Chapter Seven
Seven
In death, in life, brethren.
Lay bone and blood together
With ash, and with all.
—FROM “AT REST,” BY THE POET ANDRALLES
WHEN I DIE, I will be honored. No matter where the spark of my life is extinguished, tears will fall, garments will be rent, and my body will be prepared and borne to a place of honor: Cineris, the necropolis of the divine dead.
Of course, that’s assuming I don’t die a traitorous heretic, an increasingly likely possibility.
When the next morning arrives, I am still at the Cathedral, trussed up again in ceremonial armor and ready to help ferry my fallen brethren to their eternal rest. The armor has, thankfully, been cleaned, but there’s enough of a lingering hint of monster goo that my breakfast churns.
I adjust my rat helm, hoping for a little fresh air, but given the corpse-laden carts behind me, it’s wishful thinking.
The demon helm turns ever so slightly in my direction, and I wonder if that’s Nolan’s way of quietly admonishing my restlessness.
Like me, he sits astride a horse, waiting for the funeral procession to begin.
After our little jaunt to the reliquary chamber, we didn’t return to the Cloisters.
Instead, Prior Petronilla deposited me in one of the Cathedral guest wings, filled in a few logistical blanks about my new mission, then departed with a pleading “You must not fail” and an expression that definitely conveyed something more along the lines of Don’t fuck this up.
So far, so good.
Nolan was already waiting when I arrived at the stables. There was a small fountain in one corner for the horses to drink from, and Nolan stood by it with his head bowed, reverie clasped in his fingers, lips moving silently in prayer. Only when I came within a few paces did he acknowledge me.
“Hey.” I didn’t know what else to say. I’d never spoken directly to anyone in the Dusk Cloister before—my shout of warning during the attack doesn’t really count—and anyway, what’s the proper greeting for someone you’re about to embark on a quest for a god-slaying weapon with? “Ready to get this funeral rolling?”
That earned me a strange look followed by a carefully cordial “Good morning.” Even stranger was waiting with him as the attendants fussed over the last of the equine preparations. He didn’t seem inclined to conversation, and even if he had been, I don’t know what could have been said.
Under normal circumstances, I’d expect attempts to unnerve me, maybe even a full-on goading.
He’d likely have tried to find out every scrap of information about me—what areas I excel at, what weapons I handle best—as I did the same.
Anything that might result in an advantage.
Instead, we’d been given the same task, the same instructions, probably even the same breakfast. I wasn’t sure where that left us.
I hated that there even was an us. Only one of us could be Executrix in the end, and I couldn’t help but be curious about what Nolan thought about that.
Fortunately, once we took our position in the procession, small talk wasn’t required.
Around us, in the shadow of the Cathedral, thousands of mourners had gathered, some clearly having traveled all night.
More, I’m sure, would be on their way; after all, nothing spreads faster than bad news.
No doubt Lumeris would be covered in a veil of mourning for days, if not weeks, to come, before it returned to its usual devoted, decadent self.
All of our blood brethren are honored in death, but the level of fanfare has risen to match the scale of their tragic ends.
The Order of Cineri arrived sometime this morning, one representative for each body.
They escort each cart, in black cassocks, black hoods, and bloodred masks molded with the vaguest of human features.
Like Potentiates, they are anonymous, but in a much creepier way.
This is the only other path open to me, the only Order I can choose myself: babysitter of the dead.
Never to leave Cineris, save to collect the occasional corpse.
Not a chance. I can’t imagine who would willingly put themselves in an even smaller cage.
Already, the notion of being turned out into the Devoted Lands unsupervised has me itching with anticipation.
Nolan and I have been set at the front of the line of carts, an honor guard to represent our respective Cloisters.
Beyond the carts is a contingent of Cathedral Guard, then a group of clerics—not of the Blood, but from the regular, lower orders, their hierarchy too convoluted to bother sorting out—praying like it’s going out of fashion.
The common mourners will be allowed to follow behind them, to show their respect as we escort the dead to their final place of rest.
Somewhere in the Cathedral, a horn sounds—a low, mournful note that spreads like a fog.
That’s the signal.
We urge our horses forward. The pace we set is a slow one, respectful as we pass through the high gate of the Cathedral complex, into the streets of Lumeris.
The city of light. Of the Flame. Nowhere else in the Devoted Lands does one find the beauty and artistry that makes up Lumeris.
Poets have written entire tomes about the sweeping splendor of its streets, the sunset tones and gilded ornament of its buildings.
I hate it. It is a predatory magnificence, a fat tick that feeds off an endless flow of tribute, drinks dry the pilgrims desperate to feel the warmth of divinity on their skin.
I want to dig my heels into my horse, gallop out of the city and into the open landscape.
But that’s not exactly proper funeral etiquette.
So, I keep in line with Nolan, gaze straight ahead, the creak of the wheels behind us a haunting reminder of when I first arrived at the Cathedral.
I was carried on a cart too. Alive, but barely.
There’s not a soul in Lumeris who isn’t on the streets watching us.
A lot of hard, melancholy faces. A lot of tears and prayers.
And a lot of empty rooms in the guesthouses we pass.
My hands tighten on the reins. Somewhere, more bodies are lined up, hundreds of them, beginning to blacken, bloat, and leak.
They won’t be carefully washed and shrouded, or receive processions.
They won’t have mourners lining the streets for them.
I wonder if any of them would be happy that they died in service to the Goddess, even if that service was only keeping a dangerous secret.
Probably. And that likelihood singes my very core.
I used to think about running. About leaving Lumeris and the Cloisters as far behind as I could.
I’d remember the world beyond them, as little as I knew of it, and think: They’d never find me.
I could disappear in the middle of the night, hunt and steal my way beyond the Devoted Lands, build a new life somewhere the addictive, toxic light of Tempestra-Innara couldn’t touch.
I even tried it, once. A few years after I arrived at the Cloister, our training went thus: Enjoy a several-day ride in a cramped carriage, here’s a knife, now go into the mountain woods for a week and don’t die.
A perfect opportunity.
I felt the pull earlier than I realized.
Really, within hours of leaving the land I knew behind, but it was so faint at first that I attributed it to nervousness, and later to the fact that I was trying to live on a diet of scavenged berries and bitter greens.
But it grew, and I began to find myself looking backward, toward the way I’d come from.
Toward the Cathedral. By the time the feeling reached an urgent sensation I simply couldn’t ignore, I understood: I’d been bound to Tempestra-Innara in more ways than one.
The farther away I got from the Goddess’s light, the worse this feeling would grow.
And that my blessing was more than a gift—it was a tether.
To this day, I wonder whether that test had less to do with survival than it did with the lesson I learned.
Maybe I wasn’t the only Potentiate who quietly balked against the lot that had been cast for me.
Or maybe it was simply a demonstration of what we’d all have to contend with eventually, when we left the bosom of Lumeris for the Orders.
I wasn’t foolish enough to ask. But it was about that time that my fantasies of deicide really began to flourish.
Impossible, yes, but the last measure of satisfaction left to me.
Because I finally understood that my only escape from the Goddess was that last, final escape whose procession I am now leading.
Thankfully, once we are beyond the city, we pick up the pace. A lightness takes me, still tinged with anxiety, but this is it—the beginning of outside. My divine shackles haven’t been struck away, but the chain holding them has been let out a bit. It is very nearly the sense of freedom.
But not. And I can’t let myself be fooled into thinking it is.
Cineris.
My first look at it is from a distance, sitting beneath a woolen ceiling of cloud that’s appropriately somber for the occassion.
The journey from the Cathedral to the necropolis takes most of the day, hours that pass with nothing but prayers and wails and the growing desire to violently silence both.
So, it’s a huge relief when I spot what appears to be a cluster of jagged black teeth punching up out of an unnervingly flat stretch of land.
The high, uneven walls of Cineris are obsidian dark, rough cut, and frankly unwelcoming.
There is only one way in, a reinforced steel door that appears as if it would scoff at any battering ram in existence, even on its worst day.
This is where the bodies of those blessed by Tempestra-Innara have been brought for centuries.
It is a fortress of the dead—and a vault for the power still contained within them.
Cineris doesn’t pay even a passing thought to Renderers, even if they were so foolish as to creep this close to the Goddess.
At a certain point, the Cathedral Guard stop the crowd behind us from advancing any closer.
Nolan and I continue, along with the Cineri and their carts.
Only the divinely blessed—dead or alive—are allowed within the walls of Cineris.
Nolan and I have barely stopped when the door opens.
Beyond it are more of the necropolis’s keepers, gloved hands folded in front of them.
With a solemn gait, we move to either side of the entrance as, one by one, the wagons and their cargo enter.
When that is complete, one figure steps forward.
“May the Flame warm you.” A masculine voice sounds from behind the mask. “Before you enter, you must prove your divinity.”
“The outfits aren’t enough?” I knew what to expect, but it comes out anyway, because I am cranky after the ride and tired of chaperoning corpses.
I also know this is part of the plan, that the Cineri has been prompted to admit us.
Later, two riders wearing our armor will exit and return to the Cathedral.
As far as anyone knows, all remaining Cloister Potentiates will be home by tomorrow, safe and accounted for.
The masked figure twists their fingers anxiously, thrown by my response.
Nolan comes to his rescue. “Of course.” He holds up one hand and takes a breath. An instant later the flame appears—larger than any I’ve ever seen from a Potentiate, blazing nearly a foot off his palm.
“Impressive size,” I say, to exactly zero reaction. Only a sense of annoyed impatience as Nolan extinguishes the display and the Cineri turns to me. “Okay, okay. But stand back and shield your eyes.”
I hold out my hand and call. A rush of energy surges through me, every inch of my skin prickling with warmth as the light appears.
What there is of it. It’s an unimpressive flicker at best, rippling over the skin of my palm.
Calling the flame is one of the few areas where I never have to feign ineptitude, but lucky for me, size doesn’t matter when it comes to proving divinity.
The man moves aside. “Welcome, blood brethren.”
And with that, I enter Cineris in the last way I ever expected to: alive.