Anton led them from the Church’s arched doorway out into the garden. Lore glanced back, shading her eyes—they’d come from the South Sanctuary, the one meant for common worshippers. Miles away, on the opposite side of the Citadel, was the North Sanctuary, meant for the court. The large stone walls that split the grounds in two were filled with storage and cloisters, topped with battlements prepared for the possibility of siege.
A white marble statue rose from a tangle of pink roses beside the path. The Bleeding God, again, wearing a crown like sun rays—a holdover from when the pantheon had been whole and He’d been merely the god of light, life, and the day, instead of everything. Plinths circled the statue, now empty, but Lore counted five. One for each elemental god of the former pantheon, dying one by one, Their bodies found in strange places all over the world. And one beside Apollius, slightly taller than the others, for Nyxara.
Anton and Malcolm walked before her, Gabriel behind, though none of them necessarily seemed to be on guard. It wasn’t like she’d run, and there was nowhere to go but back inside the Church, anyway.
“Keep your head down if you see anyone.” Gabriel’s voice came low enough to tickle her shoulder blades. “Unless you want to be the subject of rumors for years to come. New faces in the court are rare.”
Lore kept her voice low, too. “Maybe they’ll come up with something interesting.”
“More interesting than the truth?”
“Fair.” She glanced over her shoulder. “If your boss wants me to befriend the Sun Prince, though, I think rumors are probably inevitable.”
Gabriel didn’t respond, but his eye narrowed.
Trees were planted throughout the garden with just enough randomness to seem unplanned, and thickly flowering arbors covered the benches beneath them almost entirely from view. Movement under one of the arbors caught her eye. Lore squinted between a froth of yellow roses, curiosity immediately overriding Gabriel’s directions.
A dark-haired man had his head bent low, whispering to a lady whose back was turned. Lore could make out little of his face through the flowers, but what she could see was almost ridiculously handsome—strong jaw, sun-bronzed white skin, dark eyes. The lady she could see even less of, only enough to surmise that her hair was light brown and her clothes were elegant. The man seemed to be trying to talk her out of them, if the insolent hand on her thigh and the brush of his lips against her shoulder were any indication.
As if he could feel her watching, the man raised his eyes, staring at Lore through the lattice of roses. His lips continued their gentle path along his companion’s shoulder blade as, slowly and deliberately, he winked.
Lore whipped her head around to face the front.
The guards asked no questions as the Presque Mort approached the entrance to the Citadel proper, great double doors inlaid with large golden hearts like the one Anton wore as a pendant. The guards inclined their heads to Anton as the doors opened, sun reflecting off the tiny garnets in the wood, nearly the same color as their coats.
Up until now, Lore had kept her nerves well in hand. Necessity made her shrewd, and she needed to keep her head. But as the Citadel doors closed behind her, Lore’s heart leapt in the direction of her throat, thrumming so quickly she could nearly taste it.
The inside of the Citadel was even more luxurious than the outside. Knaves set into the walls held small icons of Apollius, sun rays over their arched tops breaking gold on the rich mahogany. The ceilings were painted with lush garden scenes, nude figures reclining among green trees and beside rushing blue streams, interrupted occasionally by the gold chains of heavy chandeliers, light catching the hanging gems and splashing rainbows across the walls.
The iron crossbars bisecting the floor seemed brutally out of place.
The bars were flush to the marble, but Lore still didn’t want to step on them. She lengthened her stride as much as the too-tight dress would allow. “Interesting décor decision.” Something about all this opulence made her want to keep her voice quiet.
“They’re symbolic,” Gabriel murmured back. “Supposed to remind everyone that the Citadel is here to keep Mortem contained, and that the Arceneaux line rules through divine right.”
“Gaudy.”
“Quite.”
A huge tapestry hung on the wall to her left, nearly wide enough to span the length of the hallway. In the top corner, the pale, chestnut-haired figure of Apollius hovered, wings of light spread behind His back, one hand thrust forward into the chest of a dark shape careening toward the ground. Just like the tapestry in the Church, the figure was vague, more smoke and shadow than concrete lines, but the crescent crown on Her brow was clear. Below, azure thread was interrupted by circles of brown and green, seven stylized islands in a stormy sea. The one at the end of the archipelago, farthest from the viewer, was the biggest by far. The Golden Mount. Where Apollius and Nyxara had lived before this moment.