Mark.” I spat out blood that clouded my throat. “You’ve committed treason in front of a witness.”
“How is this possible?” Uncle shook his head rapidly.
The nerve of him. “I didn’t know your heart was this dark, so full of sick ambition.”
“I killed you,” he snarled. “You were erased.”
He froze. His expression lagged as he processed.
I lifted my head. “You are forthwith removed of all title, rank, and by my father’s authority I swear—”
“Your father gave away his authority.” He shook the scroll in his hand. “You are the one who has aligned with the Savak. Some blasphemy saved you.”
“It was our god—”
“You don’t speak for the Undergod. Not in my catacombs.” He spoke through his teeth. “You ask me to commit treason, to deny the Undergod. I will not. You’ve been corrupted by the Savak. I will kill you a thousand times to get the heathen out of you. It is my duty as your uncle.”
I rushed forward. If I knocked him out, he couldn’t control the bones. Edvarg’s spindly hand twisted and a wave of ghostlight tossed me back easily like I was a child still learning how to fight. His nails dug into my freshly healed wrists, stronger than his frail form led me to believe.
I raised my fist.
Grig sputtered behind me as the sharp shards of bones aimed at my best friend, cutting into his neck.
Edvarg massaged his temples as if he’d grown weary of this conversation. “Stop or I will kill him.”
I couldn’t bluff my way out of this. Not with stakes this high.
But I could try. “Let him go.”
“Yeah, seriously, let me go. I’m nothing to you. I won’t say anything, I promise.” It shook my core to hear the fear in Grig’s voice.
“He only lives if you surrender.”
My fist trembled, but I didn’t swing. If I moved, my uncle could kill Grigfen as quickly as he had killed me. The bones at his throat drew blood. Grig leaned his head back, his eyes glistening with tears, but his hands rolled and his arm muscles tensed. He was about to fight back. Any movement would spell the end of him.
“Do you promise you will let him live?” I tried to signal Grig not to attack, but his eyes were wild, past listening to reason.
Edvarg’s jaw pulsed. “Yes.”
“That’s not enough.” I stepped closer. “Swear it to your god.”
A muscle twitched on his neck. “Will you trade your life for his?”
Grig’s head shook back and forth as though he thought he wasn’t worth it, but how could he say that? I couldn’t allow him to die. Not when he was willing to die in my place.
I lowered my knife. “I will.”
Edvarg’s anger melted from his eyes. “And you, Sir Grigfen. I can’t have you blabbing what you’ve seen, so the only way I will allow you to live is if you devote yourself to the Undergod himself. Will you accept the Devout class and vow to keep my secrets? It is the only way you will leave this catacomb with your head attached.”
Grig glanced at me and then nodded. A green mist swirled around him, before it tunneled into his mouth, brightening the whites of his eyes.
I closed mine. The life of the Devout wasn’t death, but it might as well have been. He couldn’t marry, he couldn’t own his title. I’d stolen my best friend’s future.
Edvarg turned his sharp smile on me.
* * *
Later, in my cell, I berated myself for not fighting back. Later, I thought of a hundred things I could have done differently to save Grigfen, a hundred things my father would have done against his traitorous brother. What someone worthy would have done.
But I’d raised my hands and dropped the fight.
The moment I needed it, all my bravado had disappeared.
And it had taken my hope with it.
I could not eat the silence in my cell. I could not drink the absence of light. I had nothing to gnaw on except my nightmares.
I woke from one, the memory of a sharp bone paring through my flesh, to the sound of a subtle movement in the dark. I crawled forward, ignoring the dust and filth that littered the ground. The bars of the cell were cold on my cheek. My dry mouth opened, pleading to the noise for light, for water … For kindness.
Uncle had stolen everything from me, except the clothes on my back, and the necklace he had not found.
A window somewhere opened slightly, sending a lost saint’s whisper of light.