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The dock was visible down the gentle hill of the road. Mari and Michal had sprinted to the ship, doing… something… with ropes and hooks, which Lore assumed was supposed to make a ship ready to sail. They had to sail. Gabe and Malcolm and Alie had to be on that ship. If they weren’t, it was a death sentence.
Her breath came more steadily as her insides knit back together. The bloodcoats had left her mostly alone, as if afraid to touch her now that she’d been shot, afraid to somehow be implicated in her death.
Death. Her other power.
Lore stood up. Her legs were shaky, and her too-fine dress was soaked in blood. Down the hill, Gabe caught her eye, attuned to her movements even now. He shouted something, but it was lost in the boom of more gunfire, the shouts of burning men as he hurled flame. Some had caught on the warehouses; more than one was ablaze, billowing thick smoke. Alie’s shrieks echoed as the bloodcoats hauled her back up the street.
But Lore just watched Gabe, his face a grimace, limned in firelight that stood out so strangely against the pale glow of dawn.
“You have to go!” She flung out her hands along with her shout, indicating the ship—Mari and Michal were doing more things with ropes, and Val was standing at the gangplank, firing her pistol at any bloodcoat who came near. She was a hell of a shot, and at least three crimson-coated bodies sprawled at the edge of the sea. “You have to be on that ship! I can take care of Alie!”
An empty promise, possibly. But she had some measure of influence over Apollius, something He wanted. Surely she could bargain for her friend’s life. The god was a malleable being, able to change His mind—she could do something. She had to.
But even if she could save one of them, Lore didn’t think she could save them all.
Gabe shouted something back, probably some martyr-like sentiment about how he wasn’t going to leave her. But Lore was prepared for that.
She stretched out her hands. She tugged at the Mortem in the cobblestones.
They exploded.
She’d directed it with careful precision; the only stones that blew into pieces were around the bloodcoats, sending them falling back, rending bloody gouges in more than one head as shrapnel flew. A piece of flying rock clipped Lore’s shoulder; she healed it without a second thought, twisting a golden thread of Spiritum around her finger, channeling it through her.
The erupting street forced Malcolm and Gabe back, closer to the ships. Lore raised her hands, grabbed Mortem, made another row of rock blast apart, forcing them back farther. She’d do this all the way to the docks if she had to.
Finally, Gabe seemed to get the picture, to realize that he was of no use to anyone if he was dead. And he would be, if he kept this up—he might have Hestraon’s power to manipulate fire, but the bloodcoats had guns, and all it took was one bullet to find its mark. With a wrench of his jaw that looked like a pained, helpless scream, Gabe turned and ran toward the ship, dragging Malcolm behind him. Val started cranking up the gangplank before they were off it, sending them tipping onto the deck in a tangle of singed monk. She kept firing into the crowd of bloodcoats, though most of them were turning around, now, headed in Lore’s direction. She was the thing they wanted most. She was what they’d come for.
What He wanted.
The ship pulled away from the dock, ropes falling into the sea as if Mari and Michal hadn’t quite finished their preparations, setting sail prematurely to get ahead of whatever storm would follow. And there would be one. Of that, Lore had no doubt.
But it looked like Val and Mari were going, too, headed to relative safety in Caldien. That was good.
The bloodcoats surrounded her. She didn’t pay attention as they shackled her wrists, as they looked askance at the blood on her gown, the place where a bullet hole should be. She just watched that ship get steadily smaller on the horizon.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
You cannot run from My justice.
—The Book of Holy Law, Tract 190
Part of her thought that the bloodcoats would be secretive as they brought her back into the Citadel. That they’d remove her shackles, let her put on a dress that wasn’t stiff with her own blood. But they did no such thing. They marched Lore and Alie from the docks and through the streets while the citizens of Dellaire looked on, whispers rising in their wake. The hemlock Queen, the deathwitch Queen, the murderer, maybe the traitor.
She’d forgotten they’d pinned that on her, forgotten how fast rumors traveled in the Court of the Citadel. How fast they made it beyond the walls.
Next to her, Alie hung limp in another bloodcoat’s grip, a strand of pale hair falling to curl against her cheek. Somehow, she still looked ethereal, even with Lore’s blood streaking her sky-blue skirt, bruises blooming on her arms. She kept quiet, staring straight ahead, fear lending an animal gleam to her dark-green eyes.
There had to be enough of Bastian left to make sure nothing happened to Alie. Enough to spare her life even though she was the avatar of Lereal.
Surely, there was some of Bastian left.
The gates of the Citadel cranked open. The bloodcoats marched them through.
Courtiers gathered along the pathways into the Citadel proper, murmuring behind their hands, eyeing Lore with open disgust. It was no surprise when the first one spit at her. It dripped down Lore’s cheek. She didn’t react. She stared straight ahead, not giving them any more ammunition. Disquiet and violence hung in the air, thick as the humidity, just waiting for an opening. As bad as this was, it could always get worse. Lore could at least be sure that Apollius wasn’t going to publicly beat her to death. Mostly.
Alie got none of the same treatment, thank all the gods. The looks she received from the crowd were almost… reverent. Awed, curious.
The other woman turned her eyes to Lore. They know, Alie’s face said, naked fear. Somehow, they know who I am.
