Page 69 of A Dance Macabre

The manner in which we collect offerings differs from one god to the next. Most of us have a specific day of the week reserved for such a thing. Mine is Sunday. Only two deviate from this custom. Aleksandr’s tithing is a bacchanal that lasts the entire week.

And Mercy? Well. Death’s call isn’t tethered to something asrudimentaryas a calendar.

Behind closed eyelids, I listen to the last of the Vainglory followers wax poetic at my altar. And what better altar for the servant of the god of idolatry than his naked, radiant body?

Compliments, flattery, praise; I’ve heard it all today. Every spoken word breathed into the steam of the bathhouse has left an invisible mark on my skin. They hang in the air, mingling with the scent of vanilla from my oils. I’ve collected the words with an insatiable hunger, and it has created a buzz so rejuvenating that I’ve almost forgotten the woes of weeks past.

Almost.

When the faceless Pravitian has finally finished enumerating all the ways they idolize me, I wave them away without opening my eyes. Leaning against the edge of the bath, with my arms splayed wide on either side of me, I listen to the receding footsteps turn into weightless silence. Only the low melody of classical music remains.

The warmth of the water surrounding me soothes the aches of my body, dulling the thoughts that ache even worse. I could have observed Tithe Season in Mount Pravitia’s bathhouse, but the melancholic perfumes of my old life called me back to the Vainglory Tower, homesick for the last time I’ve felt … grandiose. A pleased sigh rumbles through my chest.

The sound of heels pierces the silence.

A cadence I now know all too well.

My skin prickles with awareness before I even open my eyes. There’s a foreign giddiness bubbling through my veins, and I can almost feel the invisible string grow lax between us as she approaches me. Mercy stands at the opposite end of the bathhouse, near the stone steps leading into the water. The warm lighting of the candles atop the chandeliers illuminates her face, smooth like marble, devoid of any real emotion.

A charged silence crackles in the vast space between us.

I haven’t seen much of her since we last spoke to the Oracle almost a week ago. Part of it was circumstantial, Alina’s funeral kept me occupied. Then Tithe Season began, but those were mere paltry opportunities to escape the echoes of the Oracle’s declaration.

To avoid the sheer pressure of what was revealed to us that day. Now that fate is involved, it certainly has snapped us out of our feverish state. We’ve been walking on eggshells around each other ever since.

But this, in no way, has sobered my irrefutable attraction to Mercy.

I have simply repressed it. Until now.

Like the image of death itself, she’s cloaked in all black. Fur coat and a simple shift dress. I don’t know if receiving tithe has loosened my sensibilities, but I begin to salivate like one of her dogs eyeing a bone.

Without taking my eyes off of her, I address my assistant standing at attention behind me. “That will be all for today, Bartholemew. Leave us.”

He mutters a shakyYes, sirand trots the length of the room, passing Mercy with a respectful nod before disappearing out the exit.

Crossing her arms, she circles the edge of the bath and begins to walk the length toward me. There’s a hesitant arrogance to the sway of her hips, my eyes lifting upward the closer her steps bring her to me.

Finally, she stops a hair’s width from my outstretched arm, my fingers almost managing to graze the tip of her stiletto. My heart pings with yearning, my fingers reaching for her foot of their own accord.

After a lengthy beat, she breaks the silence. “Last time I was here I threw a severed finger at your face.”

I resist the urge to smile. “I recall,” I say slowly, smoothing one of my hands through my wet hair. “No gaudy fringed hat this time?” I quip.

She clicks her tongue at the small jab, the tiniest of smiles on her red lips, eyes raised skyward before returning to mine. “I am the face of Pravitia now after all.”

“Oneof the faces,” I can’t help but volley back.

Her smile fades, gaze intensifying—studying. I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing I am, my mind never lingers far from it these days.

You shall rule together.

Tension rumbles between us like thunder after lightning.

I straighten up from my relaxed position, facing Mercy head-on. When I speak again, my voice has deepened, the words tainted with such complexity that even I’m not sure what all the layers mean. “Have you come all this way to tithe to me, Crèvecoeur?”

She doesn’t react, as if she’s lost in a maze of her own thoughts. And,gods be damned, do I know the feeling intimately. Her stony mask feels unbreakable today, her face calm while vulnerability crackles inside my lungs.

Finally, she breaks eye contact as she begins to take one small step after the next. She circles the edge of the bath until she’s standing directly behind me. Slowly, I drop my head backward, resting it on the stones under me, my gaze finding hers.

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