“My whole life,” she whispered, shaking, “I have murdered. I did not blink. I did not hesitate. I killed innocents in the name of an evil man who has lied and stolen and hungered for centuries. And I called it duty.”
“What does it matter,” he asked, “if it is the Fates or a mortal man? You killed, yes. But it was not your will either way.”
“I killed them,” she sobbed.
He only held her, rooted, unmoving, as she slumped forward against him, the fight leaving her in one exhale.
His arms curled around her, cradling her against his chest. His breath paced laggard and measured against her temple, his body solid beneath her shaking form.
“Sleep,” he directed. “Sleep, and we will talk in the morning.”
Ilys woke to stale dried tears on her pillow, her face tight and swollen. Her throat ached, raw from sobs she barely remembered, from words torn out of her in desperation. Her body felt different, lighter in some ways, emptied in others. She did not feel grief, not now. Not in the quiet hush of the morning.
She felt focused.
Ilys dressed swiftly, then paused once at the doorway, her gaze on Death's quiet form. A gentle pang stirred within her chest, unexpected yet familiar. She turned away sharply, letting the feeling pass like a shadow slipping beneath her feet.
Outside, the inn's yard was cloaked in fog, pale tendrils clinging stubbornly to the chilled earth. She saddled her horse quickly, movements automatic, a comforting ritual in uncertain times. Her mount shifted beneath her with familiar patience, sensing the urgency in her tightened grip on the reins. With one last glance back toward the darkened windows of the inn, she set her jaw and nudged the horse forward.
Towards the Sanctum.
Chapter 41
The halls of the Sanctum were quiet in the dead of night, the cold stone beneath Ilys’s boots swallowing the sound of her steps. Hanna curled in her arms, half-asleep, her small fingers knotted in the folds of Ilys’s cloak.
She moved fast, stepping over Gabriel’s body. She’d considered spinning a cover story to talk her way past him, but the risk was too great. She couldn’t chance Hanna being taken away. So Gabriel had gone down—and he wouldn’t be getting up again.
The child’s weight barely registered.She will not be me.That thought drove her forward.
The Sanctum’s corridors winded like veins, its walls old and aching with prayers long since faded. Ilys knew its turns, its passages, the ways the stone whispered in the night. But she had not accounted for Mother Inrith. The old priestess drifted down the hall ahead, waiting. Her white eyes, clouded and sightless, fixed somewhere beyond Ilys as she stopped. Ilys halted, everymuscle tensing, readying for reprimand, for demand, for the doctrine to slam down upon her. Hanna stirred, pressing her face against Ilys’s chest.
Mother Inrith’s face rearranged itself, mouth curling upward by rote.
“The day has come?” she questioned, tilting her head in thought, her voice soft as parchment turned by a gentle hand.
Ilys’s grip on Hanna tightened. “Mother?”
Mother Inrith swayed, her gaze unfixed, looking through her rather than at her.
“Mother,” Ilys pressed, “what do you mean?”
The Mother laughed. “Obedient, but never devoted. You were always a broken bell, dissonant and barren.”
Ilys gritted her teeth, tucking Hanna closer. “Do not speak of devotion. I gave my life for his lies.”
“You were devoted to praise, never the faith,” Inrith condescended. Escape tugged at Ilys, but her pride rankled at the dismissing of her sacrifice.
“I was wholly devoted,” she pushed back, tears stinging her eyes. “I gave everything for my faith, stupid and green as I was. How dare you?”
“No,” the Mother denied primly. “But I see you are quite committed to your retelling.”
“Have you no shield to the lies I speak of?”
“You call them lies, I call it meaning. I call it sustenance for a sickly existence.”
“Your mind is gone,” Ilys spit, tired of the flowery, meaningless words.
“What else would I believe in, girl?” The Mother’s laughter deepened, brittle and knowing. “What is life without meaning?”
