I still don’t understand how me doing… doing that… helps you find out what’s going on in the villages.”

Anton shrugged. “You raise one of the victims,” he said, as if the answer was obvious, “and you ask what happened.”

The thought made Lore recoil. Raising Horse was one thing—and her throat still burned from the coffee she’d vomited up when she saw the poor animal’s dead eyes blinking—but she couldn’t raise a person again. Never, ever again. “I don’t—”

“Not for an extended time, of course.” The Priest Exalted shook his hand and his head, double negation, the movements exaggerated by his shadow on the floor. “They don’t even need to be ambulatory.”

She didn’t have anything else in her stomach to retch up, but it churned just the same.

“All we need,” Anton continued, “is for you to bring the victims back to life long enough for them to relay their memories. Tell us what happened before they died, to see how it was done.”

“And if I don’t?” She wanted it to sound defiant, but it came out small.

“Then you can choose: a noose, a pyre, or the Burnt Isles.” The Priest Exalted shrugged again, as if it was all the same to him. “They’re mining more and more coal out of the Isles recently, I hear. Going deeper, on the off chance we lose our stronghold there to Kirythean raiders. They can always use extra hands.”

He said it so smoothly, nonchalant, with those rounded royal vowels. Lore clicked her teeth shut and swallowed again, trying to settle her stomach.

“Think of all the people you’d be helping.” Gabriel stepped forward from behind Anton, blue eye locked on Lore, jaw tight. It seemed almost like the Mort begrudged the fact that he was trying to convince her, that he’d been reduced to cajoling a poison runner, fished out of the gutter and brought into his Church.

“This has happened twice now, and we have every reason to believe it will again,” Gabriel continued. “Both villages were along the border we share with the Kirythean Empire. I don’t have to spell out for you what that means.”

He didn’t. Relations with Kirythea had always been tense. The previous Emperor, Ouran, had conquered everything up to Auverraine’s southeastern edge before his death—more than half the Enean continent. Now Ouran’s son Jax had taken his throne, and no one knew whether or not he’d continue his father’s uneasy truce.

The raids on the Burnt Isles—hotly contested territory that Auverraine had held for the entirety of Ouran’s reign—made continued peace seem unlikely.

Anton nodded, shooting Gabriel a pleased look from the corner of his eye. “Gabriel is right. This isn’t just a matter of strange happenings or morbid curiosity. It’s a case of maintaining our country’s security.”

“I think you’re overestimating my patriotism,” Lore said.

“It isn’t a question of patriotism. It’s a question of keeping war from our doorstep.” Anton’s scars pulled as he narrowed his working eye, a motion that looked painful. “You know who bears the weight of war. It won’t be the nobles in the Citadel. It will be the peasants in their villages, the poison runners in the streets. People like you.”

He said it like it bothered him. She hoped it did.

Gabriel appealing to her sense of greater good—did she even have that? She wanted to—and Anton appealing to her sense of self-preservation. Death on one end, blackmail at the other.

“This leads us nicely to the second part of your assignment,” Anton said, as if following a carefully constructed script. “Necromancy is not the only skill you possess that is useful to us. You are also an accomplished spy.”

“Accomplished might be pushing it,” Lore muttered.

Anton continued as if he hadn’t heard. “We have reason to believe that someone within the Court of the Citadel is passing information on to Kirythea. Possibly the Sun Prince himself.”

Lore’s eyes widened until they ached. “You want me to spy on the fucking Sun Prince?”

“We just want you to stay near him,” Anton said. He gestured to her. “You’re a pretty enough woman, and Bastian likes pretty people. Insinuating yourself into his good graces once you’re established as part of the court shouldn’t be an issue.”

She knew what all those words meant individually, but strung together like that, she had a hard time following. “I don’t—what do you mean, part of the court—”

“Things will be clearer once we speak to my brother.” Anton glanced upward, as if he could see straight through the ceiling to the sunshine outside and use it to tell the time. “Which we should go do as soon as possible. The Consecration ceremony begins in just a few hours.” His eye came back to rest on her, the handsome side of his face perfectly peaceful. “So what will it be, Lore? The Isles, or the court?”

Put so baldly, it wasn’t much of a choice at all. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Gabriel almost looked relieved.

Anton inclined his head, like her answer was exactly what he expected. “Come on, then,” he said, headed toward the door. “The Sainted King doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”