When they reached Raihan’s hut, he veered inside silently, raising his hand with a wave. Lore ambled down the path, fingers numb from holding the Fount piece. Behind the huts, the garden sprawled in low shadow, tenacious plants reaching for scraps of sunlight.
She stepped off the path, approaching the garden.
The crops were growing, but they could never be calledthriving. Clearly, this was subsistence only, the Harbor community producing what they needed to survive and nothing else.
It made her think of the farmlands in Auverraine. The first time she and Bastian had channeled together, blissfully unaware of where it would lead.
Gently, Lore laid the stone on the ground, blood rushing painfully back into her hands. She shook them out as she knelt, sank her fingers into the soil.
So much death. The black of Mortem crowding out the thin golden threads of Spiritum. But they were there, shining in her reach.
She wanted to make a better world. Maybe she could start here.
Lore tugged at the threads of Spiritum in the earth, trying to strengthen them. But even though they came to her call, they refused to thicken, the leftover destruction of the Godsfall keeping them fragile. She channeled them through her body over and over, her will strong but slippery, unable to fix this centuries-old wrong on her own.
“Fuck it.” She sighed, wiping dirt on her trousers. She picked up the Fount piece, defeat making it seem heavier than before, and trudged back to the path.
Dawn blushed the ash as she navigated her way to the empty cottage Sersha had given her and Dani. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Dani was still asleep.
In the corner of the room was a worn leather backpack. Lore placed the Fount piece inside, then put the pack itself back where she’d found it, an unobtrusive bit of detritus from the countless people who’d come through this room.
When the time came to leave, she’d take this bag with her and trust that Dani wouldn’t think too much of it. But she wouldn’t tell her about the stone.
As if summoned by her thoughts, Dani stirred, stretching with a wide yawn. “Did you get it?”
Lore held out the silver instrument in answer, the key to navigating the ash-bound ocean. Dani leaned forward as if she would take it; Lore slipped it into her pocket.
A dark look crossed Dani’s face, but she didn’t press the issue. “Want breakfast? I’m sure it will involve fish somehow, but I’m too hungry to care.” She pulled a face. “Let’s try to avoid Sersha, though. I’m not keen on gardening.”
Lore followed her out of the hut, only casting one glance over her shoulder at the bag in the corner. She could still feel the hum reverberating from the Fount piece, vibrating in her bones.
The song at the edge of her hearing flared again, another tide of melody, and then went silent.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ALIE
We all must band together in heavy storms.
—From a letter to the Balgian front lines
Alexis sent a note to her apartments the day after Apollius revealed Himself.Please meet me in the Priest Exalted’s office to discuss wedding preparations at noon.They were acting as the Priest Exalted in enough capacities to allow the use of the office, apparently. She wondered why Apollius didn’t go ahead and make it official. That line of thinking made her wonder what, exactly, the god’s plans for the Church were. Alie stopped herself before she got too far along that road.
Honestly, the cover of the note was unnecessary. No one noticed Alie leaving her apartments, walking over the green toward the Wall, slipping out the storm drain. The guards were far too busy with the crowds.
Hundreds of people gathered just outside the Citadel Wall, waiting for another glimpse of Apollius. Word had spread fast, all of Dellaire knowing now that the day they’d been taught to pray for was finally here. Their god, in the flesh. Their god as King.
For such a large crowd, they were docile. A few enterprisingfolk had set up makeshift stalls, selling the same replicas of the sun-rayed crown that had been sold in the Wards on Bastian’s Consecration day, touched up with gilt paint so the cheap metal below didn’t show. Some murmured prayers or sang songs, broken melodies in rough voices. Others just stared at the Citadel doors, as if willing them to open and emit the Sainted King into the throng.
They’d probably get their wish soon. If there was one thing Alie had learned about Apollius, it was that He didn’t often give up an opportunity to be worshipped.
There was no real reason for her to be out in Dellaire today. She had no meeting planned with Lilia, she was no longer plotting out an escape route for imminent use, and she could get to the Church through the Citadel green. Part of her was just… curious. Wanted to see how people would react to the news of gods, to the proof of them. Lereal’s power thrummed beneath her flesh, urging her to grasp threads of wind, twist them to her will. It was oddly exhilarating, seeing people clasp their hands in prayer, seeing the tear tracks on their cheeks, and knowing the magic that so moved them reflected what she held.
She kept her hood up as she wove through the crowd. It extended into the South Sanctuary, the usually abandoned corridors now packed with the newly faithful. The hallway with the stained-glass windows of the pantheon was almost too full to walk down, penitents staring at the glowing panels as if it were their first time seeing them.
They looked fearful, gazing at the glass gods as if expecting Them to leap from the windows, to drag them screaming into a collection of hells.
Apollius had His scapegoats.
