9 #2
This is fully insane. I know it, and I’m about to propose my plan anyway. I have no desire to die, but anything is better than imminent execution in the sterile halls of Regiment headquarters.
“I think the Warden left me alive because he wants me alive. I think he saw me as a challenge, and he liked that. It’s just as you said—everything is a game to him.”
Gabriel’s eyes flicker with something I didn’t expect: jealousy.
“And do you think he wants you, Talin? Did he draw you in, his handsome face making you forget yourself? Did he convince you he desires you? He may be a slave to the sin of carnality, but he’ll kill you all the same once he’s finished. ”
“That’s not what he wants,” I argue, my face heating. The more I speak, the more convinced I am that I’m right. If the Warden indeed loves games, I’ll give him one. “Let me go after your brother. Let me bring him to you.”
The only reason you’re not dead yet, little sinner, is that it would be a pity to kill you before you confessed to me.
The Warden’s words echo in my mind as Gabriel chews mine over. A muscle leaps in the Prophet’s jaw as he searches for a response.
“No.” he says finally. “Your chances of success are negligible at best. Besides, letting you go anywhere, given all you’ve learned… I’m sure you can see how that concerns me.”
“We both know you don’t truly want me dead.” Saying it aloud is a bold move, and Gabriel doesn’t respond, continuing to work his jaw. “What if I can convince the Warden I’m on his side?”
“What possible reason would he have to believe that?”
I shrug. “I tell him I’ve left you. That I want you dead, and I need his help. I convince him to go after you, and when he does, you and the Regiment will be there waiting.”
“My brother would never believe that.”
I yank my right sleeve up aggressively, holding my forearm in front of Gabriel’s face.
His stoic gaze tracks the mottled marks left by the Bloodrot—the purple lattice that intertwines with my veins, not unlike how the skin of a corpse marbles as gases build up postmortem.
Disgust tightens his mouth as my heart pounds.
I’ve never felt more like a dead girl walking.
“I’ll make the Warden believe me,” I say quietly. “I’m dying. Is that not a good enough reason to turn against you? Doesn’t it make sense that I’d want you dead after everything you’ve made me do?”
Uncertainty—or perhaps suspicion—draws Gabriel’s brows together. He studies me for a long moment. “What exactly are you saying?”
“See?” I lift my chin and force my pulse to slow. “Even you believed it for a second, didn’t you?”
Gabriel pulls at the collar of his shirt. Rather than suggesting discomfort, something about the action is vaguely threatening. It’s an odd contrast to his next words. “He’ll kill you, Talin.”
“So will you. At the very least, let me choose how I die.”
Gabriel stalks over to my bed, settling on the edge and crossing his legs.
Again, it strikes me as strangely incongruous: him in his pressed suit and air of general dignity, poised atop the rumpled sheets in my bland, borrowed bedroom.
He shoots a meaningful look at the space beside him.
After a beat of apprehension, I sink onto the mattress.
Rarely do we sit like this, face-to-face, as equals.
There is always a desk or a stretch of room between us.
It’s always excruciatingly clear that he holds the power.
But when he sighs, I know I have him.
“It would amuse my brother greatly to believe he has something I care about.”
A laugh lodges in my throat. It almost sounds like he’s admitting he doesn’t care about me, at least not in any way that matters.
And why would he? When it comes right down to it, I’m nothing but a dying sinner touched by the devil.
A throwaway girl. Someone he’ll willingly sacrifice to keep his secrets safe, no matter how much he might covet me.
I keep my voice devoid of inflection. “Tell me what you want done with him.”
“Bring the Warden to the Reaches,” Gabriel decides. “I’ll be there in a couple of weeks for the Congregation. The Regiment and I will take it from there.”
“That’s impossible.” Outrage lashes through my bones.
Rather than saying no, is he presenting me with a task he knows I can’t fulfill?
If Valestadt is the center of governance and law enforcement, then the Reaches is the Regiment’s administrative and spiritual core.
It’s a mountainous island sequestered on the northernmost tip of Sundbourg.
Most of the scholars work there, along with the chaplains who aren’t assigned to schools or smaller temples across Sundbourg.
I’ve never been, but Gabriel travels there often.
The Congregation, if I recall correctly, is the annual meeting of Sundbourg’s chaplains.
Gabriel leans forward, surveying me from beneath his lashes. “When I’m in the Reaches, I don’t have an entourage of agents with me. It’s considered a safe place. A holy one. Let it slip to my brother that I’ll be there, and I guarantee he’ll show up armed with a plan to kill me.”
“Say I’m successful,” I counter. “We’re simply going to be granted entry? I thought agents were stationed at the bridge crossing.”
“Leave that to me. I’ll find a way to get you across.”
I grit my teeth, cycling through the steps in my mind. It’s hard to imagine the Warden will go for it. But if his hatred is as powerful as Gabriel seems to think, then maybe—just maybe—there’s a chance.
“Fine,” I decide. “I’ll bring the Warden to the Reaches. But I want one thing in return. I want—”
“Your freedom.” He finishes the sentence before I can, the syllables cutting.
I recoil in shock, and Gabriel sighs.
“Ah, Talin. I never take someone into my employ without first knowing what they want. And you? I know you live in fear of what the Bloodrot will do to you. Already you can’t bear to look at your own hands.
You want to take advantage of what little life you have left.
I don’t blame you—it must be difficult, knowing you won’t see paradise. ”
His words take a long time to filter into my brain.
I hear what he didn’t have to say: That my existence is pointless.
That I’m someone to be pitied. How easy it must be for him, sitting in his ivory tower alongside his imagined Savior, pointing fingers at those he wants punished.
Never having to pull the trigger himself and never having to shoulder the consequences.
“Do we have a deal or not?” I bite out.
His answering smile is infuriatingly serene, and I think again of the Warden’s unerring control.
I still can’t quite wrap my head around the two being brothers, and yet I keep detecting similarities now that I know the truth.
Both have hollow cheeks and dark, expressive brows.
Were the Warden’s hair not bleached, I suspect it would be the same color as Gabriel’s.
They share the same striking, impenetrable gaze, though Gabriel’s is cobalt where the Warden’s is glacier-pale.
Now that I’ve seen it, it’s impossible to unsee it, and yet I can’t fathom two people who are more different in every way that matters.
“We have a deal,” Gabriel says. “You deliver me my brother—updating me regularly by telephone—and I’ll consider it your last sin on my behalf. However, you breathe a word of what you know during that time…”
“We both know I won’t.”
A long glance passes between us, and finally Gabriel nods. I extend a hand, but he doesn’t shake it. Instead he traps it between both of his own long enough that the heat of his skin seeps through my glove. His smile is back—pleasant but uncompromising.
That’s the final similarity between the brothers, I think: Both have honed their charisma into a weapon.
“Make immediate contact if and when my brother accepts your proposal,” Gabriel murmurs. “And Talin?”
I lift my gaze expectantly. “Yes?”
“May the Savior be with you.”
It sounds less like a blessing and more like a curse.