The Nightshade God, page 26
It made sense. And after Nyxara’s memory of the Godsfall, she knew why the goddess hadn’t been able to tell her.
“Could you repay me for that tidbit with a looser grip?” Dani said.
At first, Lore tightened her hold again, just to make the other woman remember she could. Then she let one of the strands of Spiritum loose.
“Thank you,” Dani said, her shoulders straightening. “Like I said, we know about the pieces. We were supposed to keep them from ever being reunited with the Fount, and find the other two wherever the pantheon hid them. I assume this one was at the Harbor?”
Lore didn’t answer.
It didn’t seem to faze Dani. “I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to prove I am on your side, Lore. I want you to fix the Fount. I want Apollius dead.”
The statement seemed unfinished, like something else should come after. Like this wasn’t the sum of her goal, but it was all she’d share.
Lore nodded. Then she held out her hand. “Give me the dagger.”
Dani didn’t waste time pretending she didn’t have one. “Seriously?”
A whole handful of threads, this time, enough to make Dani gasp.
“Fine,” she wheezed, nearly collapsing as she bent over to root around in her boot. She pulled out the knife, useless against Lore’s magic, but effective enough if she’d managed to catch her off guard.
Lore took it, slid it into her own boot. Then she let go her fistful of Dani’s life.
Dani bent at the waist, pulling in great gasps of air. “That seems like overkill,” she said between breaths.
“Maybe.” Lore turned and walked back into the ruins again, intending to find somewhere to sleep. “But if you’re going to stab me in the back, I’d like to return the favor.”
Footnotes
1 Better known as the Night Witch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
GABE
Those who are strongest will rule over the weak. This is how the world is structured; this is what pleases Me.
—The Book of Holy Law, Tract 79
They fought about whether to go get the Fount piece. Mari tried to be the voice of reason, reassuring them that even if Eoin had taken their ship, they had a deal, and as long as they stuck to it, surely he would give them the shard and help rescue Alie and Lore.
“Deals have much more weight with poison runners than politicians,” Malcolm said, and Mari stayed quiet after that.
She was right in that Eoin taking the ship didn’t automatically mean he was going back on their agreement. But the whole thing put a sour taste in Gabe’s mouth, and his intuition—and the god in his head—told him to run. He’d learned it was best to listen to the one, even if he didn’t really trust the other.
Gabe wanted to find the piece and leave right away, but Malcolm was more measured in his approach. Even if they managed to take the piece and get out of the Rotunda without tripping some alarm, now that Val’s ship was gone, there was no way to leave Caldien without stealing another.
“There’s a way,” Gabe growled, thinking of threads of fire and earth.
“No,” Malcolm said, almost before he finished speaking. “No.”
Bereft of other options, the plan now was to steal a ship. After the meeting of the Brotherhood tonight, Gabe and Malcolm would return to the boardinghouse, in case they were still being followed. Then they’d sneak out the back, return to the Rotunda, and steal the stone while Val, Mari, and Michal found something suitably small and unguarded in the harbor. Eoin would undoubtedly know who’d taken it, but hopefully they’d be halfway to the Mount before he discovered the Fount shard was gone.
So for now, they all pretended at business as usual.
Gossip between Auverraine and Caldien moved slowly, but not that slowly. The news of Alienor Bellegarde and Jax Aronicus’s wedding being moved up was already making the rounds. Yet more gossip came in the form of Finn, tapping nervously at the table with his fingernails as he sat in front of a rapidly cooling cup of tea in the boardinghouse kitchen, an open letter before him.
Mrs. Cavendish had long since gone out to market, but she’d left a plate of biscuits on the counter. Gabe grabbed one and ate it without tasting, trying to decide if he was going to ask Finn what was wrong or not.
He narrowed his eye at the letter, reading it from a safe distance.
Then he dropped his biscuit.
“What does that say?” He knew what it said—he’d just read it. But he wanted to hear it confirmed.
Finn, for his part, didn’t seem upset to find him peering over his shoulder. He shook himself, frowned at his tea. “Hells, this needs whiskey.” Still, he drained the cup before answering. “Apparently, the Queen has escaped from the Second Isle. The Sainted King is sending all hands to capture her.”
Alarm bells rang in Gabe’s head, the smell of burning.
He’ll take her, Hestraon murmured. He’ll take her again. They’ll leave you alone.
“How do you know it’s true?” Gabe asked. “It’s impossible to escape the Isles.”
“Apparently your Hemlock Queen is quite resourceful.” Finn cocked a brow. “I got the news from my contact in the Citadel. And they’re the acting Priest Exalted, so they would know.”
Alexis, then. They would certainly know.
“Fuck,” Gabe seethed, marching into the hallway. “Fuck.”
He felt his edges wavering. Felt the outer reaches of himself going to light and heat.
Can You promise to let me go, after? Gabe asked. Will You give me back to myself?
The god waited a moment before answering. I can make no promises.
“Then leave me alone,” Gabe snarled.
He rushed up the stairs to Malcolm’s room, hammered on the door. It opened to reveal a sleepy-eyed Michal, a blanket drawn around his naked torso. “Gabe?”
Gabe pushed past him, into the room. Malcolm was already awake, similarly bare-chested at the small desk pushed against the wall. When Gabe stormed in, he turned around, brows furrowed. “You seem upset.”
Astonishing deduction, but Gabe didn’t snap at him. “Lore has escaped from the Isles. There’s an order out for her capture. If Apollius gets to her before we do, it’s over.”
Malcolm blew out a slow breath. “We’re leaving tonight. Once we get to the Mount—”
“We’re leaving now.”
“Gabriel. I understand your worry, but Lore can take care of herself—”
“She shouldn’t have to.” The words hissed between Gabe’s teeth. “I have to do something to save her. If He hurts her, if He uses Bastian to do it—”
“Bastian barely exists anymore, Gabe,” Michal said gently, still standing by the wall. His expression was drawn and tired, someone who had given up hope and was pained to see another hold it. “Even if we put the whole Fount back together, we don’t know what will remain of him.”
Quick as called fire, Gabe was across the room, his hand vised around Michal’s neck. Distantly, he heard Malcolm shout, but he wasn’t listening. His mind was all jumping flame and ember-spark.
“He’s in there,” Gabe said. “And we will save him. We will save Lore.”
Michal nodded, as much as he could against the hand on his neck.
Gabe let him go, slowly. When he turned around, Malcolm’s fist met his nose.
It wasn’t undeserved. Gabe knew that, now that the fire in his head was fizzling. He bent double, catching blood in his hand.
“Get a hold of yourself,” Malcolm snarled, hands still in fists. “Do you understand me, Gabriel?”
A nod, blood streaming down to his lip. It tasted metallic, sickeningly warm.
You are soft, Hestraon said. And you are a coward.
Gabe didn’t argue.
“We steal the piece tonight,” Malcolm continued, his voice a strained kind of even. “We leave on whatever ship Val and Mari and Michal can nick from the harbor. We head to the Mount. The chances of Lore being caught between then and now are negligible.” He sighed, fists loosening. “Just hold on for one more day, all right? We’re doing all we can.”
Not all.
But Gabe nodded. He left the room, went to his own. He sat on his bed and stared at the wall, thinking of Lore and Bastian and Alie, all these people he loved and couldn’t save.
He stayed in his room until night began to fall, coating the window in veils of darkness. Through the wall, Gabe could faintly hear Malcolm and Michal whispering. He couldn’t make out most of it, just a word here and there.
Unstable. Stronger. Worried.
Gabe should be worried. He knew that. He should be worried that he was hearing Hestraon, seeing the god’s memories. He should be worried at how easily he’d taken to this power. How tempted he was by the idea of losing himself.
But his most prevalent feeling, when he thought of his magic, was a deep, awful satisfaction. For so long, he had toed every line, played by every rule. He still thought of that night in Lore’s room, when they were just a monk and a poison runner. How he’d denied himself, denied her, for a mandate that no one else cared about.
He’d never thought himself worthy of love without caveats. In that, he and Hestraon were alike. But caging himself into being worthy had done nothing but keep him trapped.
Malcolm met him by the door, both of them already covered in their black cloaks. They didn’t speak as they started toward the Rotunda.
It took him until the round building loomed into the sky to say something. “I’m sorry,” Gabe breathed.
A nod. “Michal is the one who deserves an apology.”
“Fair. He’ll get one.”
Malcolm sighed. “I understand. Truly, I do.” He glanced sideways, expression soft. “But we can’t be reckless with this. The stakes are too high. The whole damn world is in the balance here.”
Gabe cared less and less about the world. Not if it would cost him Lore. Not if it would cost him Bastian.
Down in the belly of the Rotunda, the Brotherhood waited silently. Eoin’s expression was eager, his hood the only one left down. Behind him, the copper door gleamed on the wall, fired shut and unassailable.
There was no preamble. Eoin already had the cup in his hand; he dipped it into the false Fount. Instead of passing it around the room, he drank the whole goblet dry.
Malcolm and Gabe shared a concerned look. Eoin was a fool, and these meetings were nothing but theater; still, the change in routine felt ominous.
Eoin dropped the goblet. It fell to the floor, rolled toward the Fount, clinked lightly against the side. Water streamed down his chin; he wiped it away, eyes strangely bright. “Something different tonight, friends,” he said, turning to Gabe. Malcolm. “Instead of just showing us your power, I want you to walk us through it. Tell us exactly how it works, as if you were explaining the steps for use.”
Gabe narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Precisely what I said.” Eoin wiped his mouth again. “Channel fire. Talk me through it, in detail, as if you were going to pass on the power to someone who needed to know the mechanics.”
That was rather unsettling, especially with Eoin’s eyes so bright, so eager. Especially with the door welded shut behind him, hiding the Fount piece.
But if Eoin had designs on Hestraon’s power, he was destined to be disappointed. The only way it could pass through death was for a god to do the killing.
He didn’t really need to close his eyes to call fire, but Gabe did, evening out his breathing, letting his body fall into channeling-space. He remembered doing this to channel Mortem, what felt like ages ago.
Calling fire felt different than calling death ever had. Death had never belonged to him.
“Block out all other distractions.” This was bullshit, and Gabe had never been very good at bullshitting. Trying to explain how to channel to someone who couldn’t was like trying to tell a rock how to make rain. “Concentrate on the atmosphere until it begins to break down into parts.”
He’d opened his eyes, at some point, the world veiled in black and white. It made everything hard to see, indistinct shapes. Before, when he’d channeled fire, it had always been on instinct. Hells, his earliest experiences had been by accident, back when he didn’t fully understand what was happening, when he would have done anything to stop it. He’d never taken the time to sink in, to feel the full weight of what he could do.
The world was dark and blurred, nothing clear except the strands of red-orange streaking through the air. Unfelt, unseen, but capable of cleansing destruction.
“You see what you want,” Gabe said, not thinking through his words anymore. “The thread of the element, how it weaves into everything else. And you tease it out.”
His finger twitched. One of those red filaments, a seed of fire, wound itself around his hand. Breached his skin and ran all through him.
“You let it into yourself,” he said, “and you tell it what you want. And then you let it go.”
He let the thread of fire burn itself to nothing, hovering in front of him, a spark and flame in the air that lasted only a handful of heartbeats.
“Excellent,” Eoin said, his voice too close. “Doesn’t sound too difficult at all.”
Things happened fast then.
Gabe shook himself from channeling-space just in time to see the Prime Minister lunge for him, a dagger in his hand. Ornate, golden, old. Gabe feinted left, the point of the blade catching his shoulder rather than his throat.
The dagger was Mount-mined; he remembered the conversation he’d overheard, put the pieces together. Apparently, Eoin thought such a thing would allow him to steal god-power. But it was just a blade that stung like any other.
Gabe snarled, catching flame, turning it toward Eoin’s cloak.
Or trying to—it was wet, soaking, and so was Eoin’s skin, his hair. Wet footprints marked the ground between where they stood and the false Fount, filled only with common water. But water was enough; he’d bathed himself in it while Gabe was lost in channeling-space, made himself something that couldn’t burn.
At least not for a moment, and a moment was all he needed. A Mount-mined blade wouldn’t take his power, but it could take his life quite easily.
“You don’t deserve it.” Eoin sounded nonchalant as he lunged at Gabe again, the blade swiping for his throat and missing. He was barely trying; he knew there was nowhere for Gabe to go. “All this power that you worked against bringing back into the world. And what have you done with it? Nothing.”
The other members of the Brotherhood stood at his back, blocking the stairs, holding plain steel daggers of their own. None of them advanced, letting their leader strike the killing blow. Three of them had Malcolm, two holding his arms, one with a blade to his neck.
Another halfhearted swipe of Eoin’s dagger. He had Gabe cornered; he was in no hurry. He had never not gotten something he wanted.
They had to get that Fount piece. And then they’d have to kill their way out of here.
Even as the thought came, Gabe was already looking for another solution, already hoping he could reason Eoin away from this. He didn’t want all those deaths on his conscience.
At least, he didn’t want to want them.
“Why kill me?” Gabe stood, knees bent, hands held in loose fists. Brawling came naturally to him; doing so with a man who held a knife wasn’t smart, but Eoin’s cloak would dry eventually. He kept testing the air, sparking dust motes into shooting stars that made the atmosphere glimmer, but Eoin’s robe was still too wet to catch. No magical protection, just simple physics, and if that was what managed to get him stabbed, Gabe was going to scream all the way to his own personal hell. “It won’t give you my power. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Doesn’t it?” Eoin cocked his head. “I suppose we’ll find out, once you’re dead.”
Another swipe of his dagger. It drew blood this time, a thin line across Gabe’s chest.
“Take comfort in the fact that you would have made no difference,” Eoin said. “Your Queen is dead, your King is gone, and the Empire will be mine.” He bared his teeth. “That’s what you get for being too cowardly to use what you have.”
Gabe’s thoughts ignited, flames springing to life in his palms, burning out any shred of conscience, of doubt.
Eoin was covered in water, too wet to set afire.
But the other Brothers weren’t.
A twitch of his fingers, red-orange threads.
The Brotherhood of the Waters burst into flames.
It took them a moment to realize what was happening. Then, chaos, some of them diving toward the Fount, others screaming and running up the stairs, trying to beat out the fire by ramming themselves against the walls.
With a roar, Gabe thrust his hands at the copper door in the wall. Fire blazed around it, lighting the metal bright orange, making it drip down the stone like scouring tears.
Eoin shrieked. But the sound wasn’t anger; it was laughter, high and delighted. “Look at you!” He swiped out with the knife again. “How useful this will be when it’s mine.”
Embers crackled in the air, the fires burning everywhere finally drying the waters of the false Fount from Eoin’s skin, his cloak and hair. Gabe twisted his fingers, drawing in flame—
“I get this one,” a voice said from behind him.
A cloaked figure surged forward, familiar, holding a knife. A knife that he used to slice the Prime Minister’s throat.
For such a powerful man, from such a powerful family, Eoin died easy. Gabe had seen enough powerful men die to know that it was never any different from anyone else, but it still surprised him, every time.
Eoin’s killer turned, his hood thrown back.
“Now,” Finn said. “To take care of you.”
But Gabe was faster. He ran toward the copper door, gaping open like a death mouth. The flames didn’t hurt as he shoved his arm through the opening, grabbing the piece of the Fount inside. It felt worse than the fire did, immediately making his arm numb to the shoulder. Pain rushed through him, enough to make him shout and almost drop the piece.
