“Your father?”
“The man I believed was my father.” The smell was getting stronger. It smelled rotten. “Leopold and—” Attes’s loud cough drew my gaze. “You okay?”
Attes coughed loudly, drawing my gaze, then blinked rapidly.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he croaked. “Inhaled wrong.”
“Primal gods can inhale wrong?”
He cleared his throat, blinking rapidly. “You still can, right?”
I wisely kept my mouth shut because, knowing my luck, I was seconds away from choking on a gnat.
“What did you say his name was?” he asked.
“Leopold.” I frowned at him. “Why?”
“Just wasn’t sure if I heard the name right.”
Something about his response didn’t sit right with me. Primals couldn’t tell outright lies, but I more than anyone, knew one could omit the truth. “You didn’t answer my question about the scar.”
“I’ll tell you about it after.”
My eyes narrowed. “That’s bullshit. I told you how I got mine.”
A grin tugged at his lips. “I know.”
“Glad we’re on the same page,” I grumbled, turning my attention back to the manor. “You going to tell me the real reason you choked…” I trailed off as we rounded a slight bend, and the dead trees thinned out enough for me to see the sweeping colonnade.
My steps faltered, and my stomach dropped as I stared at thethingshanging between the ivory pillars. Swaying.
I now knew for sure what the smell was.
Rot. Decay.
I also knew where the Blood Crown had gotten their penchant for displaying bodies.
“I warned you,” Attes said quietly.
He had.
He had said I would see worse. My gaze crawled over the colonnade. There had to be dozens of them hanging there. Likely mortals. Servants? Most of their clothing was stained and torn, but I could make out the black uniforms of Rise Guards on some of them. Had they resisted? Or had this been done out of cruelty?
“Kolis’s taste in décor leaves much to be desired,” Attes remarked.
My gaze lifted to their heads. Bile rose. Their faces were obscured by white veils or shrouds. Eather thrummed as I picked up my pace.
This wasn’t just Kolis making himself feel at home with his morbid decorating choices. The white veils were a message.
The eather hummed violently in my chest, causing the tips of my fingers to tingle. Anger and disgust churned as the breeze lifted the edges of the veils. Why? That was the question that kept repeating itself. Why do this? What purpose did this serve? Why did life mean so little? The eather in my blood heated.
“You need to calm,” Attes stated.
“I am.” I headed for the steps.
The sudden contact of Attes’s hand around my forearm as he stopped me sent a jolt of energy coursing through me that was quickly followed by an odd sense of familiarity. My gaze flew to the fingers wrapped around my forearm and then slowly rose to his. “You’re going to want to let go.”
