Ilan would have bet his own soul that there could never be a demon in Silgard. The city was warded, the people striving for good, and creatures of Shadow required invitation.
But this was the city of miracles, and not everything miraculous was good.
?
‘Prelate, a word.’
The man stood before the glowing gold-wrought Eye at the front of the sanctuary hall, but he shifted to let Ilan take a spot at his side. This close, the fire inside was warming, then scalding, turning the gilt molten.
‘A helpful one, I hope.’
Ilan wouldn’t go that far. ‘A concerned one. I spoke with the parents of the latest victim. There was nothing overly suspicious in the girl’s life.’ Not that he had expected them to say anything else.
The Prelate’s soft sigh stirred the ash on the air. ‘Unlucky, then. Wrong place, wrong time.’
‘Very strange for the place and time to have been by the river at night, don’t you think? Almost like there was some influence. Haven’t you considered...’ It felt blasphemous to be the first to suggest it, but he couldn’t do otherwise. ‘Have you considered that this truly is Shadow work? A broken ward, Sotir, something...’
Something that hadn’t been seen since the Severing.
Abe stared into the flame, not even acknowledging the possibility with his gaze.
‘Arany still weeps. There is no proof this is anything more than a human killer with a taste for the macabre. The bodies smell like bodies. The wounds don’t smoke or release evil.’
Because whatever made them is gone.
‘The Seal . . .’
The moment he’d first bled for the Faith on the mock seal in Saika was still one he saw when he closed his eyes, the presence of Asten’s power and the sure knowledge of his purpose crystalised into a single perfect moment.
And when he’d offered his blood to Silgard before he’d taken his post, the answering shine had been whiter than glare on a snowy peak. Prelate Abe had kissed both his cheeks and told him the Church had never seen someone so blessed.
But when he went down with Prelate Abe weeks ago, it had been flickering and dull. He’d offered to bleed again and the Prelate had only shaken his head, showing his own hand covered in small scabs. There was no power in their sacrifices.
‘The Seal is fading because the people’s faith is weak. If they trust the Church to protect them, all will be well.’
It would be easier to believe that.
Abe turned and his hand found Ilan’s shoulder, fingers pressing to prevent Ilan’s instinctive flinch.
‘You’re wise to consider all ideas, Ilan, but a lack of focus will lead to failure. If it were truly a work of Shadow, the Incarnate would have returned already.’ The older man’s lips pressed into a cutting line. ‘As it is, he has been delayed.’
‘Again?’ They’d been sure he’d arrive before the spring. Pilgrims and merchants had already started appearing in the city, hoping to participate in the celebration of his homecoming, or at least capitalise on it.
‘Again. But he is sending us help.’
‘We don’t need help. We needhim.’
The Incarnate was the one person the divine still deigned to speak with.
The Prelate sighed. ‘We will be obedient and grateful for what we are sent. And you will drop that train of thought. I wouldn’t be surprised if spiritual dissent is part of what our killer is after with these mock-Shadow deaths. We have to be united, and strong.’
Ilan murmured respect. He would be obedient; it was a tenet. But there was nothing in scripture that said he had to be grateful, and he was hardly going to stop thinking.
He waited until he was out of sight to pinch the bridge of his nose and try to stave off a headache. He would add a few notes to Lili’s file, then check who the junior inquisitors had rounded up. And look at the old records and their descriptions of older magic again.
It was blasphemous to think it, but all creation was a selfish act in a way, and the very act had birthed dark demiurge with god-sprinkled humanity. The Severing had cut the world off from the extremes of the ether, but the remnants Arany’s sacrifice had preserved still stained. The Izir and his sham of Brilliance. The demons that the Servants of the Road kept sleeping in their tarry prisons. They weren’t so far from Silgard, and the wards the Church trusted in were old and maintained by the Faith that even Abe admitted was weakening.
The floor outside the library was dotted with little smears of black cat prints. A sinking feeling overtook him as he opened the door.
