And still the power in her didn’t speak, didn’t stir.
Wouldn’t save him.
Mihály shifted, laying back to place his head in her lap, the position of a trusting lover, and closed his eyes. “Make it quick for me, dearest.”
She looked to Ilan, to the painted eyes of the saints, waiting for an intercession that in the deepest parts of her heart she knew wouldn’t come. He offered his hand again, but she shook her head. She slid a palm across Mihály’s cheek so the last touch he knew would be soft. She cupped his chin, and tilted his head, blinking back her tears so no drops would fall and cause him to flinch. Then she drew the knife, as hard and fast as she could.
They flinched at the sudden shock of light pouring forward, brighter than anything Mihály had ever conjured.
Asten, she prayed, hands wet and shining. I know You can hear me now. Whatever power I have, whatever love you had for him, let it work for this. Don’t let this be in vain.
The answer was an impossible swirl of breeze against her skin. The smoke-stained saints on the wall seemed to brighten, a new luster in the dusted gold and ochre.
Mihály gurgled from the wound as he shifted and slumped against the dark ground. She was too slow to catch his head as he fell off her lap. From the cut poured lines of gold, the echo of the blessings in the courtyard, flowing into rivulets in the stone.
And the seal began to awaken.
A shimmer blossomed above the body and she put her hand out, letting it come to rest on the open altar of her palm. It was dazzling, strange and spider-silk ether. In this state his soul was stardust. She let out a breath, the pain and hope equally terrible. It felt like Mihály’s gentlest moments and softest words, a soul-deep beauty even his pain didn’t tarnish.
“Csilla?” Ilan was behind her again.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed. This holiness was what all the light and glass and shine of the church had been trying to capture. It was the poorest imitation, the wavering reflection of the moon on brackish water and not the brilliance of a night sky. This was the purest stuff of creation, a reminder that once they had all been infinite.
“What is?”
If she’d thought she was alone before, it was nothing compared to this. No one else would understand what it was to see the stuff of souls. Her face softened. Except, perhaps, Mihály, his body already stiffening before her.
The little bit of spun ether fluttered like a broken-winged moth. She pushed it towards the flickering seal.
If You must take him, make it glorious.
From the seal came a golden host of wings and radiance, eight long-fingered hands reaching to claim him with a hum like wind on water. The light illuminating her faded as the presence and his soul dispersed into hundreds of starry motes. The lines of the seal, so faint and delicate, glowed strong with the infusion of spirit. They filled the room from end to end. Inlaid between the lines were points like tiny flickers of fire spark. All the souls of the Union, under her feet. Everyone connected and protected again.
Csilla pressed her fingertips to her lips, tears threatening to spill over her lashes.
Mihály had managed to do something lasting and good after all. But even he’d left her in the end.
She collapsed, forehead down on the seal, adding its dirt to the mess of her face. The people would have their faith and hope, and the church would have its laws and power.
But the blankness of Mihály’s face, the gaping wound in his throat, made it hollow. Ilan caught her as she rose and stumbled forward.
He ran his hand through her tangled hair and let his fingers linger on the back of her neck. He touched her cheek, the healed flesh that was the last of Mihály’s power. “You’re hurt.”
It was a silly thing to focus on now. “So are you.”
She should go. Something insistent and old pushed through her power drenched limbs, but instead she sank down by Mihály’s body, tilting his head to rest against her leg, stroking his hair as he bled out for the world.
She once promised him she would stay, and that was a mercy she could offer to the last.
39
Ilan
The Incarnate’s chamber was white marble and gold leaf, shining with what was meant to be all the immaculate beauty of the blessed hereafter. Ilan bowed deeply as he entered. Now it looked like the pale bone color of teeth and fear, and the air in it was stale from months locked away.
Csilla had heard the divine, in some form at least. The thought pounded with Ilan’s steps as he paced outside the Incarnate’s chamber, trying to reason his way through the blasphemy. He’d seen Csilla deliver a soul. He’d seen her twisted face, the pain as she spoke to someone he couldn’t hear, the way she lit with creative fire. He’d felt the peace of praying against her fevered skin as Mihály turned from brilliant to cold.
Blasphemy or madness.
Her sobs echoed in fresh memory with every breath, even the tolling of the bells faint to his ears.
They’d saved the seal in a fashion, though now it was Mihály’s blood flowing within the sacred spaces. That was what he would have to focus on when he gave his report. The church still had its divinity, though how this new magic could be used remained to be seen.
Even if Csilla’s ecstatic power proved something about it was wrong. The Incarnate wasn’t who had been called to save them.
“Welcome.” The Incarnate rose in greeting, serene and haloed by the cast of light off the diamonds and gold he wore. If he really spoke to Asten, it didn’t weigh on him.
It should weigh on him. Csilla had looked as stricken before the seal as she had in the torture room, like it was no gift to be a conduit. The Incarnate had the same aura as his father or any of the other governing cats prowling with as much attention on their physical wares as their souls. The Incarnate knew his power, clearly, but no more than any mortal man of privilege.
Csilla had burned with holy fire. She’d had a fever-sweat on her and skin that shone like porcelain as he’d pulled her up the stairs, her shivers rocking them both as he held her in the dim corridor until she calmed enough to walk. Calmed...more a shock-induced tranquilized state...enough to where the screaming at the blood upon their emergence hadn’t broken through her haze. All she’d wanted to look at was Arany, her gold now running like a rock-cutting mountain stream, the people gathering with joy and splashing in the proof of their righteousness like children finding a puddle on a scorching day.
Mercies, how his head ached.
“Ilan.” The Prelate stood behind the Incarnate, even the deep angel-embroidered red of his robes austere in comparison to the luster on Asten’s chosen. “We’re waiting for the truth of what happened.”
He had to tell them. It was his duty. He wouldn’t forswear his vows.
