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“As my King commands,” he said, and landed hard on King, as if something else should be there along with it and he was upset it stood alone.
What the fuck is his problem? The thought was idle, one that slid through Lore’s head many times on any given day.
The Kingling isn’t playing along, came Nyxara’s voice in answer. He made us get here late, when the sun is gone, when Apollius’s hold isn’t as strong.
Lore’s eyes widened, a look of quick confusion that she turned her head to hide. That was rhetorical, she said to the goddess in her head. But thank you.
Something like a laugh feathered through the back of her mind.
Alie walked over the threshold, a footman carrying her trunk behind her, and sighed as she gave the foyer a once-over. “Are times so hard you can’t spare a lamp, Bellegarde? It’s darker than the bottom of a wine barrel in here.”
If his daughter calling him by his surname rather than Father bothered the lord, he didn’t show it. He didn’t even look at her as he pivoted on his heel, striding to one side of the massive staircase curving like a horseshoe over the back of the room, leading to the second floor. “There’s plenty of light where I spend my time,” he answered, though he managed to make it seem like he was simply thinking aloud rather than addressing Alie. “Seeing as I am the only one living in Courdigne at the moment, more light seems a waste.”
So when Bellegarde was confined to his estate, he’d lost all his servants, too. Lore was surprised the man hadn’t starved to death. He didn’t strike her as self-sufficient.
The news didn’t seem to surprise Alie. Her lips twisted to the side, almost pleased.
Bastian said nothing, turning to follow Bellegarde to the stairs. He dropped Lore’s arm, but it was just so he could grab her hand instead. His palm was clammy.
Bellegarde glanced over his shoulder, his eyes flicking down to their clasped hands, then back up to Bastian. The dim light hid most of his expression, but the corner of his sneer was unmistakable.
“Congratulations,” he said, sounding anything but congratulatory. “News of your betrothal has reached even the ears of the exiles.”
“Good,” Bastian said.
Shadows slid over the lord’s face as he looked to Lore. If he’d had his way, she would be long gone.
Lore twitched her finger, making the golden gem on her ring catch the light. Bellegarde frowned at it; she gave him a beatific smile.
The circumstances of her betrothal might be fucked through all seven days, and she might be at a loss for how to save one of the men she cared about from a god in his head, but annoying Bellegarde would always bring a bit of comfort.
The old man held a torch, and he lit a few sconces on the wall as they passed. Gas lamps were set into the wall, too, but Bellegarde passed them by. Lore wondered if he’d used up all the fuel. Such things weren’t cheap.
The additional light helped her see the inside of the manor better, even if it only deepened the shadows. The huge, curved staircase made up most of the foyer, its dark wood railing intricately carved into jagged swirls that reminded her of the sun over the door. Small statues of Apollius stood at either end of the staircase, the white marble made ghostly in flame-light.
One Apollius was carved in an attitude Lore had grown familiar with—His hands held open at His sides, studded with garnet blood, face tilted to gaze peacefully at the heavens, a shallow basin where His heart should be.
But the other Apollius had been fashioned in a way she hadn’t seen before. His chest was open, and not in the manner of the wounded Apolliuses she’d seen scattered in the more morbid corners of the Church. Those empty-chested gods still had something there, the sculptor opting simply to scoop out material from the middle of the statue, a symbolic removal that didn’t really mar the body’s basic structure.
This Apollius’s chest was gone. A perfectly circular hole was cut where it should be. And instead of the prayerful peace that His face usually displayed, this Apollius howled, mouth wrenched wide, hands clenched in fists over the hole of His center.
He looked furious. Furious, and in so much pain.
The second-floor hallway was lined with dour portraits, most of them depicting people with the same milky-pale skin as Bellegarde, the same severe faces. Alie’s mother may have lived here, after Bellegarde set her aside, but it looked like only his family had pride of place on the walls.
“My rooms,” Bellegarde said, sweeping his hand toward the largest door at the end of the hall. “I cede them to you, Majesty, as is only proper.”
“I don’t want your rooms, Bellegarde.” Bastian’s voice was honed to sharp points, for all that he still sounded exhausted. “The last thing I want to do is spend my nights where you’ve spent yours.”
The man’s lips pressed to a tight line, but the sound he made was closer to a laugh than anything else. “I suppose you wouldn’t,” he said, turning to make his way up another grand staircase at the end of the hall. A turret like Lore had seen from the outside, an obvious nod to the Citadel. “There are other rooms you can take,” Bellegarde said as he climbed the stairs. “Plenty for you, and Alienor, and your betrothed—”
“Lore is staying with me,” Bastian said, still in that same sharpened tone.
Her hand jerked a little in his, but she didn’t let her surprise show. Not in front of Bellegarde.
The older man made that same almost-laugh again, echoing and eerie in the staircase. “I suppose I should’ve anticipated that, too.”
At all their other stops, Bastian had wanted separate rooms. Something had changed.
