He nudged Vihar away, trotting hoofbeats echoing on the church's stone walls as they faded into the dark.

Arany's eyes followed her to the church's door. The shame of disobedience chafed, and the only thing stemming her rising desperation to apologize was that she wasn't sure who she should apologize to.

There was still light in the sanctuary hall, the tall glass windows lit with a ghostly glow and a crack of pale orange visible under the heavy doors. No doubt the Prelate was there, tending the ever-seeing eye. He would ask what had happened, force her to take refuge in a lie or admit the truth and break herself.

Both were intolerable. Csilla crept away from the doorway, toward the darkness of her room. She could at least rest before facing punishment for ill-timed mercy.

6

Ilan

Ilan touched each whip, clamp, and tool of confession lightly, every piece in its place and scrubbed clean. The unblemished leather was a sign of a meek city. Still, his fingers itched. For all his patrolling the night had turned up nothing worse than a few citizens far enough in the bottle to tip to belligerence and Csilla, shaken and bleeding from her own clumsiness and bad decisions. But Csilla was none of his concern, and drunkeness was a sin that could easily be paid in coin. It was ill luck on his part that the current Incarnate had ruled gold as cleansing as blood for all but the worst sins or poorest sinners. A war was a costly thing, even a righteous one. When the large fought, the small under their control paid, be it the gentry taxing farmers or the church taxing sinners. It was the way of things, and he had no right to complain just because it was boring.

And saints knew there was plenty else to keep his mind occupied. He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the gape-mouthed and mutilated bodies, and even though they’d done their best to keep the truth of the murders quiet, the city was half-mad with heresy he wasn’t allowed to squash. The Izir’s holy ancestors would scream. The angels themselves built the Church as a bridge to help flawed humanity approach the divine, and now their son was burning it and claiming the ashes revelation. Even Csilla had gone to hear him out, and she wasn’t the first from the church to do so.

A steady drum beat driven by frustration and lack of sleep pounded behind his eyes.

“Inquisitor?” One of the priests was in the doorway, her lined forehead further wrinkled with concern. Ilan drew his shoulders back, eyeing the goldenrod yellow at her throat and sleeves. Few congregational priests came to the torture room, though they were happy enough to send others there. Hearts of iron and stomachs of silk, the lot of them.

“Yes?”

“There’s a problem. Out front.”

The worry in her voice shouldn’t have excited him.

The Izir had six of the faithful stopped on the street, distracting them from spending the morning in respectable prayer with promises that reeked of Shadow and children’s tales.

The penitents scattered as Ilan approached, but the man didn’t move. The subtle aura of the divine surrounded him like a perfume, calling hearts to trust and adulation. Even Ilan wasn’t fully immune; as the Izir looked up, his golden brown eyes widening, there was a pinch of a moment where Ilan thought perhaps he did deserve attention, if only for being so beautiful.

The smallest of moments but no less irritating for being brief.

Ilan pointed down the street, past the church walls to where refuse was dragged. “If you won’t keep your heresy out of our city, you can at least keep it away from our door.”

The Izir’s lips quirked as he gestured to the statue in the courtyard, watching them with each of her carved and gleaming eyes. The gold seemed brighter for his presence. “Am I not allowed to visit family? I have business here.”

“If you’ve come to repent, I’d be more than happy to help.” Ilan’s pulse quickened at the thought of dragging the Izir into the depth of the church and flogging his ideas out of him. Fantasizing about beating an angel was probably somewhere on the sin ledgers, the cleansing invocation set at an exorbitant price, but the thought of this man’s handsome face cracking was deeply pleasing. One strike for every person who’d had the misfortune of hearing him would be enough to bring even this heretic back to rights. He’d wreck his throat begging for forgiveness.

“I’m sure you would!” The laugh in Mihály’s tone was close enough to mockery that Ilan couldn’t suppress a snarl. “But I’m here for Csilla.”

Ilan’s shoulders straightened. “Last night she was running away from you.” Everyone had heard the Izir yelling after her. It was admirable of her to have run, really. Ilan had scolded half the city for panting after the angel.

“It was a misunderstanding. She fell out the window.”

As if that were better. Ilan shook his head. “She wouldn’t have fallen if she hadn’t already been trying to leave. Now, unless you are here to renounce your heresy, go away. I have more pressing problems than you.” Heresy could be rectified. Death, barring divine intervention, could not.

By the wry smile on the Izir’s face, he knew the order was empty, and Ilan could sense claws beneath the gloves in the murmuring crowd. The city had little love for the person who kept their feet on the path of righteousness with iron shoes. Far easier to follow something offering hope that didn’t require sacrifice.

The Izir scratched at his beard, then shrugged. “You know if I stand here and tell you no, there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it?”

Perhaps flogging wasn’t the right path. Cutting out his tongue would be far more useful. “If she’d wanted you, she would have stayed.”

The statement troubled him as soon as it left his lips. He could understand Csilla’s desires, but why would the Izir want her? Csilla didn’t have a soul for him to sway.

“I can help her.”

Again with his damned self-assurance.

“She doesn’t need you.” Ilan had a marrow-deep understanding of what it was to yearn for a miracle, but this Izir would be a sorry place for her to put her faith. “You have every right to be here”—it pained to concede even that point— “but not even your holy blood gives you the right to force her to speak to you.”

Something flashed in the other man’s eyes. “A little late for the church to be talking about rights, don’t you think?”

Genuine anger simmered through Ilan’s irritation. “Says the heretic.”

The Izir bent close, warm lips brushing Ilan’s ear, and Ilan’s hand tightened on the hilt of his cane, eager to draw the blade inside. The Church frowned on carrying weapons that were too obvious in the city; he’d managed a compromise by which he simply didn’t tell anyone what he carried on his person and they didn’t ask. “Says the one who wanted to have me killed.”

Confusion warred with violent instinct, and for a panicked second he feared the Izir could read minds. “You’re deluded.”

The other man turned his head slightly, dark mirth in his eyes. “Feigning shock is almost a lie, Inquisitor. She came to me on your orders, didn’t she? You baited a trap with a pretty thing and poison. I always thought your methods were more straightforward than that.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Ilan slid the blade out of the cane and let it rest at his side. He couldn’t strike the Izir, but he was going to make quite sure the consecrated ground wasn’t sullied with so much as one of his footsteps while he made such accusations.

“Really?” the Izir laughed, still close enough for his breath to warm Ilan’s skin. “Then the Church thinks very little of you.”

Ilan’s lip curled, not letting the doubt seep through. The Izir couldn’t have known exactly which nerve he’d managed to strike. “If what you’re saying is true, you’re foolish to be here.” A smart grouse took a missed shot as a lucky lesson and quickly flew out of reach. It didn’t roost on the hunter’s stoop.

Mihály stepped back, looking over Ilan’s shoulder as if he could see through the stone and glass to whatever corner Csilla had tucked herself in. “She’s worth the risk. And what are you going to do to me in daylight? Are you that sure of yourself?”

The spectators stepped closer, straining to hear the conversation, waiting to see what their idol would do.

The church would lose these six no matter what he did, Ilan realized with a hardness in the pit of his stomach. They’d come to pray in brilliance, and would leave in the false light of heretical promises with gossip on their lips.

He waited for the Izir to push further, to give him a true excuse to strike. “I will not let you cross this courtyard until you’ve renounced your heresy and made a proper confession.” More words he’d have to bark, not allowed to bite. The Izir was right that should he decide to stride on in, there was nothing Ilan could do.

But the Izir paused, looking between Ilan and the spires, something calculating in his gaze.

“Fine,” he conceded. “I’m not in the mood to get stung today. She’ll come back to me.” He turned and locked gazes with Ilan. “And I’d stake my blessing that you’ll be the one that forces her to.” Then he leaned forward again, voice low and filled with sharpness like a scattering of broken glass. “Watch yourself, Inquisitor. If there’s one thing Asten hates more than heresy, it’s hypocrites. And don’t you have more dangerous things to catch than me?”

“You’re the only threat to the Church.”

But that wasn’t quite true. Murders were a threat to the people. If the dark markings were real, they were a bigger threat to the faith.

With blessed Arany behind him, the walls enclosing them, they couldn’t be real. That idea had been dismissed. Nothing in the Izir’s face gave away whether the secrets the bodies carried had leaked. He could only be referring to the fact of mortal deaths.

“I’m not a threat to you. I simply think about things differently.” Mihály drew back, voice still low. “But if you’d like me to be, I could certainly tell my followers what the Church tried. Now let us go in peace.” The sharp smugness in his face evaporated as he turned to his waiting followers, his smile again brilliant as he was embraced by their raised arms and grateful sighs.