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It was difficult work, this bifurcation, channeling death and life at once. Lore fed light into Jerault, keeping it burning, and death back into the corpse. The light coalesced in Jerault’s center, churning over itself, shining in defiance of the death that wanted to take over.
“Help?” she said quietly, her black-and-white vision turning to Bastian. He’d snapped another of the corpse’s fingers, the dry skin and bone dangling down the back of its gripping hand, but the strength left in the remaining three was still enough to choke Jerault.
Bastian let go of the corpse and held out his hands. Lore released her grip on Spiritum, letting the threads of it naturally go to Bastian, drawn by his light. It channeled through him like poured water, flowing through his body before going back to Jerault, strengthened by its proximity to the Sainted King.
A wide smile turned up Bastian’s mouth.
The hovering Mortem drifted down to the dead woman’s chest, tendrils reaching to Lore and then to the body like pieces of a broken spiderweb. The knots held tight, but Lore picked them apart with twitches of her fingers as she took them in and channeled them out, she and the corpse the center of a ragged constellation.
When it was done, the woman on the slab actually looked at peace.
Lore lurched backward, breathing hard. Her body was a mess of contradictions—her blood pulling through her veins like it was half-frozen, but faster than it should be; her lungs hauling in too much air as her limbs tingled with pins and needles.
She’d channeled them both. Mortem and Spiritum, at the same time.
Gods, and she’d thought she had a headache before.
Bastian held Jerault up by the shoulders, examining his throat. Bloody marks from the corpse’s nails scored his skin, and broken blood vessels already bloomed to nasty bruises, but other than that, he wasn’t worse for wear. He looked stricken, though, and when Bastian released him with a clap on his back, the Presque Mort gazed at Lore like he was seeing a dream and a nightmare at once.
Lore didn’t know whether to smile back or scowl, so she just stared at him blankly.
Satisfied that Jerault would live, Bastian turned toward Lore. “Let me see—”
“No, I’m fine.” She whirled toward the door, hurried out of it as quickly as she could without running. “I’m fine.”
In the dark stone corridor outside, Lore leaned back against the wall, her head tipped up, her breathing labored. The discomfort of Mortem channeling was a familiar annoyance by now, but the intense dichotomy of coming down from Mortem and Spiritum together felt like every stitch that held her together was rapidly fraying.
It was almost… exhilarating.
Her heart thudded in her chest, pumping great gouts of cold blood. Her lungs held so much air, but her throat felt too dry to let it all in and out as it should.
“Fuck,” Lore muttered, rubbing at her chest.
A glimmer in the corner of her vision. Something in the shadows, deeper in the tunnel.
Lore turned.
It was too dim to see any kind of detail. Just the vague shape of a person. But that was all Lore needed.
She leaned against the stone wall, trying to make her body re-regulate after so much magic, staring at her mother.
The Night Priestess stared back. Her hand rose, just slightly, the half-reach of someone who knew whatever they strove for was impossible to grasp.
Then she turned and disappeared into the dark.
CHAPTER TWO
The art of dreamwalking is more about concentration than magic, though magic is necessary. While dreaming was thought to be under the jurisdiction of Lereal, the most important factor is that both parties—the dreamer and the dreamwalker—are able to use magic from the same source. Therefore, strong Mortem channelers are often able to achieve dreamwalking. One can only assume that right after the Godsfall, when elemental magic was still in the world, those who could channel any sort of power could also walk in each other’s dreams.
—Mortem and Non-Death Applications,
page 113, by Antoinette Harleone
You saved him.”
It was the third time in an hour Bastian had said the words, in a voice of shock and awe, shaking his head with a smile on his face. The first time had been shortly after they sat down to a private dinner laid out in the solar, the second time had been over the soup course, and now he said it again as the remains of dessert—which Lore had only picked at, her stomach still unsettled—were tidied by silent servants. Each time, she’d only given him a tight smile in return and shot conspicuous looks at the people around them, hoping he would take the hint that she didn’t necessarily want this bit of news all over the Citadel.
But Bastian was oblivious, so this time, she spoke up. “He probably would’ve been fine if you’d kept breaking fingers.”
