Chapter 32
Lucian arrived on the outskirts of Ashingdown in the early hours of the morning, his whole body thrumming with the need for sleep, but he resisted it, taking big gulps of frigid dawn air to drive the urge away.
For the last two days, Tisk had been the one to tie him up when he couldn’t stay awake any longer, the wily god appearing just when Lucian needed him every morning, but today he was close to his goal, the Temple of the Bloody Claw within reach, and the idea of waiting another day to reclaim who he was—and to banish Artair from this body—was unthinkable.
He let his feet lead him, passing the pillars with their lion statues and following grubby streets and alleyways until finally he stood in front of the temple.
It was a striking building, and even at the last dregs of his patience he took a moment to admire it: the whole thing was carved from cloudy red marble, giving it the appearance of a towering slab of fresh meat, and every inch was covered in depictions of his god.
The Bloody Claw prowled over the arch of the entrance, leapt from the walls onto unsuspecting victims, stood proud and numerous along the roof.
Many of the lions had golden eyes, painted with a careful hand, and they flashed like tiny suns in the early morning light.
Inside, the place was quiet. There were lamps burning red, and there was a wild, spicy scent that made the hair on the back of Lucian’s neck stand on end.
With that scent came a flood of emotions he didn’t understand: reverence, excitement, fury, terror.
He swallowed hard, suddenly filled with the urge to leave the temple and never return.
‘Can I assist you, child?’
A priest had appeared from behind a screen.
He was bare-chested, a tattoo of the Bloody Claw sprawling from his stomach to his collarbone.
He wore a bronze lion mask that caught the light from the lamps and turned it into a liquid fire that flowed over fangs and whiskers.
Lucian felt his hands ball into fists. To be called a child by a mere priest…
Priests were the grubbing servants of his lord, whereas he was a weapon, a sword forged to do His will.
But as much as he’d like to show this idiot the meaning of power, this was not the time to lose his temper.
‘I am here to give my thanks to our lord.’
The priest cocked his head. ‘He has blessed you?’
Lucian smiled, feeling a genuine burst of pleasure at the thought.
‘He has brought me back into His light,’ he said. ‘And shown me the path to power.’
The priest nodded seriously. Lucian knew this was the sort of thing they liked to hear. The Bloody Claw was the god of ambition, influence, potential, and strength. You did not enter the temple if these weren’t the things closest to your heart.
‘Then you should come to the place where He is strongest, child.’
The priest led him out of the main chamber into a smaller, darker space behind it.
In here, the wild animal smell was almost overpowering, and the room was dominated by a huge marble bust of the god, its mane flowing down onto and into the floor; it looked as though the whole space had been carved from a single, enormous piece of marble.
Its jaws were open, exposing teeth as long as Lucian’s forearm and a broad tongue covered in gold leaf.
There was a tarnished spot on the end of its tongue.
This would be where supplicants would leave their offerings. Lucian knelt before it.
‘I will leave you in contemplation of His glory,’ said the priest. There was a whisper of sandals against stone and he disappeared back through the door. Lucian waited for a moment longer, to be completely sure he was alone. And then he lifted his head.
‘My lord, I’ve returned,’ he said. Dimly, he was aware that his hands were shaking. ‘Give me back what is mine.’
The room remained silent. Lucian reached inside himself for that thin line of fire and willed it into a living flame.
‘Speak to me, lord.’
Blood.
The voice was a low, purring growl, deep enough that he felt the stones under his knees hum faintly.
Lucian took the knife from his belt—stolen from the last tavern he’d stayed in—and cut the palm of his hand, barely feeling the hiss of pain.
Blood flowed across his skin, black in the smoky light.
He pressed his hand to the statue’s tongue.
‘Give me back what is mine, lord.’
There was a feeling of slight pressure under his hand, as though the marble were eagerly drawing the blood away from him. And then it stopped, and for a few breaths nothing happened.
Blood , said the Bloody Claw again. He had never been the easiest god to speak to.
Lucian knew that other mages could have whole conversations with their patron god.
Tisk, certainly, was talkative enough. But the Bloody Claw was, at his heart, a beast, an animal, and speaking to mortal humans was below him.
Lucian sat back on his haunches. It wasn’t enough, he knew that. His own blood was freely given and therefore worthless. But to give the Bloody Claw what he wanted here, in this place, was incredibly risky. He looked down at the knife in his hand, the blade already slick with blood.
What are you going to do? he asked himself, his own voice slick with contempt. Slink away with your tail between your legs and admit defeat because what He asks of you is too hard? You’ve spent too long in the body of this soft monk.
The Bloody Claw was right to ask this of him. After all, if he couldn’t do this one, simple task, he was hardly worthy to be one of the lion’s most celebrated mages. Lucian stood. The hand that gripped the knife was no longer shaking.
‘Priest?’ he called. ‘I need your help.’
Blood flowed freely over the lion’s tongue; not black now but a lurid crimson, its mineral scent combining with the wild animal funk of the temple to create something terribly familiar.
Lucian pushed the priest’s body to one side, breathing heavily.
Such a quick, simple little murder, but it had left him exhausted, even drained.
You’re tired , he told himself. That’s all.
He placed his hand in the blood, which was still obscenely hot.
‘You know me, lord,’ he panted. ‘ Give me back what’s mine. ’
Something stirred in the depths of the lion’s throat.
Lucian shivered, suddenly very aware of the huge teeth that surrounded him.
If this were a real lion, it could bite him in two with one decisive chomp.
For a moment, he wanted to pull his hand away, to remove himself from that circle of danger, but he knew that to do that would be to walk away from the Bloody Claw forever and accept this broken, diluted version of himself.
Instead, he forced himself to look at the dark space at the back of the lion’s throat.
There were noises coming from it. Soft, dangerous noises.
‘You know me,’ he said again, his voice firmer this time. ‘Let me wield your power as I once did.’
In the depth of the shadows, a pair of yellow eyes opened, slitted pupils thinning with an emotion Lucian couldn’t place. A flood of memories rose up, washing him away.
Blood dripping onto stone for a thousand, thousand years…
He was Lucian Prideson, a foundling child left on the steps of a temple and raised under the watchful yellow eye of the lion.
Others were talented, but Lucian was a prodigy, guessing the ways and wants of the Bloody Claw with an accuracy that alarmed the priests, until he was sent to be taught by one of their lord’s most feared and respected mages: Mother Maura.
Under her tutelage he blossomed, the line of fire within him burning brighter and brighter every day.
He saw Maura presiding over sacrifice after sacrifice, wielding power and parcelling it out to her acolytes, but most of all to him, her favourite. Her most trusted.
‘My Lucian,’ she called him, pushing a strand of black hair behind his ear. ‘My little lion cub.’
And then he saw her watching him in a different way, her green eyes narrowed.
There was a plan, something years in the making, that Maura had been piecing together since before he had come to her as a potential apprentice.
Only her most trusted inner circle knew of it and when they did speak of the plan, they did it in high, lonely places, far away from the other acolytes, and far away from the presence even of their god…
Eventually, Lucian was brought into that circle. He remembered a clifftop overlooking a city, the sea a twinkling line in the distance, and her robes snapping in the wind.
‘Lucian, my lion cub,’ she had said to him. ‘Have you ever thought what it would be like to have power without the price?’
She had explained to him the idea of a poisoned sacrifice. A tithe with thorns. A life that the Bloody Claw would greedily consume, only to find it was a false life, something twisted and dark. The lion would become an eater of the dead, the very opposite of his holy purpose, and he would die…
‘He would die in sacrifice to me ,’ Mother Maura had said. ‘And I will take His place amongst the Twelve. No more grubbing around for magic or begging for power. It will simply be mine.’
Lucian had shaken his head. This body, his real body, had hazel eyes and hair as black as the wing of a raven.
‘I don’t understand,’ he had said to her then. ‘What sort of sacrifice could possibly poison a god?’