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She’d tried to refuse that particular accessory. But Juliette had smacked her hand away and settled it on her head in one fluid motion. “King’s orders.” And that was that.
Now Lore wished she’d fought a bit harder against the circlet. There’d been a rush of whispers when she was escorted in by two Presque Mort and led to her chair, and the whispers hadn’t stopped. Her place was far back on the platform at the front of the sanctuary, clearly for the sole purpose of keeping her out of the crowd. Lore thought sitting in the front row with Alie would’ve been safer, but Bastian wouldn’t be deterred, apparently. He was constantly afraid that someone might try to assassinate her.
Not afraid enough to keep from inviting the Kirytheans, though. Lore could see Maxon and Caius in the gallery, seated with some of the most elderly nobles, those least likely to question who they were—or most likely to forget they’d seen them in the first place. Today was crowded and exciting enough to hide them in the chaos, but that wouldn’t work for long if Bastian wanted to keep them in the Citadel.
Lore didn’t know Bastian’s plan for introducing the Kirythean delegates to the rest of the court. She assumed he’d tell her that plan, but the last couple days had proven the adage about assumptions and asses, so she’d better demand an answer if she wanted one. Rumors had to be circulating already, started by the farmers who’d witnessed the arrival yesterday. Surely that’s what Bastian had wanted. The real question was how much he would let the rumors grow and fester before he told the court what was really going on.
He’d probably let them go on for ages. Gods knew the rumors about Lore only became more and more ridiculous.
“And this will only make them worse,” she muttered to herself, shifting in the chair.
“Pardon?” The Presque Mort behind her arched a brow. She was a pretty woman, if severe, no scarring visible. Her near-death experience must be the kind that didn’t leave a physical mark.
“Nothing.” Lore shifted again. This dress was damn itchy, and the crowded sanctuary did nothing to alleviate the heat. “When are we starting, again?”
“Momentarily.” Satisfied that Lore was just irritating, not actually in need of anything, the Presque Mort straightened. “The Sainted King is delaying a few minutes, to allow as many as possible inside.”
The sanctuary already looked full to bursting. Courtiers took up most of the pews in both the lower and upper galleries, casting sidelong glances at the aisles and along the walls, where commoners packed in tight. It made the crowd a study in opposites: plain cotton against airlike chiffon, rough-spun linen against watered silk. An obvious scale, with an obvious favorable tilt.
Lore let her eyes focus long enough to study the familiar figures a few rows back, where courtiers had left some open space for the wealthier commoners. A woman with white, weathered skin and pale hair, next to one with dark braids tipped in sea glass tied atop her head in a colorful scarf. Val. Mari. Her real mothers.
She didn’t wave—she didn’t want to risk calling more attention to herself—but Lore gave them a smile. Or tried to. It probably looked more like a grimace.
Mari beamed back, waved with no fear of attracting notice. Happy to see her, regardless of the strange circumstances. Val returned Lore’s smile, but it was subdued, and worry deepened the bracketed lines around her mouth. That was Val, constantly on edge, always thinking about the countless ways something could go wrong. In this particular scenario, Lore could think of quite a few.
Lore looked away, staring at the floor instead of the crowd. She didn’t want to risk seeing someone else she knew from her poison-running days. The trajectory of how she’d gone from that to this was common knowledge by now, gossip dripping from the Citadel to flood the rest of Dellaire, but she didn’t want to see what her old crew thought of it on their faces. Didn’t want to see the shock, the distrust, the possible revulsion for her Mortem abilities and how she’d used them.
Truth be told, Lore tried not to think of her old life much. It wasn’t that she missed it, and wasn’t that she didn’t, more that her well-honed survival instinct had never left much room for reverie. Here she was, and here she’d stay, and everything in her was tuned toward making the best of it. Her life hadn’t given her much opportunity to live in the past or future. She was eternally in the present moment, scratching out of it what she could.
Lore shrank back in her golden seat, turning her eyes away from the crowd completely, looking out the window instead. The stained glass depicted Apollius healing what looked like a broken arm, a rather macabre subject for an art piece, but the colors were faded enough that she could get a fairly good look at the sky outside. It was cloudy today, threatening rain.
A door next to her opened. Gabe emerged in Priest Exalted white, his eye patch gleaming like it’d been buffed for the occasion. He was close enough for her to reach out and touch, but he didn’t even look at her.
A lectern was set at the front of the platform, a Compendium already open atop it; Gabe stalked over and gripped the lectern’s sides in white-knuckled hands.
The crowd quieted, every eye fixed on the Priest Exalted at the front of the room. He cut an incongruous figure. Red-gold stubble on his cheeks, a missing eye, a vicious expression as he stared down into the Compendium like it had personally wronged him. Righteous anger personified.
He looked up from the Compendium, though he still gripped the lectern, his tall body bent over it like a predator protecting its meal. “Stand.”
All stood.
Gabe looked back at the Compendium. When he read aloud, the words were stilted, and he crashed through them in a rush. “Apollius, Lord of Day and Life, we ask that You continue to bless us in our faithfulness and continue to guide Your chosen Kings in the ways of power.”
The Book of Prayer, then. Lore hadn’t spent much time with any part of the Compendium, but of the three holy books that made it up, the Book of Prayer was the one she was least familiar with. Apollius wouldn’t pay attention to her prayers even if she recited them word-for-word while standing on her head.
Today, at least, the Priest Exalted didn’t seem particularly convinced of them, either.
“Make them holy,” Gabe continued, “and make us joyful in their leadership. For in submission there is peace, and true happiness is found in knowing how to be led.” He straightened, flipping the page as he took a step back from the lectern, like he didn’t want to look at that particular prayer anymore.
A door on the opposite side of the platform opened. Bastian. He wore the same cloak as he had at the only First Day service Lore had attended, bronze and deep-orange flaring out from his shoulders like the sunrise itself. That day, he’d worn a sardonic smile, a playful glitter in his eye. Now Bastian was all business, his handsome face stern, his shoulders held straight.
Behind him entered two clergymen, robed in plain white. One carried another cape—crimson and gold, the one August had worn for those long-ago morning prayers—and the other carried the crown of Auverraine on a velvet pillow, the heavy gold sun rays nearly tall enough to cover his face.
For a moment, Bastian and Gabe just stared at each other. Neither looked at Lore, but she felt caught in their crossfire anyway, the point to an invisible triangle.
Gabe broke eye contact, his throat working as he swallowed. He looked back at the Compendium, flipping pages to reach the Book of Mortal Law in the back. “According to the Book of Mortal Law, Tracts Eleven Hundred Eighty-Nine through Twelve Hundred Twenty-Five, there are three duties of an Arceneaux King. Do you know them?”
“To uphold Apollius’s law in all things,” Bastian said, as the white-cloaked clergymen unfastened the orange-and-bronze cape from his shoulders. “To lead the world in the direction of His holy plan. To be His emissary on the earthly plane as we wait for His return.”
