There Will Come a Darkness

by Katy Rose Pool

  He looked down at the blade in his hand, overcome by the urge to plunge it straight into the initiate’s heart. As if he could make him pay with blood for all the pain these people, and their leader, had caused his home.

  But before he could act, an attack from behind knocked him forward. The knife clattered to the ground, and the world became a dizzying jumble as Hassan crashed onto the temple steps. He threw his arms up to protect himself as the other Witnesses advanced, brandishing their weapons.

  But the blows never came. Hassan heard a sharp grunt and the sound of three bodies hitting the marble steps.

  When he looked up, he saw only light.

  On the steps, in the midst of three sprawled Witnesses, stood a girl. She was unmistakably Herati, shorter than Hassan but muscular, with smooth dark brown skin and thick black hair swept into a bun. The sides were cropped close to her head, in the style of Herati Legionnaires. The blinding light, he saw now, had been the reflection of the afternoon sun on the curved sword she held in her hands.

  Two other Herati swordsmen flanked her, their eyes narrowed at the Witnesses, who quickly retreated.

  “Get out of here now,” she said to the Witnesses on the steps. Her voice was low and commanding. “If you set foot at this temple again, it will be the last place you ever go.”

  The Witnesses, who had seemed plenty bold when faced with an acolyte and unarmed refugees, were not as keen to face down Graced Herati Legionnaires with blades in their hands. They scattered down the temple stairs, looking over their shoulders as they fled.

  Only the bearded Witness remained behind. He scraped himself off the steps. “The Reckoning is coming for you all!” he raged at the crowd as he turned to follow the others away from the temple.

  “You scared them off,” one of the other swordsmen said to the girl.

  She shook her head. “They’ll be back, just like rats. But we’ll be ready for them.”

  “Oh, look,” the other swordsman said, pointing down the steps of the temple. “The Sentry’s here. Just in time to miss all the action.”

  Hassan turned to see the familiar light blue uniforms of the city Sentry as they marched through the dispersing crowd. In the time of the Prophets, the city and the Temple of Pallas had been protected by the Paladin of the Order of the Last Light—the Graced soldiers who served the Prophets. But when the Prophets disappeared, so had the Order, and now the city’s protection fell to the Sentry, a cobbled-together force of Graceless mercenaries and hired swords.

  “Are you all right?” the Herati girl asked.

  It took Hassan a moment to realize the question was directed at him. He turned back toward the girl and then followed her gaze down to his arm. It was a mess of drying blood.

  “It’s just a scratch,” he replied. His anger had kept the pain at bay, but looking at the wound made him feel suddenly queasy. The thrum of his earlier rage had dissipated to a low simmer. He felt a headache coming on.

  “That was very stupid what you did,” she said. In one fluid motion, she sheathed the curved blade at her belt. “Stupid, but brave.”

  Hassan’s stomach flipped.

  “I haven’t seen you around the camps before,” she said, tilting her head.

  “I’m not a refugee,” he blurted. “I’m a student here.”

  “A student,” the girl repeated. “The Akademos is pretty far from here, isn’t it?”

  Hassan was saved from having to say more when the old acolyte appeared beside him.

  “Emir!” the girl said. “You aren’t hurt, are you?”

  The acolyte waved her off. “No, no, I’m perfectly all right, Khepri. No need to fret.” He turned to Hassan. “I believe you dropped something.” He held out his hand.

  “My compass!” Hassan reached for it.

  “I couldn’t help but notice it has a peculiar bearing,” Emir said. “It points to the lighthouse of Nazirah, doesn’t it?”

  Hassan nodded slowly. The lighthouse was the symbol of Nazirah the Wise, the Prophet for whom Herat’s capital was named, and whose prophecy had led to its founding.

  Hassan’s father had given the compass to him on the day he turned sixteen. He’d said he knew Hassan would keep the compass safe and, when the time came, he knew he’d keep the kingdom safe, too. Before that moment, Hassan had given up hope of succeeding his father as King of Herat.

  “I can’t,” Hassan had choked out to his father. “I’m not—I don’t have a Grace. Even if the scholars say there’s still time for it to manifest, you and I both know it’s too late.”

  His father had traced the compass’s etched lighthouse with his thumb. “When the Prophet Nazirah founded this city, she saw a vision of this lighthouse, a beacon to learning and reason. She saw that as long as the lighthouse of Nazirah stood, the Seif line would rule the Kingdom of Herat. Your Grace could manifest tomorrow. Or never,” he’d said. “But Grace or no Grace, you are my son. The heir to the Seif line. Should you ever lose faith in yourself, this compass will guide you back to it.”

  With his father’s words echoing in his head, Hassan tucked the compass away and met the acolyte’s curious gaze. Was that simple interest in his eyes, or something more knowing? Had he recognized Hassan?

  “Nazirah?” the Herati girl said. “Are you from there?”

  “It’s my father’s,” he replied. It wasn’t a lie. “He was born there.”

  Thinking of his father made Hassan’s chest feel heavy. What would he say if he could see how Hassan had reacted today? Shame flooded him at how easily he had let his anger take over.

  “I—I should go.”

  “You should see a healer,” the Herati girl said. “There are some in the camps. I’m sure they would be glad to look at that arm for you, especially if they knew how you—”

  “No,” Hassan broke in. “Thank you. That’s very kind, but I need to be getting back now.”

  Afternoon was cooling into evening, and Hassan knew he had less than an hour before his aunt’s servants would call him to supper and realize he wasn’t in his quarters. He needed time to get back and hide his wound.

  “Well,” the acolyte said warmly. “Perhaps you’ll come again.”

  “Yes,” Hassan said, his eyes on the Herati girl. “I mean, I’ll try.”

  He hurried away from the temple and back to the Sacred Road. But as he reached the gate, he turned and looked up at the agora and the makeshift camps nestled beneath the Temple of Pallas. Behind him, the sun was sinking down below the shimmering turquoise sea, and Hassan could see the first campfires catch light, flickering to life, sending smoke into the sky like prayers.

  3

  ANTON

  Something had happened at Thalassa Gardens.

  There were always more Sentry in the streets once Anton passed through the gates that separated the Low City from the High City. But today, they were more than just noticeable. Dozens of Sentry dressed in pale blue uniforms emblazoned with a white olive tree clustered around the sides of the tavernas and public baths that lined Elea Square. An entire squad of them stood outside Thalassa, swords at their sides.

  Anton nudged his way past whispering shopkeepers and other curious onlookers to where he could see a small knot of people wearing the same olive-green uniform he had on.

  “Finally, you’re here!” a cheerful voice crooned, seizing Anton’s wrist and tugging him through the crowd toward the outer wall of Thalassa Gardens. “You picked a terrible day to come late to work.”

  “’Lo, Cosima,” Anton said, blinking at his fellow server. “What’s going on?”

  Cosima took a drag of her cigarillo and blew a thick stream of valerian smoke directly into his face, her pale brown eyes lighting up. “There’s been a murder.”

  “What—here?” Anton asked. “A guest?”

  Cosima nodded, flicking ash from her cigarillo. “A priest. Armando Curio.”

  “Who?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course. I forget you’re not from here. Curio is one of the
priests of the Temple of Pallas—but he’s got a different reputation around here.”

  Thalassa Gardens was no stranger to members of the priest class with certain reputations. Since the city’s founding, gambling halls, slyhouses, and other impious activities had been restricted to the Low City, where Anton lived. The High City, where the priests and the higher classes lived, was meant to be a paragon of virtue and piety. Maybe once it had been. But now, the priest class seemed only interested in enriching themselves, indulging in their own vices and luxuries in places like Thalassa Gardens—places where those indulgences lurked beneath a veneer of respectability.

  Cosima took another drag off her cigarillo. “I guess it’s no surprise why he was chosen.”

  Anton glanced at her sharply. “What do you mean, ‘chosen’?”

  “They’re saying,” she drawled in the offhand tone she used when she wanted him to hang on to her every word, “that it was the Pale Hand who killed him.”

  “Who’s saying?”

  Cosima waved a hand vaguely through the smoke. “Stefanos says he saw them bring out the body. Pale handprint around the throat, just like the victims in Tarsepolis.”

  “Stefanos is an idiot,” Anton said automatically. But his skin prickled. This was the first Anton had heard of the Pale Hand in Pallas Athos, but there had been whispers of mysterious deaths, marked by a single pale handprint, when he’d lived near Tarsepolis. He’d heard there were similar rumors in Charis, reaching back almost five years.

  They all said the same thing—that the Pale Hand killed only those who deserved it.

  “Why do you think she chose him?” Anton asked. “What did he do?”

  “The usual,” Cosima replied.

  Meaning looting riches from the city’s temples to throw lavish gatherings where the priests could eat and drink and satisfy themselves with whatever men and women caught their eye.

  “And worse,” she went on. “Curio had the Grace of Mind, and everyone said he was talented at alchemy. Except he wasn’t making remedies or luck tinctures. The rumors say Curio’s specialty was a draught that makes you docile and obedient. They say he used to go down into the Low City, find boys and girls there and tell them they’d been chosen to serve the temple. He’d drug them with the stuff and, well…”

  Anton’s stomach clenched. He knew the kinds of terrible things powerful men did to vulnerable people.

  “What are you two whispering about?”

  Anton turned to find none other than Stefanos sidling up to them. Simpering and self-important, Stefanos was a personal attendant at Thalassa whose guests seemed to like him as much as the rest of the staff detested him. He was constantly underfoot in the kitchens, demanding to taste the food to make sure it was up to scratch and bragging loudly about which priest or rich merchant he was attending that night. His sole redeeming quality was his penchant for losing large sums of money to Anton at the staff’s after-hours canbarra game.

  It didn’t surprise Anton that Stefanos was taking this murder as an opportunity to make himself seem important.

  Still, he was curious. “Cosima said you saw the body.”

  Stefanos glanced at Anton, his full lips stretched into a smirk. “That so?”

  “Well?” Anton asked, raising his eyebrows. “Did you?”

  Stefanos slung his arm around Anton’s shoulders. “Look, I’ve seen a lot of messed-up stuff in my life. But that? In there? That was by far the most Tarseis-cursed thing I’ve ever seen. The guy didn’t have a scratch on him. Just a touch, and he was—” He mimed getting his throat cut. “Makes you think—maybe it’s time we open our eyes to how dangerous the Graced really are.”

  Anton shivered, despite himself.

  “You’re an idiot,” Cosima said to Stefanos, echoing Anton’s earlier sentiment.

  Stefanos turned to her with a sneer. “You’d understand if you’d seen it.”

  “You sound like you’re ready to shave your head like the rest of those hooded fanatics,” Cosima said, blowing out another thread of smoke.

  “The Prophets aren’t here to curb the Graced anymore,” Stefanos said. “We’ve seen the kinds of things the priests do here, just because they’re Graced and they think that makes them better than us. And now we’ve got people like this Pale Hand running around, killing whoever they want with their unnatural powers.”

  “Wait, so are you saying that Curio deserved it, or that the Pale Hand should be stopped?” Cosima asked pointedly.

  Stefanos’s eyes flashed. “I’m saying that maybe the Witnesses are right. Maybe it’s time the world finally was rid of the Graced.”

  Anton’s throat felt suddenly tight. Stefanos was irritating, but Anton had never been frightened of him before. But now, Stefanos’s dark expression chilled him. He didn’t—couldn’t—know that Anton was one of the very people he and the Witnesses wanted to see wiped away from the world. That like the priests of Pallas Athos and the Pale Hand, Anton was Graced.

  Cosima punched Stefanos on the shoulder.

  Stefanos jerked back, clutching at his arm. “Ow! What was that for?”

  “To get you to stop running your stupid mouth,” Cosima replied. “What’s next? Are you gonna go burn down a shrine to prove your devotion to the Hierophant? They say anyone who joins the Witnesses has to commit an act of violence against the Graced.”

  “They’re standing up to the Graced,” Stefanos said. “Someone has to.”

  “Oh, really?” Cosima shot back. “And what about what Vasia told us last week at the canbarra game? About the man who butchered his own Graced children in the middle of the night to prove himself to the Witnesses. Or do you think those kids deserved that, since they were Graced?”

  “That’s just a rumor,” Stefanos sneered. “That didn’t really happen.”

  “Come on,” Cosima said scathingly. “This Hierophant has got these people tattooing burning eyes onto their skin and convincing them that the Graced are corrupting the world. You really think something like that is beyond these zealots?”

  “Whatever,” Stefanos said. With a last sneer, he stomped off to regale the next group of Thalassa workers with his story. Cosima glanced at Anton as Stefanos retreated, worry flashing across her sharp features.

  Anton put on a bland smile. “That guy really is an idiot.”

  “It figures he’d eat up all that crap the Witnesses preach,” Cosima said, tossing the stub of her cigarillo onto the ground. “They’re exactly like him—making up stupid horseshit to get attention. Falling all over themselves to gain the favor of whoever claims to have power.”

  “Yeah,” Anton said, tacking on a laugh. It rang hollow to his ears, but Cosima didn’t seem to notice.

  “Come on,” she said, playfully swatting at his head. “Let’s go inside before we get yelled at. Or I get yelled at. Somehow you never do.”

  Anton ducked under her hand. “That’s because everyone likes me.”

  “Can’t imagine why.”

  The cheerful clank and clatter of dinner preparations enveloped them as they made their way through the kitchen to the servers’ basins to wash up. Anton turned on the copper tap, letting warm water fill the bottom of the basin as he tried to clear his mind of the Pale Hand and the Witnesses. They had nothing to do with him. No one in this city even knew he was Graced. There was no reason that had to change.

  “Oh, Anton!” a voice at his elbow piped brightly. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Oh, were you?” Cosima said coyly.

  Darius’s round cheeks immediately flushed pink. The newest and youngest of the Thalassa servers, Darius had latched onto Anton almost immediately. Which Anton wouldn’t have minded at all if it weren’t for the fact that Darius seemed to become unaccountably terrible at his job when Anton was around. Hardly a day went by without Darius dropping a tray or crashing into a table in Anton’s presence.

  “I—I mean, because there’s a guest,” Darius stammered, avoiding Anton’s eyes. “Who’s asking for you.”r />
  “A guest?” Cosima crowed in delight. “Asking for Anton? What kind of guest?”

  Aside from the occasional regulars who came in seeking something a little more than just dinner, no one had ever come to see Anton at Thalassa. This was unending disappointment to Cosima, who had never met another person’s business she didn’t want to stick her nose into.

  “Um,” Darius said, biting the edge of his lower lip. “A woman? She looked rich?”

  “Of course she’s rich,” Cosima said dismissively. “What did she want?”

  “I don’t know?” Darius eyed Anton like he suspected he had the answer.

  Anton looked down at the suds wreathed around his fingers. “Thank you, Darius.” He turned and gave him his most charming smile. “You’d better get going. Don’t let Arctus yell at you on my account.”

  Darius nodded, cheeks growing pinker, and scurried off, bumping into a tray of honey-drenched desserts on his retreat.

  Anton reached to dry his hands, but Cosima snatched the towel before he could get it, leering. “Who’s this guest, huh? You holding out on me? Engaging in some after-hours entrepreneurship?”

  “Respectable boy like me?” Anton said, all wide-eyed innocence, plucking the towel from Cosima’s hands.

  “Come on, you’re not going to tell me anything?”

  He let an easy grin slip over his face as he tossed the towel into the basket. “I thought you found my air of mystery charming.”

  “You’ve mistaken me for Darius,” Cosima snorted. “That poor besotted child.”

  Anton winked as he slid past her. “I’ll see you at the canbarra game tonight.”

  Before she could answer, he ducked back through the kitchen, dodging a server with a tray piled with baskets of flatbread, and made his way through the doors. Incandescent lights glowed above the courtyard crowded with tables and chairs. Footbridges and tiled walkways crisscrossed over the tiered reflecting pools, shaded by broad-leafed trees and canopies of soft pink and gold cloth.