“A bit,” Ember adds.
“Not yet,” Lucan says firmly over them both, eyes still locked with mine. “She’s fine.”
“Then let’s get on our way. The Mercy Knights are all in the prayer service. Dazni’s keeping a lookout in case it ends early or anyone leaves unexpectedly.” The prelate’s tone has completely shifted. She approaches slowly, lowering her hood. As she comes to a stop by Lucan, I notice something I haven’t before, and I gasp. Maybe I was willfully ignorant. Maybe the notion was too outlandish to really consider. Probably it was that I never really saw her face fully, in proper lighting.
But there’s a familiar hollowing of her cheeks. An almost identical shape in her brow as the man standing before me. A similar shading in her hair. The familial resemblance is undeniable.
It can’t be…My mind rejects what’s right before my eyes. As I behold her, her gold eye fades from existence. Some kind of illusion. I wasn’t wrong about what I saw in the Font.
“What in the dragon-burned hells is going on…” I whisper, looking between her and Lucan.
“Lucan, now,” she presses. “Make her move, or I will.”
“None of you are ‘making me’ do anything.” I take a step forward and give Lucan a pointed look, one in which I try to convey that I’m done with his secrets and scheming. Then Istride past him, as if he’s of no concern to me. As if a part of me doesn’t want to reach out and grab him.
I look back at the four of them, my hand on the door. “I’m getting out of this city.”
62
“And what makes you think you can call the shots?” The prelate hasn’t moved, despite my hand being on the door handle. The other three are looking to her for instruction.
I let out a soft sigh and say, “Twenty minutes—probably eighteen now.”
“Twenty minutes for what?” It’s Ember who asks.
“The prayers. There’s the cleansing, beseeching the Font for strength, adoration of Valor, and then the twenty utterances of Mercy. I might not have been a Mercy Knight, but Iknowthe Creed’s prayers.” I glance over my shoulder, looking right at the prelate. Something about being able to look her in the eyes, at last, makes her less terrifying. She’s not this unshakable entity. She’s just a woman. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Her mouth presses into a line, and she strides toward me. Shoving my hand aside, she opens the door. “This way.”
We step into a nondescript hallway—the same smooth, bleak walls of Mercy I saw on my way in, punctuated only by dragon sconces crackling with Etherlight. I’m right behind the prelate. Lucan is almost by my side, but I work to stay a half step ahead of him. I am not about to walk shoulder to shoulder with him like we’re fine.
I know once I’m fed, rested, bathed, and we can have a good, long talk to get real answers, this might get smoothed over. But right now, I’m not thinking straight, and I’m not inclined to be the bigger person.
The twins take up the back, murmuring to themselves.
“Are there patrols, Pia?” Lucan asks the prelate—Pia.
“Not during prayers. Everyone goes in—at least everyone who’s in the spire at the time. Those on the wall stay there. Same withanyone out on a hunt,” Pia replies. “So everyone we need to worry about is occupied.”
“How did you become a Mercy Knight without your gilding?” I direct the question at Pia. She’s not of Vinguard if she’s not gilded, so that means, like the others…like Lucan, she’s ashborn.
She glances back at me, expression unreadable, never missing a step as we hurry down the hallway. “A small pack of Mercy Knights went out on a hunt into the mountains. Only one managed to survive…or so they thought. A younger woman, new enough that people didn’t know her face that well.”
So she took someone else’s place…“Did you kill her?”
“What’s it matter to you? Turning me in, Valor Reborn?” Pia shoots a glare in my direction as we round a corner and quickly pass through an empty armory.
“I want to know what sort of person I’m working with. Because all I know of you so far is that you’re not going to hesitate when it comes to beating the shit out of me.” My tone is cutting.
“You’re really worrying about things as tiny as lies or beatings or murder? The entire world being overrun by the scourge—thatis the problem.”
“You locked me in with the Font!”
“You were better for it.” Pia shrugs. I barely resist the urge to slap her.
“Pia,” Lucan sighs.
“She’s ridiculous, brother,” Pia snaps defensively.Siblings, then. Pia is undoubtedly older. “Worrying if I killed someone—you know what?” Her eyes shift to me. “I didn’t, actually. I didn’t kill her. The cold was taking her by the time I tracked them down. But I didn’t save her, either. That good enough for the great Valor Reborn to work with me?”
