4. HERESY #4
All the outrage vanished from Neri’s face as his father approached. He shrank behind Jacen and clutched the cat tighter against his chest. Ged stopped before them, radiating undisguised fury.
“I was just leaving,” Jacen said.
Paying them no mind, Ged punched the palestone wall. His fist came away bloody, leaving a red smear on the rock. He only grunted and ordered, “Stay where you are.”
Though the Semira family were little more than figureheads for the Church, this meant nothing for a low-ranked priest. Akkani could have told Ged to go bother someone else, but not Jacen. Not anymore.
He schooled his expression into respectful neutrality. “Of course, my lord.”
Ged’s glare lingered on Neri. “What are you doing out of bed? I won’t have you dozing off through another training session tomorrow.
” The boy was frozen. He stammered something unintelligible.
The cat squirmed in his arms until he released it.
Jacen did not miss the way Neri moved then, forming a barrier between Ged and the animal as it darted away.
“Speak up,” Ged snapped.
“It was my fault,” Jacen said hurriedly. “I . . . caused a disturbance.
He came out to check on me.”
Ged stared at Jacen, unimpressed. He made a cutting gesture at Neri, as if to swat a fly. “Get out of here. And don’t let me see that insufferable creature again.”
Neri scurried off after the cat at a pace that was half-limp, half-run. Ged watched him disappear through narrowed eyes, then said, “You and I both know what we saw in there.”
With a fresh surge of nausea, Jacen recalled the way Ged had looked at the skull, face lit with something like religious fervor.
“My brother speaks highly of you,” Ged said. “He considers you trustworthy.”
Jacen struggled to keep his face neutral. That came as a surprise, considering his last conversation with Seth.
Ged glanced over his shoulder. “Are we alone?”
Jacen fought through his headache to perform a sloppy psychic scan of the vicinity. “It’s just the guards by the audience chamber. They’re too far to hear us. Why—”
“My father is an unfit ruler,” said Ged, without preamble. “I intend to supplant him. I will not wait for him to die while our people suffer under his rule. And I will require your help.”
What had Avram said to him after Jacen left? He could only surmise it had been spectacularly counterproductive.
“Why—” Jacen started, for all the good it did.
“I saw you speaking with my son after the offering ceremony. Answer me honestly—does he have your gift?”
Shit. Jacen had been dreading the possibility of this question.
“If you don’t tell me,” Ged said, “I’ll have the Church’s seekers confirm it anyway.”
Jacen remained silent, but Ged nodded, with the air of one making a grim but necessary calculation. “I thought so. And he’s too weak to be of interest to the Church?”
Jacen had come to the same conclusion. But the way Ged said that word—weak—made his skin crawl. As if nothing in the world were more repellent.
Jacen repeated, for the third time, “Why?”
“The most powerful demons favor telepaths, you said. Would a weak one suffice?”
Jacen couldn’t be understanding this correctly. “You don’t intend to send Neri after—”
“Of course I do. The Holy Mother won’t send one of her priests, and my father capitulates to her as usual. Neither of them comprehends that this demon in the canyon—if that’s truly what it is—could be the weapon of our salvation.”
Jacen would have bet his left arm they comprehended it.
If he had heard the Zal murmurings of heat and shadow, the stirrings of demon priests the Church had never quite exterminated, so had High Lord Semira and Mother Akkani.
Jacen would also bet his entire hoard of agave liquor that they knew more than Ged, enough to understand that whatever he had planned . . . it would not go the way he thought.
“You can’t be serious,” Jacen blurted. He couldn’t think of an inoffensive way to say Have you lost your mind? It was the most logical explanation, for a plan that required using one’s eleven-year-old son as bait for whatever unholy thing lurked in the canyon. “Why not go yourself?”
“I am not a telepath.” Ged’s expression was withering. “I am also the Knight Commander of Zivora, and my plans are layered.”
Jacen held up his hands. “Sorry I suggested it. But—”
“I don’t need your abilities to understand that your Order has almost had enough of you.
” Ged looked Jacen up and down. “What would you have without the priesthood? No place to live. Nothing to do. Only a hastened opportunity to drink yourself into an early grave. So, let me be clear: your compliance is not optional.”
Jacen had seen Ged crack a man’s skull with his bare hands. It seemed profoundly unfair that he should also be perceptive.
Five years earlier, Jacen might have gone home to pray about this. He’d fallen out of practice in the time since, but tonight felt more final. Tonight, all he saw when he closed his eyes was that skull—unhearing, uncaring, empty.
He ground out, “What else can I do for you, my lord?”
“For now? Keep quiet.” Ged said it like a threat. “And expect to hear from me.”