progeny. And progeny, of course, required currency.
And then, beautiful Aalea. Blood-red dress, blood-red lips, snow-pale skin. She was the closest to devout out of all of them. She’d only been the Shahiid of Masks a handful of years, ever since the death of Shahiid Thelonius*—she hadn’t quite had time for the coin to totally corrupt her. But Adonai could see it beginning to. Her gowns made by the greatest seamstresses in the Republic. The pleasure houses she’d purchased in Godsgrave and Galante, the grand palazzo she kept in Whitekeep and the revels she threw there, young rock-hard slaves and bowls full of ink and acres of skin.
Power.
Corrupting.
Because they paid nothing for it, you see. No tithe. No suffering. They were not reminded, with a constant ache in their bellies or the hideousness of their own reflection, the price they paid for the power they wielded. And so they wielded it thoughtlessly. Carelessly. Believing they had served their Mother well, and now they could sit back and reap the fortunes earned by a life of servitude.
Glutted with blood money. Serenity in murder.
All of them, unworthy.
“Speaker?” Aalea asked, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised.
“Hmm?” Adonai asked.
“You have heard nothing from the chapel at Galante?” Dark, kohl-smudged eyes glittered in the dim light. “Bishop Tenhands set out five turns ago, did she not?”
“Aye.” Adonai strolled along Solis’s bookshelves, finger trailing across the spines. He thought it telling that the Lastman still kept them in here—he wanted to give the appearance of being learned, despite the fact his blind eyes couldn’t read a word. “But no word from Tenhands have I heard or felt since the Cityport of Churches she left.”
That was fact, at least. Aalea could smell lies with enviable skill. But Adonai could dance around the truth all nevernight and not come close to touching it.
“Passing strange,” Mouser muttered. “Tenhands is no slouch.”
“Nor those who rode with her,” Spiderkiller mused. “Sharp Blades, all.”
“Would that we could’ve sent more.” Solis stroked what little of his beard Ashlinn Järnheim’s tombstone bomb had left him. “But we’ve precious few to spare.”
“Would that you could have simply ended our little Crow in Godsgrave, Revered Father,” Mouser said. “And saved us this trouble.”
Adonai smiled as Solis’s blind eyes flashed. “What did you say?”
Mouser examined his fingernails. “Only that for the leader of a flock of killers, you seem to have tremendous difficulty actually killing people.”
“Careful, little Mouse,” Solis warned. “Lest that tongue of yours flap itself right out of your mouth. I told you the girl had aid.”
“Aye, some revenant returned from the Hearth, neh?” Mouser drummed his fingers down the hilt of his blacksteel blade.* “I confess, were I confronted with the like of our good chronicler in the streets of Godsgrave, I might shit my britches, too.”
“I already told you,” Solis growled, rising from his chair. “Corvere’s savior was not kin to Aelius. The chronicler can’t even leave the library. This thing walked where it wanted, cut a squadron of Itreyan soldiers to pieces. And one more word of dissent from you, you corset-wearing fop, and I’ll show you just how much difficulty I have killing people.”
“Grow up, both of you,” Spiderkiller sighed.
“O, aye, advice from her favorite teacher,” Solis snarled. “Wasn’t it you who named Corvere top of your Hall, Spiderkiller? She was your star pupil, neh? That little whore’s betrayal has cost us dearer than any in Church history, and it was you who made it possible for her to become a Blade.”
“And I will see that betrayal put arights,” the woman said softly. “I have vowed it before Mother Night, and I vow it before you now. I will have my vengeance upon Mia Corvere. The last thing to touch her lips in this life will be my venom. Doubt it not, Solis.”
“You will refer to me as Revered Father, Shahiid,” Solis growled.
Adonai watched all this drama unfolding with the same small smile on his lips. So tedious. So mundane. Such was the way of things, he supposed. Vipers always turn upon each other when they have no rats to eat.
“What did Mercurio speak to you about?” Drusilla asked.
The speaker kept his face sanguine, looked to the Lady of Blades through bleached lashes. The woman stood at the head of the room, examining the hundreds of silver phials in the alcoves. Each one was filled with a measure of Adonai’s blood, given out to bishops and Hands and Blades for the purpose of sending missives to the Mountain. Even standing twenty feet away,