Prologue: Grace

Her eyes were spider black and unblinking. Pitiless, large as goose eggs, and upon whose surface the city of Mayfaire and the waning moon and all the surrounding stars were held in dark reflection. Her carriage vault rested on the far side of the river, hidden among the ruins. She watched the city, then turned her dead gaze to the sky, waiting for the clouds to roll in from the east and hide the moon and the stars. When the moment came she tapped a long nail on the panel behind her driver and soon the carriage was rolling along the Salt Bridge and nearing the South Gate of Mayfaire.

The city grew larger and larger before her. The great broken heights of the Colosseum with its thousand arched windows, all alight. The dark silhouette of the Tower Scholam whose windows had not held a flame for years upon years, and never would again. To the south the twisting forms of the Reaches, to the west the plumes of smoke from the forges above Riverwall. A city half awake and half asleep. Faint music carried on the wind, joined by the rising sound of laughter. Somewhere in the darkness a dog began to howl.

“Lovely,” she said. “Lovely, lovely.”

Two guards stood at the far end of the Salt Bridge. They watched as the lone carriage approached, mistaking the creatures pulling it for horses. They nodded to the driver as he passed the final abutment, but the gesture was not returned. The driver’s head only drifted and lurched with the swaying carriage.

***

Within the ruins of Filton Stablehouse there stood a man at the borders of a great bonfire, burning in the midst of what was once the central aisle, though now it was little more than a rotting cavern. He wore the golden robes of an annointed priest and watched the bonfire grow and grow until it licked the moldered rafters of the ceiling above. He pulled the fire apart with his bare hands just before the rafters caught, then dragged the burning wood with his bare hands to form a great broken circle on the ground. He fed this new fire with boards pulled from the remains of the building and he nursed the flames until they were as tall as he was. He spoke to the fire as it burned, then he stood at its edge and raised his blackened hands and his blistered face to the ceiling and to the stars there exposed between the joists and spoke to them. His robe tattered and smouldering. His eyes shining silver.

In the far shadows of the stablehouse a skeletal man crawled out from the surrounding darkness and pulled himself up to the remains of a stone doorway. He was barefoot and wearing a long white robe that marked him as a patient from one of the city clinics. He shivered as he watched the fire and the priest standing at its edge. He felt the smoke touch his lungs, then felt them contract into a fit of coughing. He doubled over, collapsing to the ground with his hands clutched to his chest.

Rough hands, still hot from the flames, pulled him up to his feet, then pressed him to the wall. The priest in the golden robes looked him up and down. “Adrian Redwyn?” he said.

“Yes,” Adrian whispered, dry as dust.

The priest watched him for a long moment, eyes full of disgust. “Can you stand?”

“Yes.”

The priest released him, then went to the near wall and grabbed among a pile of rotting boards before bringing one to Adrian to prop beneath his arm like a crutch. He did this without any trace of kindness.

Adrian allowed his weight to fall against the board. His fingers pressed into it like clay. He coughed again and his mouth filled with blood and phlegm and he spat upon the ground.

“Take off your clothes,” the man said as he walked back to the fire. “Any ornaments as well. Take them off and follow me.”

Adrian let the clinic robe fall to the floor. He stepped away from it and did not recognize his own feet when he saw them in the firelight. A corpse’s feet. Tendons sticking up like strings on a lute. The bulging of the ankle bones and the legs above all purple with bruises. Everything so skeleton thin.

The man gestured to the burning circle. “Stand in the center,” he said. “Keep the crutch for now. It’s better you stay upright. Get rid of it before she comes. Do you understand? Only you can be inside the circle when she comes. Only flesh and bone.”

Adrian nodded as he closed the distance. The heat soon reached his body, comforting at first, then scorching as he stood among the flames. Coals searing all around his feet. Woodsmoke rolling over his face and burning his eyes. He waited. He watched the ember sparks and their glowing weave upon the air, their trails burning to his vision so they held long after fading, lovely against the darkness of the room beyond. That space derelict and cavernous. Stars far above him but so far and as he watched them they dimmed beneath the smoke so that what little light they held was gone entirely and he swayed against the crutch.

He waited, and his eyes began to flutter.

“Very sick,” he said, though the words never formed beyond his lips. “Need her now. Very, very sick…”

Emptiness now. Pain in all directions. Blood on his knees. No memory now of having fallen. No memory of walking into the fire, of shedding his robe. Some feeling of loss. He shook his head. He began to shake. Fire rising all around but he was cold and shaking. Gone were the sparks in the air. Gone the stars. She was so close. Her face. Always her face. Oh, mournful spirit. That she could stop the fall. Cracks and fissures and his mind was all cracks and fissures now. All open wounds where her fingers could creep in. “All the way in,” he muttered. “Through the bones.”

He closed his eyes. Now the scent of old earth. Hiss and pop of the flames, the crackle and sputter. The man chanting again. Terrible words. Wind calling through the eyes of the windows and the broken holes of the ceiling above. A low rumble of thunder, but one without end, growing louder and louder.

The priest let out a low moan. He rose to his feet and backed away from the fire. “The crutch!” he cried. “Get rid of it now!”

Adrian opened his eyes. The world was swimming in fire. He let go of the crutch and watched it fall to the burning pile beside him.

“Now kneel,” the priest said. “Kneel, and keep your eyes down. Do not look at her unless she asks it. Do you hear me? Do nothing unless she asks.” His voice broke with these last words, then his footfall vanished into the night.

The thunder grew louder, then resolved to hooves beating hollow against the ground. Now a jostling of metal, heavy rattle of chains, sounding just beyond the edge of the circle.

Then silence, broken only by the whipper of the flames and some far distant howling in the city beyond. Adrian kept his eyes to the ground.

Something large shifted inside the carriage. A door opened. Creaking wood, then footsteps, heavy enough to feel each impact. Delicate sound of metal, tiny bells with no resonance, gentle as rain. Now a shadow stretching until it was all that Adrian could see, the shape malformed, incoherent.

And then she spoke, deep and songlike, a voice gently smiling. “There you are,” she said. “My traitor… my lovely betrayer. There you are.”

Hands crawled up Adrian’s neck. They caressed his face. Graceful, fine-boned hands, large enough to wrap around his skull. So soft and warm.

“First Lieutenant of the City Guard,” she said. “Heir apparent. A trusted and ferocious man. But just look at you. Look how you rot inside this husk.” She pulled at his sallow flesh, stretching it lightly, feeling it between her fingers. “It chews you up, doesn’t it? Death has such a hunger for you… such terrible hunger.”

The loving hands held him like a vice. Her breath so close. The abattoir perfume. He felt her studying him, a tickling inside his head as she did so.

“Are you here with me now, my pet? Or has your precious mind rotted away as well? Can you speak to me? Say something.”

“I am here,” Adrian whispered.

“Yes you are,” she said. “You are here, and I am here. But you must tell me why. Tell me now.”

“I am dead, my lady. So close… so close.” The words like ash.

She smiled. “Do you love me, Adrian?”

“Yes, my lady. Yes.”

“Say the words. Say my name.”

“I love you Prudence. I love you.”

“And I you, my betrayer. I you.” She caressed his cheek. “But words are meaningless now that I’m here. Now there will be other ways to show your love. More profound ways.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Look at me, Adrian Redwyn. Look at me and see what you love.”

His heart erupted. Pounding in his ears. She was hunched down to match his height, her depthless eyes aligned with his. Flamelight playing across her flawless skin, her fevered midnight hair. Face drawn long like a wolf’s, always smiling. Close enough to bite.

“Am I not beautiful?”

Tears filled Adrian’s eyes. Prudence’s smile grew wider. It curled beyond the edges of her face.

“You seek a beauty as well,” she said. “You seek the grace of the Spire, the love of God. You bargain for it. You think it is something to be bought.” She paused, watching him for a long moment. Eyes twitching up and down, taking him all in. She came closer still and whispered. “But grace cannot be bought, my pet. Not for any price. Not by anyone. It must be earned. It must be begged for. Do you understand?”

Another nod and Prudence brushed one of her nails against his cheek and blood welled in its wake. She pressed her face to his and smelled it.

“No,” she said. “You don’t understand at all. How could you with that foulness in your veins?” She licked the blood from his cheek. “But you will. If your words are true. Now speak to me again, my love. I must hear your truth in the flesh and not through the ether. Spectral minds can be deceptive. They can be ghostly and thin. I need to hear you and see you. I need truth. Tell me what you will give.”

“Everything, my lady. Everything.”

“Everything?” Prudence laughed. “Oh Adrian, I am holding everything right now in my hands. It is not enough. Not nearly enough. Tell me what you have that is greater than this.” She shook him. “Greater than flesh, worthy of love and life. Look into my eyes and tell me.”

“Petra,” he whispered. “I can give you Petra.”

Prudence hissed at the word. She squeezed Adrian at the arms, splintering the bones.  Her eyes rolled white. Her smile twisted, lips pulling back to red gums and the glistening teeth, so many teeth, all beginning to lengthen. “A tragic name,” she moaned. Her voice abandoning the hint of song, now verging on a scream. “The life it carries, the things it means. Heresy. Rebellion. It is painful, painful.” Her nails dug into Adrian’s arms and he looked into her eyes and saw the pits they had become. “Frightening to hear. Frightening to share. A name that angered Holy Vellah. It sent my Lord to fits.”

She pulled one of her fingers from his arm and held it out to allow the nail to grow. It was nearly transparent, glasslike, now long as a knife. She traced its tip along the contours of Adrian’s eye socket. She wetted her lips. When she spoke again her voice came in multitudes.

“We will accept this. We long for this. But God’s love is not a prize, little betrayer. Like our trust, it must be earned. There are costs. There is a price for everything, especially devotion. Do you understand?”

The tears in Adrian’s eyes caused his vision to blur. The image of Prudence, her spider stare, was softened beneath them, and he was thankful. He nodded.

“Look at us, Adrian Redwyn, my little traitor. Look at me, and speak again so I may know your soul. Tell me your desire. Tell me what you ache for above all else in the world.”

He blinked and the tears washed from his eyes and Prudence wiped them from his face. She had softened once again. Her eyes clouded back to their calm dark. Her teeth receded. The tiny hooks in her hair caught the torchlight and glittered like gems. She smiled, and in the smile Adrian saw that she was indeed beautiful. So very, very beautiful.

“I want to live,” he whispered. “I want to live.”