Was the torture in the cages that much worse because I refused? Was it all a test to see just what I could do? If it was, then my friend is breaking because I refrained. I was trying to prevent the torture from getting worse, but what if, by holding back, I convinced them to hit us harder? My father told me to give the vicar what he wanted, but how am I supposed to know what that is when I hardly know the rules of the vicar’s game?
I shiver. Each challenge has only gotten worse—and we have one left. The vicar will stop at nothing to break every part of me he can, until I have no will left to fight when he finally comes for my power.
And it will all be my fault if this next one breaks us all.
56
Early in the morning, following a quiet breakfast, the inquisitors guide us across the upper bridges of the Undercrust to our final test. Cold rage has settled between my ribs. If concealing my power was what led to my friends being tortured more, then I am not today. I will do whatever it takes to get through this alive and keep them safe.
I’m done holding back.
We will survive this, and then we’ll finally be free of the Tribunal. I can eat a good meal, sleep without keeping one eye open, and maybe…maybe pursue whatever is going on between Lucan and me.
If he still wants to.
Rather than focus on where we’re going, I peer over the railings and into the city built into the stalactites as I daydream about everything I’m going to do. That’s why I see the procession before I hear it. I’ve already stopped as the rest of the group slows at a low, somber sound.
A curate stands on a balcony with a strange-looking instrument. I’ve never seen one outside of a display case. The horn is shaped like a funnel—like the Undercrust itself. I know that inside the instrument, near the mouthpiece, is a tiny bone broken from the base of a dragon’s skull that, when blown through, emits an almost ominous hum.
In Vinguard, we use it for one thing: to honor the dead.
Lucan stops by my right side, peering over. “Who do you think it is?”
The procession is coming into view, emerging across one of the bridges beneath us that connects the stalactites. The haze of the Font deep below shifts around them.
Down on the same level as the terraced farms is where bodies are consigned to the soil. Composted, churned, and tilled, so their nutrients can be returned to the earth and their essence to the Font—to help sustain all of Vinguard for years to come. We are all part of one earth, one flow of Etherlight, a flow we take from and ultimately give back to.
“Someone important.” They don’t have singing bones for just anyone. That, combined with the length of the procession that marches deeper into the Undercrust, assures me of that much. I lean farther to get a better look.
The Font’s haze parts, and I can see the fine embroidery on their ceremonial robes in the vibrant colors that are from rare dyes said to have once come from distant lands. The deep dragon-blood maroon of the curates is interspersed with other finery.
My breath catches, and I grip the railing tighter and lean even farther, nearly doubled over, as if I can somehow get a better view.It couldn’t be…
I catch every detail of the pennons the people marching behind the curates carry: a crossbow framed by a fan of dragon claws that belongs to the Artificers Guild. The pallbearers wear robes I’ve only ever seen worn by the high curates. Draped over the shroud-covered body laid on a stretcher are the sashes that are only ever worn by someone high up in the Creed. Sashes I last saw hanging in my father’s closet.
“It can’t be.” I’m amazed I can speak at all. That shock hasn’t utterly silenced me.
“What?” Saipha stops at my left side. She squints and sees what I see. “No. It can’t…No.”
My hands tremble on the railing, my knuckles completely white. All I see is the body. The sashes.
There was only one high curate that belonged to the Artificers Guild. My eyes don’t deceive me.
“Keep it moving,” one of the inquisitors commands, crossing over with almost violent intent. We’re not the only supplicants who stopped, but I’m certain that we would be the harshest punished.
Yet I don’t move. I don’t even look when I demand of him, “Who died?”
He ignores me. “Keep. It. Moving.”
“Who died?” I repeat, dangerously calm. That wrenching, churning, gut-hardening feeling that I had upon leaving the basement returns in full force.
“I said—”
Something in me snaps. I move faster than the inquisitor can react, as fast as the vicar has spent years training me to be, and the inquisitor clearly wasn’t expecting it. I close the distance between us, unlatching the holster for his silver dagger with one hand and drawing it in a fluid movement. With my other hand, I grab his chin and thrust his face upward. Just as his muscles tense and he’s about to retaliate, I press the razor-sharp blade more solidly at his throat, and he freezes.
“By this blade I swear, from this breath till my last, all deserving shall know the grace of Mercy, even if it be upon me,” I whisper, reciting what I know to be the oath of a Mercy Knight—what the Creed ingrained in me. Just saying the words when you are not a knight is akin to treason. But let him challenge me on being worthy of this vow. Let them all challenge me.
The man’s wide eyes are focused only on the knife as the ominous hum of the dragon skull horns resonate in the background.
