Page 67 of Kill the Beast
He took the lantern back from her and held it up while he peered through the rain at the stone structures dotting the grounds. There was a large temple in the center, flanked by a few smaller mausoleums.
“Which one?” she demanded, and he sighed.
“This way.” He set off into the storm. The lantern light was protected from the weather by its casing, but it hissed and steamed faintly as raindrops pattered against the glass.
Together, they wove through the headstones until they came to the temple proper. Lyssa had been here only once before, hunting a grindylow that had killed a few of the priestesses who had gone to a nearby river to fetch water.
She followed Alderic up the stone steps, willing her legs to stop shaking, willing her heart to stop trying to punch through her chest. Everything was laid bare now, and she felt raw and rattled—and yet strangely relieved that he knew.
There was no door to keep them out of the temple, only a line of stone columns, each carved into an aspect of the Lady. Lyssa brushed her fingers over the tip of Ungharad’s sword as they passed, saying a silent prayer to the vengeful manifestation of Ibyrnika’s primary goddess.
Alderic rang a bell hanging from an iron hook at the entrance, and a priestess hurried out of the inner sanctum to meet them. Her hair was rumpled and dried drool crusted her cheek, as if they had woken her.
“It is late,” she admonished, wrapping her robes more tightly around herself, but her thick eyebrows shot up in surprise whenshe saw Alderic, and she bowed her head. “Lord de Laurent. My apologies. We weren’t expecting you.”
“I didn’t know I would be coming, until recently. There was no time to send a letter ahead,” he said, bowing his head to her in return. “I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, Elena, but I need to pay my respects.”
“Of course, my lord.” She bowed her head again, and Lyssa looked between them, a strange sensation creeping over her, like the Alderic she was starting to feel like she knew was only a facet of the man standing in front of her, like Ungharad was only one facet of the goddess.
The two of them followed the priestess into the inner sanctum, where she handed Alderic one of the flaming torches ensconced on the stone wall before unlocking a door carved with the visage of Anfalad—the goddess in Her aspect of Death itself.
“Will your… guest… wait up here?” the priestess asked, looking at Lyssa with a wary expression.
Alderic seemed conflicted. “She can do as she pleases,” he said finally, his tone curt, his glance cutting. “She always does, no matter how it might affect anyone else.”
She glared back at him, annoyed by how much that had stung.
Part of her wanted to stay aboveground, to find the altar to Ungharad and pray until her anger receded to a more manageable level and she was left with a clearer head. But Alderic might need help getting the coffin nails they had come for, and she didn’t particularly like the idea of letting him out of her sight, even if he was angry with her.
“I’ll go with you,” she told him.
The priestess looked like she had an opinion about that, but held her tongue. She handed Lyssa a torch of her own, and held the door for them while they crossed the threshold. As they started down the winding stone steps, the door grated shut, and if it hadn’t been for the torches, they would have been in a darkness so complete their eyes would never have adjusted to it.
Lyssa shuddered. “What was all that about?” she asked, to takeher mind off the narrow passage, the weight of the stone above her head. “My lord this, my lord that. She acted like you own the place.”
“I do.”
She almost slipped on the steps. “You do?”
“Sort of. This temple has belonged to my family for centuries,” Alderic said without turning to look at her. “Our entire line is buried here, and when I finally die, I’ll be buried here, too.”
The word “finally” made her breath hitch. “Okay,Lordde Laurent, Mr. Important,” Lyssa grumbled, a desperate urge to make him laugh surging through her, but his body only tensed, and he didn’t respond.
The stairs let out into an enormous crypt, the lengths of which disappeared into the darkness beyond their torches. Lyssa tilted her head back to look at the stone arches as they passed beneath them, marveling at the painted frescoes and elaborate mosaics depicting the deceased. Many of them had the same ice-blond hair as Alderic, the same storm-blue eyes and elegant nose.
“Is there some sort of special tool I need to use, to remove the nails?” Alderic asked her stiffly, and Lyssa handed him her torch before slinging her pack off her shoulders. She crouched to rummage through it and dug out a hammer inscribed with spells, along with another jar. She had only ever used the hammer once before for coffin nails, but she always brought it with her just in case.
Alderic handed Lyssa back her torch wordlessly and tucked the hammer and jar into his own pack before taking off again.
The niches in the first few sections of the crypt were filled with intricately carved stone sarcophagi, but as they went deeper, they were more often populated by painted wooden coffins. Still beautiful in their own right, but far more rudimentary. The frescoes on the walls seemed older there, too, the paint flaking off in large sections.
Lyssa stooped to inspect the date on one of the coffins nearby. “This one is almost two hundred years old.” She frowned up at him. “I thought you were going to use your brother’s.”
“I am.”
“Why is it all the way back here?”
Alderic stopped and studied her, his expression unreadable. “I changed my mind. I want to do this alone.”
