Page 98 of The Lost Reliquary
“Stop,” commands Nolan. “Fighting doesn’t serve any of us. Caius, you don’t understand what you’ve done by coming here. An Arbiter? In Cyprene? You’re drawing attention that we don’t need.”
“I’m not concerned with what attention I draw from this blasphemous rabble. They could all use a reminder that this vile city continues to exist only by the grace of Tempestra-Innara.”
“Then be concerned with whatthey’llthink,” Nolan snaps. “We are close to locating the heretics that attacked. Or we were, until you arrived. How do you think our blood mother will react if they learned about that?”
Caius glares. “Better, I imagine, then finding out that two of their Chosen are peddling the wares of Renderers.”
A laugh escapes me. “How do you think we got their attention in the first place?”
Thatperks him up. “So you’ve actually found them?”
“We’ve made contact,” I concede. Caius still thinks we’re only after the heretics. He doesn’t know anything about the reliquary. And if we can get him to back off, he won’t find out.
The Arbiter turns sly. “Then let me help. We are all children of the Goddess. We should be working together, instead of apart.”
And sharing equal parts in the glory, no doubt. I can’t help but wonder if Caius might have the same ambitions toward becoming avatar as Nolan does. But no. He’d have no desire to give himself over, not like that. I roll my eyes at Nolan. “Pfft. He wants to leave behind Belspire for Osturan. No, wait… Lumeris, right? Right to the top. All of this is him angling for a promotion.” My attention shifts back to Caius. “Hey, even better—maybe the Goddess will appreciate your initiative and reassign you to Cyprene.”
The scowl returns. “You’re not funny. Ever. And I don’t know why you’d even joke about that. The Goddess… to be so far from their light. It was trial enough when I departed the Cloister, but this?” He trails off.
“Eh.” I shrug. “Some of us manage it better than others.”
Nolan clears his throat pointedly. “Enough. We don’t have time to argue. We’ve come here on a specific mission and you’ve endangered our success. You need to depart the island. Carry word back to Lumeris, tell them we are getting close—butleave.”
Caius leans back in his chair, a clear signal he isn’t going anywhere. “I’m sure my Thorn Guard and I can findsomeway to assist you.”
So much for appealing to his pious obedience. Though neither of us really expected him to fold. “He’s right.” Time to try a different tack. “Okay. Youcanhelp us. Let it leak that you’re here hunting smugglers suspected to be Renderer associates. If an Arbiter has come all the way from the mainland, it will lend us credence, show the heretics that we are who we say we are. That we can deliver what we promise. Make a show of it, search a guesthouse or two.” I pause. “But reopen the port.Make it clear you aren’t here for long. If they feel threatened—trapped—we’ll never hear from them again. If they don’t, then we’ll have an actual chance to root them out.”
The room goes quiet.
“That,” Caius says at last, “is not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m known to have a few good ones now and again.”
But he shakes his head. “I didn’t come here to play games. Or look incompetent, for that matter. I came to deal with the heretics.”
I tense, open my mouth to force the point, but Nolan beats me to it.
“Then do that,” he says.
“What?” Caius considers. “What do you mean?”
I’d like to know that too. Whatever Nolan is getting at, it wasn’t part of our plan.
“I mean…” He wanders over to where Caius sits and lifts a crock of salt sitting among the platters and plates. He takes a pinch, then lets the grains rain back down. “That if there’s one thing this island doesn’t lack for, it’s heretics.”
Thirty-nine
Please… please, I cannot fathom another day in this godsforsaken place. An hour. A minute. Please!
—FROM THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF CLERIC OF THE BLOOD THIAGO TO HIGH CLERIC OF THE BLOOD SULLIVAS
GRAY CLOUDS HANG LOWthe following afternoon as Caius stands on a raised stone dais at one end of the city’s largest plaza. The gathered crowd fills it to overflowing, thick and impatient, and fraught with uneasy interest. Scowls outnumber smiles a hundred to one, but between the Caerula and the Thorn Guard, Caius is unworried as the gathering builds, until it seems as if every person in Cyprene is on hand. Nolan and I have taken up a spot near one of the scattered fountains, close enough to have a good view, not so close that Caius can easily pick us out. Any slip, any hint of his attention our way, is something we can’t risk. Or at least as far as Nolan believes. We both expect that Avery, or at least his compatriots, are somewhere in this horde.
A murmur ripples through the citizens of the city as Caius finally rises and goes to the front of the dais. He scans the scene like a farmer taking in a growing crop, then clears his throat.
“When they whisper, we wake…”
I nearly groan. Caius might have agreed to play nicely (or as nice as he can manage), but he couldn’t pass up a chance to remind Cyprenewho is in charge. The crowd picks up the prayer in fits and starts, and I see a lot of hands move to reveries that clearly aren’t the Goddess’s. Nolan and I recite as dutifully as if we were in the Cloister, but even for him, there’s a feeling of it being performative. As Caius concludes the prayer, a wary silence settles in its wake.
