The strands attached to the ground around the Priest Exalted, and it erupted. Thick green vines grew rapidly through the stone, thorn-studded, the ends opening in blood-red rose blooms identical to the ones burning near the path. They wound around his legs, his middle. They entered his mouth before he could so much as scream. His eye rolled as the empty socket of the other was filled with green, then red, a rose unfurling in the scarred orbital, petals brushing his flame-ravaged brow.
It was over in an instant. Anton Arceneaux was encased in roses and blood, one more statue in the garden.
And Bastian had done it so easily, as if it was second nature.
Gabe made a small, hoarse noise, stumbling back. “You said you wouldn’t kill him.” His voice went ragged at the end. “You said you wouldn’t!”
“I said he would live.” Bastian stepped forward to the remains of his uncle and wrenched the bloody crown from his hand. The Priest had held on to it all this time. “And he does.”
The smallest rise and fall of Anton’s chest. The thinnest whistle of breath. Bastian was right; in all those roses, Anton was still alive.
Gods, it was worse.
Gabe’s eyes went from his Priest to his King, shock curdling to hatred, hot and vitriolic. “You’re no better,” he said again, an echo. The flames of the burning roses in the garden seemed to bend toward him, as if drawn to his rage. “Is this how it’s going to be, then? You as a magic tyrant, worse than August could ever be?”
Bastian didn’t answer. Instead, he placed the crown on his head. It crossed the bloodied line on his brow. “Long live the Sainted King.”
EPILOGUE
Her chair was uncomfortable.
It wasn’t just the chair itself—being here at all was uncomfortable, up on the dais in the throne room, seated next to Bastian. Her chair was silver, taken from one of the countless storage rooms in the Citadel when Bastian went through them for things to sell off, give away, or melt down. It was a haphazard way of trying to help those living outside the wall, but it was something. Centuries of hoarded wealth were hard to liquidate all at once.
But this chair he’d taken to put on the throne’s dais. For her. So she could sit next to him in a show of equality.
Almost like a Queen.
Some of them called her that. She’d heard it whispered—the poison queen, the hemlock queen, the deathwitch queen. The court loved a nickname, apparently.
Lore didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be this visible, this vulnerable. But by now, the story of what she was—what August and Anton had been trying to do—had spread through the Citadel and beyond. Her anonymity was lost; the safety Bastian offered was all she had left.
Especially as news of her power trickled beyond Auverraine. To Kirythea.
It was only midmorning, but already there’d been a stream of business to take care of. Petitions to hear out, prisoners to pardon. All of them were courtiers who’d been at the eclipse ball.
The one that stuck in Lore’s mind was Dani. Her whole family was sent to the Burnt Isles, other than Amelia, the older sister who’d been hastily wed a week before to Lord Demonde, who didn’t care about the scandal attached to his new wife’s old name. Dani had glared at Lore the entire time, even as the manacles were fastened around her wrists.
Bastian kept Lore beside him because it was safer for them to stick together, but she wished he’d let her hide behind the throne or something.
Now, on the marble floor before her, Mari and Val bowed, their new contract clutched in Val’s hand. All pardons had to be reconsidered by the new King; Val and Mari’s privateering had been high on Bastian’s list of things to renew. He’d sweetened the pot for them, put them and all their crew on the Citadel’s payroll. His next step, he’d told Lore, was legalizing poison’s use for the terminally ill, those who might need to extend their lives a bit longer to make sure their families were taken care of, or to dull pain. He was pushing through pardons for arrested poison runners with no other charges as quickly as his pen could sign his name.
All things that were good for Dellaire. Still, Mari’s dark eyes were apprehensive as they flickered to Lore. Worry lived in the line of her full mouth.
She and Val didn’t speak as they left the throne room, their business concluded. But they both looked back at Lore one more time before the door closed.
Lore desperately wished she could follow them.
“One more.” Bastian shifted in his throne, lifted up a hand to readjust his sun-rayed crown. It looked good on him, better than it had ever looked on August. “Then we can get something to eat, and we won’t have to look at this fucking room for a few days.”
“Who is it?” Lore asked. She hadn’t studied the docket of pardons today. She’d been too tired.
Sleeping scared her, now. She did it as little as possible.
Bastian gave her an unreadable look. “It’s—”
The door opened before he could answer.
Gabe.
The former Duke Remaut wasn’t in irons. He’d spent the past two weeks since August’s death imprisoned in the Church, locked in a cloister—a favor, really, keeping him out of the dungeons. Lore had asked for that, but she hadn’t had to beg. Bastian agreed on the first mention, like he hadn’t wanted to keep Gabe in the dungeons, either.
Still, he looked haggard. Thin, bruised. He’d found another eye patch after losing his first, but it didn’t fit well, and his whole eye looked sunken.
Lore’s chest twinged.
She didn’t know what Gabe had been formally charged with. There were choices. Treason, accessory to murder. All things that could carry a person to the Burnt Isles or the gallows.
Myriad hells, surely Bastian wouldn’t do that. She’d speak up if she had to.
But she didn’t want to have to.
Gabe stopped in the middle of the floor. He took a deep breath, then looked up.
If he was surprised to see Lore there, he didn’t show it. His blue eye tracked to her, then quickly away, with no sign of emotion.
“Gabriel Remaut,” Bastian intoned, the same as he had for every penitent. “Do you know why you’re here?”
“Skip this part.” His voice was hoarse. “Can we just fucking skip this part? Your Majesty?”
Contempt dripped from his voice. Lore bit her lip.
But Bastian nodded. “We can.” He sat back in his throne, knees canted wide, taking up all the room. Even the throne fit him better than it had his father. “Gabriel Remaut, do you promise your loyalty to the crown of the Sainted King and to the Church of Auverraine, to lead it in steadfast devotion and piety as we await the return of Apollius?”
He said it so quickly, so nonchalant, that it took both Lore and Gabe a moment to parse the words. Gabe’s eye went wide. “I don’t—”
“Just say yes, Remaut.” Bastian tapped his fingers on his knee. “You know what it is. You’ve heard the annunciation before.”
Lore’s mind finally caught up with the pronouncement, with what it meant. Her mouth dropped open.
Gabe straightened. Nodded. “I will.”
“Then I pronounce you as the Priest Exalted.”
Silence. Neither she nor Gabe knew how to react, what to say. He’d gone from being a prisoner to being the second most powerful man in the country in a span of seconds.
And Bastian just looked bored.
“Now,” said the Sainted King, flicking his fingers dismissively. “Get out of my sight. My deathwitch and I have much to discuss.”