So casual, so even. But she knew it wasn’t. Dammit. He’d handed her a shovel and she’d happily started digging. “I find it an interesting topic.”
“Morbid, too.”
“Interesting and morbid often coincide.” She shrugged. “Besides, anyone who pays attention to their history will come to the same conclusion. The accounts of the Godsfall and the years after are well documented. We know what a body looks like after coming in contact with raw, unchanneled Mortem from an outside source.”
“Fair.” Bastian plucked a lone peacock feather from where it’d gotten tangled in a bush, sticking it behind his ear at a jaunty angle. Another trend in the making, she was sure. “But couldn’t it be channeled into something that caused the deaths? Something that descended on a village, killed them, and left no trace?”
“I don’t think so. The Spiritum in a person wouldn’t allow it.” Lore had never heard of channeled Mortem being used to outright kill someone. Channeling death into a living body was difficult—the aura of Spiritum, of vitality, that surrounded every living thing made it next to impossible. Weaker auras could be overcome, like those of plants or very ill humans, but not healthy ones.
If someone was using Mortem to kill those villages, it was in a way that Lore had no context for. And she had a good amount of context, all things considered.
“Clearly, I’ve been remiss in not consulting another scholar.” The peacock feather apparently itched; Bastian pulled it from his ear and twirled it between his fingers instead. “No one else I’ve discussed this with has been as learned as you.”
Lore gave him a small, shy smile, conjuring country cousin, conjuring no threat and don’t take me too seriously. “There isn’t much to do at home. I find my amusements where I may.”
He cocked a brow and looked pointedly at the grass stains again. Lore pinched his arm, fighting a genuine laugh.
“Lore!”
Gabriel walked hurriedly down the path, like he’d been trying to catch up without running. Still, he was slightly out of breath when he reached them. His eye darted to Bastian, then to her, brow rising as if he was annoyed that she was following her orders so closely.
“Remaut, nice of you to join us.” Bastian took the peacock feather from behind his ear and swiveled it flirtatiously beneath Gabe’s chin. “I was just taking your cousin to the stables. Don’t worry, she already had the grass stains when I found her.”
Gabe’s eyebrow climbed farther. Lore gave him a smile that felt more like a grimace.
“Come along.” Bastian tightened the bend of his arm, trapping Lore’s hand. “I have a curious new acquisition. You two will be the first I’ve shown it to.” He gave Lore a brilliant smile. “Honestly, between this and inviting you to the masque last night, I’ve been quite the social director. Perhaps I should hire myself out to the mothers of spinsters.”
“I’m sure August would love that.” Gabe fell into step on Lore’s other side. It felt somewhat like being escorted by two abnormally tall cats, twitchy and standoffish.
“Probably as much as Anton loves you coming back to court. I’m sure he wasn’t pleased about losing his star channeler for a season.”
Gabe said nothing, arms politely behind his back, though those polite arms ended in fists. Lore thought of the conversation she and Bastian had as they danced, about how Bastian had attempted to orchestrate Gabe’s freedom for the summer, not knowing that Anton had planned it already.
But the awkward transition gave her an opening, a place to speak about the two ruling brothers of Auverraine with someone who would know more about their relationship than most. “August and Anton…” she began, feeling out how she wanted to word it. “They don’t seem to get along. Why is that?”
“Anton didn’t become the Priest Exalted until after his vision.” Gabe jumped in to answer, though he had to know she’d meant the question for Bastian. The man was apparently incapable of not immediately rising to Anton’s defense. “But August has been the heir since he was born, Apollius’s chosen. Naturally, it led to some tension.”
“Like children fighting over being Father’s favorite,” Bastian scoffed. “Anton’s vision was certainly convenient.”
Gabe shot him a dark look. “Are you implying it wasn’t true?”
“Remaut, I don’t even know what the vision was, and neither does anyone else.” Bastian reached across Lore to clap Gabe on the back. “I’m just saying that it’d have to be quite the fucking thing to make me fall face-first into a brazier. Though I suppose Anton did get magic in the bargain. You win some, you lose some.”
A muscle twitched in Gabe’s jaw, but he didn’t comment further on the veracity of Anton’s vision. “The Arceneaux line had magic already, according to the Tracts.”
“Which is one of many reasons why I don’t waste much time on the Tracts.” Bastian held up one hand, exaggeratedly flexed his fingers with a wicked glint in his eye. “I have been told I possess magic fingers, but the context wasn’t anything holy.”
Gabe rolled his eyes.
The gardens slowly tapered off, giving way to a wide green field. Horses wandered placidly, not held in by any fence but the Church wall about a mile away, cutting up into the blue sky. It seemed even the livestock in the Citadel were creatures of luxury.
The stables were up a slight hill, a structure of shining wood nicer than anything Lore had ever lived in. Purple-liveried servants guided muscled mounts in exercises around a gleaming ring. Another man-made pond shimmered in the pasture like a jewel.
“Gods dead and dying,” she murmured.
“A devotee of the equestrian arts?” Bastian asked, a lilt in his voice that said he was teasing.
“I could certainly be persuaded to become one.”
The prince laughed, pulling her toward the stables. “That’s one of you. Gabe hates horses.”
Lore glanced back at the man in question. His eye was narrowed at the side of Bastian’s head, since the Sun Prince still wouldn’t face him. “I don’t hate horses.”
“You told me so.”
“Yes, when I was eight. After falling off a rather formidable stallion that you dared me to ride. Most people mature between eight and twenty-four, and their particular hatreds change.”
“I hated roast peahen when I was eight, and I still hate it now.”
“I said most people.”
Bastian waved a flippant hand.
The inside of the stables was just as well made as the outside. Horses whickered at Bastian as he passed, and he patted their noses absently, headed toward the very back of the building.
A gaggle of children were crowded around the last stable in the row, some dressed like the offspring of courtiers, others as if they were employed by the stables. None of them spoke, all with wide eyes, staring at whatever was housed there. “Move along,” Bastian said, but it was soft. Lore expected the children to scatter when they realized who he was, but they just stepped aside, eyes still glued to the creature in the stall.
When they approached close enough to see, Lore understood why.
Horse. It was Horse.
But it couldn’t… it didn’t make sense, didn’t follow any of the rules of Mortem she knew. Dead was dead, and unspooling the magic of it from a body couldn’t change that, there was no possible way to pull all of it out. A dead thing couldn’t regain a semblance of life, couldn’t exist on its own. She’d seen the animal fall after she snapped the threads, seen death come back over the corpse.