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“Run,” her mother whispered.
And Lore had.
She’d run and run, and it’d all been in a circle. Because here she was again. Looking at her mother’s face and seeing something like terror, something like deep sorrow.
“I’ve missed you.” Oh, gods, the genuine note in her voice made it all so much worse. The Night Sister stood on the other side of the well, but her hands still stretched out, as if she could gather Lore into her embrace. “You’re so grown up. So beautiful.” She sighed, a hitch in her throat. “I wish it could be different. I thought maybe there was a chance She would change Her mind, that you wouldn’t be one of the chosen…” Her eyes closed, a crystalline tear falling down her cheek, catching the light. “But the goddess is unchanging. I should’ve sent you into the tomb before, let Her power consume you, burn itself out before you reached the age of ascension. Now death is the only way.”
Lore thrashed in the Presque Mort’s grip despite the sting in her side, the stark words finally enough to snap her out of her haze. “No,” she said, and it sounded like her mouth was full of cotton. “No no no no I don’t want to—”
“We can’t let it happen again, my love,” her mother murmured. “The Night Witch was one of Nyxara’s chosen, too; she was to become the goddess’s avatar. And She would’ve laid waste to the world. I’m so sorry. You have to die, and I’m so sorry.”
“But you’ll wait.” Anton’s voice was different, the thin veneer of sense stripped away. Strange, to hear it gone and realize this was what waited beneath. “The deal was that you get your avatar back after six villages are added to the army, and that I get to strike the killing blow. The paperwork to make Buried Watch once again part of the Church is filed, but I can rescind it at any time if the terms aren’t met.”
“Of course,” the Night Sister murmured. “A deal is a deal.”
“Precisely. I see why the Sisters made you the Night Priestess.” Anton’s eyes shone with unsound light. “I hope you do better by the title than the last one.”
Lore’s mother—the Night Priestess—simply inclined her head.
Three mothers, two betrayals, all for some greater good that Lore couldn’t bring herself to care about. She only cared about living. The greater good could hang.
“Please don’t let him kill me.” Lore knew she sounded pathetic. She was pathetic, limp between two Presque Mort, bleeding out and helpless to stop it. “I haven’t done anything, I didn’t choose it, please…”
“Oh, dear heart.” The Night Priestess’s hand came up, then fell, like if they’d been closer she would’ve cradled Lore’s cheek. “It’s the only thing we can do. The world wouldn’t survive you.”
“A deal is a deal,” Anton said, turning to face Lore. “Now let’s settle our accounts, and we can all be on our way.”
The Night Priestess’s lips flattened in distaste. She waved a hand. “Take what you’re owed, then.”
“I’m thankful for your cooperation,” Anton said, though there was a sneer in his voice. “Thankful that you understand there is only room for one god, this time.”
“There certainly isn’t room for six again,” the Night Priestess said softly. “Gods are not content to share power.”
“That’s the trouble with ascensions,” Anton agreed. “When humans become gods, they bring their natures with them.” The Priest Exalted bared his teeth, a triumphant rictus as he stepped toward Lore. One hand raised.
It was the same tugging feeling she’d felt in her dreams, but without the buffer of sleep, it was agonizing. Her heart stilled, just so much meat, and felt like it was being pulled slowly from behind her ribs. Strands of dark Mortem leaked from her chest, seeping out slowly like blood from a million tiny wounds.
The mad priest knotted raw death in the air, gnarling the strands together. “Apollius,” he murmured, looking up at the sky as if he could find his god there. A rapturous tear slid down his cheek. “See what I do for You. How I manipulate the power of Your treasonous wife and turn it to Your glory.”
He still pulled power from her as he spoke to the empty sky, weaving it between his fingers. It coalesced above their heads, a writhing, intricate knot, pulsing like an organ as it took shape. Tendrils reached from the central mass, curling into the eclipse-shrouded sky, seeping outward as if they were looking for something.
Looking for another village. More people to kill, more corpses for Anton’s undead army. Using her to do it; Mortem channeled from her goddess-touched body, fashioned to do things no other channeler could do.
“You’ve given us Your sign,” Anton murmured to the sky. “Your promise that a new world awaits, one You will shape for Your faithful. Remember, Bleeding God, how I helped usher it in, here when two opposite powers can be held in concert.”
Opposite powers.
Even through the slow leak of her blood, the chill in her fingers and the cold creep of death, Lore could feel Spiritum, the comet-streak of life woven through her when her and Bastian’s hands were carved, then thrust together at the moment of totality.
She had them both. Mortem and Spiritum, life and death. Both of them lived in her, both of them could be channeled.
There wasn’t time to overthink it. Lore thrust out her hand and pulled.
Light flowed from Anton, a surge of it flashing across the garden to her waiting fingers, stolen from the corona around his living body. It didn’t come together like a thread, a pliant thing to be braided; this was lightning, this was all crackling energy, and Lore’s roar echoed Anton’s own as she pulled it into herself, her veins running hot and full, her heart thumping hard enough to bruise her lungs.
White-hot pain in her side, an encroaching burn. She knew it was healed without looking, the power of life rushing through her and healing everything.
Lore couldn’t hold on to it. It was too much, too bright. She relinquished her hold with a shout; the lightning-crackle left her hands, rebounded across the garden to Anton’s kneeling form. The old man breathed like a bellows, his hands clutched over his heart, his lips pulled back from his teeth.
