AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Really?” Hoarse, and with a rueful laugh. “Really, Gabe? That’s it?”
Freeing, to finally say it, this thing she’d felt ever since they started meeting in this damn confessional. To stop pretending this was fine. Stop pretending they didn’t have unfinished business.
A pause, long enough that she thought he might ignore her. But then: “Were you expecting something different, my lady?”
The honorific made her fists clench. Because she had been, and that was stupid. Just because they could act like friends for two minutes in the middle of the night didn’t mean anything had really changed. They were still the deathwitch and the Priest Exalted, two people who’d been friends, then almost more, then nothing.
But she still didn’t want to give him the last word. She wanted to remind him of that night, smash the brittle cocoon of indifference he’d built. Even if it meant she’d have to lie and cover her own tracks. She’d spent these last weeks tamping down her own recklessness, choosing the easiest path to keep her new life as simple as it could be. It was a relief to let it go, if just for a moment. “What were you doing out in the stone garden, Gabe? I know you couldn’t hear me from inside your cloister.”
He stiffened. “If I answer that question, will you?”
“I told you why I was there.”
“Right. Fresh air.” He snorted, unconvinced. “Couldn’t sleep the night before your big performance?”
Of course. He thought she’d known about the Kirytheans. She remembered the odd look Alie had given her—she probably thought Lore had known, too. It was wounding in a way Lore didn’t know how to articulate, that lack of trust. Knowing that, at least on some level, they saw her the same way the court did. Bastian’s co-conspirator.
She swallowed. “I didn’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I hope you do.” Her voice came out very small. “I could never lie to you, Gabe, could I? Not like you could lie to me.”
That was unfair, and she knew it. He’d never lied to her directly. The falsity in their relationship had come from what Lore wanted to believe about him, even when all the evidence had constantly pointed toward his faith, his Church, his inability to let go of the doctrines that gave him purpose.
She and Gabe and Bastian could only ever have honesty, as much as they all hated it.
So in the spirit of that honesty, she said, “I’m dreaming again.”
He froze on the other side of the lattice. “No deaths?”
“No.” She sat down, elbows on her knees. “But still, if I’m going to be channeling, I need to keep my defenses strong. Maybe we should meet more often.”
She tried not to sound eager for that.
Gabe didn’t respond for a moment. Then, low: “More channeling. With him.”
So many ways to read that tone. Fury, longing, confusion.
“I don’t see a way around it,” Lore answered, echoing Bastian from hours before. Lightly, almost without realizing, she traced the scar on her palm. “That was the point, right? I stayed alive, and now we both have each other’s power. Seems silly not to use it. Especially not when it could stop a war.” She made a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. “All that talk of apocalypses, and here we are.”
Gabe didn’t respond. They sat in silence.
Finally, he shifted on the bench. “We need to get this over with,” he said. “The coronation is in two hours. Close your eyes.”
She did and saw her forest. The scent of smoke itched in her throat.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I truly can’t believe he opened the event to everyone… it smells like a horse farm in here.
—Lady Marguerite Volier, overheard at His Royal Majesty, the Sainted King Bastian Leander Arceneaux’s coronation
The session didn’t take long, once she and Gabe got going. Lore imagined her forest, grew her trees, sat in the center of the grove and watched the cerulean sky. It seemed so easy, when they were doing it like this. Much harder in the middle of channeling, when she had to thin the forest enough to grasp Mortem, but not enough to let down all her guards.
Still, once she was done, it was long past her appointment with Juliette and the other lady’s maids to make her presentable for the coronation. The icily beautiful woman gave her a hard look when Lore rushed through the door, her hair flattened to her head with sweat, and then told one of the other maids to let the guards know this would take longer than previously anticipated.
Even with that less-than-auspicious start, by the time Lore was seated on a gilded chair in the South Sanctuary, she couldn’t deny that at least she looked good. Her gown was the lavender-pink of sunrise, with long, gauzy sleeves trimmed in golden thread that nearly swept the floor. The skirt matched, flaring out around her generous hips, and the close-fitting bodice turned the softness of her middle to an hourglass. A combination of thin paper and hot irons that made the room smell horrific had coaxed her wavy hair into defined curls. Crowning it all, a small golden circlet, similar to Bastian’s, set with rubies and onyx.
