Necromancy In D Minor ✔️

The High Priest's Hymn

Fate was truly an evil mistress.

Sicero traced his hand along the edge of the canvas, its thick weave rough against his skin. From the surface of the pristine white cotton, an ink and charcoal likeness of Octavia stared back at him. Dark eyes warm and kind. Full lips tipped into a smile.

He'd wanted to kiss those lips, to know if they felt as soft as they looked. He still wanted to, and he hated himself for it. Of all the people he could be so hopelessly smitten with, it had to be a necromancer. And the Night-Blooming Rose no less. The person who'd destroyed his home, who'd taken everything away from him, who'd doomed humanity to suffer under the heel of the netherborne.

His mind wanted to reject the fact that Octavia was the monster responsible for these things. Even calling her a monster didn't sit well with him. But perhaps his emotions were clouding his judgment.

Never in his life had Sicero felt so torn. He should've known better. He'd allowed himself to be sucked in by her warm words and kind smile, and elected to trust her a little too quickly. Perhaps after Jaredeth took her away, he could move on from this, use it as a lesson.

But did he want that? He heard the stories from Diann and Levi. Heard how Jaredeth would torture and kill necromancers, and the thought of Octavia enduring that made his gut twist.

Sicero laid the drawing face-down on his chest and gazed up at the ceiling of the Cathedral's study. Outside flurries of snow danced to the tune of the howling wind, under a dark grey sky. The crackling fire in the hearth mitigated the cold the blizzard had brought.

He wondered if Octavia was warm enough in the jailhouse. The prospect of her freezing to death made his stomach turn to stone. He shook his head to clear it of her image. He needed to stop thinking about her and set his mind on other, far more important, matters.

Sicero reached into his pocket, feeling for the sheet of rolled up parchment there, but not removing it. The message had come in the dead of night via carrier bird. A correspondence from the Divine City–more specifically, from Prefect Marius. In three week's time a boat would arrive to whisk the priests back to the Divine City.

There was no mention of the reason, but Sicero could guess. They'd been here for ten years and things had only gotten worse. Hedalda would be considered a loss, a blunder, a waste of resources that could be allocated elsewhere.

And it was his fault. This was the price of his folly, of thinking he had a ghost of a chance against the netherborne. His goals, his ambition were all going up in smoke and flames, and all he could do was stand by and watch them burn.

Sicero had planned a meeting after supper to discuss the implications of the letter. Some wouldn't be happy about it, himself included. Others would be overjoyed to be rid of this perpetual nightmare.

Footfalls echoed outside the room and Pilar walked through the arched door a moment later. Her graying black hair was down, and she held a thick book in one hand and a blanket in the other. She settled onto one of the many stuffy couches, only giving him a cursory glance before cracking her book open.

Sicero lifted the drawing again to gaze into Octavia's eyes one last time. He'd asked Beatrix not to tell him when Jaredeth sent for her, or when she was leaving. He needed to erase her from his mind. For his sanity.

Pilar exhaled a sigh. "All right, what's wrong with you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Sicero rose from his seat, his body heavy and movements sluggish, as though someone had shackled weights to his feet. He crossed to the fire and held out the drawing with intentions of throwing it in, but his hand refused to let go out of it.