Verentia flinched when the crowd erupted, roaring from all five-tiers.
Sarai dug a hand into her tangled braid, still reeling.Wrath’s teeth, they just fucked themselves over. Ur Dinyé wasn’t pleased with her infractions, but they wouldn’t abide the Order’s either. She wanted to revel in how thoroughly the Order had compromised their case, but she couldn’t find any glee.
“This is madness.” She walked away from the dais, too weary to look at them. “I haven’t read all eighty-three volumes of the Codices, but I can imagine why the Elsar prevent Probing and Materialization of memories involving them and why they don’t appear during a second Summoning by the same person. Else they’d be called to heel over and over to grant wishes for some Twelfth-Tier with a swollen head and dreams of conquest. Or the rare moments when they interact with us would be Materialized and exploited as tools of oppression, and theywouldbe, wouldn’t they, Inquisitors?”
“Weare not on trial!” Blasius seemed to have given up on professionalism. “There are omens that the gods are angry withyou—”
“By all means, let’s talk about these omens! Do you mean the riots in the north due to Guild greed? The whispers of a beetle plague ravagingnorthern cities? I’m neither a Guildswoman nor a proper healer, Inquisitor, so please do tell me how I am to blame for these woes and what I’ve gained. Because if there’s anyone who has ever benefited from waxing rhapsodic aboutomens, it has only ever been the Elsarian Order.”
She had never heard the Aequitas so quiet. A vein throbbed in Blasius’s temple.A push, and he’ll go over. She readied to lance him and end this, when Verentia cleared her throat.
“The land hasn’t seen such upheaval since the fall of the monarchy. The Tetrarchy is spread thin. The Order must ensure that you aren’t following false gods into the future.”
Sarai slanted a withering glance at Blasius. “And you still didn’t see anything wrong with Aelius.”
He tipped over. “To proscribe violence is to become ananimal!” Ignoring Verentia’s attempts to grab him, Blasius strode down the dais to brandish a finger in her face. “Your duty was to arraign him!”
“While he was trying to purge the Aequitas? If you Probed those witnesses, you saw his actions before Death’s arrival. Youknowhis guilt,” she roared, facing the amassed crowd to indict them for their role in this insanity.
“The gods had a purpose for him thatyoucut short! Who are you to determine his guilt?”
“I’m a godsdamnedPetitor!” The world throbbed around her. “It’s my job!”
“You never trained for it, you fucking mountain bitch! You staged a coup withhim.” He jabbed the finger she was dying to break off in Kadra’s direction and froze at the raging malevolence in his eyes. “You’re nothing without him…” The insult came out as a croak.
“Gods, every accusation is always a confession with you lot!You’renothing without this tale of being favored by the Elsar. That’s why you descended here, because I succeeded in meeting one when you didn’t. As for those who wrote to you, who want my head,” she glared at the ivory and silver banners draping the tiers, “you’ve been so coddled by the privilegeof existing in the wealthiest Quarter in the capital of Ur Dinyé that you can’t stomach anyone else receiving the same benefits you do!”
At their taunts, she shoved up her sleeve and pressed more blood from her nail-scratched palms intotasum, the rune for the Fourth Threshold, thenzosta. A stable stream of power unfurled from her chest like a lock had clicked open. Blasius’s speech took on the faint echo that meant that she was Examining him for truth.
“Go on. Deny it then!” She gestured. “Say that you’re here because of my actions and not your greed.”
Verentia had frozen to her seat as the Hearing disintegrated around her, fingers uselessly tapping the seat. “We’re only here,” she tried again, “to settle the truth of what happened.”
A discordant note rang through Sarai.Lie.“Then, settle it.” Her voice hardened. “If you’re so certain, then toss me in a dungeon and formalize Aelius as a Saint. Elsar knows he wanted that badly enough. Let’s see whatomensthe Elsar’ll rain down on you for proclaiming a megalomaniac as a minor god.”
The spectators’ roar told her she’d finally won most of them over. Aelius’s group’s jeers had a desperation to them now. Blasius seemed to finally realize that he’d blundered badly. He looked to a near-catatonic Verentia on the dais and a blatantly amused Silvus. His face darkened.
“This is why you need the gods,” he snarled at the Aequitas. “This animalistic, moblike idiocy will be your ruin!”
Verentia sunk her head into her hands when the crowd began tossing produce at the dais. A tomato splattered on a Cleric’s face.Ruin’s teeth, that would’ve been for me had I lost.
She faced Blasius and dropped her voice. “People don’t like to be told what to believe, Inquisitor. They like to think that they reached that conclusion on their own.”
“Don’t lecture me, mountain bitch—” He froze, gray eyes widening with dawning realization.
She smiled pleasantly. “Why do you think I agreed to this?” Leaving him to blanch, she turned to Verentia. “Well? What truth have you found today?”
The Inquisitor heaved a sigh. “It happened as you said it did, Petitor Sarai.” Her eyes shone with bitterness and a grudging respect. “This Hearing is concluded.”
Aelius’s people rose in a wobbly wall of white and silver, swearing up and down that every one of the Inquisitors had been bought while the rest of the audience viewed them with the mocking amusement reserved for those who had no chance at intelligence. Silvus spared her a veiled smile before the Elsarian Order numbly rose and followed a raging Blasius out of the Aequitas to peals of laughter.
She felt nothing as they maneuvered around her. Neither victory nor relief. Only cold, hard certainty that this wouldn’t be the last time she would have to play this game and find a new way to win.
Verentia was the last to leave the dais. With one last wistful glance at Cassandane’s seat, she strode down and paused by Sarai. “Silvus wasn’t wrong. Law and order fell by your hand.” There was no venom in the words, only resignation. Perhaps this had been as much pantomime for her as for Sarai. “You must contend with the consequences—everyone now knows that they can do the same.”
I know. And I don’t know how to fight them all.The fatigue she’d long held back sank bone-deep, endurance and magic stretched thin. She took a shaky step toward the seating box the Tetrarchy waited in and found herself swarmed by new well-wishers and admirers.For how long? Until the next crisis has you turning on me again?
“Never doubted you for a second.” A woman pumped her hand furiously. Sarai fought a flinch when a man attempted to do the same.
