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Calling up Mortem now was as simple as a thought. Her mental map fell into place behind her eyes, the catacombs like a spiderweb, a tangle of black thread.
The rooms where the army had been kept still held spots of concentrated Mortem, but they were faint, burned-out stars. Amelia’s signature would be brighter, since her death was so recent—
Wait.
There, down deep, at the very bottom of the pit of thread. A blazing black knot of Mortem, as there usually was, marking Nyxara’s place. But it was fainter than Lore remembered, less vibrant.
And there were no points of white light around it. No signs of life at all.
“Lore?” Gabe’s voice, concern edging up to panic.
She couldn’t deal with that right now, couldn’t waste time wondering about the Buried Watch. About Lilia.
Lore concentrated, turning the mental map over, until she found a burning spot of Mortem close by. “They didn’t take her far.” Her fingers were numb; she shook them out, but only on one hand, the other holding fast to the torch. “Come on.”
Amelia was so close to the entrance that Lore really hadn’t needed to use her map at all—if they’d just started forward, they would’ve found her in minutes. The door to the small room was open, Amelia’s body laid out on a dusty plinth. Nothing had been done to her. She still looked like she had in Bastian’s apartment, her mouth gaping, esophagus visible through her cut neck, her chest open and missing a heart.
It reminded Lore of statues of Apollius, a thought so repulsive she physically flinched against it.
“They should’ve done something,” she murmured as she stepped into the room, bringing the torch closer to the body. Its light made the violence done to Amelia appear even more awful. “They treated her like trash. Apollius must’ve wanted her out of His hair as quickly as possible. I bet Demonde doesn’t even know where she is.”
Behind her, Gabe was quiet, his arms crossed. She turned to him, handed him the torch, sudden anger drawing her face into hard lines. “Do you believe me now? That Apollius can’t be good? Apparently Him fucking you over wasn’t enough; what about Him doing it to someone else?”
Gabe didn’t reply.
Lore turned back to Amelia. Her hands hovered over the woman’s corpse, fingers fluttering, as if there was something she could do to change this indignity, something she could fix. In the end, she settled for combing her blond hair back, blood-sticky as it was, arranging it over her shoulders, trying to throw strands across her open neck to cover what lay inside. Seeing Amelia’s organs without her permission felt violating.
When she was done, Lore leaned on the plinth, closing her eyes. After a deep breath, she held out her hand again, over Amelia’s open chest. She gathered up the other woman’s death, braided it around her fingers. Instead of channeling it into the stone of the plinth, Lore tucked it into her own chest, keeping it close and safe, to give back later.
A creak. Amelia sat up. Her flesh stuck to the rock beneath her with congealing blood, making a slight tearing sound as she pulled away. Her face didn’t turn to look at Lore, instead staring straight ahead with her one blank, black eye, the other stabbed out.
“Who killed you?” Lore asked, even though they knew. She made herself watch Amelia, not allowing herself to look away. She’d done this. She remembered Bellegarde’s words before Apollius killed him, that Lore’s continued life was what made the god so powerful, able to take Bastian over so quickly rather than integrate over time. Her living had made all the other gods rise and find new vessels. Amelia was her victim, too.
“The day,” Amelia said through her cracked-open, unmoving jaw. “The day killed me.”
An inverse of what the child’s corpse had said so long ago, trying to warn Lore of what she was, how she was being used.
Something wet dripped onto her hand, falling from Amelia’s open mouth. Clear, watery. Lore lifted her fist and breathed in before she could talk herself out of it. It didn’t smell like salt, not like the physician said the water on the floor smelled during the autopsy. This water smelled fresh, somehow, which should be an impossibility considering it came from inside a corpse. The scent of open breeze and open sky, a place that should be left untouched.
“Why?” Lore asked, another answer they already knew. But she wanted to hear it all from Amelia. Wanted the other woman to have a chance for truth, even if it was after death.
“Because I was to be a god,” Amelia said, more of that incongruously fresh water sheeting over unmoving lips. “Because I had the power of Caeliar, and He would not allow such a thing to stand. That power was to be His.”
Lore nodded. “Did you go to Him? Did you offer Him the power back?”
“No,” Amelia said, water clinging to her mouth in fat droplets. “I went to kill Nyxara’s vessel. She was not meant to be His Queen; it was supposed to be me. But He didn’t want Her dead. He wants Her with Him, He wants to be the only god, but still have His wife by His side. He thinks She will give up her power, so He will have all powers and know immortality, and He will share that immortality with Her.”
Swallowing hard, Lore closed her fingers, severing the threads and sending Amelia’s death back into her body. Slowly, the corpse slumped to the plinth again, black eyes closing, mouth still open.
It all kept coming back to Lore. Every bad thing.
Lore turned and left the chamber, Gabe following close behind. She didn’t need her mental map to guide them back to the entrance. They were close enough to see the sliver of daylight from the partially open cover cutting through the dim and dust.
“At least that didn’t take long,” Gabe grumbled behind her. The torch snuffed out with a hiss; the hairs on Lore’s arms stood up with the change of pressure in the atmosphere when he gathered the magic to do it.
“He killed her for me.” Lore crossed her arms against a sudden shudder. “How am I supposed to live with that?”
“It’s not yours to live with.” Gabe’s hand on her arm halted her; he made her turn around to face him, limned in firelight and glaring. “Don’t hold things that aren’t yours.”
