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  “Jadain, please.” Tashan’s empty hand motioned for me to lower the symbol as if I were holding a knife. In his other hand his drab blade was still drawn.

  He was on the vampire’s side.

  “Tashan. What is this?” I said.

  “Considine’s a friend. He’s rescuing us. We should get away from here.”

  Neither of them had moved any closer, but I felt surrounded. “You … you know what he is.”

  “Yes.” Tashan nodded. “But he’s like Larsa. We can trust him.”

  He sounded like he believed what he was saying, but something knotted in the pit of my stomach. Could this be what I sounded like to others—to Mardhalas—when I vouched for Larsa? Was I preaching the virtues of the damned? Was I trying to convince others my stray dog wasn’t a wolf?

  Maybe, but this was a bridge too far even for me. Larsa was half alive, and I believed that even a half-life was sacred. This thing, though … this Considine was unmistakably my goddess’s enemy.

  Tashan was still nodding. Next to him, the grinning vampire matched his nod.

  I thrust the goddess’s holy symbol toward him, presenting it with straight-armed conviction.

  “Ugh. Truly?” Considine sounded disappointed, but took a step back. “Fine, then.”

  “Jadain! Please! We’re on the same side!” Tashan looked quickly to Considine and back again.

  Both of us ignored him. My arm stayed rigid and I took a step forward. The vampire matched my step, backing toward the door.

  “This could go differently.” His tone darkened. “This could go many ways differently.”

  I took another step. He edged back again, a sneer starting to twitch on his face. He was almost in the hall. Perhaps I could … I had no idea, but I had to do something.

  “Considine.” Tashan pleaded.

  “Fine, fine.” The vampire rolled his eyes. “For Tabby’s sake, I’ll give you a chance to fall in love with me.”

  “I don’t—”

  His eyes snapped to mine, his gaze seizing me like a physical thing. It was the reverse of a domineering look, one that forced your eyes away. I’d never seen such green as in those eyes. Even through the dimness of the cell, they were dark with intensity, promise, possibility. They were instant obsession.

  He nodded at my symbol. “Now there’s no need for that.”

  And there was no need for it. The amulet fell from my fingers, bouncing on its cord. My arm did the same, dangling from muscles gone slack.

  Something small in me knew there was something wrong, but whatever its complaint, it was smothered by that twinkling, endless green.

  “Good.” He looked to Tashan and gestured offhandedly at me.

  Tashan still frowned.

  “I promise I’ll be gentle.” He sounded like a child apologizing only because he’d been told to. “Now, any clue where they’re keeping sister-dear?”

  I should have shouted. I could have screamed until the guards came. At the moment, though, my mind knew only soothing green.

  It was like the guard was trying to scream through water—no, through something thicker than water. Through soup. Tomato soup.

  His breath lasted for longer than the others, but it gurgled to an end the same way. When he hit the floor he sounded like a heap of wet clothes.

  Considine flicked his wrist and three short strands of neck-flesh hit the floor with a thwap. He moved on.

  And because he had asked me to, I followed, addicted to his voice, to his eyes, to that snake-green hue.

  Sometimes I had to step off that emerald trail to avoid heaps of once-people and growing puddles of blood, but that was a minor inconvenience.

  Tashan had his sword drawn. He kept looking over at me. He seemed concerned about something. I smiled to reassure him.

  We’d left the cell and wound through a hall of cells. People had reached out for us, had yelled for help. A devotee of Calistria had grabbed my shoulder, his thin hand with its painted nails just fitting through a barred window. He’d said he was going to be executed for something—”private lewdness”? It didn’t matter. I was falling behind. I wriggled free and jogged to catch up.

  The guards beyond the cells hadn’t wanted us to go. Considine pushed them out of the way. They screamed, they bled, they fell, but not always in that tidy order.

  We climbed. Tashan told Considine about our interrogation, the inquisitor, my excommunication. I felt like I should feel something, but I couldn’t be distracted enough to truly care. Whatever the emotion was, it wasn’t green.

  There were more guards. I only noticed them as they tumbled down the narrow stairs. Once I looked back, thinking I’d noticed Pharasma’s symbol embossed on one of their chests. Had all of them worn my goddess’s mark? By the time I looked, the body had tumbled around the endlessly spiraling stairs, taking my curiosity with it.

  I gained the final landing, passing through the already open door. Tashan and Considine had entered, laying red stains on my green path. Tashan drove his blade into the collar of a pudgy guard who managed to trip as he lunged for a nearby spear. Beyond him, Considine lifted two other men in deep-violet uniforms off their feet, pinning them to the wall. Two strong pounds, a sound like crumbling clay, and they were men no more.

  This time I definitely spotted the goddess’s symbol on their armor. I wondered if either of them had ever been to Maiden’s Choir.

  Once it was silent, attention turned to the narrow room’s solitary door. It was a single wall of steel with two crossbars—one high, one low. Eight latches circled it and small locks studded the corners. It looked like the entry to some miser’s vault. Whoever constructed it seemed to have made certain that not even a breath could slip through.

  Considine threw off the crossbars, sending the beams clattering as though they were hollow. He tugged on a latch. It stuck fast. He forced harder. The metal slightly groaned, but didn’t relent.

  Instantly exasperated, he sighed.

  Without warning, his hair turned stark white, along with the rest of his body and clothes. His body melted to the floor like he’d turned to wax. I was momentarily startled, then remembered what he did, all his kind could do—transforming into mist, calling upon low nocturnal beasts, controlling the minds of others.

  I heard a small scream within myself. I tried to listen, but it drowned in an ocean of green.

  The mist pooled against the base of the door. It roiled there for a moment, then climbed the edges. Fine tendrils explored every lock, vaporous fingers played over every seam.

  “Miss Losritter! What have you done?”

  I spun at the sound of my name.

  Brother Abelard stepped onto the landing just behind me. Already his eyes were wide, fixed on the corpses slumped against the walls—particularly the one only inches from my feet. I hadn’t noticed its blood seeping against the hem of my robe. I took a short step to the side.

  Tashan spun, his blade flashing golden in the lantern light. The inquisitor hadn’t come unarmed, though.

  Four rapid snaps. Metal sparked off stone. Tashan grunted and hit the wall. A thin trail of blood followed him as he slid down the wall, three crossbow bolts bristling in a line from shoulder to chest.

  I watched, distracted again by something in me screaming through that sea of green. It sounded more familiar this time, more urgent.

  The inquisitor lowered his bulky mechanical crossbow, tearing off a case attached over its lath and replacing it with another. I’d seen such a thing before—the wooden cartridge fed ammunition into the weapon without the need for reloading. He brought it back up, leveling it at me this time. He held the crossbow like a trained hunter, but his grip trembled visibly.

  “I see I underestimated you. I thought you were just an unworthy, but now I see you for what you are: a spider, a corruptor, a heretic sent to destroy our faith!” His attention moved from the corpses to me.

  His hand tightened on the crossbow’s trigger. “In the name of the goddess, I send you to—”
r />   A black blur burst from a fog bank that hadn’t been at my side a moment ago. Considine launched himself at the inquisitor, the red on his clawlike nails matching the holy man’s robes.

  Brother Abelard shouted a rickety, old man’s curse and fell backward. His surprise took him an eyelash’s breadth beyond the swipe of Considine’s hand. Thin fingers clamped down on the crossbow’s trigger. The weapon launched steel with a series of merciless metallic clicks.

  The first caught Considine in the jaw, snapping his mouth shut with the sound of shattering teeth. The second sealed the lock, boring deeper holes into his face. Another heartbreaking bolt destroyed one of those endless emerald eyes. The fourth struck the ceiling. Considine was gone, a breath of mist dissipating into shadow and cracked stone.

  “No!” I heard myself scream unbidden. I momentarily acknowledged that I hadn’t shouted when Tashan fell, but the thought washed away on a murky tide.

  The inquisitor landed on his backside with a full-bodied grunt. Something fell from his robes—it looked like a rosary, but made of tiny bits of sharp bone. Fumbling in his panic, he forced himself awkwardly back up. “Consorting with the undead! Goddess, forgive my tired mind and fading sight for not recognizing a witch!”

  He trained his weapon back on me. “Jadain Losritter. The inquisition of Kavapesta finds you guilty of murder, heresy, fraternizing with savages, defiling sacred ground, consorting with the damned, and violations against the goddess. Your crimes outnumber all possibility of defense. I am bound by faith and holy oath to put an end to your corruption! In your final moment, to hasten your own passing, do you confess? Do you repent?”

  There was a faint clink. The inquisitor’s look shifted and he fired.

  From his heap on the floor, Tashan had fished a fist-sized flask out of his pack and lifted it to throw. Abelard’s bolt shattered glass and bone, spilling thick fluid down Tashan’s arm. The volatile alchemical mixture burst into flames.

  Tashan let loose a terrible noise, his pierced hand becoming a blazing torch. Most of the concoction splashed across the floor, oily smoke and the smell of burning meat clouding the room. Tashan beat his arm against his chest, panting out screams as he burned.

  The sea of green drowning my mind parted in a moment of terrible clarity. Out of reflex I gripped the goddess’s symbol and cast my heart out from myself, reaching for her ever-present hand.

  There wasn’t time to doubt.

  “Lady of Graves, Mother of Souls, I ever submit to your judgment. Yet should your will guide me toward another fate, let my faith be a fortress to my soul and a dagger against my foes.”

  Her power enfolded me, cold and close, as if I’d woken inside a grave. For an instant it filled me, slowing my heart, chilling fingers tracing her holy spiral. I channeled that power outward. It burst forth in frozen blue radiance, manifesting as sharp as a blade of ice, a weapon of conviction and my own spirit.

  Hovering, the spectral dagger twisted. Inquisitor Abelard’s attention snapped toward the familiar light. He had just enough time for a shocked curse before the magical blade blurred and buried itself in his chest.

  The crossbow dropped from his hands, a bolt firing aimlessly. A spectrum of shock and rage played over the old man’s face. He stared at the mystical blade jutting from his chest, its light thrumming in time with my heartbeat.

  “Mother, no.” He coughed, blood flecking his gray lips. Then his eyes were on mine. “Tainted! Polluted soul! Blasphemer!”

  A growing stain barely darkened his crimson robes. Despite the wound, he pushed against the shard of divine energy skewering him.

  “You turn her power against her own children? Her power is not for you, heretic!” Wild-eyed, he took a step, but stumbled. Rather than falling, he flung his hands toward me. Too fast, a spidery hand clamped upon my shoulder. The divine dagger’s cold light pulsed between us, under-lighting the old man’s face, giving him a corpselike cast.

  I tried to push away, struggling as cold hands sought my neck. Beneath that shock and exertion my concentration burst. The holy blade dissipated like sun-struck mist.

  His own holy symbol, a spiral etched in steel, was in his hand. Full of outrage and condemnation, he shouted into my face. “Mother of Truth! Judge of Souls! I am your word given life! Fill me with your justice! Cast your verdict in flesh!”

  My fist slammed against his chest. The bleeding old man clung fast, thin fingers clamping onto the back of my neck. Blue light flared around his metal amulet. Heedless of my struggling, he forced the icy emblem into my face. It found my right eye, its sharp edges digging deep, trying to blind me.

  Screaming, I fell backward, but he followed, lifting his own voice. “Die, heretic! Die and be damned!”

  The glow already blinding me exploded from an icy candle to a frozen sun. Heatless flame poured into my eye, searing my face, burning out my sight, setting my thoughts aflame. It wasn’t truly fire—it was the goddess’s absolute death, the stopping of all things, a ruin so intense it burned.

  I didn’t feel myself hit the floor or the hateful inquisitor fall on top of me. Animal desperation consumed me, made worse by my sudden blindness. I tried to make my writhing useful, kicking and scratching. Abelard’s grip had slackened in the fall and I tore free, my own hands clawing for his sagging neck. Nails scraped loose skin. I clamped down, squeezing as tightly as I could. He choked, gurgling as he struggled, some of his strength having already fled. Tepid blood met my skin, dribbling down my fingers, becoming a stain spreading across my chest. We twisted desperately. I tasted tears.

  His body was the first to give. He sputtered something as his body slackened, then collapsed upon me—the weight mostly from his robes rather than his birdlike body.

  My face was numb. The green in my mind had almost totally dissipated, replaced by a seductive darkness. As I slipped into that starless dark, I was sure I knew Inquisitor Abelard’s final strangled word.

  Heretic.

  23

  A STAINED SOUL

  LARSA

  It took a long time to realize the noise was the cell door squealing open. My consciousness gradually bobbed to the surface, a slow journey that meant passing through a violent haze of spasms and pounding red pain.

  Something was attacking—no, stabbing—my face. Kicking my mouth with pointed boots. My eyelids fluttered as weak as moth wings.

  My arm was gone from my sight—I dimly remembered the shriek of it being yanked away. It was dark out there, beyond my own head. Nothing there was killing me, nothing outside my own face.

  A silhouette stood in the dark, barely a different shade of shadow. I smelled blood on it—maybe mine.

  Maybe this was death.

  The throbbing callus of my skull muffled a new noise. I wondered over the strange sounds before remembering words and meaning.

  “… fetching in red, dear. Your choice of company, though … we’ll work on it.”

  Yes. It was certainly death.

  Thin arms were under me. Without caring or being able to prevent it, I let them take me.

  The pounding had been bothering me for so long I only dimly noticed when it slowed. It wasn’t an annoyance in my head or limbs, making it easier to ignore. A sharp slam brought me drowsily back.

  It was still dark, but the cell was gone—or replaced. This one was smaller, too small even to lie down in. The ceiling was low and I could see windows in wood panels.

  Someone was lying next to me. I tried to twist to see who. I expected the shriek of muscles still paralyzed by poison. I didn’t expect my neck to actually move.

  Jadain was heaped there, a pained expression on her face, her body bent awkwardly. She couldn’t have been asleep like that—probably unconscious.

  A shocked grunt came from nearby, followed by wet red strands splashing across the window—a carriage window? Almost immediately, the pounding below began again. Wheels rolled from dirt, to paving, then back to dirt.

  As the carriage picked up, the clattering of wheels
over road lolled me back to sleep.

  Someone was vomiting. Worse, they were doing it near my head.

  A chilly breeze blew through the open carriage door and I pulled the cloak around me tighter. Somehow it was still dark, but it wouldn’t be for much longer. Already the stars were fading upon a navy backdrop. In the distance a whippoorwill repeated its roundabout call.

  Leaning up stiffly, I could see outside. Tashan sat upon a fallen log, a lantern at his feet. He was working one open hand with the other, massaging the stiffness from it, examining it deliberately. Considine stood nearby, looking impatient as he glanced from his slave to the darkened tree line.

  The barest drop of anxiety leaked into my chest, all my aching body could muster. Jadain. She’d certainly recognize him for what he was. Not that I was concerned for the arrogant ass, but rather Jadain. She’d been understanding of me, but Considine was another thing entirely. She’d be bound by her faith to at least try to return him to the grave—and I didn’t expect the attempt to go well for her.

  With my whole body throbbing, I couldn’t bring myself to rush to anyone’s side. Any death matches would have to be between them.

  Where was Jadain anyway?

  Another round of heaving and a patter of loose sick dribbled onto the ground, just on the other side of the door I leaned against. Ignoring the tightness, I worked my way into a sitting position, legs hanging out of the carriage.

  “Breakfast is going to disappoint you, dear.” Considine didn’t even turn to address me—confusing Tashan, who looked up at him. “Unless you know any folksy recipes for pinecones.”

  “Just water,” I choked, my mouth scabby. I coughed through it, tearing dry lips.

  Tashan saw me, a look of relief turning apologetic. “We don’t have anything to drink.”

  “Well.” Considine arched an eyebrow. The Pathfinder frowned.

  “You’re up.” Jadain circled around the front of the carriage, passing a pair of grazing sorrels I didn’t recognize. Her voice was muffled by a scrap of robe she held to her mouth like a handkerchief.

  She sounded weak and looked it. Her robes were torn, the misty purple hues darkened by stains. I could smell blood on her, along with a lingering sour reek. Fresh wounds appeared as she came into the lantern light, purple splotches climbing her neck and the right side of her face. Her eye was swollen shut.