Page 46 of This Monster of Mine

“A Petitor must consider all avenues.”

Sarai clenched her fists to keep from strangling him. “By all means, then. If there’s something here that implicates you, do let me know.”

Storming to the other end of the room, she began sifting through the skeletons of torn books. After an unreadable glance in her direction, Kadra examined the desk, large hands pressing the surface at corners to search for hidden drawers. The sky lightened as they scoured the study, tidying where they went. She kept to the opposite end of whatever corner Kadra inhabited as chairs were righted, books recompiled, and letters sorted. Morning rose when Sarai shelved the last tome.

“I don’t understand,” she admitted. “There isn’t anything here that could remotely sustain a criminal charge. What was Jovian found guilty of for Tetrarch Aelius to seal in the Hall of Records?”

“Treason.”

She gaped. “How can you possibly know that?”

“The walls.” Kadra tilted his head to the rune scrawled everywhere.

“Some people worship Lord Death.”

“Modraiis also a Summoning rune.”

Her jaw dropped. “He was trying tosummonDeath?”

There was a slim chance of summoning one of the Elsar, High or Dark, if one knew the proper sequence of runes and had the power to channel into them. Aside from the benefit to clerics hoping to ascend to prophets, the gods granted a wish to whomever summoned them—a life-changing prize for the desperate. But the sheer expenditure of power required killed almost all who attempted a Summoning. There hadn’t been a successful one in decades.

He set a scroll down. “What do you know of the worst punishment in the Corpus?”

“Being flogged to death, isn’t it?”

“Performing a Summoning at the Aequitas.”

She spun toward him, agape. “You can’t be serious.”

Kadra’s grim face didn’t seem capable of joking. “Every Summoning sequence ends inmodrai. A bit of irony on the gods’ part making hopefuls court death in order to see them. The rune has a notorious reputation as a traitor’s mark.”

“But that’s madness!” She examined the closest rune. What she’d thought was ink was a mottled brown, patches of it flaking off the walls.Blood.Her stomach roiled. “It’s suicide, not justice! And you passed this law?”

“Absolution for the worst crimes can only come from the Elsar. If the gods refuse to intervene, then the defendant must be guilty.” He smiled faintly at her incredulous snort. “That was the rationale Aelius provided when he created the law eight years ago. Quite a religious man, the Head Tetrarch. But”—his eyes cut to her—“you saw that for yourself yesterday.”

Her stomach twisted. She had the awful feeling that he knew what the Tetrarchy had asked of her. That he’d known even as he agreed to the meeting.

Sarai forced a neutral expression. “Aelius’s beliefs are his own.”

“Are they?” Kadra flipped through a stack of letters. “He’ll be devastated to hear it. He’s been trying to make them everyone else’s for quite some time.”

“What he does is none of my concern. At the end of the day,you’remy Tetrarch, and I answer to you,” she muttered.

At the sudden stillness behind her, she turned to find Kadra watching her as though she’d done something unaccountably strange. It struck her that she’d just said something that smacked of … loyalty.Shit. Her mouth went dry when his gaze dropped to the pounding pulse at the base of her neck.

Cursing herself for unbuttoning her collar, she fumbled to do it up. “Well … this can’t be all Jovian’s correspondence. Is the rest of it in his old domus?”

Kadra still looked perturbed. “Decimus will know.” He left the study, giving her the first blessed bit of space she’d had in hours.

Sarai threw herself into an armchair missing half its upholstery.Temperance save me, he’s nerve-wracking. She scanned the room.

“What happened to you, Jovian?”

The ugly runes on the walls called to her, something eerily hypnotic about their repetition.Jovian came back just to paint these.After Aelius’s vigiles searched the study, but before his death.But why?An admission of guilt or treason? Or did the rune mean exactly as it said. But if Jovian had been predicting his death, then who had he suspected?

A movement in the fireplace caught her eye. She peered down at the fragment of parchment swaying in the breeze leaking in. Wiggling it free, she dusted off the soot. It appeared to be the remnants of a letter written in Urdish.Odd. She hadn’t thought Petitors would learn a language now largely used by northern fishing villages. Some of the words had been obliterated by flame, but enough remained to turn her legs to cotton wool.

… were right. The answer lies with her. The Sidran Tower Girl must have seen …

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