Deus Necros

”Ludwig...”

For one of the oldest, most powerful women Ludwig had ever met, her reaction was remarkably understated. She blinked once, slowly turned her head toward the door, and studied him with the same distant boredom she usually carried into meetings, battlefields, and near-death situations.

”Interesting,” Titania said, her voice calm and low. ”I assumed the next person to open that door would be another bishop with an increasingly unconvincing apology. But you’re a better surprise.”

Misty remained standing with both hands on the shaft of her anchor. Relief had clearly reached her, but it had not completely displaced caution. Her eyes moved from Ludwig’s bloodstained hands to the corridor outside, where several unconscious guards lay crumpled on the stone. Then she looked at Redd, whose expression was still dark from everything they had seen above. She didn’t miss Kaiser, though something was strange about him and his presence, the young man should be the son of a noble, spoiled and surrounded with servants, not in catacombs of rot and filth.

”What are you doing down here?” she asked. ”How did you even get into the lower catacombs? These passages are sealed off from ordinary members of the Order.”

”I found the entrance, removed the people who objected, and kept walking until things got significantly worse than expected,” Ludwig replied as he entered the room. ”I could ask you the same question, though I feel the chains answer a portion of it.”

Titania glanced down at the pale metal restraints around her wrists as if she had nearly forgotten they were there. ”They are somewhat inconvenient,” she said. ”The left wrist chafes if I move too quickly, and sleeping becomes tedious after the first few weeks. Beyond that, I cannot say this is among the worst situations I have endured.”

Ludwig stared at her.

Titania continued, her tone as grave and disinterested as ever. ”During my lifetime, I have been buried under a collapsed cathedral for sixteen days, sealed inside a demon’s stomach for nearly a month, and once spent an entire winter guarding a saint’s corpse while an elven civil war unfolded around me. Compared to those events, this is almost a vacation. The bedding is acceptable, Misty keeps the books arranged properly, and the meals, while unimpressive, are sufficient.”

Misty’s jaw tightened. ”Lady Titania.”

”The screaming is unfortunate,” Titania added after a brief pause, her gaze drifting toward the door and the unseen cells beyond it. ”It does affect the reading. Otherwise, matters are perfectly manageable.”

Ludwig felt his hands curl at his sides. He knew Titania well enough to understand what she was doing. The indifference was real to a degree, because few things could still shock a woman who had outlived kingdoms, buried companions, and watched the Holy Order repeatedly rebuild itself from war and scandal. But the bland humor was also a wall. She was chained to a bed beneath rooms filled with suffering, and if she allowed herself to properly acknowledge what that meant, the calm she relied upon might become something far more dangerous.

”Manageable?” Ludwig asked. ”I walked past children missing pieces of themselves because priests told them they were purging evil spirits. I walked past bodies with souls trapped inside them. There is a mother farther up holding her dead son while whatever spell these people made refuses to let him pass on. So forgive me if I’m having trouble seeing the vacation part.”

Misty lowered her head slightly. Her fingers tightened against the cloth still wrapped around the anchor’s metal surface.

Titania did not look away from Ludwig. The bored distance in her expression thinned, not enough to disappear, but enough for him to know the words had struck where he intended. ”I know,” she said quietly. ”I have heard more than I wanted. I have smelled more than I wanted. I was not being dismissive of them, Ludwig. Only of my own circumstance. Pity directed toward me would be poorly spent while so many others are in these halls.”

”That only makes less sense,” Ludwig replied. He moved closer to the bed, looking down at the seals carved into the restraints. Even without touching them, he could feel that they were built from dense holy power, woven into oaths rather than raw containment magic. ”You are Titania. I have seen you punch your ridiculous power through things that would flatten entire companies. I’m fairly sure that if you actually wanted out, you could bring half the Sacrosanctum down around your ears and complain about the dust afterward. Why are you lying here as if four chains are enough to stop you?”

Titania looked toward Misty, then back at Ludwig ”Because they are not merely chains.”

Ludwig’s brow narrowed.

”The metal is incidental,” Titania explained. ”I could break the frame, the chains, this room, and a sizeable portion of the building before anyone above understood what had happened. The restraint is not physical. I am Oathbound.”

Even Kaiser, who had shown little reaction since entering, turned his head more fully toward her.

Titania rested her head back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. ”I swore my oath several centuries ago, when the Holy Order was still what it claimed to be. I bound myself to guard its sanctuaries, serve its appointed religious authorities, protect its faithful, and never turn my power against the Sacrosanctum or those recognized as its lawful heads. At the time, it seemed a rather noble arrangement. The gods answered clearly then. The people who held office were imperfect, occasionally stupid, and often tedious, but they were not this.”

Her eyes moved toward the doorway once more, as if the screams beyond the room were an accusation against every word of her oath.

”Centuries are a long time,” Titania continued. ”Long enough for traditions to turn into chains and for good institutions to learn how to hide rotten people beneath respectable titles. The oath does not judge the heart of the person seated at the head of the Sacrosanctum. It recognizes authority. Clementine holds that authority now, and Clementine has learned precisely how to make use of the restrictions placed upon me.”

Redd’s expression darkened. ”So you cannot fight Clementine.”

”I cannot attack the lawful head of the Sacrosanctum,” Titania replied. ”I cannot damage structures consecrated to the Order for the purpose of escaping lawful custody. I cannot use my power to openly obstruct a decree delivered through the accepted hierarchy. I can refuse certain commands where they conflict with older obligations, but refusal has limits.”

”And that is why you are chained here?” Ludwig asked.

”That is why I allowed myself to remain chained here,” she said. ”There is a difference.”

Misty finally spoke, her voice sharper than Titania’s calm delivery. ”They wanted her power. Lady Titania is bound to protect the Order, which means that if they phrase commands correctly and present the right justification, they can try to force her into supporting their operations. She realized something was wrong before they fully moved against her. She refused to participate, refused to bless certain deployments, and refused to lend her authority to things Clementine called necessary defensive measures.”

”They could not compel me to knowingly aid atrocity,” Titania said. ”My original oath was made in service of protection, and there is enough of that intent remaining to create resistance. But I also cannot strike Clementine down, tear my way out, and cleanse the Sacrosanctum by force. So we reached something of a deadlock. Clementine imprisons me, and I deny the Order the public and military power it expected to wield through me.”

Ludwig glanced toward the golden veil surrounding her body. ”And your gods? You are a Saintess. I thought the whole benefit of dealing with gods was that they occasionally warned you when the church housing their worship decided to become a nest of lunatics.”

For the first time since they entered, Titania’s expression showed genuine discomfort. It was slight, a tightening around her eyes and a pause before she answered, but on her face it carried more weight than panic would have on anyone else.

”They are silent,” she said.

Misty set down the polishing cloth. ”They have been silent since we came down here.”

Titania nodded once. ”The gods I serve have spoken to me throughout my life. Not constantly, and certainly not whenever I desired an answer, but revelations came when threats were significant enough to require my involvement. Warnings. Guidance. At times, displeasure. When I was brought beneath the Sacrosanctum, I expected an answer within days. Then weeks passed. Then months. There has been nothing.”

Ludwig turned his gaze toward the seals on the chains, then to the golden veil around Titania. He had assumed the glow was protection or the residual pressure of her own power. Now that he looked more carefully, he noticed something unpleasant in the way it moved. It did not simply wrap around her body. It folded inward near her chest and throat, crossing itself repeatedly in a pattern meant to contain rather than shelter.

The Soul Letting Lantern gave a faint tremor at his side.

”Why exactly were you imprisoned?” Ludwig asked, looking back at Titania. ”You said you refused commands, but Clementine wouldn’t throw the Holy Saintess into a basement for being difficult unless there was something they could use as justification.”

Titania’s gaze turned faintly distant again, but this time Ludwig noticed the smallest spark of satisfaction buried beneath her usual boredom.

”I beat the Hero nearly to death,” she said.

Ludwig paused.

Somewhere behind him, Kaiser made a faint sound that could have been a dry laugh or simply bone shifting under his robe. Redd stared at Titania with sudden interest. Misty lowered her eyes, though the corner of her mouth twitched in what looked suspiciously like approval.

Ludwig felt something warm and inappropriate flutter through his chest. ”I’m trying very hard not to immediately congratulate you,” he said. ”So, for the sake of understanding the disaster ahead of us, why did you beat him?”