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A day? Gods dead and dying, she’d been knocked out for a whole day?
“She channeled so much…” Gabriel turned to his companion. “Do you feel it?”
The other’s expression darkened. “A bit,” he said, almost begrudgingly. “Not as much as you do. Some of us have to pay our dues in Dellaire, instead of out in one of the country monasteries. We’re used to Mortem being thick here.”
There was a bite of defensiveness to his tone, for all that it sounded like he’d meant it as a joke. Gabriel raised a candle-inked hand. “I meant no offense, Malcolm.”
“None taken,” Malcolm replied. He rubbed his scarred arms and scoffed good-naturedly, as if trying to lift the mood. “If I’d had to spend my entire training period in one of the country monasteries, I would’ve gone raving mad with boredom. I nearly did in just the two months a year I did have to spend there.”
“They certainly aren’t barrels of fun,” Gabriel agreed. “Though the two days I’ve spent in the city have me wishing to return.”
“You’re on your own there. The library in Dellaire is far superior.”
“And we all know that’s what you care about,” Gabriel snorted. “Don’t worry, we’ll finish this quickly and you can get back to your true love.”
“Good. I only agreed to come along since we’re short-staffed. Running about the Wards doesn’t agree with my constitution.”
Gabriel turned his attention back to Lore, a thoughtful crease to his brow. “I think that’s the problem here,” he said softly, with an air that could be mistaken for sympathy if Lore didn’t know better. “If we can sense so much Mortem, imagine what she can sense.”
“Too much,” Lore tried to say, though it came out garbled from behind her gag.
It startled them both, made them flinch back, as if she were a piece of furniture that had suddenly decided to speak. For her part, Lore was barely aware that she’d managed to make a sound. Her head was full of death, her nerves vibrating against the onslaught of so much entropy.
Gabriel nodded, as if something had been decided. Malcolm just looked more confused. “I don’t understand,” he said slowly. “Does it… can it hurt you? Some of the others report discomfort, but all I ever get it a little numbness—”
“It can hurt,” Gabriel said, almost rueful. “It can really, really hurt.”
Something flashed across Malcolm’s face, halfway between fear and jealousy. He rubbed at his scarred arms again.
Gabriel crossed the room and knelt by Lore’s chair. Even on his knees, the top of his head was nearly level with her nose, and his short hair wafted a scent of Church incense. That taut feeling in her middle pulled tight again, that sense that she knew him, somehow.
Gently, he reached behind her head, untied the gag so it fell out of her mouth. “Listen to me,” he said quietly, a command. “The sense of death, it’s all in your head. You can block it out.”
“How?” Her mouth still tasted like sour cotton. Behind Gabriel, Malcolm stood with his arms crossed, expression equal parts intrigued and disturbed.
“It’s your head.” His one-eyed gaze was stern. “Nothing can stay there unless you let it. You make it leave.” The words came out like a lesson often repeated.
Lore tried to laugh, but panic still had its teeth in her, and it sounded more like the start of a sob. “You’re gonna have to give me step-by-step instructions, Mort.”
He nodded smoothly, like this was a perfectly normal request. “Imagine a wall. Make it a thick one, soundproof. Imagine a barrier around your mind until it’s so solid you feel like you could touch it. And then don’t let the sense of death in. There’s no way to not be aware of it, not when you can channel so much Mortem. But it doesn’t have to take you over. It doesn’t have to rule you.”
It sounded too simple, but desperate times and all that. Closing her eyes tight, Lore imagined a wall. At first it was stone, and she quickly discarded it—she’d had enough stone walls to last a lifetime, and stone was dead, and she’d had enough of that, too. So trees, instead, thick trunks growing close.
Lore had never seen a forest up close. Her power wouldn’t let her get too far from the catacombs, and there were certainly no forests in Dellaire, just ornamental copses of manicured trees in some of the more affluent districts. But she could imagine a forest, a real one, full of green and growth.
So her mental barrier wasn’t a wall, exactly. It was just her, in the middle of a forest. A peaceful one, with a blue sky beyond the leaves, and the bizarrely comforting scent of a fire. It felt natural for her head to settle here, like this forest had been waiting for her.
Slowly, the sense of imminent death crowding all around her faded away, became the background buzz she was used to.
Lore opened her eyes. The Presque Mort stared into them with a gaze made fiercer for having only one outlet. His right eye was very, very blue.
“Thank you.” She wanted to say something cutting. She should—helping her before turning her over to a pyre was a special kind of cruel. But the thank you was all Lore could muster.
Gabriel nodded, once. “It’ll be a useful tool for you.”
She huffed that half laugh again. “I don’t think I’m going to get another chance to channel much Mortem before I get executed for necromancy.”
His brow furrowed over his eye patch, an expression she couldn’t quite make out, but he didn’t comment on her fate. Instead he held up the gag. “This was on the Priest Exalted’s orders.” Apology was thick in his tone. “I’m going to have to put it back.”
