Everything was ash now anyway. If they wished to slit our throats in the dark, then so be it—my blood would spill all the same under the moon or the sun.
“See how quickly the liberties of your Last Rite crumble,” the Butcher continued, no longer toying with the hilt at his belt but twisting a small, curved dagger in the palm of his hand. “See how they unravel when one befouls the small mercies of your Maker. You are to blame, laurels.”
He motioned to the room with its tip, angling it downward until it was aimed at our throats. “Not I, nor the druids, or even theacolytes.” Perhaps I imagined the way he spat out the latter like a kernel stuck in his teeth.
He paused once the blade’s point landed on our joined hands, as if deciding where best to slice them apart. I tightened my grip.
“When a rat dares nip at the ankle of a wolf, what choice does the pack have but to tear it limb from limb? Else the colony believes it has the claws to match to rest.” Returning the blade to a strap hidden under the folds of his robe, he crossed two vambraced forearms over his chestplate and scanned the chamber.
“As I decreed, laurellian males are to follow me. Without noise, without delay. Without so much as a godsdamned sneeze.” The silence was thicker than oil. “Women”—his large boot edged forward—“you will remain sequestered here until sunrise, when your offering is due.”
The boot halted, the tip of it parallel to the point of my slippers.
“Unless, of course, one of your hands is bloodied, too. A snake is a snake, no matter what sits between its thighs…” His helm lowered, as if perusing the length of my body. “Drenched in sin or otherwise.”
I flushed hot, head dipping to my skirts to check I’d unbunched them properly. He couldn’t have meant…
“By the Blood God’s wrath, we will find who did this, or else make your offering a deliverance of pain as well as blood.Paxiams.”
The clink of shuffling armour had me swerving left, colliding into the side of Demetri. I peered up at him. Gone was that strange neutrality; instead, his face was that of an open wound, vulnerable and weeping.
In it, I saw the truth. There would be no making good on our promise. No more touches, no more whispered, distracting words. No more pleasantries or pinches ‘til sunrise.
“Don’t leave,” I hissed, nails crescent-mooning his forearm as the paxiams edged closer. “Don’t go—” I seized his face, the whisper of a beard scraping my palm as my fingers pressed into the fine curve of his bones. “Let them smite us here, upon these cushions. We’ve always known this is how it must end…what is but a few turns earlier?”
I tried not to wince at my voice, each syllable fissured and sharp.
The paxiams started to round the men up like fodder, closing in from all sides. Their grunts rebounded off the domed ceiling as they pushed and prodded them towards the doors.
“A few turns iseverything, darling, when you have so little left.” Demetri’s voice was soft, his touch far gentler than mine. Kind fingers combed hair away from my face, thumbs returning to stroke the bow of my lips. “Each minute and second there is air in your lungs and a beating heart in your chest is a boon. Do not squander a moment of it, even if we must say our goodb—”
The blunt end of a spear slammed into his ribs, the red gleam of paxiam armour replacing the white of his shirt that had stood before me only a moment before. He staggered into the wall, clutching his side.
I lurched towards him, but someone hauled me back, two sets of arms throwing me against the ruins of our cushioned fort.Confronted with their armour-clad backs, the paxiams spoke only to Demetri.
“Crave a taste of the pointy end? Then, haste, laurel!”
Winded and gasping, they dragged him to his feet. Gauntleted hands clamped over his shoulders, forcing him forward as he tried to twist and writhe from their hold. Ushered through the doors, his last words were drowned beneath the thumping of boots and the clatter of metal. The Butcher’s bulk eclipsed the threshold, his crimson cloak blocking any final glimpse of Demetri as the darkness of the corridor consumed him.
I hollowed.
Arms binding round my chest, I squeezed and squeezed, lest all of me crumble to the throw at my feet.
“For Blood Demands Blood,” a feather-plumed paxiam declared, locking the doors now that the men were all gone.
“For Blood Demands Blood.” Our efforts were an asynchronous mess, some beginning the first word just as others had finished. My mouth moved in habit, though no sound breached my lips. I stared at the doors, at the planks of grooved wood, banded in iron.
Speckles of white dotted my vision, retinas burning with the stubborn refusal to blink. If I gazed long enough, perhaps the Blood God would bless me with sight, let me peer through wood, stone, and mortar, to where they’d taken them…to where they’d taken Demetri.
When the paxiams, their numbers halved, had all returned to their posts, my lids finally shuttered, spilling tears down both cheeks.
I slumped to the floor, like most of the others, prostrating myself over a raft of cushions and praying they might keep me afloat. Clutching the fabric, I shook with the urge to take a knife to them—to split open their bellies, claw out the feathers, rip a sconce from the wall and set fire to it all. Burn the chamber, theatrium, the whole Blood God-forsaken templum, the promise of His plagues be damned.
But I didn’t. Couldn’t.
Forsaking fire, I made do with down. Mouth muted by the press of a cushion, I uttered a word over and over into its seams. A word Demetri deserved to have heard from my lips, both this night and after the scaffold eight cycles ago. A word I’d never had the courage to say.
Goodbye.
