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“I exaggerate absolutely nothing ever, Jerault.”
The lock Anton had made with manipulated Mortem was gone. Lore pressed her hand against the stone, just to be sure, but all she felt was the Mortem inherent to the rock. “It’ll open easily.”
Bastian nodded, all business now, no more teasing the blushing monk. “We should come up with a plan, probably,” he said, stepping up by her side, like he didn’t want her to be the first one inside the vault.
“The plan is: I go in there and give them back some death.” Now that they were here, Lore wanted this over with. Get in, channel, get out. “Honestly, I probably could’ve done it myself. You didn’t have to come.”
“I would never let you do this by yourself.”
“Thus why I didn’t argue.” She said it fondly. She didn’t want to be down here alone; he knew that. “Seemed like a waste of time.”
“A wise woman,” Bastian replied.
Lore pushed the stone door open.
The room beyond was dark. Bastian found the fuse hanging from the ceiling, like he had before, and lit it from his torch. Light slowly traveled around the room, illuminating the chamber.
The blessedly silent corpses were on their plinths. Lore didn’t know if someone had come down here and rearranged them, or if they’d cleaned themselves up, walking away from the door after Lore closed it that night, settling back on their slabs like sleepwalkers returning to bed. Each body had their hands folded over their chests, hiding the eclipse scars on their palms, mirrors of the scar she and Bastian shared.
Her fingers closed instinctually.
Lore was prepared to hold her breath, tithe her heartbeat, do everything she was used to doing to drop into that space where life and death were tangible things to be manipulated. But this time was different. Her heart tithed its beat, still, but it was easy, a simple pause before picking back up again. It felt more like an afterthought, her body going along with a remembered ritual even though there was no real need.
That should concern her, probably. The floodgates of her power had been opened, and any dams she’d built against it were long since worn away.
One moment, she saw all the dim colors of the vault, and the next, everything had faded to black and white. Knots of Mortem hovered over the chest of every corpse, inverted stars.
She looked over her shoulder, to where Bastian stood, and nearly had to pull herself back out of channeling-space again. He was so bright he hurt to look at, every inch of his body flushed in white light.
Lore recovered quickly, turning back to the task at hand. Mortem hung a bit denser over the closest corpse—the woman she’d raised that first time, the one who’d triggered the wave of rising bodies, chanting they’ve awakened, ponderously climbing off their slabs.
Might as well start with her this time, too.
“Do you need me to leave?” Bastian asked. When Spiritum had been new in him, it had canceled out her own power. It didn’t do that anymore. Whatever had happened the night of the eclipse had changed her, made her something he couldn’t snuff out.
With a shake of her head, Lore stepped up to the corpse, not wanting that particular conversation to linger. The men followed, ringing the plinth like mourners at a funeral.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Her fingers twitched as she gathered in Mortem, enough to craft a death for every corpse in the room. She pulled it from the walls, the stone, from the dry-packed dirt where nothing could grow, and from the knot hanging in the air over the dead chest of the woman on the slab. It braided around her fingers, weaving like a cat.
It didn’t feel terrible, like it used to. It felt almost… natural, now. The side effects were the same, the sludged pulse and tingling fingers, but they didn’t hurt. Didn’t feel uncomfortable, even. They just were.
Mortem filtered through her body, turning to her will, and slowly, slowly, Lore began to push it back out—
A muffled scream. Jerault’s.
The corpse’s hand shot up, clamped around Jerault’s throat. Black-edged nails dug in, laced with creeping rot now that Mortem came close, drawing crescents of blood as the Presque Mort’s feet shuffled ineffectually on the floor. The corpse’s face was implacable, blank eyes still staring upward, like the hand acted of its own accord.
A fail-safe. Something built into that thick knot of Mortem above the body, making it act in defense if someone tried to nullify the army once awakened.
In Lore’s black-and-white vision, she saw the spark of Spiritum in Jerault begin to dim. Long strands of white light stretched like the slow-motion collapse of a star, the ends turning dark as life alchemized into death, the inherent Mortem in Jerault blooming out of his fading life.
Another blaze next to her—Bastian, rushing toward them. All the while, the corpse’s hand squeezed tighter, tighter.
Lore’s fingers stayed over the corpse, pushing out the Mortem she’d channeled in, faster now, hoping that it’d loosen the iron grip. But it was too slow; Jerault would be dead before she could lay the corpse to rest. Bastian’s hands streaked into her vision, trailing light, scrabbling at the corpse’s hand as it closed inexorably on Jerault’s neck. She heard the snap of bone, one of the corpse’s fingers broken.
With the hand not channeling Mortem, Lore seized the Spiritum spinning out of Jerault. She channeled the bright light of it through herself, running congruent to the dark of Mortem, turning both to her will. Then she thrust the Spiritum back toward Jerault.
