Those Who Would Not Be Gods

22. Priest: Cecile

Though she hadn't meant to, Cecile found herself dwelling on Edith's words.

Tu corrumpuntur. You are marked.

She hesitated by the window, looking down on the town. It had been a week since they'd emerged from the tunnels. A week since they'd discovered the Godstone, and she'd been named High Priestess. From here, she could see the Schola, the noble brick buildings carefully placed around immaculate grounds. Her eyes drifted to the back of the grounds. The music building hunkered there, dark and squat as it had been when she'd first arrived. Now, though, there was a constant stream of people moving in, out, and around it. As she understood, most of the tunnels had collapsed, but there was still plenty to discover in what remained of the cave. Several of the Shrine's priests were busy cataloging the history of the place, or investigating exactly how whoever had locked Tenebrae there had set up the magic-capturing system to mask the Godstone's signal for so long. It was, apparently, a fascinating discovery with deep ramifications for the Shrine's history. She didn't particularly care. They had the Godstone, didn't they?

A full dozen guards stood posted at various points around the tiny building, a ridiculous number for such a small place. By the front door, a small collection of bouquets and charms marked where the guards had fallen.

Cecile winced and looked away. She hadn't left a body behind. Only bones and ash. It was a mistake. Even if they'd been ghouls, even if it had been life or death, there was no need to be so cruel. She should have taken out their legs, or burned only the heads.

Is a mutilated body better than none?

"Cecile."

She turned. A dark-haired woman, hair swept into a neat bun and her robes as perfectly pressed as they were spotless, stood by the door. "I've brought the paperwork."

"Thank you, Nadia," she said. She had a handmaiden now. It felt strange. Wrong. She'd been an apprentice all her life, the one to run errands and make tea. Now she had someone to fetch them all for her. It was taking some adjustment.

Graciously, (isn't that how nobles move?) she crossed her chambers (my chambers!) to her handmaiden. Sumptuous red rugs muffled her footsteps. Bright chandeliers, each point lit with an individual soulstone, shone overhead. Just one soulstone could have lit the whole chandelier with a clever circle or two, but she supposed that wasn't how the rich did it. The bay windows she'd just turned her back to let in enough sunlight during the day that the chandelier was unnecessary, but it glittered away anyways. A monstrosity of a desk made of a pale, reddish wood (it couldn't be Silvestran cedar, could it?) stood at the back of the room, facing double doors carved from the same. Nadia crossed from the doors to the desk, as polished as the rest of this place, and set the papers down.

The papers for absolving Hugo of all his supposed crimes.

She scanned them briefly. Nadia had written it up in a fancy script and officious wording, but what it boiled down to was a pardon. Cecile gestured, and Nadia conjured a pen. I could get used to this, she thought, and she signed the papers.

Nadia held out some wax and a seal. Cecile looked at her for a minute before it finally filtered through. She was a High Priest now. Of course she had a seal. She shook her head and took it, summoning an ember to warm the wax. "Where's my signet ring?" she joked.

"I'm sorry, milady, but you don't receive that until after the ascension," Nadia replied.

Cecile blinked. "Oh."

Wax dripped onto the paper. It was hard to gauge the right amount. Too much squished out when she pushed the seal down, and it looked sloppy. It didn't matter. Sloppy or not, it was a High Priest's seal, and a High Priest's signature. Hugo was safe now.