Lore took the King’s hand and let him lead her into the gloom.
She hated tunnels. Thankfully, this one was short. Up ahead, a lone bloodcoat guard stood at the lip of where the tunnel opened up into what looked like full sunlight.
Not just any bloodcoat, Lore noticed as they approached. Gold lapels gleamed on his red jacket, the bayonet and sword by his side polished to a high shine. He made no indication that he noticed them at all, but when August approached, he inclined his head and stepped aside.
“The Sacred Guard,” August said as they passed. “A highly sought-after position, only granted to those who show themselves worthy both physically and spiritually, and whose loyalty I can be assured of.” He gave her a sidelong look. “They don’t get much chance to use their weapons, but they certainly know how.”
If she wasn’t so completely distracted by the sight of the vaults, Lore might’ve wondered if that was a threat. The room at the end of the tunnel was wide and circular, but the ceiling soared miles above their heads, topped with a cut-glass skylight that filtered the morning sun into faceted shards. It must’ve been what Lore had seen gleaming in the center of the Citadel yesterday.
The skylight was impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the vaults themselves. They climbed like stone towers, stretching nearly all the way to the glass above. Stairs were cut into the sides of the vaults, twisting upward, broken by platforms that led to small doors—the only way to get to the bodies inside. At the tops of the vaults, overgrown rosebushes reached for the sun. The roses were the only living things inside the vaults, other than August and Lore and the guard in the tunnel.
Lore took a moment to concentrate on her mental wall, all those trees blocking out the awareness of Mortem. Trunks and leaves and blue sky beyond.
Some of the doors in the towering vaults were closed, but most remained open, small windows into the darkness inside. Those were empty. Even nobles couldn’t always afford a Citadel vault. Most of the open doors were near the top—those were for the Arceneaux family only.
“We’ve tried to keep one body from every village,” August said. He strode purposefully toward the nearest tower and the closed door at its base. Of course. No one would waste a top vault on a villager, no matter how strange their death. “The rest are destroyed.”
“How much does one of those run?” Lore asked quietly, still staring at the vaults.
The King looked up, snorted. “More than you’ve ever seen or ever will, girl. Keep your sights set on one of the body boxes outside the city.” He rapped on the stone wall. “Anton? We’re here.”
The Priest Exalted opened the door, squinting against the light. He didn’t say anything, merely stood to the side to let his brother enter. He gave Lore a polite nod, but a muscle feathered in his jaw as he did it.
Inside the vault was dark and cool. It took Lore’s eyes a moment to adjust, but when they did, she took an involuntary step back, knocking into the wall. Another stone Apollius stared down at her. The statue’s feet were placed at the rear of the vault, his back bent against the ceiling so his empty chest gaped over the plinth, eyes level with the door. His face was eerily devoid of expression, and garnets studded his palms, gesturing to the slab in the room’s center with handfuls of jeweled blood.
And on the slab lay the body of a child.
Bile clawed at the back of Lore’s throat, her vision blurring. The child on the slab looked nothing like Cedric—he was younger, nine or ten at most, and his body was whole and unblemished. But when she looked at him, that’s who she saw. Her friend, whom she’d just wanted back for a while.
Gods, and she was about to do it again.
“Horrible business,” August murmured. She couldn’t quite read his expression in the dim light, but true regret thickened his voice. “Apologies that this must be our first experiment, Lore. We thought maybe a child would be… easier… to reanimate. Since you’ve done it before.”
She winced.
Anton shook his head sadly. “So much wasted potential.”
When she raised Horse, it’d been all instinct, following a pattern that felt as ingrained into her as the map of the catacombs she could sense behind her eyes. All she had to do was follow that pattern again. Let her body take over, try not to think.
Lore clenched and released her fists, and blinked until she could be sure she wasn’t going to cry. She didn’t let herself cry about anything, as a rule. If she started, she didn’t know if she could stop.