Chapter 29
Chapter twenty-nine
Lycandor
The Lie
“Pray, a moment,” I said, far more throatily than I’d have liked.
The heat of her skin, dampened with sweat, pressed harder into me.
I was a mess; my heart behaving like a cornered, feral beast, its only plight to jump from my ribs and straight into her waiting palm.
This had been a foolish, doltish idea. To allow her to feel me like this.
It had been an age since anyone had touched my bare flesh.
Almost a decade since even an acolyte had deigned to grasp my arm, let alone press a palm to my chest.
But this. She was under my clothes. Her skin on my skin.
And she was warm, not just from the natural heat of flesh on flesh, but as if I was standing, derobed, under the midday sun.
It radiated and spread outward, invisible tendrils weaving themselves through muscle and tendon.
Is that what all touch felt like? Had it truly been that long that I’d forgotten?
My heart continued to pound.
I willed myself calm. How many throats had I slit? How many penancings had I enacted? How much grace had I consumed before I’d understood the truth? And this? This would be my undoing? A woman’s hand on my heart.
It refused to slow.
“I—” My speech was hoarse, filtered through gritted teeth. Pits of the Other, did I have to say it? “It will settle soon.”
“Oh.”
“It will,” I affirmed, reassuring myself as much as her.
She waited, patient as a sister, keeping the pressure firm and steady.
I focused on her bravery. To her, I was the Butcher.
A faceless figure who had slit a man’s throat before her eyes, who had torn limbs from limbs upon the Reach of Atonement, as she beheld them litter its planks.
What tall tales must she have heard about me?
The ridiculous lie about my penchant for collecting the tongues of heathen preachers?
The rumors of arson, setting distant templums ablaze, priests and priestesses locked inside if they dared resist Dendralis’ authority?
The countless bodies left to rot as I’d carved my way through a crusiax battlefield?
Yet, she flinched not. If anything, she pressed harder against me, as if to make clear that an erratic heart was no reason to flee.
I focused on my breathing, as I did when I scented grace; through the mouth, out through the nose. The taint of it lingered faintly, even here, distant yet never entirely absent. It never truly left, even when I was far beyond the Red Sea—it seemed to carry on the wind.
Pulse calming to a steady beat, I cleared my throat.
“Are you well?” she asked. Smug little seamstress.
“Quite. We can proceed.” I should do this. She needed answers, just as I. The riddles coiled tighter around my neck, demanding to be unravelled before I choked on their noose.
I gulped down another breath. The stagnant air in the Unmantle bubbled, bright and fizzing.
She found my irregular pulse amusing then, her delight akin to sparkling wine.
“It may be best for you to tell me something neutral first. Something to lull it into a regular beat, just so you can get a feel for my natural rhythm.” I was grateful for the divider, masking my wince.
“Like what?” The flavour of the wine grew headier, more concentrated, lingering on my tongue as well as fizzing up my nose.
“Something mundane,” I continued, determined not to get drunk on it. “Something about your profession, maybe? Anything you deem fit to not provoke a reaction within me.”
“Is this just another way of testing me for lies?” she asked. Peppercorns. I’d made her suspicious.
“No.” The sun would be overhead by now, and I was already late for the druid’s council. The heat of her hand continued to invade me, far more alluring than the cold, dusty ministerial rooms.
A sigh.
“When we used to tailor certain garments,” she divulged, “the guild women and I would sometimes weave a secret line of thread that matched the colour of the person we made the garments for. We’d hide it in a seam, one of their sleeves, perhaps, or the hem.”
My lips lifted into a smile. “Which colour meant what?”
She paused for a moment, one of her fingers tapping my collarbone.
“Undyed thread for those who were dull. Nondescript ladies or fellows with no distinguishable quirk.”
I remained silent.
“Green for handsome,” she continued, her nostalgia thick on my tongue. “Purple for kind. Black for those we deemed suspicious.”
She laughed, her giggle flapping bird wings trapped in the cage of metal.
“Red thread is expensive, so we only used a little for those we thought brave.”
“Like Dennis?” I asked, at a loss as to why.
She released me slightly, as if it had only just dawned how fiercely she was pressed to my heart.
“Demetri,” she corrected. The pressure of her touch remained, though it was lighter than before.
“More like women with babes clinging to their skirts,” she explained, despite my attempt to rile her. “Those whose husbands were offered, leaving them with four or six hungry mouths. Or Pines, the ones who smiled and jested, though their whole family were long since dead.”
My shame was earthy; mushrooms turning to rot.
“Which colour would you have selected for me?” Stubborn as ever, my knee jostled. I stiffened it, battling the urge to let it bounce freely.
“Black, of course.” A truth. And a lie.
“They’re bitter, you know. Like raw cacao beans from the South.”
“What are?” she asked, puzzled, almost as much as I was by my own outburst.
“Your lies,” I explained.
“And what do my truths taste like?” Ah, an attempt to distract. I indulged her, if only this once.
“Like rain—spring rain—warmed by the late morning sun.”
“Rain?” she repeated, a little disappointed. “Water, then? But water is tasteless.”
She couldn’t be more wrong.
“Water is life,” I replied. “Without it, we die. Much like I will do if you don’t get on with it. My heart is steady, yes? Ask your questions.”
Her fingers on her spare hand furled, reaching to fiddle her sleeves. They traced the material, as if looking for something, before giving up and gliding to the ends of her long, slate hair, speckled silver in the lattice light. I waited.
“Can I see the other laurels? May I talk to them?”
I resisted the urge to point out they were two questions, though masked as one, and gave her the truth. The only truth it could be.
“No.”
I prayed she wouldn’t ask why.
After a shuddering breath, she straightened, her swallow audible from beyond the metal screen.
“What do you truly feel about the Dendralis? The system of offerings?”
I expected this question. Or rather, questions.
“I am of the same opinion as you.” My voice was steady, my heart even more so.
If she was shocked, she didn’t show it.
“Two nights’ past, when you accused me of being someone else, who did you think I was?”
I rounded up the words to describe the truth as well as I was able, hauling them together from the sinews of what my pledge allowed me to reveal. Even so, they protested, having to be dragged out from behind gritted teeth, unwilling to be shared.
“I am part of a…” Its true name would not rise to my tongue.
“A group. A group it is not safe for you to know too much about, especially with the High Druid keeping you so closely within his sight. They are aiding me to”—my throat burned, the sting akin to my craving for grace—“…change things,” I managed.
“I thought you were sent by them. To do something. Something important.”
“Who do you think I am now? What do you want with me?” Her curiosity filled the Unmantle—the bright tang of coriander.
“Seamstress, did you not learn to count? I’ve allowed you quite the indulgence, since that is now the seventh inquisition you’ve put to me.”
“Just answer the godsdamned questions.”
I rolled my lips inward, suppressing a laugh. She would have made a formidable druid with a temper like that.
“You’re something different,” I acquiesced, my words carefully chosen.
“Your blood, it is not the same as other laurels, other Thromarrians. But truthfully…I do not yet know the extent of it. I have a theory…” A theory I dared not give voice to, nor allowed myself to dwell upon for long, for how unmoored it would sound.
Perhaps something had already made a madman of me, for why did her touch feel like starlight?
“Yes?” she encouraged. The scent of herbs intensified, sharp and green.
I searched for a sound explanation. “It is not rooted in credibility. Not yet,” I decided. “But as we spoke of before—I think you are blessed.”
Her palm pressed harder. “Blessed with what, exactly?”
“A blessing of mercy,” I answered, the words bitter as cud, but they pushed through my lips as seamlessly as oil, regardless. “That grants you kindness in the face of cruelty. A gift.” I swallowed, washing their taste from my mouth. I willed my heart to remain calm, and thankfully, it obeyed.
“Mercy?” she breathed, the tips of her fingers digging like claws. “A gift? And why would the Blood God grant me such, when He is the inflictor of the brutalities that require said mercy? I am a woman, not a druid.”
And thank the Other for that. “Can we mortals ever seek to truly know the will of the eternal?”
Her fingernails bit deeper.
“Is that not what druids are supposed to be, Your Holiness?” Her voice turned as cutting as her nails. “Interpreters of His divine will? His hands and mouths upon the earthly plain? Is that not what the Book of Dendralis preaches, in every parable, in every psalm?”
Thump. Thump. Thump. As regular as a crusiax drum. “It is a theory. Perhaps the annihilation of the Blood Tree was another mercy.” I rolled my tongue, washing the pith from my gums. “We will discover the truth, eventually.”
“And what of the—”
“You’ve asked your questions, Seamstress.” I tugged at her wrist, already mourning the loss of her warmth.
“Do you want to show me your face?” she blurted, refusing to lift her palm.