“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.