In the beyond, I would have her sing that to me nightly. A lullaby to soothe our tortured souls to rest once we’d rendered our due. Falstaff flinched—I saw it, his acolytes saw it. We allsaw it. Another stroke of fate that the tower had been so thinned of bodies, for it was fit for a bard’s song, her final act of defiance. She’d done it for us all.
“Blood Demands Blood, laurel.” His hand shot to her palm, forgoing her thumb to score the needle from the base of her fingers to the bridge of her wrist, unseaming her flesh in one jagged swipe.
Unlike her, I thrashed. She stood still as stone, a fast-flowing line of blood spilling from her ruined hand to the roots below, soaking their feet. I braced for the plague to take her, knowing I would sprint up those cursed roots when it was over, willing to follow her into whatever pit awaited us both, now she was damned alongside me.
I kept bracing, the knot of muscles in my abdomen tightening with every breath that passed. The moment stood suspended, and no one dared to move. Nothing, nothing, more nothing.
Still, the blood plague didn’t rise to claim her.
The acolytes shuffled, one descending to his knees to inspect the ground, the tip of his nose disturbing the blood. Falstaff grabbed her mutilated hand, turning it this way and that, hoisting it up to his veil so he could examine it further. Dissatisfied, he threw it to the side in child-like frustration.
“Bring me a blade!” he rasped. “One sharp enough for the throat. The Blood God demands that she ble—” His words were swallowed by the unmistakable sound of splintering wood, the great groan of a trunk felled by an axe.
He spun, helm fixed on the Blood Tree, its weeping trunk trembling, shaking leaves raining blood upon him and Ashara. It ruptured, a chasm tearing through its twisted mother-bark, a gaping crack widening as if the hands of a titan were attempting to split it in two. A breath later, something throbbed from its blackened core, hammering through the ground, shuddering the walls in one mighty swell, turning the air viscous.
I sank to my knees beneath its force, the others following: Dendralis, laurellians, heathens. Clutching our ears, we succumbed to its power with all the inevitability of pebbles sinking in water. The force of it ground my kneecaps into the dirt, as the weight of a lake pressed upon me. Ears popping, each pulse sent another shockwave of unspeakable pressure through my skull.Just when I thought the throbbing would mulch my bones to marrow, it ebbed, and three things happened at once.
First, the ground trembled, great chasms like that of the bark splitting the earth, soil sifting into each crevice.
Second, the Blood Tree disintegrated—bark, branch, and leaf scorching to ash on the wind—some unspeakable, strange transformation upon it that I couldn’t quite comprehend.
And then…then, the sky fell on our heads.
Chapter nineteen
Demetri
The Laurels
…cursed is the ground for thy sake; in Blood shalt thou become clean, and once thy due is rendered, no more prick thyself onthorns and thistles but return to earth and clay. -3:17–19 - Book of Dendralis
For the second time in the last twenty-four turns, I was locked in a room that stunk of sweat, piss, and shit.
“Get ye defiled flesh away from me,” Iagor grunted, knocking my knee with his.
“To where, you dolt?”
Said room—or cupboard, really—was barely ten paces wide, and between the five of us, plus a bucket of waste in the corner, a chappellum cell would’ve been more comfortable. At least there I could have lain down and nursed my wounds without another filth-caked body rubbing against mine. I swallowed a breath, careful to gulp it down rather than sniff. Windowless, thick tallow candles burned from a metal bowl swinging from a beam above, the sour reek of rendered fat not quite enough to mask Iagor’sessence.
“Further over, ye cur.”
I fisted the stone beside my head, one shoulder crushed against it. “Granted it’s dark, Iagor, but even your watery little eyes must see that this is afucking wall.”
“Well, press thee against it!” A few speckles of spit landed on my arm, his gummy mouth dribbling. “I will not suffer thy skin upon mine. Ye have done enough.” Pressing a tentative finger to the bridge of his nose, he winced, the line of it crooked and bent.
“Had he not improved your nose, ’tis you who’d be fit for a wall.” My eyes snapped to the laurel opposite, his fair hair dusted with ash. “Instead of being set apart for brawling, you’d have long since suffered a plague and an acolyte’s hammer.” He cupped his hands, gaze fixed on the candles. “Thank the First you were last in line. Thank the First blood runs in your veins and not mortar, fellow laurel. Endure his knee and cease your needless prattling.”
I nudged it further into him.
“’Twas the Blood God who spared me,” Iagor protested, jerking away with a snarl. “Not this fair-faced pup.”
Dragging a lazy finger around the ball of his kneecap, I leaned closer, gagging on a fresh wave of boiled onions. “Iagor, darling…you think I’m pretty?”
“Ye scoundrel!” He slapped at my hand, already retracted, striking his bone instead. “Ye sinners, looking at me arse like a slice of bread to be buttered!”
I tempered a smile, eyes clashing with Maxius’ over Iagor’s greasy head, his mahogany irises twinkling despite his sneer.
“You forget yourself, brother.” Maxius’ fists clenched, knuckles bleeding, split red beneath the ash coating his umber skin. “Was my fist yestereve not answer enough? We’d sooner impale ourselves on Falstaff’s horns than come within a furlong of your stinking hole.”
