AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The confession sent fear skittering through every nerve ending, but Lore tried not to let it show on her face. “I’m fine,” she said, taking Bastian’s hand and putting it on her waist. “I’m fine.”
“When we get back, you have to tell them.” His voice was strained, his fingers twitching against her abdomen. “Gabe and Alie and Malcolm. You have to tell them what’s happening to me. I’ll go up to our rooms, say I’m not to be disturbed. I’ll try to… try to stay myself for as long as I can, wait it out until nightfall.” His hand tightened, pulling her in close. “You have to be careful of me, Lore. Can’t trust me.”
How surreal, to hear the things Gabe had said about him coming from Bastian’s own mouth.
She felt Bastian’s head turn, taking in the road. “I don’t remember… why did we leave Courdigne? The last thing I recall is sitting down with Bellegarde.”
Tears, again, threatening at her eyes. Gods dead and dying, cry one time, and then it’s a hair-trigger. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, fighting her voice to evenness, so it wouldn’t sound as ragged as she felt. “I’ll tell them. You just concentrate on… on staying you, for as long as you can.”
And he did, kicking the horse back into a run, the footmen and carriage following suit. Lore didn’t have to look at Bastian to know he stayed himself as they ate the miles between Courdigne and the Citadel, as she felt the jolt of crossing into Dellaire. The way he balled her skirt in his hands said enough, the way he’d occasionally bend his head to the curve of her shoulder, the way that she felt the warmth of tears when he did.
They clattered through the Citadel gates and dismounted. Bastian, still stiff, eyes still dark, just nodded to Lore and kissed her hand before marching through the gold-and-oak double doors. Lore watched him go, swallowed a couple times to level the thorns in her throat, then whirled to the carriage, where Alie was climbing out and attempting to stretch at the same time.
“Apollius’s wounds,” she cursed as Lore approached. “That went much faster than it should’ve. Why was Bastian in such a hurry? That carriage is not meant to travel at a canter.”
“Try actually riding the horse.” Now that she had a shred of attention to show it, Lore’s body felt like one large bruise. She ignored the pain, taking Alie’s hand and turning her down the path through the gardens that led to the South Sanctuary. “Come on, you and I need to find Gabe and Malcolm.”
The other woman’s pale brows drew together, but she didn’t argue. She opened the trunk the footman had just set at her feet, pulled the folio from the top, and clutched it to her chest. “I won’t waste time asking you why, since I assume you’ll only want to say it all once.”
She was almost too good a diplomat. “Precisely,” Lore said.
Alie waved a weary hand. “Then lead on.”
Lore only led until they actually entered the Church, the cool shade of the stone building a balm on her sun-reddened skin. Then Alie took point, walking confidently through the warren of hallways and naves and stained-glass-lit corridors. “Gabe is usually in his study at this time of day,” she said over her shoulder. “When he isn’t meeting with you, anyway.”
The fact that Gabe had a study was news to Lore, though she supposed it made sense. The title of Priest Exalted seemed one that would come with a study.
It was hard of her to think of him that way, still. As the highest religious authority in the land—the highest authority, period, other than Bastian. She recalled the disgust with which Apollius had spit his name from Bastian’s lips.
The aforementioned study was in a part of the Church that Lore hadn’t been to before, up a few flights of wooden stairs that creaked ominously beneath their weight, every landing laden with a statue of Apollius. Most of them looked normal enough, but the one on the last landing, right before the small, arched wooden door that led out of the staircase, was the mirror image of the one she’d seen in Courdigne. Apollius with an empty chest, a moon-stone in one hand and a sun-stone in the other.
“What do you call that?” she asked Alie as they paused on the landing. “The only other statue like that I’ve seen was in Courdigne.”
“They’re rare, and old as dirt,” Alie answered, digging in the small reticule hanging from a ribbon around her waist. The digging produced a key; she slipped it into the lock. It sent a pang through Lore’s chest: concrete proof that the others had been meeting without her and Bastian, not trusting them. Though it wasn’t like she could blame them, now.
“They were carved right after the Godsfall,” Alie continued as she opened the now-unlocked door. “As far as I know, there are only a few in existence—one here, the one in Courdigne, and one in Laerdas, the Kirythean capital. Maybe a couple others.” She gave the statue a withering glance over her shoulder as she passed into the shadows of the hall beyond the door. “It’s called Apollius Avenging, I think.”
Lore frowned at the statue, giving it as wide a berth as she could as she followed Alie through the door.
The corridor beyond was smaller and shabbier than the rest of the Church. The dark wood didn’t do much to amplify the light from the small windows at the end of the hall, and though there were gas lamps on the walls, they weren’t lit. The carpeting below Lore’s feet was short and nubby, a stark contrast with the plush luxury inside the Citadel and the austere hardwood in more traveled areas of the Church.
“Anton didn’t use this study much,” Alie said, almost by way of explanation. “There are other, grander offices down on the first floor, where he could be seen and admired for his holiness more easily. That was always more important to him than actual study.”
“Not there at the end,” Lore said quietly, following the other woman to an arched door that matched the one at the staircase. “He studied quite a lot, before the ritual.”
“I suppose he did.” Alie knocked, four sharp raps, a pause before the fifth. It reminded Lore of the specific knock Val and Mari’s crew used at the warehouse, and for a second it nearly pulled her heart in half, these incongruous similarities between her two lives.
Alie turned to her when her knuckles fell away from the wood. “This is where we’ve been meeting,” she said, with an undercurrent of apology. Meeting without Lore. “To discuss what to do about Bastian.”
“And what to do about me?” Too threadbare to be a joke.
Alie didn’t reply.
The door opened, Malcolm on the other side. He didn’t look surprised to see Alie, but his eyes widened when he saw Lore. “Um, hello, what are you—”
“It’s fine.” Alie pushed past him, all business now, into the study beyond. Gas lamps lit the small space in yellow, illuminating a messy desk and an overstuffed bookshelf sporting a fine layer of dust. Gabe sat behind said messy desk, his reddish-gold head bent over an open book. “Lore knows something is wrong.”
At that, Gabe’s head shot up, his one eye fixing on Lore in a stare that went from surprised to scrutinizing in an instant. She didn’t let herself drop it.
