“Eat shit,” Val muttered.
“Same to you,” Lore spat. She knew how to bury sadness, but anger was a tool, fresh and near at hand. “So you’re going to be a privateer, Val? You turned me over for a contract?”
She expected answering vitriol, but Val’s shoulders sank. “I didn’t have a choice. They knew about Cedric.”
Her fingers were already numb from being tied behind her. But Val’s words were enough to make that numbness spread up her spine, through her chest.
Val finally looked at her. Tears brimmed in her eyes. “Mouse, I—”
“Don’t call me that.” Tunnel mouse, Val had called her when she was young, for her hair that couldn’t decide whether it was brown or blond and landed somewhere indiscriminate, for the place where Mari had found her, at the mouth of the catacombs. Even after Lore grew up, she was still mouse. “Does Mari know? Did she decide that a contract was worth killing me for, too?”
Val’s chapped lips pressed flat, her eyes blinking closed before opening again. “I’ll explain to Mari,” she said quietly. “She’ll understand.”
“Good for her.” The break in Lore’s voice was too raw to hide. “Because I sure as fuck don’t.”
Val sighed. A pause, then she walked over, crouched next to the chair. She raised a hand like she would smooth Lore’s hair away, but Lore jerked her head back. “I know what this looks like,” Val said softly. “But, Lore, this could be an opportunity. This will keep you safer than Mari and I ever could.”
Lore didn’t say anything. She stared straight ahead, until the colors in the tapestry whirled together in her wet eyes. Finally, Val stepped away. The door shut softly behind her.
“For what it’s worth,” the Priest Exalted said, coming to sit before her in the chair Gabriel hastily provided, “none of us have lied to you. We don’t want to hurt you, Lore.”
“Then what do you want?” Her voice still sounded scraped-up, like her throat was made of rock. Lore swallowed.
A smile crinkled the handsome side of Anton’s face. “We need assistance,” he said. “And it appears you’re the only one who can provide it.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The one who can stab you quickest is the one to whom you give a knife.
—Kirythean proverb
Lore paused. Then she laughed.
It was a rough and rasping sound, her mouth still dry from the cotton gag. Lore hung her head and laughed until it ran the risk of becoming a sob.
“My help?” She shook her head, though it made her temples throb. The chloroform had knocked loose a bitch of a headache, worse than any hangover. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, priest, but wanting help from an unsanctioned Mortem wielder is more than a little light heresy.”
Anton’s expression was almost amused, at least on the side of his face that could show expression. “Heresy can be forgiven, when it’s for the greater good.”
Behind Anton, Malcolm still stood with his scarred arms crossed, face unreadable. But at the word heresy, the line of Gabriel’s mouth went flat.
“The Bleeding God knows our plight and gives us benediction to do as we must in His service.” All this in a low, pleasing baritone, as if Anton was reciting a prayer. Maybe he was; the Book of Prayer was thick as every hell and seemed to have an entry for everything. “Indeed, it is a vital part of the Presque Mort’s work, the marrow to its bone. We submit ourselves to darkness, knowing that in the end all shadow will be eclipsed in light, as the Buried Goddess was eclipsed by the glory of the Bleeding God.”
That didn’t seem to have worked out so well, what with the Mortem still leaking from the goddess’s dead body and all. “If you’re asking me to join your cult,” Lore said, “my answer is a resounding no.”
It was Anton’s turn to laugh, a sound as court-cultured as his speaking voice. “Oh, no,” the Priest Exalted chuckled. “That’s not what we want at all. It takes a person of a very… specific… temperament to make it as one of the Presque Mort.”
She gave him a beatific smile. “And I’m too pretty.”
Malcolm turned his face away, fighting down a smirk. Gabriel didn’t react at all, that one blue eye blazing at her.
Anton raised a sardonic brow. “You are unscarred, yes. Clearly, your abilities with Mortem didn’t come through an accident, not like ours did.”
That skated a bit too close to close to the truth for her tastes—they might be willing to overlook her power if they needed her for something, but she’d like to avoid revealing where that power came from. Lore shifted in her chair. “What do you need me for, then?”
All the laughter was gone from Anton now, both the handsome and the scarred sides of his face stoic. “You’ve heard of the village, I presume.”
Everyone had heard of the village by now. Lore nodded.
“And what exactly have you heard?”
“Not much.” She lifted her hands behind her as much as she could against the ropes, twiddled her fingers. “I might remember more if you untied me.”
Anton’s placid expression didn’t change. He waved a hand, and Gabriel stepped forward, ducking behind Lore’s chair to cut the knots that held her. The Presque Mort moved silently, stiffly. She smelled incense again.
When she was free, Lore sat forward, working her wrists back and forth. Malcolm watched her warily, and she held up her hands like surrender. “No weapons. Relax.”
He didn’t. “It’s not the weapons I’m concerned with.”
“You’ve channeled Mortem before,” Lore replied, opening and closing her fists. “You know it’s no picnic. I’m not in a hurry to do it again.”
Malcolm eyed her for a moment longer, then gave a begrudging nod.
Marginally less sore, Lore sat back. “I heard a whole village died overnight. Shademount, to the southeast.” Shademount was one of the smaller villages in Auverraine, more an outpost than a proper town. It was the last Auverrani settlement before reaching what was formerly Balgia, a small duchy now part of the Kirythean Empire. Lore had never been there, obviously, but she’d had Shademount-brewed beer. It was very good. She guessed no one would be making it anymore. “The people had no marks on them, no sign of poisoning or sickness. They just look like they’re asleep. Some think it’s a sign of Apollius’s disfavor.”
“And what do you think it is?” Anton folded his fingers across his middle, like a teacher quizzing a student.
“Mostly, I think it’s all rumors. Maybe one or two got sick and died in the night, maybe a whole farmhouse full, but a whole village? Horseshit.”
“Not horseshit,” Anton said levelly. Priest he might be, but he didn’t stutter at all over the profanity. “Truth. All of it.” A pause. “Though there have been two villages, now. It happened again two nights ago. Orlimar. Slightly bigger than Shademount, nearer Erocca than Balgia.”
Another village on the southeastern border, close to another country conquered by the Empire. Lore swallowed.
Anton’s eye glinted as he leveled an unreadable look her way, something vaguely sinister in the curve of his mouth. But it was gone quickly, covered by a mask of nondescript pleasantry. Behind the Priest, Malcolm and Gabriel were mostly expressionless. Gabriel kept raising his hand to his eye patch, though, like it itched.