The wounds bloomed beneath her fingers—no blood, only torn flesh, only white-hot agony searing through muscle and bone.
Demons, she thought wildly. They've come for me at last.
She collapsed to her knees, her nightgown soaked with sweat. The pain was everywhere—sharp punctures between her ribs, the crushing weight of invisible hands around her throat. She choked, her vision swimming.
Pisto was at her side in an instant, his hands gripping her shoulders. "Your Grace!"
She gasped. "The rites—*now*—"
But even as she spoke, the wounds shifted. The stabs became something else—blows, strikes, the brutal rhythm of a beating. Her body jerked with each phantom impact, her breath hitching in time with an unseen struggle.
This was too human.
Too deliberate.
Pisto pressed a damp cloth to her forehead, his voice low. "The physician—"
"No!" She recoiled. If the temple learned of this, they would declare her cursed. Unclean. She could already hear the whispers—The priestess is defiled. The gods have turned their backs.
She squeezed her eyes shut, her nails biting into her palms. The pain crested, then ebbed, leaving behind only a dull, throbbing echo.
When she opened her eyes again, Pisto was watching her, his expression unreadable.
"You felt it too," she whispered.
He hesitated, then nodded.
Not demons, then.
...
The Galloway manor was draped in black silk, the air thick with incense and murmured condolences. Hanno stood at the entrance of the grand hall, his smile bright as summer sun, shaking hands with each mourner as they filed in.
"Ah, Magistrate Orso! So good of you to come," Hanno said warmly, clapping the man on the shoulder. "My father always spoke highly of your... flexible interpretations of justice."
Orso blinked, his jowls quivering. "I—yes. My deepest sympathies, Signore Galloway."
"Nonsense! He despised sympathy. Preferred a good insult, honestly. Come, have some wine—it's from his private cellar. He'd hate to see it go to waste."
A merchant's widow gasped behind her veil. A temple elder whispered to his companion, "Is he drunk?"
Aidos, leaning against a marble pillar with newfound steadiness, watched the scene unfold. The color had returned to his cheeks, his limbs no longer wracked by tremors. He intercepted Hanno as he moved to refill a guest's cup.
"Brother," he murmured, steering him aside. "You're alarming people."
Hanno tilted his head, genuinely puzzled. "Why? Because I'm not weeping into the soup?"
"Because you're acting like this is a celebration." Aidos' voice dropped lower. "They'll say you didn't love him. Or worse—that you're relieved."
Hanno's smile didn't waver, but his fingers tightened around the wine jug. "Let them talk. Grief wears many faces."
Aidos searched his face. "You're being gentle."
For a moment, Hanno said nothing. The murmur of mourners filled the silence between them—whispers of Pitkin's ruthlessness, his cunning, his impossible standards.
"He hated weeping," Hanno said at last. "Said tears were for men who couldn't fight." His fingers brushed the mourning band on his sleeve—a simple strip of black linen, not the ornate brocade expected of a merchant prince. "I think... I'd like to give him this instead. A quiet goodbye."
Aidos exhaled sharply. "You don't believe he's gone."
Hanno's breath hitched—just once—before he schooled his features back into calm. "I buried an empty coffin once before," he admitted. "Mother's. But she still brought me tea every morning for a month afterward." His voice cracked like thin ice. "I could smell the jasmine."
Aidos reached for him, then hesitated. The hall was still full of watching eyes.
"They'll say you didn't love him," Aidos murmured.
Hanno turned toward the high windows, where the last light of dusk bled through the stained glass. It painted his face in fractured colors—crimson and gold and deepest blue.
"Let them," he said softly.
Across the room, Pisto lingered near the wine table, his gaze sharp as a blade. He noted the way Hanno's hands trembled when he thought no one was looking. The way his breath came too fast when the priest's envoy passed by.
A performance, yes—but not the one anyone expected.
Not defiance.
Not denial.
Just a son, grieving in the only way he knew how—quietly, terribly, without a single tear.
The whispers died as the priest entered. Pisto trailed behind him, his weak figure almost unnoticeable behind the dark robes of the priest.
He moved through the mourners like a knife through silk—parting them without touch, his dark robes swiveling with the air. The toothy smile he wore was too wide, too practiced, the patchy beard along his jawline giving him the look of a wolf who'd only half-bothered to dress as a man.
Hanno straightened, his fingers tightening around the mourning band on his wrist.
"Mr Galloway," the priest said, his voice syrup-thick. "My deepest condolences." He said in his practiced imitation of Hanno's language.
Hanno bowed his head, just enough to be polite. "Your presence honors us, Your Grace."
The priest's gaze flicked over him—lingering on the bandages peeking from Hanno's collar, the raw knuckles he hadn't bothered to hide. His smile faltered.
Aidos stepped forward, his posture stiff. "Father."
The priest barely glanced at him. Instead, he reached out, brushing a thumb over the bruise darkening Hanno's temple. Hanno didn't flinch.
"These wounds," the priest murmured to his son. "Fresh?"
Hanno met his eyes. "I had fallen ill to schemes and lived only as much to see my father die."
Aidos looked between the two and wondered if his tone to could portray the severity of Hanno's despair, or the lack thereof.
"Ind Hanno Ifej sekhm udleyh, sakh pader eliforgham pora," Aidos spoke to his father.
"Ah." The priest's grin returned, sharper now. "How... unfortunate."
A beat of silence. The mourners had gone utterly still, their breaths held.
Then—
"Aidos," the priest said, still staring at Hanno. "Come. We must speak."
Aidos' jaw clenched, but he obeyed.
Hanno watched them retreat into the shadows, the priest's hand gripping Aidos' shoulder like a vise. The whispers began again, louder this time.
He shouldn't be here. Hanno thought as they moved into a corner room, Aidos careful as ever.
The study door clicked shut, sealing them in silence.
The priest's fingers dug into Aidos' shoulder like claws. "You reek of him," he hissed. "Like foreign smoke and that *filth* he calls prayer."
Aidos held his ground. "I smell like incense because I stood in a room full of mourners. Or is grief also blasphemy now?"
A muscle twitched in the priest's jaw. Moonlight through the stained glass painted his patchy beard in streaks of blue and violet, making his snarl look grotesque.
"You will tell Galloway to leave Vetia," he said softly. "Tonight. Or he'll meet his father's fate sooner than expected."
Aidos laughed—a sharp, brittle sound. "Ah. So it was you."
The priest's smile showed too many teeth. "I don't dirty my hands with common murder."
"No, you pay others to do it. Like those boys you sent—"
"Enough." The backhand came fast, splitting Aidos' lip against his own teeth. Blood welled hot and copper-bitter.
The priest watched it drip onto Aidos' tunic with detached interest. "How strange. You never bled for your own family. Only for him."
Aidos touched his mouth, fingers coming away red. "You missed," he said quietly. "The assassins. Hanno lives. Your god must be slipping."
For half a breath, the priest's mask cracked—rage flashing in his eyes like lightning behind storm clouds. Then it was gone, smoothed back into that too-wide smile.
"Run along, boy. Deliver my message." He turned toward the window, dismissing him. "And Aidos? If you ever speak to me like that again..."
Outside, an owl screamed in the darkness.
The priest didn't need to finish.
Jeweled magistrates flowed through the entrance, their perfumes clashing with the sour stench of sweat and candle wax. Outside the iron fences, the slum-dwellers pressed close—skeletal fingers curling around the bars, hollow eyes watching as trays of roasted peacocks and honeyed figs floated past.
He stood at the grand staircase, accepting condolences with a hollow smile. Behind him, the hall stretched into shadow—a cavern of marble and imported ebony, its vaulted ceiling hung with tapestries worth more than a slum's yearly bread. The air hummed with whispered gossip, the clink of crystal, the occasional wet cough of a servant who'd lingered too long in the incense haze.
A tug at his sleeve.
Hanno glanced down. A beggar child—no older than six, her ribs pressing sharp against grime-streaked skin—held out a chipped bowl. "For the dead," she whispered. "A coin to ease his way."
Before he could answer, a guard yanked her back by the hair. She didn't scream. Didn't even whimper. Just curled into herself like a kicked dog, the bowl clattering to the steps.
Hanno's fingers twitched.
Then—
A clatter of hooves. The crowd parted as the priest's palanquin descended, its panels gleaming like a beetle's shell. The beggars scattered, vanishing into the alleyways as if the very shadow of the temple could burn them. Empathy didn't exist beyond walls where children could be told they were on the right side.
Hanno didn't move.
The priest stepped out, his gold-threaded robes pooling around him like spilled blood. His gaze swept over the mourners, the servants, the half-starved faces still pressed to the gates.
"Such generosity," he murmured, toeing the beggar's fallen bowl with his sandal. "Your father would be touched."
Hanno followed his gaze to the banquet tables—where a single peach, bitten once and discarded, rolled into the gutter.
The slum children fought over it in silence.