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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

LORE

What do we do if the very foundations of our belief are broken? How can anything built on them stand?

T he Fount let her go, finally. She’d been straining, even lost in Nyxara’s last memory; she stumbled back from the stones with the force of someone winning in a tug-of-war, breathing in sharp gasps, her hand on her own aching neck.

So there was the Godsfall. Nyxara, trying to kill Apollius and then changing Her mind when She saw His fear.

Apollius making sure She’d be in the same in-between space as He would be, still technically clinging to both of the deaths the Fount had given Them, because the truth was dark and terrible and inescapable.

After death came nothing.

Had she been asked a week ago, Lore wouldn’t have been that upset by the revelation.

Life wore you out; having an afterlife sounded tiring, when all you wanted was rest and reprieve.

But now, with all the deaths she’d inadvertently caused fresh in her mind, it made her…

empty. Hollow. Like a clock ticking down to nothing.

Apollius’s anger made sense to her. His fear, His desperation. All of this, because one man didn’t want to die. Because He couldn’t bear to let the woman He loved die, either.

Loved. Owned. Lore had told Nyxara not to confuse them, that they weren’t the same thing. And they still weren’t. But the selfish part of her, the terrible part, understood how they might feel the same. That part of her could think of Gabe and Bastian and understand perfectly.

“I can’t find Him.”

Dani’s voice made her jump. Instinctually, Lore moved in front of the Fount, hiding the piece she’d brought home. “What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean?” Dani’s face was blank, but the kind of blankness that came from exhaustion and defeat, not the absence of emotion. “He isn’t fucking here .”

In the memory of the Godsfall, Apollius and Nyxara had been somewhere dark, somewhere not the cathedral. Maybe He was still there. Lore almost wanted to curse the dead goddess for not having better memories of the place, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to think of Nyxara with animosity yet.

Still hiding the Fount with her body, Lore stood. “Let’s look again. Maybe you missed something.” The dark place she’d seen could have been somewhere deep in the bowels of the cathedral, hidden beneath rubble.

“I’m telling you, He isn’t in there.” Dani threw up her hands. “But why not? Sure, let’s take a second look. Maybe your magic will be useful.”

She waited until the other woman had her back turned and was halfway into the shadows before following.

The remains of the cathedral were more extensive than they looked from the outside.

A labyrinth of empty rooms, open roofs, and broken walls, the crumbled leftovers of gilded stone and solid oak.

Past the courtyard that held the Fount, there was a large open atrium, with rooms leading one into the other arranged around it.

The ceiling of the atrium had the largest hole, broken beams as sharp as bones. Lore’s body remembered injuries she’d never suffered. Being thrown through this roof, her back hitting these tiles.

Dani led her deeper into the ruins, climbing over broken stone and fallen walls.

The thick ash that blocked most of the sun kept plant life from flourishing, but some hardy moss blanketed parts of the floor, and a few night-blooming flowers that didn’t mind the dark grew in the corners. Nightshade. Moonflower.

Lore kept an eye to the floor, looking for trapdoors or changes that might indicate a hidden staircase.

She didn’t see any, and most of the rubble was too heavy to move for a closer look.

When they reached a room with surprisingly little damage other than a beam from a hole in the roof, she braced her hands on one end of it, just to check. “Help me move this.”

To her credit, Dani didn’t ask why. With a heave, they pulled the beam away from the floor and hauled it over to the wall.

Nothing beneath but broken tiles.

“If you’re looking for a lower floor, I’ve already checked,” Dani said. “There’s none that I can find. Do you believe me now?”

“Yes.” Lore’s shoulders slumped. Apollius’s body could be anywhere on this damn island.

“We’ll have to widen our scope.” Dani propped her fists on her hips, looking at the cathedral like she could very happily set it aflame. “Divide up the island, search through a different part of it every day. Surely, He won’t be that hard to find.”

The words were false, a reassurance neither of them believed. If anything was going to be hard to find, it would be the body of a god who jealously hoarded His deaths.

“You’re right.” Lore sighed. “But it’s getting dark. We’ll have to start tomorrow, if we don’t want to accidentally plummet off a cliff.”

Dani nodded. “I’m sleeping on the boat. You coming?”

But Lore was already shaking her head. She’d stay here.

With a raised brow, the erstwhile noblewoman left the room.

Lore lingered a moment. All the awe she hadn’t had time to feel when they first arrived washed over her now, not in worship but in dread. Here was the birthplace of the world’s religion, and if she was successful, here would be its grave.

The Fount sang in her head, soft and lilting.

With another sigh, she clambered her way out of the cathedral.

In the courtyard, Dani crouched by the Fount. Right where Lore had replaced the stone.

Spiritum rushed to Lore’s hands immediately, golden threads tethering her to the other woman. Dani tensed but didn’t turn, continuing her examination of the moon-carved stone, careful not to touch.

“Do it, if you’re going to.” Her voice was low, but it carried here, where they were the only two living beings for miles.

She should. She didn’t.

Though something in her, a glimmering nudge in that space where Nyxara used to be, raged at her for it.

By the Fount, Dani let out a quiet, humorless laugh. She stood and turned to face Lore, jerking a thumb at the moon-carved stone, nestled back into its place. “I was wondering if you’d found it.”

More threads of gold gathered in Lore’s fist. Dani stiffened, her face going a few shades paler.

“I know what you are,” Lore said. “The journal was in the hut.”

“Of course it was. A souvenir from my long-lost ancestor.” Dani rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Lore, my family was supposed to guard Apollius’s body.

We didn’t do a very good job—the way to navigate to the Mount was forgotten a few generations back, I assume by those silver things being gambled away.

There were some premature deaths before directions could be passed on, all the general ways a legacy is lost. But you’re correct, this was supposed to be my job all along. ”

“ Your job?” Lore stalked closer to Dani as she spoke, a hunter circling prey, spooling out Spiritum as she went. “Not your father’s?”

Dani deflated a bit, the contemptuous smile losing its edge, something like genuine fear in her eyes. “He didn’t last long once we got to the Isles. He wasn’t made for this. Him, or my mother.”

Lore didn’t want to feel sorry for her. She shoved the feeling away. “So you used me to get here. To guard Him from me.”

“No, you idiot,” Dani spat. “I don’t stand a chance against you. You can literally pull my life out of my body. You’re doing it right now, even if you’re too much of a coward to finish the job.”

For that, Lore gave the Spiritum a tug. Dani’s spine pulled straight, as if her life force were a rope lifting her from the ground. She rose to her toes.

“If I was going to work against you,” she said, strained, “I would have done it by now, don’t you think?”

A fair point. But Lore wound another strand of Spiritum around her fingers.

Dani’s face paled further. “I know that you’re trying to put the Fount back together,” she said. “My family has known about the broken pieces for centuries, though we never knew where they were, other than the one in the catacombs.”

It made sense. And after Nyxara’s memory of the Godsfall, she knew why the goddess hadn’t been able to tell her.

“Could you repay me for that tidbit with a looser grip?” Dani said.

At first, Lore tightened her hold again, just to make the other woman remember she could. Then she let one of the strands of Spiritum loose.

“Thank you,” Dani said, her shoulders straightening. “Like I said, we know about the pieces. We were supposed to keep them from ever being reunited with the Fount, and find the other two wherever the pantheon hid them. I assume this one was at the Harbor?”

Lore didn’t answer.

It didn’t seem to faze Dani. “I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to prove I am on your side, Lore. I want you to fix the Fount. I want Apollius dead.”

The statement seemed unfinished, like something else should come after. Like this wasn’t the sum of her goal, but it was all she’d share.

Lore nodded. Then she held out her hand. “Give me the dagger.”

Dani didn’t waste time pretending she didn’t have one. “Seriously?”

A whole handful of threads, this time, enough to make Dani gasp.

“Fine,” she wheezed, nearly collapsing as she bent over to root around in her boot. She pulled out the knife, useless against Lore’s magic, but effective enough if she’d managed to catch her off guard.

Lore took it, slid it into her own boot. Then she let go her fistful of Dani’s life.

Dani bent at the waist, pulling in great gasps of air. “That seems like overkill,” she said between breaths.

“Maybe.” Lore turned and walked back into the ruins again, intending to find somewhere to sleep. “But if you’re going to stab me in the back, I’d like to return the favor.”

Footnotes

1 Better known as the Night Witch.