“I know what it meant to you,” Anton said, forcing the words out. “I know what the Order demands of you, and I know it’s not what you want, not really. But maybe that’s easier for you. Maybe the only way you can want something is if you don’t let yourself have it.”
Jude swallowed roughly and Anton felt like the biggest fool in the world because for a moment he thought Jude would lean in and kiss him again.
Instead, Jude dropped his arm and turned away, leaving Anton with his back against the wall, breathing hard.
They docked in Lukivsk a few hours later. The small harbor was five miles from Anton’s old home. They hiked through midmorning, Anton’s breath coming out in puffs of fog. The chill settled into his bones like dread. He was about to face the past he’d been trying to run from for over six years.
Shame welled up inside Anton as they reached his home. The hut looked so much smaller than he remembered, leaning between two tall pines. It looked like it had been abandoned for years. And maybe it had. The last time Anton had set foot here was over six years ago. His brother Illya had left not long after that.
Father’s probably drunk himself to death, Illya had said. And as for our dear old grandmother . . . well, if you can survive on spite alone, I imagine she’s right where we left her.
He was about to find out if that was true. He paused at the bottom of the path, barely visible through layers of mud and weeds, and looked up at that dark, cramped space where he had spent so many nights huddling in fear, wishing he were anywhere, anywhere else.
The Paladin Guard stood behind him. He could feel Jude at his side. Even if he would barely look at him, Anton knew with more certainty than he’d ever known anything that Jude would keep him from harm.
Penrose fell to her knees and let out a sound. Anton started toward her, fear flooding his veins, wondering if somehow his grandmother had—
But a hand held him back. He glanced behind him, where Petrossian had a hand clamped over his wrist.
“This is a holy place,” he told Anton. “The birthplace of the Last Prophet.”
Something like anger roiled in Anton’s chest. This place wasn’t holy. It was a nightmare. One that he’d ripped himself from at the tender age of eleven, throwing himself to the mercy of the streets.
“Doesn’t feel holy to me,” Anton replied, shaking Petrossian’s hand off.
Ahead of them, Penrose got to her feet. The other Paladin joined her at the top of the path. All except Jude. He hung back, watching Anton with wary eyes.
“What?” Anton demanded.
Jude averted his gaze. “You told me what happened here, remember? I just want to make sure you’ll be all right.”
Anton knew exactly how to read Jude, and the last few weeks had only made him better at it. He’d forgotten, however, that Jude knew how to read him right back. Even after their fight, even when they were both angry with each other, Jude was worried. It made him want to press himself into Jude’s arms.
“I’ll let you know if I start feeling like drowning myself in the lake.”
Jude frowned and Anton suddenly couldn’t stand to look at him anymore.
“Let’s just go,” he said, blustering ahead and leaving Jude to choose either to follow or get left behind.
“It’s locked,” Penrose informed him when he joined the rest of the Guard at the door. “No answer, either. We’ll have to break it down.”
Anton shook his head, stepping up to the door. He and Illya had gotten very good at unlatching the door from the outside so that they could let themselves back in when their grandmother locked them out. He braced one hand against the doorjamb, and with the other, twisted the knob, shoving the door up and back. It creaked open.
The sight of the drab, musty living room filled Anton with loathing and familiar dread. The same ratty gray carpet blanketed the scratched floors where he and Illya used to play card games. The same rotting wooden chairs slouched in front of the soot-covered hearth where they’d warmed their frostbitten toes in the winter. Moth-eaten drapes framed a grubby window that looked out onto the lake where Anton had almost drowned.
“Who are you?” a rasping voice demanded. “What are you doing in my house?”
Anton swung his gaze to the corner of the room where a figure stood.
“My . . . boy,” the figure croaked. She let loose a hacking cough that went on for almost a full minute. “My sweet Anton. Is that really you?”
Anton couldn’t move. He felt the expectant gazes of the Paladin. Jude shifted closer to his side. Anton stared at his grandmother. She looked crumpled and gaunt, far older than she had six years ago. She was bent over a gnarled cane, her legs much too frail and skinny to hold her up on their own.
“Are you Uliana, descendant of Vasili?” Jude asked.
His grandmother’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s asking?”
“Madame,” Penrose said. “We are the Paladin Guard of the Order of the Last Light.”
“Servants of the blasphemous Prophets,” Anton’s grandmother spat. “What are you doing with my Anton?”
Penrose glanced at Anton and then back to his grandmother. “We’re in search of something. Perhaps you know where it is.”
“Like I would give anything away to the servants of Vasili’s greatest enemies!” his grandmother snarled.
“Babiya,” Anton said, using the name he’d once called her. “These are my friends. Please, listen to them.”
Her features softened and she shuffled closer to Anton. “My darling boy. I knew you’d come back to fulfill the destiny left to you by Vasili. I knew you wouldn’t abandon me like that ungrateful, worthless brother of yours.”
Anton had to force himself to step toward her, leaving the warmth of Jude’s side. “That’s right. I’m here to fulfill my destiny. But I need your help.”
She hobbled to him, raising her dry, papery hands to touch his face. “At last,” she crooned. “At last, at last.”
Anton watched her features contort with ecstasy. Her eyes seemed too big for their sockets. He wondered how he had ever been afraid of her. She was old, and weak, and completely out of her mind.
“We need your help,” Anton said again. “Is there anything you have of Vasili’s?”
“Vasili?” his grandmother repeated. “Yes. Yes. Let me show you.” She turned away and started shuffling to a corner of the room, where the books were kept. She plucked one from the shelf, shook off the dust, and began paging through it.
Anton went to her, gesturing at Jude to stay put.
“Here,” she said, thrusting the opened book at him.
“His writings?” Anton asked. He looked down. “I thought these were all in Kerameikos.”
“No,” his grandmother replied with some disdain. “I salvaged some of them from the Prophets’ minions. The most important ones. I had planned to give them to you when you were older. So that you would see.”
“See what?”
She tapped the page. Anton squinted down at it.
I cannot see the future as the Prophets do, but now I have finally done what no one save for them has. I have seen into the past. Seen the legends of old with my own eyes.
“Vasili scried into the past?” Anton asked. “That’s not possible, is it?”
“I suppose . . . theoretically, it could be,” Penrose said. “But it would take power, more than just the normal power of the Grace of Sight.”
“You mean like the power of a Relic?” Anton asked.
Penrose didn’t answer.
“What did he see?” Jude asked.
Anton looked down at the book. “‘I search for the truth of where they began,’” Anton read aloud. “‘How the holy Sight was first bestowed on them.’ He wanted to know how the Prophets got their abilities. I think because he wanted them for himself.”
“He did,” his grandmother said. “But he found so much more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“He saw the beginnings of it all,” his grandmothe
r replied. Her eyes were glazed over, rapturous, as though she, like Vasili, could peer into the past. “He spoke to the one who created us all.”
Anton remembered with a start the passage he’d read in the Kerameikos archives. He wants to speak to me.
This was what Vasili had done. By using the Relic of Sight to speak with the ancient god, he had broken the Four-Petal Seal.
“The ancient divinity spoke to him from the past,” his grandmother went on. “He told him what was to come. And Vasili saw what the Prophets did to him. How they betrayed him and destroyed him.”
“Enough!” Penrose cried. “Enough of these mad ramblings.”
His grandmother swung around to fix Penrose with a stare. “Mad ramblings? Oh, yes, that is what they said about Vasili, too. That he was a madman, a raving king. And look where it got them.”
“Babiya,” Anton said. “Can you tell us where the Relic is? It would be a stone. Maybe Vasili used it to scry. Where is it?”
“Do you know how Vasili died?” she asked.
Anton nodded, but his grandmother pressed on anyway.
“He drowned himself,” she said. “Walked into the lake, his wrists and ankles weighed down with stones.”
Anton stood at the edge of the lake, watching the water slowly lap up toward his feet. Jude hovered a few paces away.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Jude asked.
“The Relic is somewhere in this lake,” Anton replied. “We can’t just dive down and search every stone. This is the only way to figure out where it is.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I know.”
Jude drew toward him, as if he wanted to embrace him, but then thought better of it and pulled back. “I’ll be right here the whole time.”
Anton felt the chill of the space between them, colder than the water at his ankles as he slowly waded in. He was already trembling. This was the place where he’d first had his vision, though his mind had pushed it down and sealed itself off from the trauma.
But now that he was back here, the false memory fell away and Anton remembered the cold bite of snow on his skin and that force, pulling him forward and forward into the lake.
“Anton?”
Jude’s voice sounded hazy and indistinct behind him. Anton closed his eyes. He could feel the dark water of the lake pulling him down. He felt it press on his lungs.
“Anton!”
Jude’s voice was much closer now, and there were hands on his shoulders, shaking him. Anton leaned into his warmth on instinct, wrapping one arm under Jude’s. Jude just stood there, frozen.
Anton closed his eyes and fought the urge to cry. He pulled away from Jude.
“I’m fine,” he said. He didn’t look at Jude’s face. “Sorry. I’m fine. I can do this.”
He turned back to the lake. Taking a deep breath, he raised the smooth stone in his hand. It wasn’t a real scrying stone, just one Jude had found at the lakeshore, but he figured it would work well enough. Closing his eyes, he dropped it into the water.
He felt the ripples it created and followed them out to each edge of the lake, reaching out with his Grace. He focused not on a name, not on the esha unique to a single person, but on his own Grace, letting it pull him through the sacred energy of the world to its origin. He felt it pulsing like a heart, warm and beating below the water.
He opened his eyes. He could feel the faint pulse of the Relic, drawing him toward the center of the lake. Jude was right beside him again, his hand on Anton’s back. Anton realized he was shaking.
“Did you find it?” Jude asked softly.
Anton nodded, and Jude signaled to the rest of the Guard. They stood around a small watercraft, a boat that had once belonged to Anton’s father. They pushed it down the shore and it slid into the water. When they pulled up beside Anton and Jude, Petrossian and Osei held out their hands. Anton took Petrossian’s, hoisting himself inside the boat.
“This way,” Anton said, pointing toward where the Relic pulsed below the water. Jude lifted a paddle and threaded it through the water, angling the boat toward the Relic.
“Here,” Anton said, when they reached the right spot on the lake. He could feel the Relic, pulsing stronger than ever.
Jude put down the paddle and shrugged out of his cloak. He set the Pinnacle Blade down and peeled off his shirt. With one last glance at Anton, he dove into the water.
Anton leaned over the edge of the boat and watched as the water rippled over Jude and then settled. He could feel Jude’s Grace below the surface. The seconds ticked by excruciatingly slow.
And then Anton felt something tug from below. Like a dark, clawed shadow, taking hold of Jude and dragging him to the bottom of the lake.
The Relic. It had pulled Anton down all those years ago, and now it was going to trap Jude.
Without pausing to consider, Anton dove into the water. The cold of it bit into his skin. He gritted his teeth and pressed on, cutting through the water toward where he could feel Jude’s Grace. The light at the surface of the lake faded as Anton kicked toward darkness.
He saw the bubbles first. Little pockets of air rising through the water. And then he saw Jude, floating in the blackness, his eyes closed and his face still.
Anton’s heart stuttered in his chest at the sight, and he kicked with all his strength, propelling himself toward him. He looped his arms around Jude, pulling him back into Anton’s chest, the panic overtaken by cold, deliberate calm. He had to get Jude to safety. It was the only thing that mattered. He looked up at the wavering light at the surface of the lake and kicked toward it.
Jude was lifeless in his arms as Anton dragged him toward the surface. At last, they burst out of the water. They bobbed there for a moment, Anton sucking in air and trying desperately to keep Jude afloat. He looked around, spotted the boat, and then dragged Jude toward it.
He felt someone grab hold of Jude, lifting his limp body into the boat.
Anton scrambled up after him, kneeling over him and cradling his face between his hands.
“Wake up, wake up,” Anton pleaded, shaking him. “Please, Jude. Please!”
Someone was kneeling on Jude’s other side. Anton glanced over and saw it was Osei, who had helped get Jude back into the boat. The other Paladin, he noted, were in the water around them. Evidently they’d all dived in when Anton had gone after Jude.
Anton didn’t care. He leaned over Jude, pressing his cheek against his bare chest.
You can’t do this to me, Anton thought furiously. You can’t leave me. He could feel Jude’s heart, beating faintly under his cheek. He wasn’t sure when or how it had come to this, but Anton knew with frightening certainty that the idea of living without the swordsman was unfathomable.
Jude seized under Anton’s hands, a wet gasp bursting from his chest. Anton flung himself backward, keeping his hands on Jude’s arms as he turned to the side and coughed water onto the deck. Jude sucked in a breath and coughed even more, his whole body shuddering. Anton ran his hand through Jude’s wet hair. At last, the coughing subsided, and Jude closed his eyes, leaning his head on its side against the floor of the boat.
“I got it,” he said weakly.
“What?” Anton asked, still fussing over him.
Jude didn’t answer, just uncurled one of his fists. A smooth, olivesized stone, as black as onyx, slipped from it. It hung off a rusted silver chain, and there was a strange, shimmering glow around it. In his desperation to get to Jude, Anton hadn’t spared the Relic a thought.
“Let’s see it,” Penrose said when they reached the shore.
Jude held out the Relic in his palm. Anton’s hand shook as he reached for it. He dragged his gaze up to Jude’s face, and Jude’s eyes flickered up to meet it. They both held there for a moment.
This was it. The Relic of Sight, the thing that had caused Anton to have his vision here so many years ago. The catalyst that had started it all.
Anton squeezed his eyes shut and curled his
fingers around the stone. And then he was falling, falling like he had from the top of the lighthouse, and when he landed it was in a familiar place.
A city of ruins. A red sky. A shadow over the sun. A colossal gate carved into the red canyon walls. Its shadow loomed over the maze of crumbling ruins. In the center stood one sagging wall of a broken tower. Beside it, Beru lay as still as a corpse, her eyes closed. Smoke twisted around her. He saw it billowing off four objects—a sword, a stone. A crown of gold. And a chalice.
Bright light, pale and cold like Godfire, streamed into Beru.
Flashes of destruction assaulted him. The falling of the Six Prophetic Cities.
And now he knew what would destroy them. Or rather who.
39
HASSAN
HASSAN STARED AT THE PASSAGE DOORWAY, UNCERTAINTY LURCHING IN HIS gut. Was he really going to do this? Lie to everyone he trusted? Lie to Khepri?
He would if it could set Nazirah free. He’d done it before.
The passage door creaked open, and Hassan stepped out. At first, no one seemed to notice him. Then he heard the smack of something hitting the ground, and saw a soldier had dropped a stack of books and was staring at him. Along with everyone else in the room.
“Uh,” Hassan stuttered. “Hello. I’m back.”
No one moved for a moment. And then Hassan saw Chike jab his brother in the gut. Sefu ran off, and Hassan realized with a sinking heart that he’d gone to get Khepri. She appeared beside him a moment later and froze in the entryway. Hassan felt frozen, too.
And then something snapped, and Khepri was marching toward him, her mouth set and her eyes hard, and Hassan didn’t know whether she was about to punch him or kiss him. She just stood there, staring at him.
“Are you all right?” she asked after a long moment.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m fine.”
She nodded. “Good. That’s—good.”
She clearly didn’t know what to say to him any more than he knew what to say to her. Their argument seemed to hang between them like a shadow.
As the Shadow Rises: Book Two of The Age of Darkness Page 30