Chapter Thirty-Nine
Thirty-nine
Please… please, I cannot fathom another day in this godsforsaken place. An hour. A minute. Please!
—FROM THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF CLERIC OF THE BLOOD THIAGO TO HIGH CLERIC OF THE BLOOD SULLIVAS
GRAY CLOUDS HANG LOW the following afternoon as Caius stands on a raised stone dais at one end of the city’s largest plaza.
The gathered crowd fills it to overflowing, thick and impatient, and fraught with uneasy interest. Scowls outnumber smiles a hundred to one, but between the Caerula and the Thorn Guard, Caius is unworried as the gathering builds, until it seems as if every person in Cyprene is on hand.
Nolan and I have taken up a spot near one of the scattered fountains, close enough to have a good view, not so close that Caius can easily pick us out.
Any slip, any hint of his attention our way, is something we can’t risk.
Or at least as far as Nolan believes. We both expect that Avery, or at least his compatriots, are somewhere in this horde.
A murmur ripples through the citizens of the city as Caius finally rises and goes to the front of the dais. He scans the scene like a farmer taking in a growing crop, then clears his throat.
“When they whisper, we wake…”
I nearly groan. Caius might have agreed to play nicely (or as nice as he can manage), but he couldn’t pass up a chance to remind Cyprene who is in charge.
The crowd picks up the prayer in fits and starts, and I see a lot of hands move to reveries that clearly aren’t the Goddess’s.
Nolan and I recite as dutifully as if we were in the Cloister, but even for him, there’s a feeling of it being performative.
As Caius concludes the prayer, a wary silence settles in its wake.
“May the Flame warm you all.” It’s so quiet that his words carry easily. “Let me first thank you for welcoming my guard and me to your beautiful city.”
More grumbles.
“He could get on with it.” Nolan’s words are pitched only for my ears.
“Sure, but where’s the fun for him in that?”
“I understand that Cyprene hasn’t enjoyed the presence of one of Tempestra-Innara’s Chosen in quite some time,” Caius continues.
“And I regret the disruption my arrival has caused, to both your lives and your trade.” His lies come nearly as smoothly as Nolan’s.
“I’m afraid I come only out of necessity, as a heinous crime—murder—has been perpetrated against one of my Chosen brethren. ”
“Good riddance!” someone calls, and I suppress a snicker at the look that flashes across Caius’s face.
This is not Belspire, a fact he’s forced to both taste and swallow.
Instead of having the heckler clamped in irons before they made it out of the plaza, Caius is stuck practicing some very reluctant mercy.
“I have traced those involved to your island, a place several of their coconspirators called home, and engaged the assistance of your exemplary Caerula—who have endeavored so well in service to Tempestra-Innara…” At this, Caius waves a summoning hand to Ramiro, who comes up beside the Arbiter.
I hate the show. But I have to admit that Caius knows how to put it on.
The crowd may loathe him down to the littlest bone in his body, but he has their attention.
And here’s where the edge lies: Too aggressive, and Caius risks revolt.
Not aggressive enough, and the seeds of suspicion about his reasons for being here will take root, and then our goal will be no more possible than the deicidal daydreams I used to pass the time with.
I take in the faces and postures of the crowd.
They overwhelmingly hold a feeling of disdain, but also clear underlying fear.
Caius is a threat; so are the Caerula, in their own, more familiar way.
And putting their alliance on display has fomented enough curiosity to make way for a certain cautious patience.
Get to the point, expressions seem to say.
Give us back our acceptable, tolerated blasphemy.
Except in a few faces.
I elbow Nolan, directing his attention nearby: a Salt priest. The one from the alley. His gaze is locked—not on Caius, like the rest of Cyprene, but on Nolan and me.
“Another,” hisses Nolan.
This one stands opposite the first, a head above the crowd. And there’s a third, to our left.
“Caius’s arrival appears to have spooked Marzela too,” Nolan whispers.
“Hmm.” I count six priests in total. At least, that I can see. We are surrounded.
On the dais, Caius lays a hand on Ramiro’s shoulder. “There is no higher calling than routing out the enemies of the Goddess. They will know of your fine work here, my new friend.”
Ramiro dips his head in appreciation. Meanwhile, the Salt priests are drawing closer.
The crowd is thick, near teeming, but the priests are respected here.
It parts for them in a way they do not for Nolan and me; we are essentially trapped by a sea of bodies, unless we want to make a scene.
Which wouldn’t help—right now, we need everyone focused on Caius.
“But this”—Caius addresses the crowd directly again—“is not a responsibility that lies only with the Caerula. Cyprene may lie far from the light of Tempestra-Innara, but that does not mean it does not feel its warmth. The Goddess loves all of their followers. All of their subjects.”
Oh, not what Cyprene wants to hear. A low roar of voices builds and I catch so many loud, enthusiastic curses that I’m able to add a few new ones to my repertoire. Caius smiles blandly, unbothered.
Suddenly, the crowd near us shifts, revealing a glimpse of Marzela before tightening up again.
But it’s enough. Though Nolan managed to leave our last encounter with what felt like an upper, if temporary, hand in the matter, I see none of that patient deference now.
Unlike Avery and his friends, discretion and retreat doesn’t appear to be the path she prefers.
No, her intentions unfold clearly: With the thickness of the crowd, and Caius as a distraction, it wouldn’t be difficult to spirit a person or two away unseen.
A day ago, she might have been willing to play nice with Nolan in hopes of regular deliveries, but now I suspect she’d be happy with what we brought with us… one way or another.
The Salt priests continue to advance, tightening around Nolan and me like a noose. I wait for his signal to make a move. But a little shake of his head says We stay where we are.
“Heresy is a sin.” Caius’s well-practiced voice manages to carry above the still-smoldering onlookers. “But mercy is a virtue. The Goddess loves all of their subjects and, in their infinite wisdom, is willing to grant it to even those who have not fully embraced their warmth.”
The Salt priests, only paces away now, are ignored entirely by the rest of Cyprene’s citizens. Marzela reappears, a small, venomous smile spreading on her lips.
“But not”—Caius’s words boom throughout the plaza—“to those who harm their Chosen.”
Suddenly, a wave of blue breaks over the Salt priests’ gray.
Caerula appear, dozens of them, throwing aside cloaks to reveal themselves.
Marzela’s eyes widen in surprise, but she has time for only an indignant squawk before two grab her by the arms. Another jams a gag between her teeth.
Around us, the same scene plays out with the rest of her priests, until every one of them is bound and being herded toward the dais.
On it, Caius exudes a triumphant, dominant satisfaction.
“We’ve become entangled”—that’s what Nolan said to him, back in his suite—“with the priests who still worship the Salt Goddess. They’re customers for the Renderers, goods, using them to reach what they believe to be a communion with their dead Salt Goddess.
” And even as my blood ran cold, understanding where Nolan was about to go, I could see the eager heat rise in Caius’s cheeks.
“What,” Caius said, “are you proposing, exactly?”
“Make an example of them.” Nolan’s temptation continued.
“Come down too hard on the Salt priests and it doesn’t matter how many Thorn Guard you’ve brought with you, they won’t be able to put down a citywide uprising.
But there are multiple sects in the city.
Clear one out as a warning, leave the others. For now, of course.”
“And I imagine you have a recommendation on which one to use as an example?”
“We do,” said Nolan.
We. I nearly choked on the bitterness of the word. Oh, I knew I should agree with Nolan’s solution to the problem of Marzela. The Salt priests had threatened us. They’d maimed Hiram. They were heretics. And yet, when Nolan offered them up as a sacrifice to Caius’s ego, like they were nothing…
He gave me a pointed look as Caius considered. Two birds, one stone, it seemed to say.
I shrugged, as if in agreement, all the while envisioning the woman in Belspire. The hiss and crackle of her split skin. The smell of her in the air. Her screams.
Marzela and her priests aren’t even afforded that outlet as they are dragged through the crowd.
There is less protest than I expected from the gathered citizens; the Caerula may not be universally beloved, but they are as of Cyprene as the Salt priests are, and its population seems unsure of how to resolve this inner conflict.
An eerie silence falls, broken only by the struggles of the priests and the cries of seabirds milling overhead.