They abandoned the sleighs near the stable—all the grain had finally been delivered, leaving only empty barrels—and eager townsfolk swarmed in to help stable the horses. Seth stayed in front of Lyseira, pressing a path toward the inn's front door, but his caution proved unfounded. The crowd parted for them, making way as if Lyseira were royalty. When she saw what was happening, a heady rush of joy, horror, and disbelief stole into her chest. Don't accept this, she thought. Don't accept it. She imagined Baltazar having a similar experience, just after the Sealing—an experience which convinced him to execute Ethaniel and seize power over the Church. This isn't for me. It's for Akir.
But she couldn't stop moving; the tide of the crowd's love bore her forward. She found herself swept up the stairs to the inn's front porch, where she turned back and truly realized the size of the crowd.
She had faced massive groups before, in Keswick. But those people had never had such naked praise in their eyes. They hadn't cheered for her like this. Don't worship me, she wanted to say. Please. Stop.
Instead she raised a hand, imploring them to quiet down. "I recognize some of you," she said when their adoration had subsided to a gentle rumble. "I saw you in the streets today, but I didn't realize there would be this many."
As if she'd said something worthy of it, they broke again into applause and wild cheering. Again, she raised a hand to quiet them. "Why are you all here?" she asked.
"We want to help!"
"Akir called me here!"
"We love you!"
She winced as if they'd struck her. "Don't love me!" she admonished. "I didn't make the fields grow! That was Akir! All thanks belong to Him!" This did more to quiet them than any of her earlier exhortations. "He is the one who saved you; He is the one with plans for you. I'm only a messenger! I'm not . . . I'm just a person, like you! Do you understand?"
Some were still smiling; others had fallen silent. Reverent. They had never heard anything like what she was saying.
"Things are different in the Kespran church. We don't worship the person at the top. We don't have a Fatherlord . . . or a Motherlord. We are all brothers and sisters. We work together. We don't hate. We don't backstab. We are family. Rank doesn't matter because there is no rank. We serve Akir, and we serve his people." She glanced uncertainly at Angbar. "I'm . . . we're writing all this down." A heartbeat. "And we're going to teach you to read it yourselves. That's important. Wisdom is not just for priests. It's Akir's gift to everyone—it's the priests' job to share it."
She had no idea where she was going with this, why she was saying any of it. Random memories of her conversation with Angbar flitted into her thoughts and out of her mouth.
Then, at the back of the crowd, she saw Abbot Tollin. His Preserver tried to make room for him, but the crowd wouldn't part the same as it had for her.
"Let him through!" she called, gesturing. "Let him through." Seth shot her a look of warning; she ignored it.
Tollin made his way up, finally gaining the stairs as the crowd closed again behind him. "Can I speak?" he asked her.
She hesitated, then nodded.
"You all know me," he called to the crowd. "Many of you probably hate me. But since Lyseira came to Colmon yesterday, I have seen a new way. I've seen Akir's true face. I've learned the meaning of compassion, and justice. I've recognized a calling I've always heard, but never truly listened to. It is time for change." He unclasped his cloak, revealing the God's Star hanging at his chest, then threw a glance toward Lyseira—a look packed with naked fear and hope. She managed a wan smile, a trembling nod.
Then he tore the star from his neck and threw it to the crowd. They exploded with cheers, their cries like thunder. From his pocket he drew the Kespran symbol Lyseira had left that morning, held it high, then slipped it around his neck. The crowd's applause, impossibly, crescendoed.
"Today, Colmon joins the Kespran church and declares allegiance to the true king: Isaic Gregor of Keswick," he roared. It was impossible to say whether anyone heard him, but his meaning was unmistakable. Then he looked at Lyseira, and though he still shouted, she knew the words were meant for her. "And as a symbol of our dedication, let any who would join us partake of Akir's bounty, which the Fatherlord's church has hoarded for too long." He raised his hands and prayed. Lyseira recognized his words and felt her heart singing. She called a miracle of her own, her words joining his on their journey to the heavens.
And the manna fell like rain.
15
i. Melakai
Nothing.
No word from his contacts. No sign of Trius. Nothing at Extivus.
He had scrambled to throw together a squad of Blackboots and Kesprey, had hit the temple within an hour of Cort's report with the full force of the throne and God, only to find it empty. The insurgents had cleared out, and burned or taken any sign of their plans. Even the thin-lipped deacon Cort had reported at the place had vanished.
In the days since, the inconspicuous watch he had posted had reported nothing. Trius was still in Keswick, somewhere—no doubt eating Kespran grain and plotting insurrection—and Kai was running out of ideas to find him. In fact, he was pursuing the last one right now.
He arrived at Redbrick prison just before highsun, with days of stifled rage simmering in his chest. She'll know something, he thought. She has to be tied up in this. She has to be.
"Get me Glora Terling," he snapped as he entered. "I'll be in the interrogation room."
They brought her in minutes later. Weeks in the city prison had drained her face of color and left her hair a rat's nest, but her eyes still held a spark of defiance he didn't care for. He knew as soon as he saw her that she had what he needed. Unfortunately, he could also tell she knew it.
The guards seated her across the table, tying her hands behind her. "Demetrius Cariott is still in Keswick," Kai began as they left, "and I'm willing to bet you know where he is."
"Who?" Glora said.
"Trius Cariott, the former head of the Blackboots." The man who betrayed my son and got him killed, the man who oversaw my granddaughter's kidnapping, the man who's planning to kill the King. Just speaking the vermin's name made Kai want to spit. Right under my nose. He's been right here the whole time and I've been too sehking stupid to—
"I don't know who that is."
Kai glared. "You know God damn well who it is. You and your little mob—don't tell me you're not tied up with him."
Glora sniffed and returned his glare—but she didn't keep his eyes. When she glanced away he noticed the tremble in her lips, the weight she'd lost. Two weeks in the dungeon softened you up, did it? He switched tacks.
"Glora, you're responsible for two deaths at the Winterwheat field. The King could kill you for that."
"That wasn't me," she snarled. "That was that witch, and you know it. Everyone knows it—they all saw."
"That's not how the King sees it. The girl was just trying to control the situation. You're the reason there was a situation in the first place. There's blood on your hands."
She scoffed. "M'sai. I'd expect nothing less from a usurper."
"I'd quit talking like that if I were you. It's just going to bring the executioner's axe down faster."
"Then bring it down," she spat. "I'd rather die in service to the Fatherlord than rot in here."
A little thrill ran through him. You shouldn't have said that. "Oh? That's interesting. Because I can make sure you rot down here for a very long time."
That got her attention. Smelling blood, he pressed on.
"Of course, this place isn't meant to hold lifers. Those are usually kept at Samson's. Have you ever seen it? They've got cells that make these look like the Fatherlord's bedchamber. Little more than closets, really. No light, no conversation. I hear a lot of bugs get in."
Glora scoffed again and looked at the wall, but he saw her pale.
"I've got the King's ear—that's one of the perks of being captain of the Crownwardens—and I know he hasn't decided what to do wi
th you yet. My recommendation will go a long way." He leaned in, his fury finally bubbling to the surface. "But if I walk out of here with nothing, I swear to God I'll tell him to lock you in the blackest cell at Samson's and throw away the key. Tonight. No one will even know where you've gone."
Real fear stole into her eyes. A vein in her neck started throbbing. "Do what you're going to do."
"We already know about Extivus," he said, and she looked at him in panic. He smiled. "So you do know about this. Good. Let's start there. How many are part of this little revolt? Were they all based there, or is there another place?"
She looked away again, chin high.
"The thing is, if you help me with this, I can let the King know that, too. I can ask him to let you go—provisionally, of course. You sneeze wrong and you're back. But good behavior counts for a lot."
She circled her heart and started murmuring a prayer. Kai entertained a brief fantasy of beating her head against the wall, then sighed and stood up.
"Fine. I'll let you think on it a bit before I give the order to move you. But if you don't give me what I'm looking for by sundown, you're going to have a lot of tiny new cellmates." He turned for the door and had a hand up to knock before inspiration struck. "You know, you're a brave one, Glora. Tougher than I would've expected. I wonder if all your little friends outside the chanter school are as tough as you."
She froze. The prayer stopped.
"I mean, obviously it takes a lot of courage to stand outside a little school and hurl insults at frightened people all day—to pelt them with ice balls, and so forth. But I'll bet some of those little bastards know something—and if I get it from them, I don't have to do sehk for you. That would be better anyway. I can't stand you. Never could. You're almost as bad as Trius, and I blame him for killing my son."
He rapped on the door. Outside, a key scraped and clicked in the lock.
"Wait," Glora said as a guard pulled the door open. "Fine. Fine, you snake.
"You win."
ii. Helix
Cort would look around the room as he spoke. "This is her old reading room," he said. "King's men have already been through it for anything important, but I doubt an old ledger would count." He would wave vaguely as he said his last word. "If she checked it out and happened to bring it here, it's probably still here. Somewhere."
"Thanks." For a cleric's room, it was less ostentatious than Helix would have expected. Cozy, even. But so far all of Angelica's chambers had been like that, and Cort had been kind enough to show him through all of them: the bedchamber, the office, even the washing room. Helix wondered if it said something about the woman, that she had declined the Church's opulence. Maybe she'd had a purer heart than most, or at least a less greedy one. Cort had told him that she was gone now, executed by the Church as a traitor—another fact that raised Helix's opinion of her, for whatever good it did her.
In any case, the ledger hadn't been in any of her rooms thus far. If it wasn't here, either, his last hope of finding something in Keswick that could lead to his dad would vanish.
"It's got a lot of books, at least," Cort went on. "That's a good sign, hopefully." He would step outside just after he cleared his throat. "I'll be right out here if you need me."
"M'sai," Helix said, and got to work.
He felt like an intruder in the royal palace, despite Cort's permission to be there. Every second he spent walking through the halls with the man, he would swear he could feel a thousand eyes on him. Lyseira and Harth and Syntal might revel in coming to the palace—they got invitations all the time, it sounded like—but he was a smith's son, a redheaded cripple from a backwater village no one had ever heard of, and he couldn't wait to get out of this place. It chafed.
While he was here, though, he would turn it upside down looking for some sign of his dad.
He started with the little tables and the furniture, just glancing around to see if Angelica had left it lying about, but all the books littered around the room had whimsical titles: A River's Breath, and The Merchant and the Mom.
Maybe it's disguised. Now that was a troubling thought. It would require him to check inside every book, a task which could take hours. He thought of Syntal, who still hadn't done anything to find her uncle despite knowing his plight for months, and gritted his teeth. If that's what it took, he'd do it—but he was going to start with the easy way.
He knelt at the shelf nearest the door, rifling through the spines. Plays and novels, almost all of them. Moving on to the second shelf he found a title that gave him a little smile: The Epic of Beh'lal.
I'll have to tell Angbar, he thought, and without warning, the churn bucked him.
He fell backward, hands scrabbling for purchase as prophecies bombarded him. He saw his daughter, and then his lover, both of them dissolving into his killer, his time in this palace, his time in Keldale.
I'm going to die. But he couldn't see the face of the man who stabbed him. I'm going to have a little girl. But he didn't know if it was really true; not all the visions were. His lifeline had proven that to him time and again. They were possibilities only, they had to be.
Dad, he thought, lurching through the memories of the future looking for his father's face. Where is he? Dad? Are you here? Do I find you? Nights alone and nights with lovers. The King looking at him with awe and then fear, the palace melting away to a battleground beneath a blazing red sky and Isaic saying, Well done.
No. None of it mattered. He clawed for the surface, grasping for the here-and-now, fighting to put everything else beneath him—and caught it, the barest glimpse of a bookshelf toppling in Angelica's reading room. He sunk his thoughts into it and hauled himself out of the morass, visions dragging at his heels.
Cort would burst back into the room, alarmed.
Helix winced and tried to pull himself out from under the bookshelf. "Sehk," he muttered.
Cort would help lift the bookshelf, setting it back where it belonged.
"Are you all right?" Cort said as he came in. The bookcase shifted, angling backward and relieving the pain. "Those things are heavy! What happened?"
"I tripped," Helix grunted. "Just . . . gotta be more careful."
"You a'fin?"
"I'm a'fin," Helix said, rubbing his leg. "Sorry—it was an accident."
The book was lying at his feet: Tenuor, Autumn 3169—Spring 3170.
"That's it!" he said. "Blesséd sehk, it's right there!" He hauled it into a chair and started flipping pages. The entries would be filled with abbreviations and cryptic notations, but he could make out just enough detail to keep looking.
He heard Cort put the books back on the shelf and leave him to it. He pored over the book until he found the entry that froze his finger on the page.
3170/3/13 — Smith, Kevric — Sh. 8 cr — Keldale — Tricke, Elgan — Unk.
His father had been sold in Keldale, and from there, he might have been shipped anywhere in the world.
The Church's share of the sale had been eight crowns.
iii. Melakai
Glora described a fallback hideout, a gutted house just off of Cleavdon Way, but she'd been in prison for weeks, and she didn't know for sure if it was still being used. He should probably have gone back to the palace anyway, recruited a few other Crownwardens and Kesprey to be on the safe side, but time was of the essence. He'd already wasted days watching Extivus, and the new place was less than a mile away. He could be there in minutes, but returning to the palace would cost him the rest of the day. Besides, based on the way this group had already run from Cort, his instincts told him they wouldn't be much of a threat.
He snagged a couple Blackboots from prison patrol—Blake and Denethus, reliable men if not the cream of the crop—and hurried toward the river.
The area had been one of the nicer parts of Broadside while the old Church was still in control: a place for merchants and clergy contacts who could afford the high rents. But it had been hit hard by the riots, most of its residents driven out or ki
lled, and the winter had come on before it could recover. Kai considered it one of the chief new threats to come out of the riots, in fact—it was too close to Royal district, with too much riff-raff, for comfort. He'd visited a number of times over the winter, making sure the residents saw that he had an eye on them, so he knew it well.
The Cleavdon house edged up to a narrow alley in what was otherwise a dead end. Every building back here had been torched or smashed; a burned-out temple graced the opposite side of the street, casting a long shadow over everything.
"Quiet and out of the way," he said as he dismounted. "It's where I'd want to hide, if I were him." He and his two men tethered their horses, and he started toward the house. "Now, I'm guessing the place is abandoned. We're just checking it over for clues. In a worst case scenario we might be looking at a few fighters, probably Trius's men. If it looks too ugly we'll back off, but my gut says it won't be a problem. Just stay quiet and follow my lead."
He led them up the steps to the front door, sagging off its hinges, and pressed carefully inside. What had once been a pleasant foyer now lay dark, its floor smeared with ashes. Cold clericlight spilled out from an open doorway on the far wall, and he heard the murmur of voices.
Kai pulled his sword. It was his normal one—he didn't like the looks he got when he took out the glowing one, so he'd left that at the palace. He put a finger to his lips and crept forward.
Trius stood in the middle of three former Blackboots, pointing at a map on a table.
The sight of him ignited a blind rage. "You sehking dog," Kai snarled. "You should've left while you could."
Trius's head snapped up, his eyes wide.
Then, from behind, came the dark invocations of a cleric. Kai threw a look back in time to see Blake and Denethus crumple, their weapons spilling to the floor. The silhouettes of two new figures stood in the front entry.
The panic in Trius's eyes passed as fast as it had come on. "No, old friend," he said. "You should've."
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