“You poisonous bitch.” The hand not holding the lighter moved upward, something else in it. A rock, sharp.
It happened quickly. Lore’s hand shot out as she rolled aside, barely missing the blow, the sharp rock coming down where herhead had been. Her fingers twitched, tugging at Spiritum, the golden threads in the former monk twisting around her hand.
Or they would, if the damn things didn’t keep slipping from her grip. The other times she’d used Spiritum, it’d jumped to her easily, but now trying to grasp the strands felt like trying to hold on to an oiled rope. They pulled away, as if her power were a tide pool that someone else was draining.
And who else could that be but Apollius? Knowing she was trying to use their shared power. Keeping it from her.
Lore snarled, an animal sound. She thrust out her hands, grabbed the strands, and pulled with every ounce of determination she’d ever had.
They came to her this time, overcoming Apollius’s hold.
She didn’t finesse it. She just twisted and twisted, the only application of her will the desire to make him stop, make him leave her alone. The Mort’s heartbeat sped in his chest, almost audible; she felt his veins pop as too much blood crowded them, saw them swell in the confines of his skin. His eyeballs bulged from their sockets, his muscles twitching.
The monk fell to the ground. Blood leaked slowly from his ears, pink foam from his open mouth.
Lore stared at him. Mortem couldn’t be used to cause outright death; all it could do was encase someone in stone, like she’d done with Milo long ago in that alley. Stop life in its tracks, but not obliterate it.
It was almost funny, that the power of life was the one you could use to kill.
The other two monks stared at her. She could do the same to them; her fingers itched for it, the golden lines of their lives begging her to snatch and pull.
But whether from a desire not to draw undue attention, or a latent wish for goodness, she didn’t. “Get out of here,” she whispered. “And tell your friends to leave me alone.”
They nearly fell over each other trying to leave the cave. Just outside, Lore heard anoof, the sound of one body smacking another before two pairs of Isles-issue boots pounded sand down the beach.
At first, Lore assumed they’d run into one of the other women who normally slept here, her conscience pricked by leaving Lore alone for whatever the Mort had planned. But then the figure stepped into the cave, close enough for Lore to make out her face.
“I was going to help you get rid of them,” Dani said. “But it looks like you did just fine on your own.”
CHAPTER FIVE
LORE
Mutual enemies make for powerful allies.
—Kadmaran proverb
Power still sang in Lore’s fingertips, still pulsed down her veins with every golden beat of her heart. It would be so easy to gather up the threads of Dani’s life, wind them into herself, and leave the other woman as broken and empty as the Presque Mort on the ground. Her fingers twitched to do it without her conscious direction, a sneer on her mouth.
Dani raised her hands in surrender. “Lore. I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“Of course not,” Lore snarled. “That would be overkill at this point.”
It was Dani’s fault she was here at all. Leading her down Anton’s path, dropping the bread crumbs that Lore had followed so faithfully, drowning before she knew she was in far over her head.
Her hands were still raised, but Dani’s shoulders relaxed. “Iamsorry about that. Mostly. I was just doing what I thought I had to at the time.” Her eyes narrowed, turning her beauty to calculating angles. “You’re familiar with that, surely.”
Lore gnawed her lip. The righteous anger that had suffused her just a moment ago—the unassailable knowledge that she was right, her violence justified—bled out, just a little.
“We’ve hurt each other enough.” Dani made a rueful sound. “We’re both stuck here, and you already have one body to dispose of.”
She had a point. Lore let her hands drop. The rush of power subsided, though her awareness of Spiritum all around her didn’t fade. Gold flecked the corners of her vision, spangling like starfields when she moved.
With a sigh, Lore leaned against the rough wall of the cave. “What do you want, Dani?”
“Do I have to want something?” Dani shrugged, turning her attention from Lore to the body on the floor. “Damn. You did a number on him. Is that from Mortem?”
“No.” Immediately after she spoke, Lore clenched her teeth, as if she could bite the words in half. She shouldn’t be telling anyone that she couldn’t channel Mortem anymore. She wasn’t surewhyshe shouldn’t tell them, but the instinct to hold the secret coiled deep.
