Lore had spent last night thinking about trying to use Spiritum again, somehow finessing the power into a mode of escape. But the only idea that came was to overwork the heart of every guard on the island, and Lore wasn’t sure she was capable of that. Besides, what would she do afterward? Even if she took a prison barge and followed the steel guidelines, she’d just end up back in Dellaire, surely caught before she could escape elsewhere. Useless, just like she’d told Jilly.
And she was pretty sure that Apollius would notice if she kept using Spiritum, anyway. She’d like to keep Him as far away from her as she could.
So instead, Lore thought about her dream.
Alie was there.She’d reiterated this fact to the goddess in her head at least ten times by now.So she’s using her power, right? That’s how dreamwalking works.
So it would seem.Nyxara’s voice was always thin and faded in waking hours, weakening as the sun grew brighter. Sometimes, Lore could still hear Her in the sunlight, a fact that should have sparked intense worry but instead felt like security. Something to do with her proximity to the Golden Mount, probably.I do hope she’s being careful.
Alie is always careful.Lore adjusted her grip on her pickax and brought it down on a chunk of rock. Nothing. She kicked the pieces aside and moved on.
Nyxara paused, an apprehensive lull in the conversation Lore could feel even if she couldn’t see.If you dreamwalked, Nyxara said,then it means you’re using power now, too.
They hadn’t talked about Lore using Spiritum. They had barely talked about her losing Mortem. Sure, when Lore first arrived on the Isles, first reached out in a panic and tried to wind death around her fingers, she’d asked the goddess why it was gone. Why Nyxara remained when Her magic had fled.
The Fount, Nyxara had said, sounding just as fearful as Lore felt.It must have gone back to the Fount. You relinquished it, somehow. Wanted it gone.
On the boat, when she’d slammed her mental door on Nyxara. When she’d rebuked Her power. Lore hadn’t expected it to actually work. It seemed too simple, that the solution they’d spent frantic weeks searching for was just to… wish the power away.
Though that wasn’t quite right. It only worked when you were close to the Fount, apparently.
But the Fount left You here?Lore had pressed her hands against her temples, like she could force the goddess out, make Her follow Her power back into its source. Her new scar had felt rough on her fingers, spiderwebbing over her temple.
I suppose, Nyxara said,that we’re holding on to each other a bit tighter than we thought.
Now Lore mulled over what Nyxara had mentioned before. About her wanting Mortem gone, her rejection sending it away once she was close enough for the Fount to take it. Her whole life, Lore had wanted to be free of her innate magic. Even in the Citadel, where it’d brought her a measure of safety, Mortem had never been a thing she wanted. It was a millstone around her neck. Something she’d built the muscle to live with but could never really welcome.
Spiritum, though… yes, the eclipse ritual that gave it to her had been awful, violating. But Spiritum feltgood. Life, health, vitality. Apollius might be a power-hungry asshole, but His magic was something Lore couldn’t help but crave now that she had the distance to think of it objectively.
Or thought she’d had the distance. For all that her Mortem had apparently been relinquished back to the Fount, it seemed she hadn’t let go of Spiritum so easily. Some part of her had wanted to keep it.
The ash was thick on the air today. Lore coughed into her sleeve before moving on.So what do I do about it? It looks like dreamwalking is my only way to communicate with the others. And we have to make some kind of plan. We can’t keep just—She paused and brought her pickax down again, harder than necessary, shattering yet another useless rock.—waiting around. Even if using magic makes Apollius pay attention.
In her head, Nyxara gave a wry-sounding sigh.It is foolish to think you don’t already draw His attention, Lore. With or without using His power.
Lore didn’t want to think about that.
The sun finally rose, cutting weakly through the miasma. Lore could never figure out how it was so gods-damned hot here when sunlight barely broke through the ash.
Nyxara faded from her head, a dark presence at the back of her skull.
Logically, Lore knew Apollius was somehow watching her. Their connection was still in place while she was this close to the Fount. Now that she realized how entrenched Nyxara was in her mind, Lore was half convinced that the only escape from feeding His power was her own death. Permanent, this time, not the half measure she’d taken when she brought the North Sanctuary down. A path she still refused to take, after everything.
Seed of the apocalypse, indeed.
Still, her brief bout of dreamwalking brought a rush of relief. For weeks, she’d rotted here, with no way to check on Bastian or Gabe or any of her friends. She tried to listen to the guards, but their gossip rarely turned to the mainland. More prisoners arrived every day, but very few of them seemed interested in what was happening in the upper echelons of Auverrani society. None of them had any real information, other than whispers about Alie being Bastian’s half sister, now engaged to the Emperor of Kirythea. Nothing new.
What could you do with it, even if you did hear something new?she asked herself as she broke another rock. A sliver of gold; she licked her finger to pick it up and put it in the worn pouch at her waist.It’s over. He won.
But just like she couldn’t resign herself to dying, neither could she resign herself to letting the God of Everything take over… everything.
Lore’s grip tightened on her pickax. If she had to use Spiritum so that she could walk in her friends’ dreams, go back to making some kind of difference, she’d do it. Damn the consequences.
Shouting drew her attention. Over by the lift down to the mine, Jilly was towering over someone down on the sand, an extra tin cup held in her fist. “You won’t need it now. Not when you get a pass to the third tier where the good shit is. How many ofthem did you have to fuck for that? Did they at least let you rest in between?”
The person on the ground—whose cup Jilly was apparently holding—said nothing. A woman Lore recognized, a face in the crowd that stood out. Rosie, she remembered, a prisoner who’d arrived shortly after Lore. She’d slept in the same cave a handful of times.
Rosie made a swipe for her cup, but Jilly kicked her hand away. “If you get thirsty, I’m sure one of the guards will give you something to suck—”
