Free Saint's Blood: The Greatcoats Book 3 by Sebastien De Castell

powers like hers would be hard to keep captive. So why not just kill her, if that was the desired end? I thought back to the cuts on her skin. Were they part of the torture? They weren’t very deep, nor would they be the best way to inflict pain. Again and again I found myself staring at that obscene iron funnel welded to the inside of the mask. What had they forced her to drink? And to what end?
    Jillard gave a not-quite-polite cough, making me realise I’d been standing there in silence for some time. ‘The Ducal Council has asked that I convey to you their outrage at this horrendous crime.’
    ‘Well, we can’t have the Dukes being outraged, can we?’ Brasti mocked.
    ‘In fact, no, you can’t,’ Jillard replied. ‘You are hereby informed that under the terms of the Council’s agreement with the Greatcoats, you will herewith enforce the Laws of Tristia by finding the guilty parties and bringing them to trial without delay.’
    ‘Birgid is one of the most powerful Saints in Tristia,’ Kest said. ‘We have no idea what kind of person would be capable of this act. How exactly does the Council propose we go about finding the culprits, let alone arresting them?’
    The Duke smiled. ‘Oh, we don’t really. In fact, we rather think there’s a decent chance that whoever did this will finally be able to put an end to what remains of the Greatcoats.’
    I sighed, though it felt more like the air was draining out of me. I was tired, and weeks from being fully recovered from my injuries. I don’t want this , I thought. My job is to see the King’s daughter on the throne, to find the rest of the Greatcoats and bring some semblance of the law back to this damnable country. Gods and Saints are well beyond my jurisdiction.
    I should have handed the mask back to Jillard and told him and the Ducal Council to find some other fool to saddle with this problem, but my dream of Aline and Paelis came back to me. ‘ Step by step, Falcio, it’s all being taken away from us. ’ Was that simply a hallucination that came with losing too much blood too fast, or had my fevered mind put something more together?
    What does it mean, that someone is able to do this to a Saint?
    ‘Terrific,’ Brasti said, shattering my concentration.
    ‘What?’
    I turned to see him strapping his bow over his shoulder. ‘If you could see your face right now you wouldn’t ask.’ He started off down the path between buildings that led back to the cathedral, then called back, ‘Let’s go and see how merciful Saint Birgid feels when we try to wake her up, shall we?’

CHAPTER TEN
The Six Doors
    ‘Why are there six doors?’ I asked, walking the perimeter of the building. I’ve learned not to make a habit of running into buildings without checking the entrances and exits first.
    ‘Technically, this is a cathedral, not a sanctuary,’ Kest replied. ‘Supplicants go through the door dedicated to the deity whose intervention they seek.’
    Brasti stopped to lean against the stone buttocks of the broken statue dedicated to Purgeize, God of War. Or they might have belonged to Coin. I’ve never made an extensive study of the subject of Gods’ buttocks. ‘What difference does it make when the doors all go into the same cathedral?’ he asked.
    I chose the door behind the statue of Love, or Phenia as she’s sometimes called in the south. I didn’t expect her to be particularly helpful to our cause, but she was by and large the least offensive of the available options for worship.
    I passed through the inner arch of the door to find the tiny cathedral in surprisingly good condition, given the crumbling state of the exterior. The domed roof rising some thirty feet above the building was largely intact, and a circular window at the top directed light into the upper chamber, spreading out onto the six coloured walls of the hexagonally shaped building.
    ‘What are the bells for?’ Brasti asked, pointing to the six-inch-high brass fixtures that were