Chapter 55
LV.
Kerasea
I don the heavy gold necklace of the High Priestess in the rose light of early dawn. I sigh, exhaustion causing pain between my shoulder blades. Walking in Mirial’s memories was less restful than staying awake—not that I had a choice in the matter. Death invaded my mind.
In Mirial’s remembrance, I felt both trapped and free, myself and her. It was unlike any dream I’ve had before—more like the vision I saw in the library’s fresco.
Whatever it was, it was undeniably a result of mingling my blood with hers. I’m just not sure why it didn’t happen before.
I shiver. I have to hope that the shared memory was the only repercussion from summoning godless death a second time.
Not that it was a small price to pay.
The truth about my adoption sits heavier on my chest than the necklace.
I knew I was never the only liar in the temple—I just didn’t know the extent of my father’s half-truths.
By walking in Mirial’s memory, I felt her unrequited love for my father, her initial disdain for me, and how desperately she wanted to murder the woman who saved me.
And that part—the whole existence of that woman, I was never told. My father went to his pyre keeping her murder a secret.
I’ll never know that woman’s name or her story. I’ll also never know why she spared me and secreted me away. I have my life thanks to someone I can’t even honor.
I thought I would finally hear my given name—to at least know that much about my past—but with one motion, my father silenced the truth. I was unsurprised. He was exceptionally good at that.
Around four years ago, my father finally admitted that I was adopted—mostly because I’d already figured it out.
Of course, his tale was far different than the memory I walked in.
My father spoke of being awoken on the Crimson Night by a baby arriving at the temple.
He focused on how I was chosen by the god of truth and how I stepped right into the eternal flame.
He neglected, however, to mention that they had considered killing me or that he ordered the murder of my nurse to keep my identity concealed. But those were minor details.
I curl my hands in fists. My story was nothing more than an inconvenient truth. The life of a single commoner rarely matters to the powerful.
But it matters to me.
And now the life of one commoner is going to change the Senate. Mirial wasn’t noble—she was the daughter of a merchant, like many of the priests in Pryor. But through the temple, her life mattered. I will be able to seek justice for her.
If Torren allows it.
I glance at the wall that separates us, wondering if he has made up his mind, then I finish readying myself for the conclave. The wide gold bangles cover my wrists and bandage, and I style my hair in a simple braid.
I’ve just tied the end of my hair when there’s a sharp, shooting pain in my left arm.
I draw a noisy breath and turn the bangle, thinking it caught on my wound, but the pain is much deeper than a pinch.
I breathe through my clenched teeth, as it feels like someone is shoving a blade in between the bones of my wrist. Then I remove the bangle.
There’s no blade, but there is fresh blood on the white bandage I just changed.
What is this?
As I stare, my blood is stirring, rushing mostly to my left wrist, but why?
I’m nowhere near a dead body. Yet the magic in me is swirling, ready and begging for release.
Death is calling me, but that doesn’t make sense—I call death, not the other way around.
Did I open a channel last night in the divining room?
The thought is horrifying, but then I wince, lurching forward as the pain intensifies. I cradle my wrist to my abdomen as the agony becomes so intense that my vision turns white. Another burst of pain makes me stumble, my wrist pulled toward the door.
I look down at my arm and furrow my brow, forgetting the pain in favor of confusion. When I move in the direction of the door, the pain lessens. In any other direction, including staying still, it returns with a vengeance.
It takes only a moment for me to accept that I’m being led somewhere. Somewhere out of this chamber.
When I open the door, the pain subsides. But I stop to try to lock it and the sharp, stabbing feeling returns twofold.
Stairs. I need to get to the stairs.
I walk a step, then break into a run, propelled by an invisible force and by the pain in my arm.
I reach the stairway. When I start climbing, the pain lessens to a dull ache. But what does death want from me? Is this a connection to Mirial? Is she making me seek out Senator Medea?
No. I pass the fifth floor, headed for the tower. Death propels me upward. I have to continue, but why? There is no corpse up there anymore. There’s no one except for…Zel.
Zel is up there.
No.
No, no, no. I sprint up the stairs of my own volition. My lungs burn, the pain now solely in my chest, not my wrist.
Please not Zel. She is only a child.
The gold on me weighs me down, but I run until I reach the temple door. A side stitch is embedded like a knife in my waist, but I keep going because the door is ajar. It should be shut and locked. I shut and locked it last night.
I push the door fully open, and there is Zel.
She is still breathing, her chest rising and falling rapidly, but I don’t feel any relief, because Eyo’s sentry, Lucius Calais, stands behind her.
He holds a dagger to her throat with one hand, his other grabbing at her skirts.
It takes a single moment to realize I interrupted whatever he was about to do to her.
Zel’s eyes are wide, and she’s going to scream. There’s a terrible glint in Calais’s eye. Now that he can’t exercise his physical power over her, he’s going to settle for the pleasure of killing her in front of me.
How am I going to stop him?
Zel is on the other side of the room, and I have no weapon on me.
Fool! Why didn’t I grab a blade? She’s going to die now, and there’s nothing I can do.
My stomach twists as bile rises in my throat. I have a moment, just one, to react. Half a heartbeat squeezes in my chest as she screams, the pitch high and haunting. My blood drips, trickling from my left wrist into my palm.
I dip my right fingers in my blood. Without even thinking about it, I sign in the air in a cutting motion. The same way I saw my father sign across his neck.
In a burst of inky blackness, death comes for Lucius Calais. Blood splatters Zel’s back and hair as his neck is sliced apart. Then blood pours out of his body like a fountain as his head is cleaved from his shoulders, cut cleanly in the direction I just signed.
I stand, stunned. I hadn’t even thought I could do that. But it wasn’t thought—it was all instinct.
Victory and horror flow through me, but as he falls, Calais retains enough of a grip that his dagger slits Zel’s throat.
No!
I rush forward and catch her as she collapses. But I was too late. Too slow. Crimson gushes from the wound on her neck—her life spilling out.
I try to stanch the bleeding, pressing my hands on her throat, but I know it’s hopeless. My blood can’t heal like the old king. I don’t have that power. No one does. Not even the most skilled healer could help her now.
All I can do is hold her as she chokes on her own blood.
We crumple to the floor, Zel’s body across my lap as I cradle her.
I keep one hand on her neck, but I grip her hand with my other, trying to be some kind of hollow comfort.
She tries to speak as she stares into my eyes, but all that comes out is a gurgling sound.
Pure fear widens her eyes, her expression begging for help that can’t come.
And then there is nothing. Her brown eyes stay open, but they no longer see. Her hand falls limp out of mine.
When the light leaves her eyes, all I feel is rage. Consuming, deadly fury hits, my heartbeat roaring in my ears. My hands curl holding her as I look at Calais’s skull, his mouth open in shock.
I’m sorry I killed him. I regret giving him the charity of a fast death.
I should’ve tortured him until living became worse than dying.
He murdered her. He knew he would die, but in his very last moments, he chose to kill a fucking child.
And I couldn’t stop him. I can’t stop any of these vipers as they slither and strike at will.
Rage bursts beneath my skin, the scream building in my throat. This time I don’t swallow it down; I let it out. My scream rings and echoes around the divining room. I scream until I don’t have any breath left.
The purple of the eternal flame draws my attention. The fire roars with righteous anger, the blaze rising in a column ten feet into the air. I stare and realize it’s not just my rage, but the god’s. A servant’s blood was spilled in a holy place, and the god of truth riots.
Enough of these lies and liars.
Come to me.
I move my fingers and call the eternal flame.
It spills out of the brazier like water and then surrounds me the way it did when I was a child.
I bathe in the familiar glow and hold Zel’s body tightly in my arms. The remains of Lucius Calais catch fire.
His blood and clothes burn first, but then his body, his face is incinerated.
The smell of charred flesh fills the air, and when he’s finally gone, I look past him.
That’s when I notice the Praetorian standing in the open doorway.