Her teeth clamped on the inside of her cheek, stirring her mind for a way to pry that wouldn’t seem suspicious. August had said that most of the bodies from the villages were disposed of—that had to mean burned, regardless of what their personal choices for burial had been in life. Shademount and Orlimar were both small villages where most of the citizens were subsistence farmers. According to the Tracts, you entered the Shining Realm in whatever state your body was left in, so being burned meant you didn’t enter at all. The Church wouldn’t concern themselves with absorbing the fees of a vault burial for poor villagers.
“I’m rather surprised the Church doesn’t advocate for more equitable burial practices,” Lore said. “Entry to the Shining Realm should hinge on piety, not money.”
“Especially since most of the nobles won’t see the Realm’s lintel, whole-bodied or not.” Bastian smirked. “The Church and the bloodcoats might close their eyes against the amount of poison coming into the Citadel, but I doubt Apollius will.”
Lore gritted her teeth, thinking of Cecelia and her cup of belladonna, of the flask always by August’s side. “Ah, the justice system.”
Bastian’s snort became a full laugh. “It’s certainly a system. Unsure if justice has much to do with it.”
The forest opened on another garden, smaller and less regimented than the one on the other side of the Citadel. Similar to the forest, it was a careful pantomime of wildness, a contradictory illusion of free nature. Colorful birds nested in the bushes, and a few peacocks strutted through the foliage.
They strolled on past banks of brightly colored flowers and tiny gleaming pools full of shimmering fish. A few other courtiers were out taking morning constitutionals or playing lazy games of croquet, but beyond inclinations of heads, they didn’t interact. Lore assumed most of the court had fallen back into bed after sunrise prayers.
“Speaking of the villages,” Lore said, redirecting the conversation to something that might actually get her information instead of just make her angry, “I heard they were all dying overnight, with no sign of sickness or poison. But surely that can’t be the case?”
“It is as far as I know. But I have my own theories.” Bastian reached out and stroked a passing peacock’s violet head. The bird pecked at his hand, and he gave it a halfhearted swat. “I think the Mortem problem is to blame.”
Her toe stubbed on one of the cobblestones; Lore clenched Bastian’s arm and regained her footing, just barely managing not to curse. His forearm was rock-hard under her palm, a fact she was irritated with herself for noticing. “Oh?”
“No poison, no sickness, no trace of attack?” He shrugged, making the muscle beneath her hand ripple distractingly. “Sounds like Mortem to me. Why, would you not agree?”
“Not really, no.” Lore shook her head. “The bodies wouldn’t be whole, if it was unchanneled Mortem. They’d be in advanced stages of decay, or gone altogether.” Mortem leaks had been a problem during the first few years after the Godsfall, though they weren’t really a threat anymore. Not since the Presque Mort were founded and the Arceneaux line built the Citadel over Nyxara’s tomb.
Bastian gave her a considering look. “You know more about Mortem than the average courtier, Lore.”
So casual, so even. But she knew it wasn’t. Dammit. He’d handed her a shovel and she’d happily started digging. “I find it an interesting topic.”
“Morbid, too.”
“Interesting and morbid often coincide.” She shrugged. “Besides, anyone who pays attention to their history will come to the same conclusion. The accounts of the Godsfall and the years after are well documented. We know what a body looks like after coming in contact with raw, unchanneled Mortem from an outside source.”
“Fair.” Bastian plucked a lone peacock feather from where it’d gotten tangled in a bush, sticking it behind his ear at a jaunty angle. Another trend in the making, she was sure. “But couldn’t it be channeled into something that caused the deaths? Something that descended on a village, killed them, and left no trace?”
“I don’t think so. The Spiritum in a person wouldn’t allow it.” Lore had never heard of channeled Mortem being used to outright kill someone. Channeling death into a living body was difficult—the aura of Spiritum, of vitality, that surrounded every living thing made it next to impossible. Weaker auras could be overcome, like those of plants or very ill humans, but not healthy ones.