“Oh, dear heart.” The Night Priestess’s hand came up, then fell, like if they’d been closer she would’ve cradled Lore’s cheek. “It’s the only thing we can do. The world wouldn’t survive you.”
“A deal is a deal,” Anton said, turning to face Lore. “Now let’s settle our accounts, and we can all be on our way.”
The Night Priestess’s lips flattened in distaste. She waved a hand. “Take what you’re owed, then.”
“I’m thankful for your cooperation,” Anton said, though there was a sneer in his voice. “Thankful that you understand there is only room for one god, this time.”
“There certainly isn’t room for six again,” the Night Priestess said softly. “Gods are not content to share power.”
“That’s the trouble with ascensions,” Anton agreed. “When humans become gods, they bring their natures with them.” The Priest Exalted bared his teeth, a triumphant rictus as he stepped toward Lore. One hand raised.
It was the same tugging feeling she’d felt in her dreams, but without the buffer of sleep, it was agonizing. Her heart stilled, just so much meat, and felt like it was being pulled slowly from behind her ribs. Strands of dark Mortem leaked from her chest, seeping out slowly like blood from a million tiny wounds.
The mad priest knotted raw death in the air, gnarling the strands together. “Apollius,” he murmured, looking up at the sky as if he could find his god there. A rapturous tear slid down his cheek. “See what I do for You. How I manipulate the power of Your treasonous wife and turn it to Your glory.”
He still pulled power from her as he spoke to the empty sky, weaving it between his fingers. It coalesced above their heads, a writhing, intricate knot, pulsing like an organ as it took shape. Tendrils reached from the central mass, curling into the eclipse-shrouded sky, seeping outward as if they were looking for something.
Looking for another village. More people to kill, more corpses for Anton’s undead army. Using her to do it; Mortem channeled from her goddess-touched body, fashioned to do things no other channeler could do.
“You’ve given us Your sign,” Anton murmured to the sky. “Your promise that a new world awaits, one You will shape for Your faithful. Remember, Bleeding God, how I helped usher it in, here when two opposite powers can be held in concert.”
Opposite powers.
Even through the slow leak of her blood, the chill in her fingers and the cold creep of death, Lore could feel Spiritum, the comet-streak of life woven through her when her and Bastian’s hands were carved, then thrust together at the moment of totality.
She had them both. Mortem and Spiritum, life and death. Both of them lived in her, both of them could be channeled.
There wasn’t time to overthink it. Lore thrust out her hand and pulled.
Light flowed from Anton, a surge of it flashing across the garden to her waiting fingers, stolen from the corona around his living body. It didn’t come together like a thread, a pliant thing to be braided; this was lightning, this was all crackling energy, and Lore’s roar echoed Anton’s own as she pulled it into herself, her veins running hot and full, her heart thumping hard enough to bruise her lungs.
White-hot pain in her side, an encroaching burn. She knew it was healed without looking, the power of life rushing through her and healing everything.
Lore couldn’t hold on to it. It was too much, too bright. She relinquished her hold with a shout; the lightning-crackle left her hands, rebounded across the garden to Anton’s kneeling form. The old man breathed like a bellows, his hands clutched over his heart, his lips pulled back from his teeth.
“Little deathwitch,” Anton snarled. “You think you’re in the right?”
“I think,” Lore panted, forcing herself to stand, “that I’m not going to let you kill anyone else with my power.”
“That’s what you don’t understand, Lore,” her mother said, slender and sad and wreathed in flame-light. “It isn’t yours. It’s Hers. And the longer you live—the more powerful you grow—the more like Her you will become.”
“We can’t have another Godsfall.” Anton got up, slowly, looking every inch the frail old man. Except for his eyes. Those glittered with a sheen of madness, a fervor that made her recoil. The knife he’d used to stab August twisted in his grip. “We can’t let it happen again.”
“So you kill people instead?” Even healed, her side still ached; Lore pressed her fist against it. “You’re addled, Anton. There won’t be another Godsfall, because there are no more gods!”
“There is one, and you will cede your power to Him,” Anton replied, spittle flying from the corner of his scarred mouth. “The world brought to heel beneath Apollius’s merciful rule, through His blessed—”
A scream ripped the night, cutting off whatever Anton had been about to say. Torches toppled, rolling across the cobblestones; another torch swiped through the air. The living flowers growing on top of their stone counterparts were dry and brittle from a summer without rain; they licked into flame, surrounding the well in jumping tongues of fire.
And Bastian stepped through them.
His fine shirt was ripped, crusted with blood from the cut through his eyebrow. His teeth gleamed in the flickering light, bared and snarling.
Anton’s face split in a beatific, unsound smile, one that made Lore’s stomach twist uncomfortably. He had hidden all this… this worship, this devotion, keeping Bastian at arm’s length even as he worked to keep him safe from August. But now that everything was coming to a close, he looked on his nephew with the same light in his eyes that he’d cast toward the sky as he prayed.
“Bastian, my boy!” the Priest Exalted called. “I’m sorry you were hurt; I told them that you weren’t to be harmed, but when things get chaotic—”
“Your monks are all hurt far worse than I am.” Bastian held a short sword he must’ve taken from someone; he turned it so the bloodied edge caught the firelight.
The Presque Mort scattered around the garden seemed uneasy; hands fell to the harnesses around their chests. They glanced at their Priest, waiting for instruction, ready for violence if it was called for.
“It’s good that you’re here,” Anton continued, oblivious to the low, dangerous tone in Bastian’s voice. “Things have gone a bit off schedule with the girl. But now that you’ve arrived, we can move forward. Perhaps you can convince her to see reason.”
Bastian’s eyes swung to Lore, panic flashing bare and jagged across his features. “Are you hurt?”
“She’s fine,” Anton said dismissively, waving his hand. “Better, even; she channeled Spiritum and used it to heal herself.” A sharp laugh echoed over the stone roses, the hiss of flames. “If her magic has been heightened to such a level, imagine yours!”
Across the well, the Night Priestess stood still as a carved icon. Her expression wavered in the growing flames, but she didn’t look at Bastian with fear. It was closer to resignation, as if his appearance here marked a sea change, diverted the flow of her plan. She turned her eyes to Lore. There was no pity to be found in her face.
Slowly, she made her way closer, close enough for her whisper to be heard. “You care for him,” her mother whispered. “Don’t you?”