Chapter 21
SINAN
L ips, soft and plump, pressed against Sinan’s mouth.
Desire flared inside him, and he kissed back, the intimate contact warm and inviting.
As his eyes fluttered open, his mind registered that this time it was Meri’s mouth on his.
He felt no pain, none of the mix of agony, repulsion, and lust that even brushing his skin against the living brought with it.
Also, he wasn’t dead.
Sinan pushed himself up into a sitting position as Meri pulled away, smothering a laugh.
Gallmau hovered over the Lioness’s shoulder, looking anxious. “Is he breathing now?”
“He stuck his tongue in my mouth, so I think he’s on the mend.” Meri beamed at Sinan, which was even more surprising than the fact he was still alive.
“What did you do to me this time?” Sinan touched his lips, unsure why the contact with Meri hadn’t triggered his Blessing. As pleasant as the sensation had been, the inability to touch another without pain had been the price for his Gift.
All around him, the room had been cleansed of necromancy. The wisps of Rerek’s power had been wiped out, and Sanura and the ghost rat were gone. He tried to reach out, to sense death in the chateau or the earth around him, but felt nothing. It made him uneasy.
“You stopped breathing,” Gallmau said. “Meri tried to breathe for you. Then you woke up.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Sinan looked over at the heating stove.
The door gaped open, and a pile of smoldering embers glowed where the Amor Vitriol had been released. In his weakened state, he shouldn’t have been able to survive contact with a small amount of the material, much less the full sphere.
Could he have lost his Blessing, and along with it, any shred of affinity for death magic?
Fear rose up in him, but he smothered the emotion and tried to focus.
Perhaps he had been able to tolerate Meri’s touch because she had recently carried not one, but four undead spirits in her body.
His Blessing allowed him contact with the dead.
Sinan reached out his hand to Gallmau. “Can I—touch you?”
The prince blushed, and Meri laughed. “Gallmau’s been waiting for you to ask him that for a while.”
Gallmau reached out his arm, and Sinan ran his fingers over the prince’s forearms, stroking the smooth skin over hard muscle. He felt no pain or revulsion, only a pleasant sensual experience.
The prince was quite red now and avoided Sinan’s gaze. “I thought you didn’t like to get too close to us.”
“It doesn’t hurt.” Sinan only realized he was voicing his thoughts when the words came out of his mouth. His Blessing wasn’t something he wanted known outside of Karakoncolos.
“That’s your curse?” Meri moved closer to him.
Sinan found that while his mind told him to pull away, his body was rooted to the spot. She was far more dangerous to him now than she had been before, but he was thinking more about kissing her than protecting himself.
“You can’t touch other people. The death magic changed you on the inside, where we can’t see it.”
“It’s not a curse; it’s a Blessing.” Sinan didn’t know why he was arguing with Meri about semantics at a time like this. “It’s different for every one of us. Sometimes the Blessing is an alteration of the physical body, and sometimes it involves the mental sphere.”
“You could touch yourself, right?” Gallmau asked.
Sinan realized he was not only incapable of sensing death around him, he was naked other than his shroud cloak, which had been half torn off him in the explosion of the Amor Vitriol. He drew the fabric closer to cover his chest and lower body, and tried to summon his shadow shields.
Nothing happened.
He focused on thinking logically, not on his growing panic. He was still one of the Blessed, and all of this had to be nothing more than a temporary side effect.
“Because if you couldn’t even pleasure yourself, that would be awful.” Gallmau furrowed his brow, clearly following this line of thinking to its natural conclusion. “What about corpses?”
“Yes, I can touch the dead, and no, don’t you dare accuse of me violating the deceased.” Sinan gave up on the shields and glared at Gallmau. “It’s a grave sin. Well, not with a corporeal spirit, but that’s different. They can choose to have sex with the living.”
“That explains why Naghwe enjoyed touching Gallmau so much.” Meri ran her fingers up along Sinan’s exposed arm, imitating how he had touched the prince. “Have you ever been with someone? Or did this so-called blessing of yours come when you were a baby?”
“I was nineteen when I received my Blessing.” Sinan had flinched at Meri’s first touch, but he found that he liked the light touch of Meri’s fingertips against his skin, and there wasn’t much point in trying to hide his secret any longer.
“Before then I had no necromantic powers at all, even though my mother was one of the Blessed. Everything came to me at once, when we were under attack in the Witches’ War.
I haven’t had a lover since then. It’s hard enough to have someone brush against me. ”
“How old are you?” Gallmau continued with his questions even as he handed Sinan a pair of trousers and another blanket. “They say Bone Lords can live to be two hundred years old.”
“I’m five and twenty.” Sinan pulled on the pants and wrapped the wool cloth around him, aware of Meri watching him with bright, avaricious eyes. His modesty should be the least of his problems. He was cold, desperately hungry and thirsty, and couldn’t perform death magic.
Sex should be the last thing on his mind.
Gallmau added wood to the stove and began fussing around with the kettle. The prince had promised to feed him, and the son of King Syagrius kept his promises.
“Six years without anyone in your bed.” Meri pressed against him and pulled part of his blanket over her shoulders. It was warmer like that, and her soft skin next to his felt so good. “That’s a long time.”
“The Lady grants us both a Blessing and our affinities.” Sinan recited some of his faith’s teachings in an effort to distract himself from his growing arousal. “Some Blessings are more challenging than others, but all are holy. I’m fortunate mine allows me to defend my people.”
“Mother Naghwe did give birth to you, then.” Gallmau came over to both of them with a kettle and cups and motioned for them to drink. “I thought Bone Lords couldn’t have babies.”
“Sometimes we can, especially the venefici.” Sinan sucked down one cup of tea, then another.
Telling the truth might not be the wisest decision, but he had to make them understand.
“I can’t help you free Rixende with my magic right now.
It’s gone, along with my Blessing. And I—don’t know when it’s coming back. ”
Meri didn’t look as concerned as Sinan felt. “You said Amor Vitriol had been used in the Witches’ War. Did the other necromancers exposed to it ever regain their death magic?”
“Most were slaughtered when they became helpless.” Sinan had to push away the memories of that day, the people he knew and loved who had been killed because of the substance.
“The few who survived didn’t handle the loss of their Gift well.
The chose the path of Chaos in the months following the battle. ”
“Suicide, you mean.” Gallmau came back with a platter of pantry provisions—hard cheese, sliced smoked sausage, and pickled cornichons. “That’s a sin.”
“In the Church of Saints it is.” Sinan placed a piece of sausage in his mouth, savoring the taste of spice and salt.
He had always tried to preserve some of his former life’s pleasures, like food and drink, but the more he used his necromantic powers, the further away he drifted from living human sensations.
Now he could taste and feel everything, and he wanted more of it.
He pressed closer to Meri, the fear of pain from contact with her fading.
“In our Church of the Dead, it’s a sacrament. ”
Meri gestured for Gallmau to join them. He had been occupied cleaning up the room and preparing more plates of food. He finally sat down, eyeing Sinan and Meri’s close contact with unease, as if he wanted to join in but wasn’t sure.
“Two of our people who survived the Amor Vitriol began to have some ability to do simple death magic, like sending a shadow letter, after a few months.” Sinan tried to remember more details but couldn’t.
It had been such a turbulent time, and there had been so much grief, so much rebuilding.
“That wasn’t enough for them, and they didn’t wish to go on.
Many of us have our Blessings revealed when we’re young, along with our affinities.
Losing everything—it was too much for them to bear. ”
“But you were a normal person for nineteen years.” Meri popped a sour and crunchy pickle into Sinan’s mouth, her fingers lingering on his lips. “Other than having a sex demon for a mother, being raised in a death cult, and living in a city of monsters.”
“You need a sorcerer for this fight, and I’m useless right now.”
“Maybe you can’t appear out of shadows or turn them into weapons anymore, but you know about necromancy and can handle a blade.
” Meri did like to focus on practicalities.
“Gallmau and I weren’t planning on help from witches anyway.
Once day breaks, we’ll head out to find Rixende.
Even without your powers, you’re still fighting alongside us, and that’s all I care about. ”
“I thought you’d want to kill me.” Sinan wanted to hope Meri and Gallmau saw him as an ally and not an enemy, but he had too many reservations about Tomb Fighters and their hatred for the Blessed.