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“Don’t get any ideas, wife,” Apollius said as He walked her quickly down the path and into the double doors of the North Sanctuary. “Remember that I can channel Mortem, too. I don’t want to stick you in stone while I wait for you to come around, but I will if I have to.”
She hadn’t gotten any ideas. His trap had been laid over centuries, and any attempt she’d made to wrestle free of it had only tangled her further.
The sanctuary was empty. The pews had been polished to a high shine, the braziers bordering the platform lit and filled with fragrant incense. Red rose petals lined the aisle, and two glasses of wine waited on the lectern. He’d decorated the sanctuary the same way someone would decorate a bridal suite.
Her stomach twisted.
Apollius kept His iron grip on her arm, steering them down the petal-strewn aisle. When they reached the lectern, He took a glass of wine, held the other out for her.
She looked Him in the eye as she poured it on the floor.
With a sigh, Apollius put His glass back down on the lectern, took off the sun-rayed crown and set it on one of the pews. He reached for her; she backed up, her slippers squishing in the sticky mess she’d made of the carpet. With a lift of His brow, He let His hand drop. “This doesn’t have to be a battle, Lore. You love Bastian, don’t you? Planned to marry him? Essentially, nothing has changed.”
“Yes, it fucking has.” She tried to work up some spit in her throat, swallow enough to make her voice sound less scratchy, less weak. “You aren’t him. You… You stole him!”
That arched brow lifted farther, that familiar smile curling higher. Apollius tapped a finger against His temple. “He’s still in here,” He murmured. “And if you play nice, maybe I’ll let him out occasionally. I don’t mind the two of you having some time together. It was fun to watch.”
Lore’s shriek of rage wasn’t much, just a thin ribbon of furious sound. Her fingers thrust out, twisted, called up a storm of Mortem like black thread from the ground.
But Apollius anticipated that; gold flared around His hands, and He slashed through the threads, cutting them loose. Mortem and Spiritum might be held by them both, now, but one could still cancel out the other.
“Let’s not start with all that,” Apollius said smoothly, stepping over the puddle of wine. Lore backed up again, and again, until her back hit the stained-glass window. It cast His face in rainbow colors, made Him glow. “You know you can’t match Me in power, Lore. Or rather, you can, and that’s the problem. We are perfectly, evenly matched. A fitting pair.”
He was right in front of her, now, caging her against His body—Bastian’s body—and the window, one hand coming up to rest beside her head. Like in the alley, after the first time Bastian brought her to a boxing match, snarling down at her because he thought she was a spy for his father. It made all this so much worse, how familiar it was, how she knew every line of his form pressed against her and knew it wasn’t him.
Apollius’s other hand rose, cupping her cheek. He searched her eyes. “All four of us could find a way to live with one another, Lore.”
“You’re building an Empire,” she snarled. “You’re wrecking the whole damn world, because You want to live forever, and You want the entire earth at Your disposal when You do. I will never find a way to live with that.”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing,” Apollius said, drawing His thumb down her cheek. “Who says a Holy Kingdom has to be bad? All of us united, together.”
“Empires don’t work like that,” Lore said, trying to turn her head so she didn’t have to look at Him. He tightened His grip on her chin. “Empires flatten everything they touch.”
“Think what you want.” Clearly, Apollius didn’t give a shit about her opinions on Empire. “We both know you aren’t a political mind. Your concern is for Bastian, and for your friends that left you here.”
Lore tensed, wondering how far the ship had gotten by now.
“Even Gabriel left you,” Apollius murmured. “I heard he put up a fight first, though. A fight with fire. Interesting.”
She sagged.
“I’ll let you say goodbye, when I bring them back,” Apollius continued. “Before I kill him. As thorough a goodbye as you want.” He grinned. “There are other ways to get back the power that is rightfully mine. If the others play nice, we’ll use less violent methods. But Hestraon… Him, I want dead.”
So He knew. He knew, and He had a plan.
“Maybe I’ll let Bastian out for that.” He moved closer, so His lips brushed her temple. “Both the killing, and the goodbye. He cares for him, too. It will be like old times—”
Lore brought up her knee, driving it into His groin. Apollius growled but didn’t loosen His hold on her—a god’s pain tolerance was too damn high. Lore’s head slammed back into the glass, hard enough to make stars swim behind her eyelids.
“You’re just the same,” He snarled. “Just the same as Her. Willing to sacrifice everything for Them, when I could give you so much more.” His golden eyes stared down into hers, searching, His lip lifting to bare His teeth. “Are You in there, beloved? Hiding from Me, still?”
A hoarse, painful laugh wrenched from Lore’s throat. “She doesn’t want to talk to You.”
“We’ll see.” He gripped her chin harder, brought His lips closer. “Let’s leave questions of Empire and our reawakened friends alone, for the moment. It’s our wedding day, after all. We should talk about us.”
She tried to squirm out of His grip, but He held her as surely as those shackles had, pinned her to the window.
“If I live forever,” He said, tracing a finger down the line of her jaw, “that means Bastian does, too. Shouldn’t you want that, if you really love him?” His head cocked to the side. “Or is that love really yours? Is it just echoes of Nyxara and Me?”
