Page 114 of A Weave of Lies
“You came here for your portrait, didn’t you?” the seeress asked, cutting off her dark thoughts. “Come, I’ll show you.”
Then Nimue turned on her heel, gently bouncing the baby in her arms. Semras followed her into a bedroom. A small crib rested against a bed with disarrayed blankets.
Nimue pointed to a side table. “I kept it here after Inquisitor Velten left to find you. I had a hunch it would be significant, that you would come for it.”
Coming from a seeress, a hunch meant a lot. Semras walked up to the table, pulled the drawer, and picked up the piece of canvas within. Her eyes scanned it.
The upper left, with her name and part of her face, had obviously been ripped away, and what lay before her eyes was the rest of an illustration of her.
And ofhim.
Amidst a forest painted in broad strokes, they lay entwined with each other in a strangely intimate and violent embrace. Semras was straddling the monster’s hips, strangling his neck while his hand pressed on her throat to push her away. His other hand held back her wrist, and …
Thin lines of threads wove their warp shape cores together.
The glade. It depicted what happened in the glade, when he accused her of Bleak witchcraft after she lent him her lifeforce.
But the details were off. Nimue hadn’t painted the fire and blood or any of the menhirs. Semras had been bare-chested back then and not wearing that dress, yet the threads between them unmistakably set the timing of this scene. She’d never lend him her wefts ever again, so it could only mean one thing: that fate had already come to pass.
Nimue drew closer. “Inquisitor Velten thought it meant you would be his doom. I have another interpretation. Are you familiar with the Death card of the Tarot? The one used by diviners?”
Semras ripped her gaze from the drawing and stared wordlessly at the seeress.
“Many take it literally, like an ill omen for their mortality,” she continued. “In truth, it means something entirely different. Transformation. Change.”
“No, it’s wrong. It—”
It already happened.
“You will change him, and he will change you. The hands on your throats represent the death of what you were at each other’s hands. His ‘death,’ more than yours, since you are prevailing from above. But it isn’t an ill omen for either of you. I am sure of it.”
Semras’ mind drew blank. Holding the drawing between her bound hands, she didn’t feel like she wasprevailingat all. “It—it can’t be … He told me—”
The seeress scoffed. “Inquisitor Velten is the most honest liar I have ever met. What did he tell you exactly? His choice of words matters. He’s skilled at concealing his true intentions. In his lies, you will find truth.”
Semras slowly lowered the painting back into the drawer, then closed it. Looking at it wouldn’t give her any more answers, and neither would telling the seeress how wrong she’d been with her vision’s interpretation. She’d let Nimue live without that guilt weighing on her conscience. It wasn’t her fault; they had both been deceived by the same man.
In the seeress’ arms, the little baby opened his eyes and turned to look at Semras. His irises were a pretty shade of deep blue. Of course they were.
Nimue noticed her staring at them. “We are still waiting to see if he’ll have my eyes or his father’s. Green or brown, we’ll know in a few months.”
Green … or brown? Not blue?
Semras’ heart skipped a beat.
Oh.
The boy wasn’t the monster’s child. He was Ulrech’s—Ulrech with his dark hair and dark eyes and similar appearance to the man he served.
Part of her, a part buried deep within the wounds in her heart, begged her to confirm the truth. “The rumours about the paternity … was that your idea?” she asked in a breath.
“No,” the seeress replied. “Inquisitor Velten was the one to suggest it. Ulrech would have received a dishonourable discharge from the Confraternity had the truth been revealed, and the inquisitor’s backing was powerful enough for him to survive such a scandal, so he thought it the most natural solution to our woes.”
Semras could guess who that backing was. She’d heard it from the mouth of Inquisitor Callum earlier. “His backing … You mean his father, the cardinal?”
She nodded. “His Eminence oversees the Vandalesian Chapter of the Inquisition. Inquisitor Velten usually never uses his father’s influence, but he made an exception for us. I believe, however, that the cardinal suspected the truth, and that was why he let his son off so easily.”
Semras scoffed. “I bet Sir Ulrech hated that idea and still said nothing.”
