loved him and survive it. Of course, she’d throw in Tempus, too, for fun. He’d
make an undead of choice to send raping and pillaging up and down the streets of
Sanctuary of an evening, streets so thick with hatred and slick with blood no
one would even think to worry about what kind of death they got.
For Sanctuarites cared only for this life, not the next. They were ignorant of
choices made beyond the grave, or given up today for trifles. They didn’t know
or care that an eternity of hell could be had for cheap, or that the gods
offered out another way. • –
This was why she liked it here, did Roxane. Even once she’d sacrificed Niko and
his ilk-the entire Sacred Band and unpaired Stepsons, if she got lucky-she’d
stay around. Once there was no more Ischade to interfere, no silly priests like
the Torchholder to try to resurrect a dead god’s cult, the place would let her
have her way.
And so, decided, she crooked a finger and, from nowhere visible, a sound like
hellish hinges squeaking reverberated through her chamber, a non-door swung
down, and a Globe of Power could be glimpsed, spinning gently on its axis of
golden glyphs, its stones beginning to glow as its song of sorcery spun louder
aild, from hells Sanctuary wasn’t used to accommodating, a demon choir began to
chant.
It was the old way, the only way: evil for evil, tenfold. And she’d promised
hell to pay, visited upon this town for its of-fenses and its slights.
There remained only to touch flesh and nail to the globe spinning larger,
closer, right before her eyes.