Chapter 56
LVI.
Torren
I don’t understand what I’m seeing. I freeze and then shield my eyes, because Kerasea is surrounded by a purple bonfire so bright that it hurts to look at her. The heat radiating out is scorching, even from the doorway.
I raced here, worried she was in danger, thinking I could help, which now seems foolish.
But I heard a scream. There was just a pool of blood, and I thought Lucius Calais was lying on the ground in two pieces.
Now there’s only Kerasea cradling her servant girl.
She and Zel sit unburned in the middle of the flame.
Kerasea picks her head up, and her eyes meet mine.
With a wave of her hand, she makes the fire retreat. The eternal flame flees until it sits calmly in the brazier next to the altar. I look around, but everything in the tower is normal, as if nothing happened.
Yet Kerasea and Zel are covered in blood.
“Kerasea,” I say, breathless. “Are you all right?”
I ask the question, but I already know she’s unharmed. Her scream was one of anger, of mourning, not of physical pain.
Awe and fear mingle in my chest. I want to take a knee to her, but this is all impossible.
How could any of this have happened?
The High Priestess stares straight ahead, slowly rocking the girl in her lap.
Kerasea’s white robe is soaked in blood.
There’s splatter on her neck and on her golden collar.
Her hands drip crimson onto the stone floor, but the blood isn’t hers.
Zel’s chest is covered, all of it stemming from a deep wound on her neck.
“They killed a child,” Kerasea says. “I was too late.”
There’s no emotion in her voice, and she’s not looking at me. She’s just staring into the distance.
I have seen men after battle look like this, wandering with grave wounds and speaking matter-of-factly as they search for their own body parts. There’s a level of atrocity where the mind shuts down.
I take a step closer, ready to own my part in this.
“I was speaking to Julian and someone overheard us—I think it was Calais. I was careless, and I deeply regret it.”
Kerasea’s green eyes finally focus on me, and she tilts her head. “No. You didn’t do anything wrong. Sentries follow orders, and he planned to murder her. Medea is going to suffer for this.”
Again, she is not speculating. She is certain that Medea ordered the murder of her servant.
The High Priestess gently lays Zel’s body down, and then she rises from the floor. She gives the girl a mournful stare before stepping away.
“I’m ready.”
The most powerful woman in the republic pushes away her shock and raises her blood-speckled chin. I have no doubt that she is prepared to accuse Senator Medea, come what may.
“I accept your terms,” I say.
She nods. She knows that means I will stay silent as she falsely swears. But I don’t think she cares much anymore. No, from that hollow look on her face, she doesn’t give a fuck about consequences at all.
We take the stairs back into the palace. I pause as we reach the landing for the third floor.
“I’ll wait while you bathe and change,” I say.
She blinks, and her brow furrows. “I’m not going to change.”
I raise my eyebrows.
She gestures to the blood covering her. “Let them see what she’s done.”
All right then.
I can’t say I know who or even what Kerasea is right now. There’s no fear, no emotion in her. She barely seems present, but she is sharp as a sabine and poised to attack.
We arrive on the first floor and proceed directly to the throne room.
To say she causes a stir with her arrival is an understatement.
The sentries posted outside the doors gasp.
A senate page drops a scroll, and it falls to the floor with a clang.
Another faints with a sigh. It’s audible because the room has been struck silent.
The senators all stop where they are standing, frozen in horror.
Julian rises from behind his desk, his eyes wide.
The blood-covered High Priestess of the temple of truth walks to the center of the room and comes to a graceful stop in front of the Council.
“I accuse Senator Medea of murder under lex religio,” she says.
I will myself not to react and remain at attention. I suppose that solves how we were going to broach the accusation. Priests are protected by the law that she just cited—even from the Senate.
Another of the senate pages faints, but Kerasea stares only at Medea. The senator sits at the table with her hands folded.
“I decline and object,” Medea says.
I observe her expressions, her tone. Medea is completely calm, unfazed, and wholly guilty.
Kerasea stares.
Terrance clears his throat. “We will, of course, have to vote upon—”
It’s a valiant effort to gain control of the room, but Terrance stops speaking as Kerasea raises her left hand and looks at him with pure disdain. This is not the girl they could intimidate or cajole. Her stare is enough to silence the Senate Leader.
Then she refocuses her attention on Medea.
Kerasea breathes out a laugh, and the corner of her lips rises.
It’s not a smile so much as a terrifying sneer.
Without breaking eye contact, she wipes her bloody hand over her left wrist—the one she accidentally cut last night—and then she strokes the lapis on her robe.
“I call upon the god of truth to enter this room.”
The moment Kerasea lifts her right hand, the air shifts above us. Everyone stares up at the ornate ceiling as darkness descends on the room. The morning sun ceases to shine through the wall of windows. All the candles and lamps are extinguished as one.
I grab my temples as intense pressure makes my head and shoulders ache. Kerasea stands still as everyone else clutches their heads, bows under the weight, or winces, their faces contorting.
“I swear on the holy name of the god of truth that Senator Medea is a murderer and she did, at this very conclave, cause blood to be spilled, including that of Priestess Mirial Bauman.”
Kerasea lowers her hand to her shoulder, and daylight partially returns. The pressure lessens in my temples, but not completely. It’s enough that I can focus on the High Priestess as she extends her arm and points to Medea.
The moment she does, the senator falls out of her chair and collapses to her knees with a scream. Kerasea turns her hand, and Medea lowers her head to the marble floor. Divine might is forcing the senator to move as if she is a puppet on a string.
I have never seen a priest have this ability. Pryor has not seen someone channel this kind of power since there were Elusians. But Kera is not a magic blood.
She couldn’t be. They are all dead.
“Kerasea! High Priestess! Relent. We accept the accusation,” Terrance says. Terror makes his voice shake as he clasps his hands together. Gone is his sniffing and haughty disdain.
Suh and Paolo nod, apparently becoming aware of their own mortality. Foreau is slow to react but eventually assents. Medea, however, doesn’t move. I don’t think she can.
The High Priestess has won, but I don’t know that she hears it. She is so focused on vengeance, so thoroughly connected to her god that she is barely a person right now. Unbridled rage lights her face, her eyes aglow with the divine.
As I look from her to Medea, I realize Kerasea is channeling the weight of the god into the senator. The High Priestess might split Medea’s skull open in front of us. And if she does, she will be executed for murder.
In the republic, even the High Priestess’s power has limits.
I move closer to her.
“High Priestess!” Paolo calls. He holds his own head but kneels next to Medea in an attempt to shield her. “Stop this, please!”
Suh clasps his hands in the air and nods vigorously in agreement, his jowls shaking. Terrance pales, suddenly impotent in front of real power.
Medea tries to cover her head with both arms crossed over her hair. Her forehead is pressed onto the floor. But Kerasea doesn’t move.
“Admit what you have done,” she says.
Medea doesn’t speak, but I’m not certain she can.
The only person sitting still is Foreau. He winces at the table, but mostly he’s taking in the whole scene like it’s an amusing play. But this is life-and-death—Medea’s, but most importantly, Kerasea’s.
I have to act and find a way to make her relent.
I step closer to the High Priestess, then reach out and take her left hand.
As soon as our fingers touch, she breaks her stare from Medea and looks at me. I brace myself, worried she’ll strike at me with a weapon I can’t defend against, but she just tilts her head, puzzled.
“Enough now,” I say, keeping my voice calm and measured. “You have triumphed. The Senate has agreed to an investigation. I will search for evidence—and I will find it.”
They didn’t explicitly say this, but that is the standard when lifting un exorum.
Kerasea blinks hard and shakes her head, as if she is just waking up. The candles and oil lamps flare back to life, and the sun returns in the throne room.
Everyone peers upward, cautious and tentative, as if the ceiling may come crashing down on them.
Kerasea has done it—accused Medea of murder and lifted un exorum.
But as Foreau and Terrance stare at the High Priestess, an unsettling feeling hits my chest. She has won but also marked herself as more powerful than the Council. That makes her a target for their ambitions as well as their retribution.
Today will not be the end of this.