“Her excellent statecraft?” Liane ventured.
“It is the mythos of wielding the blade. The way she is presented as Cyra incarnate. You are the successor to the blade. You must look the part.”
“I’m not my mother, and I’d rather look the people in the eye if they’re expected to worship me.” Though she had serious qualms with the idea of people worshipping her. She crossed her arms and stared at the Avatheos, waiting for his counterargument.
He inclined his head. “As you wish, your divinity.”
Liane looked around the crowded deck, surprised her argument had worked. But the sailors shuffled off, avoiding her gaze, as they focused on tying the ship to the dock and lowering the gangplank. The crowd pressed closer, necks straining to see over the shoulders of the Midnight Guards struggling to hold them back. Beyond them, carriages awaited to take them to the temple. The party on the ship lined up, and on instinct, Liane took her place behind the Avatheos, but he glided aside.
“It is not the avatar’s place to walk behind me. You outrank me, your divinity.”
The comment felt pointed, but she decided to ignore it and stepped in front of him, bracing for the unmitigated stares of the crowd. Their hungry gazes seemed ready to devour her like a succulent piece of meat, and a cold sweat broke out on her brow. Taking one large breath, she stepped onto the plank and toward the buzzing worshippers.
When she reached the bottom, the crowd surged, pushing the guards until their backs were brushing against her shoulders. The guards made a narrow path out of their flesh, but grasping hands reached through the gaps, pulling at her clothes.
Liane could do this. The carriage was merely a few feet away. Someone held up a baby, thrusting it over the heads of the guards, as if they’d toss it toward her. For what? A blessing? What could she possibly give them? Bile caught in the back of her throat. This wasn’t theater. These people believed her capable of miracles. Enough to risk their infant being squashed in this press of bodies. The horror of it struck her, and she searched their desperate faces—dirt-smeared, bandaged, and sunken. What could she do for them?
Among the press of people, she caught a glimpse of a familiar face moving through the crowd. She craned her neck, searching for Erich’s gold-flecked brown eyes. He shouldn’t be here. She moved closer to the wall of Midnight Guards, which was her first mistake. It emboldened the crowd, who pushed through the guards to reach her.
They grasped her arms, her ankles, her hips, her neck—anywhere they could grab a fistful of fabric, hair, or flesh—and pulled. She was lifted off the ground, yanked, and then dragged into the mob.
Their hands were everywhere; her screams were trapped in her throat. She couldn’t untangle from the crowd—as soon as she broke free of one person, someone else had hold of her. They were screaming, pleading, crying, and pressing things into her hands that she couldn’t grasp. Her scalp burned, and her joints ached as the crowd pulled. Tears streamed down her face as she struggled in vain to escape. The guards struggled, but they couldn’t reach her.
Then, from the middle of the fray, he appeared. He grabbed hold of her, wrapping her trembling body up in his arms and shielding her until she was surrounded once more by a wall of Midnight Guards. Liane stared in wide-eyed astonishment up at Erich as he cupped her cheek and offered her a crooked smile, saying not a word.
The Midnight Guard beat back the crowd with clubs, and people screamed as they fled. Ludwig pushed through, grabbing her by the arm and yanking her from Erich’s grasp.
“We have to get away,” Ludwig said, his hand at her elbow, guiding her forward.
She turned her neck to call out to Erich, but he’d disappeared into the crowd. Six guards flanked her and Ludwig as he escorted her into the carriage, where the Avatheos awaited her.
Her heart was thumping against her ribs, and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
“They were going to rip me apart,” Liane said, wrapping her arms around her body. If Erich hadn’t been there…
“The veil could have shielded you from it. Perhaps you will remember this next time we venture into public,” the Avatheos said serenely.
She didn’t care if the Avatheos was the head of the church; she shot him a death glare. But he either didn’t see it or didn’t care. Liane pulled back the curtain, hoping for one more glimpse of Erich, but as mysteriously as he’d appeared, he’d vanished once more.
2
She’d been in Erich’s arms. The impression of her against him lingered. Her phantom scent, rosewater and sea salt, intoxicated him still. And all Erich could do was watch her carriage disappear up the hill, sliding farther and farther out of reach. His decision to see her disembark had been ill-conceived from the start. The Midnight Guard might have noticed him, or worse. He’d come all this way to extract Liane from the church’s grasp. He wanted to see what sort of challenges they might face in rescuing her. Fritz’s visions hadn’t given any insight into how they should proceed.
Erich might have started out as a casual observer, but when the crowd had swarmed, he’d lost his head trying to protect her. Foolish, reckless, dangerous. He was lucky the Midnight Guard was more preoccupied with protecting her than wondering who he was.
With Liane gone, the faithful turned on him.
“You touched her. Did she impart a gift upon you?” a man holding a thin child in the crook of his arm asked. “Will you lay your hands upon my daughter? Maybe some of the avatar’s holy light will transfer onto her.” His eyes were hungry and hollow, and the child’s eyes were closed, and her face was ashen gray. He smelled death on them, and knowing he could do nothing felt like a knife twisting in his gut. And yet he felt compelled to offer them a small measure of blind hope and laid his hand on the child’s forehead.
It was a mistake. After seeing that, they crowded closer.
“My arm hasn’t been the same since my accident,” a man with a skeletal arm hanging loosely at his side said. “What about me?” He shoved closer.
Erich had no power to heal them. If anything, he might transfer the corruption of his dragon curse to them. He shook his head to deny them, but the crowd’s fervent desire for a miracle threatened to swallow him whole. The crush of bodies and dozens of voices talking over one another made his skin twitch, and the dragon, already too close to the surface, roared within him. Erich sought the hilt of his dagger for comfort, but there wasn’t room to bend an elbow, and instead, he was left with his palms itching. He had to get away. Erich thrust his shoulder between people, forcing a path out. But their hands grasped for his clothes, tearing open his tunic and dragging his vest off him. Clothes that had touched their avatar seemed to appease them because once they had them, they descended upon each other like a pack of wolves, tearing them into strips. Erich drew his dagger and pointed it at the stragglers on the fringe of the crowd who eyed him. But they lost interest and left him to skulk away like a beaten dog.
They’d scratched his chest and neck, but the flesh was already mending, though it itched. He’d expected obstacles, but hordes of fanatical worshippers hadn’t been one of them. The next logical step was to regroup and report what he’d learned to Fritz. They’d feared the elves would attempt an assassination on Liane to prevent her rise to power. They hadn’t planned on the people assaulting her out of desperation.
Though his head told him to return to the inn, dragon wings beat in his skull like a second pulse. The waning gibbous moon should’ve soothed the dragon, but ever since Artria, it’d been closer to the surface, harder to control. Erich pulled taut the chains that held his dragon power in check. He didn’t head back to the inn as would have been wise, but rather joined the crowd of worshippers trailing Liane to the temple.
