The Queen of Lies (33 page)

“Don’t you need faith to have a higher purpose?” Maddox asked. “I mean, at least to dedicate your life to enforcing the repressive whims of the Orthodoxy?”

She nodded, acceding his point. “There are a large number of unbelievers in the Orthodoxy. We don’t minister to the laity, but we believe maintaining a system of shared values, no matter how arbitrary, is essential to a strong social order and an effective society. People need an incentive to follow rules, especially when it comes at the cost of their own personal desires.”

“So you found me.”

“I think your curse is the worst possible fate I could imagine,” Daphne said. “Immortality. How terrifying it must be. The world changes faster than we do. It’s not just seeing the people you know grow old and die but knowing that the ones who replace them have less and less in common with you with each passing generation. Could you imagine if one of the original revolutionaries were alive to see Rivern today? Female landowners, no slave trade, the descendants of the hated nobility sitting on the Assembly—they’d be horrified.

“Imagine what the world will be like in a hundred years. The Hierocracy and College of Seals are seeing a year-after-year decline in admissions as alchemical remedies and feats of mechanical engineering make theurgy overpriced and obsolete for the everyday person. Imagine it in a thousand years…I’d be surprised if the Protectorate remains united that long. And in ten thousand years? You’d be onto the eighth age of history, if anyone could even remember how many came before.

“You’d be utterly and completely alien to future generations. Even more alone than you are now.”

Maddox shrugged. “That’s one theory. No one’s ever carried a seal for more than three hundred years, so we don’t know if they’re actually permanent or just effectively permanent. Regardless, that’s not high on my list of concerns right now.”

“Mr. Baeland”—her expression remained deadly serious as she spoke quickly and incisively—“you have the key to absolute immortality indelibly inscribed on your left pectoral in gold. How long before someone figures out that your body bears the ultimate prize and decides they want it for themselves? People will cut and poke and prod and torture you until you either give up a secret you don’t possess or are rendered a maddened shell of the man you once were. Because no matter how many times you die and come back healthy, you’ll bear the scars of whatever trauma you experience…forever.”

Maddox didn’t answer. The folks of the House of Seven Signs were a ragtag bunch of hedge mages and euphorium addicts with barely an ounce of sense among them. Still he had been cut apart and eaten with impunity when they realized he couldn’t truly die.
They still have my notebooks
, he suddenly remembered.

She added, “Count yourself lucky that senile necromancer let you walk away and didn’t peel your skin off every day just to watch it grow back.”

“How’d you know she was senile?”

The abbess pursed her lips.

Maddox rolled his eyes. “Ugh. Cut the bullshit. I get it. You’re a scary Inquisition lady who’s probably murdered a fuckload of people for checking the wrong entries in the card catalog. But since you can’t kill me permanently, I assume you have another plan that requires my cooperation.”

Daphne began, “I think the reason people inscribe Hamartia is because their temperament is ill suited to the magic they’re trying to bind.”

“You’re a glyphomancy expert as well? I’m impressed.”

“The Veritas Seal.” Daphne postulated. “It lets you know the truth, which is ostensibly useful; I have one myself, by the way. But consider someone who doesn’t want to know the truth. Our ability to deceive ourselves isn’t a flaw in our design; it’s a survival mechanism. The truth is scary, and what happens to someone when he learns that what people really mean by their words can literally break him? He may just sabotage his seal to give himself what he
really
wants: trust, assurance…even faith.”

“Interesting theory,” Maddox said. He was being honest.

“So the Seal of Sephariel,” Daphne continued, “grants extended life. But I proffer that people who seek to attain it do so because they fear death more than they love life. So when it comes time to alter their relation to the inevitable, the seal grants them their strongest attachment, regardless of whether it’s love or fear. So the people who want longevity the most are, ironically, the least likely to succeed at attaining it.” Daphne leaned forward in her chair. “But what happens to someone who doesn’t fear death as much as they hate the prospect of living?”

Maddox stepped backward.

“By many accounts you were the most brilliant student to pass through the halls of the Lyceum in decades. There wasn’t a single subject you couldn’t seem to master with seemingly little to no effort. That’s quite different from the testimony of your peers and faculty, who describe a bitter, hotheaded, alcoholic pervert. It’s not the portrait of a person who’s happy with his life.”

Maddox said, “I wanted to be
respected
, not dead.”

“You have
my
respect, Mr. Baeland, and I don’t typically make home visits.” Daphne sighed. “But respect doesn’t fix a broken man. If anything it gives him even more opportunity to disappoint.”

“Just tell me what you want.”
Church people and their fucking words.
Maddox felt exhausted, and more than anything, he wanted to puff on euphorium and drink until the shitty world around him fell away and his grand adventure began again.

“Eventually I want to kill you,” Daphne said. “I want to do it efficiently and humanely, using the full resources of the Inquisition. We have the largest collection of Lore on the forbidden theurgy in Creation. We have beings serving our order who are thousands of years old, committed to the sacred task of protecting Creation. I’d even be willing to bet that the Archeans don’t know as much as we do. I can help you mercifully end your existence and give you a purpose while you still breathe.”

He looked at her. “What kind of purpose?”

She smiled. “You could be a white knight, a holy crusader rooting out Dark Magic and researching the forbidden secrets of the lost civilizations. You’re a scholar of tremendous ability. You could use your ability to save the lives of others…and maybe, just maybe, find something of value in your own.”

Maddox sighed and looked around the empty shop. He had spent every day of his life for the past twenty years trying to avoid ending up here, and Riley—stupid fucking Riley—had sent him back. Turning into his asshole father was the least of his concerns, however; Achelon had basically handed him the knowledge to destroy Creation by showing him the seal.

“Fine. You’ve persuaded me. Just get me the fuck out of here.”

Daphne stood and placed her hand on his back. “I can’t promise this will be easy, but you have the full support of the church behind you. The first step is to get you somewhere safe, where you can change clothes and get some rest, and we can learn exactly what’s going on.”

“I could use a drink first,” Maddox said. The last drink he’d had was that burnt-walnut-tasting shit Esme had ordered.

She hooked her arm through his and led him out the back doorway. “As I understand, the Invocari recently have renovated their warding chamber with a full selection of spirits. And you can tell me everything on the way.”

So he told her everything.

I
TOUCHED THE
Dark Star for the first time and came away changed.

It’s a strange and wondrous thing to behold, completely black and weightless yet massive. A stillness surrounds it, as if it draws in all light and sound. Nothing echoes in its chamber.

I brought my fingers within an inch of the surface before my will gave out, and I struggled away from it. I’d never felt such sheer panic—of what I can’t even say—as my body flung itself away.

The warders were ready to catch me as I fell backward, grabbing my hand and pushing me back as I fought with all my might to stop them. I kicked and I flailed and I bit at them, but they performed their duty with focus and precision.

It didn’t feel like anything as they pressed my hand to it. There was no sense of temperature or texture, as if my hand simply had been stopped at the edge of the world, beyond which nothing more existed.

The fear died inside me. Not simply my dread for the task at hand but all my fears. The unsettling emptiness settled me, and the rest of the world seemed cluttered and chaotic. Even in the emptiness of air, I felt the gnash of currents and the bustle of particles.

—SERRA’S ENTRY IN
THE
BOOK OF INITIATIONS

“A
BSOLUTELY NOT!
” S
ATRYN
huffed at the pair of Invocari wardens who hovered in front of her.

An apologetic clerk in a black satin tunic wrung a piece of parchment in his bony white hands. “It’s only for a few days, Lady Satryn. I don’t understand why you would want to remain here—”

“I don’t have to explain myself to sniveling toads like yourself. Give me that paper!” she demanded. She didn’t wait for him to hand it over.

Satryn paced like a caged tiger as she ran her fingers over the script. “You wish me to swear to abide by the terms of your house arrest? In my mother’s own embassy? Are you mad?”

“The Thrycean embassy is currently vacant, and it would give you more privacy.” the clerk offered helpfully. “It even has a pool you could use.”

“This is a ploy by my enemies to lure me into the open.” She crumpled the paper. “Until I’m completely exonerated of these charges in the eyes of the Assembly, I’ll remain here. You’ll have to find some other place to put your prisoner.”

He sighed heavily. “That’s not possible. The prisoner must be kept here.”

“That isn’t my concern.” Satryn tossed the paper at his chest. “If the Orthodoxy can’t afford to build its own warding prison, perhaps it’s time to impose a tithe.”

“It’s not a matter of cost, Lady. The warding chamber is powered by the Dark Star directly below. We simply couldn’t build another one of comparable strength, and it was never really intended for long-term residence. If you prefer the tower, we have other rooms in the dungeons.”

She regarded him icily.

“So…the embassy really is your best option,” he said. “You’ll have a full security detail. More, I imagine.”

“No.” Satryn walked over to her fainting couch and plopped down on the tufted leather. She crossed her legs and arms. “I’m satisfied with the current arrangement, and you’ll simply have to convey that to the Grand Invocus.”

The clerk nodded. “I suppose I should be pleased that you’ve enjoyed your time with us, but if you don’t leave, we’ll be forced to…put you with the other prisoner.”

“Then I’ll kill him, and the blood will be on your hands.”

“Fine, Lady.” He glowered as he waved his hands in the air. “I’m not authorized to remove you, but…” He opened the inner door to the chamber and stepped out while the locking mechanism performed its dance, sealing her inside and allowing him to storm off into the tower.

Satryn savored her small victory as she pored through the addendum to volume fifty-eight of the Rivern common law. Her counsel had delivered it to her earlier that morning, and she didn’t want to appear too eager to read it. The Assembly had been busy passing legislation and sanctions against Thrycean trading partners. It seemed Nasara’s assault had them rattled. She flipped to the coded letter her spy had slipped in and, seeing Sireen’s name, chucked the papers aside.

Her mood was further ruined when she heard the airlock mechanisms kick in. The other prisoner was a scruffy young man, in clothes too big for him and a brown Scholar’s cloak. He shuffled his feet awkwardly as he waited for the door to slide open. Satryn was unimpressed to say the least. But if the Invocari were half as terrified of him as they were of her, then she’d have to at least see if he was useful.

“Nice place,” he said, looking around at the battered secondhand furnishings the Invocari had scrounged from the Thrycean embassy. It probably did seem nice to a commoner, but there had been two Tempests on the Coral Throne since the furniture was built, and Keltax’s dynasty (
may their shame be eternal
) wasn’t famed for its taste.

“Who are you?” Satryn said in her commanding voice.

“Maddox.” He nodded toward her. “Who are you?”

Satryn rolled her eyes. “You’re addressing the Lady Satryn Shyford, duchess of the Bleak Atoll, admiral of the Tiburon Armada, storm priestess of the Western Gale, daughter of Her Majesty Iridissa, and queen regent of Amhaven.”

“Amhaven?” He cocked his eyebrow. “Really? You were kind of on a roll till you got to that one.”

He had a point. “I hold the title for my daughter. One of the many unrewarded sacrifices I make.”

A smile played at the corner of his lips. “How did you end up in here? Are you a wizard?”

“I’m a Stormlord,” she stated. “Surely they teach you Scholars about us in your school…or have you not advanced that far in your studies?”