Hassan followed Penrose’s gaze. In the distance, two people barreled toward them. “Is that Yarik and Annuka?”
They were calling out as they ran, but still too far away for Hassan to make out their words.
“What are they saying?”
He glanced at Penrose, but it was Osei who replied in a heavy tone. “They’re saying, turn back.”
Hassan’s stomach dropped. He could hear them now, their shouts growing louder in the street. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing good,” Khepri said darkly. Her hand went to the hilt of the curved blade at her belt. Hassan saw that Osei and Penrose had their hands on their swords, too.
Annuka and Yarik slowed their pace as they approached.
“The Witnesses,” Annuka said, out of breath. “They’re at the temple.”
Khepri cursed. “I knew they’d be back. How many this time?”
Yarik shook his head. “More than we even thought there were in this city. Two, three hundred, maybe.”
Hassan went cold, his eyes flickering to the outline of the Temple of Pallas in the distance.
“They came with torches,” Annuka added. “They say they’re going to burn down the temple. There are people trapped inside.”
Rage built in Hassan’s throat.
“All right,” Khepri said briskly. “Penrose, take the prince back to the villa. The four of us will continue on to the agora.”
“No,” Hassan said at once. “I’m not going back.”
Penrose stepped toward him. “She’s right.”
A curl of smoke spiraled into the twilit sky, sending a jolt of panic through Hassan. “I’m not going to hide from them. I’m not going to leave while the rest of you—”
“We don’t have time to argue,” Khepri cut in. “Don’t let him out of your sight. Osei, let’s go.”
They took off running.
“Khepri!” Hassan lunged after them, but Penrose seized him by the arm before he could get far.
He tried to wrench himself from her grip, but he was no match for her Graced strength. “I have to do something!”
“What you’ll do is stay safe,” she replied. “Trust in the people you’ve chosen to fight for you.”
Hassan understood the wisdom of her words, but his heart railed against them. The memory of the coup bubbled to the surface of his thoughts like flame-blistered skin. After everything, he was as helpless now as he’d been then. Twice, the Witnesses had come for his people, and twice, he had hidden, useless, as others fought for their lives.
He pulled harder against Penrose’s grip.
“Your Grace!” she exclaimed as he twisted away from her furiously.
“Let me go! I am not going to stay here while the others risk their lives.”
“You putting yourself in danger is the last thing any of us need!” Penrose replied. She was beginning to sound winded.
Hassan stopped pulling and then slammed into her sideways as hard as he could. She caught him with a grunt.
“I’m not going to give up,” he warned her. “And you’re going to have to hurt me if you want to stop me.”
He could feel her hesitation.
“Penrose,” he said. “Please.”
“Behezda’s mercy,” she muttered. “All right. But you don’t leave my side, understand?”
“I won’t,” he promised.
“And if I say run, you run. No second-guessing.”
Hassan nodded.
“Then let’s go,” Penrose said.
They took off, Penrose keeping pace with him along the curve of the street, through the Sacred Gate.
Ahead, Hassan could hear angry, fearful voices crying out, indistinguishable from one another.
When they reached the edge of the agora, he came to a sudden stop. A sea of black and gold robed figures stood on the temple steps. Smoke poured from their torches, obscuring the crowd around them.
The scene looked almost like the one in Hassan’s vision. Except they were in Pallas Athos, not Nazirah, and their torches did not burn with the pale flame of Godfire, but blazed bright orange against the night sky.
Between the crowd and the Witnesses, three dozen Herati soldiers stood with their curved blades held at the ready. At the front was their leader, her energy poised and palpable even from a distance. Khepri.
Before Penrose could stop him, Hassan began pushing his way through the crowd.
“Prince Hassan!”
He ignored her. One of the Witnesses was shouting at the others on the steps. As he shoved through the crowd, Hassan began to make out his words.
“Do not let them make you afraid!” the Witness cried. “They are the ones who should fear us! We will make them tremble! The Immaculate One will know of our courage here today, and he will reward us in the Reckoning to come.”
Hassan stepped into the space between them and the soldiers. “Leave this temple in peace,” he called out.
Khepri turned toward the sound of his voice. “Prince Hassan, no!”
He strode up the temple steps.
“Your Grace!” Penrose emerged behind him. “Get back!”
The other members of the Paladin Guard advanced as well. Hassan kept his eyes on the Witnesses.
“Lay down your weapons and leave this temple in peace.”
The Witnesses’ leader had his attention focused on Hassan now. “We will not be commanded by an abomination!”
The other Witnesses shouted their agreement.
Hassan did not slow. “I am the Last Prophet,” he called out, mounting the steps. “I have seen what lies ahead on the path you walk. I have seen the flames of your Reckoning go out. Lay down your weapons.”
The shouts of the Witnesses and the crowd behind him drowned out his voice, but the words spilled forth anyway. As if by the very force of them he could drive the Witnesses back. As if the fact of his identity was enough to bring them to heel. This was what he had come to the temple to say, and he said it now in front of the very people who sought to stop him.
A crash shattered through the air. One of the Witnesses had knocked over the marble font of consecrating oil at the temple threshold. The oil spilled out onto the portico.
“No!” Hassan lunged, realizing what was about to happen.
Three Witnesses lowered their torches to the spilled oil.
Someone seized Hassan’s arm, throwing him back. The Guard and Khepri launched themselves at the Witnesses, the fragile standoff now shattered.
Hassan landed hard on the temple steps. A frantic melee raged above him. The Guard was a whirl of silver and blue, fending off the Witnesses. The temple threshold rippled into flame.
Hassan staggered to his feet and turned. “Get back!” he hollered at the crowd below. “Stay back!”
Someone collided with him. He caught himself against a stone pillar and turned to his attacker. It was one of the Witnesses, his robes smeared with blood and soot. Hassan realized he’d seen his face before. This was the same pale, round-faced youth whom he’d confronted on the steps of the temple when Hassan had first arrived in Pallas Athos.
“You,” the Witness rasped, bracing himself against the side of the archway. Blood dripped from a fresh wound in his side. His eyes were wide and wild as his lips moved rapidly in some incoherent catechism.
Silver flashed toward Hassan. He threw his arm over his face. The Witness’s knife ripped through his palm.
Pain tore through Hassan’s hand. His legs buckled beneath him. Catching himself in a half crouch, he looked up, ready for the next blow.
“Prince Hassan!”
He turned toward the sound of Khepri’s voice. Before he could so much as blink, she brought her blade down on the wounded Witness.
The temple, the crowd, and the flames swirled and dipped around him. Hassan closed his eyes to steady himself, but the image of the Witness, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, remained like a stain. The world spun again, white and green and blood red.
Then nothing
but black.
39
EPHYRA
“They’re not here,” Illya said.
Ephyra glared. Did Illya think she didn’t have eyes?
She ignored him, shouldering her way into the alcove. Dread twisted her stomach at the sight of the buckled-in table in the center of the room.
“I’m guessing that’s new,” Illya said. “Whose handiwork do you think this is?”
Ephyra shook her head. “I don’t know.” But she had a prickling suspicion.
Maybe Beru had left before Hector had gotten here. Or maybe the broken table was evidence of something more sinister.
“No blood,” Illya mused, pacing a half circle around the room. “That’s probably good.”
It wasn’t good. None of this was good. Beru was gone, and Ephyra had no idea where she was. No idea where Hector was. No idea what Hector would do to her if he found out what she really was.
She closed her eyes and sank down against the stone wall with a heavy sigh. She heard Illya move toward her.
“We’ll find them,” he said, his voice strangely sincere.
Ephyra opened one eye. Illya was leaning against the wall next to her, slouched there in a way that reminded her of Anton in this very alcove that first night. Concern pinched his features, drawing his brows together over bright gold eyes.
“He wanted me to kill you,” Ephyra said. Illya’s expression didn’t change. “Doesn’t that bother you?”
Illya blew out a breath. “I wasn’t a very good brother to him. When we were growing up … there’s a lot I wish I’d done differently.”
She watched him carefully. He was difficult to read—even more so than Anton. Was this true remorse? Or was it, like Anton believed, all a show?
“You say you want to protect him now, but why didn’t you then?” she asked.
“Because I didn’t realize he needed protecting,” he answered. He shook his head, looking almost irritated—although with Ephyra or with himself she couldn’t tell. “He was the chosen son. He was Graced. I wasn’t. My grandmother and my father never let us forget it. It was all they cared about.”
“But why?” Ephyra asked. “I mean, I know that Anton’s Grace is powerful, and he told us that things are different in the north than they are here, but—”
“What else did he tell you?”
Ephyra tried to recall. “That you and your father and your grandmother were all Graceless,” she said slowly. “That they thought he was special because of his Grace, and you resented it.”
“They thought he was more than just special,” Illya said. “Do you know anything about the prophecy of Vasili the Raving?”
Ephyra peered up at him. She was hardly an expert in Novogardian history, but everyone knew the story of the Raving King. “I know it’s the last prophecy the Prophets made before they disappeared, about some asshole king losing his mind.”
“Yes,” Illya said. “The Prophets predicted three things about Vasili: that he would be the last emperor of the Novogardian Empire, that he would go mad, and that there would never be a Graced heir to his line.”
“And that has something to do with you?”
He gave her a meaningful look.
After a moment, she realized. “Are you saying that you and Anton are the descendants of the Raving King? That the prophecy was wrong?”
“My grandmother certainly believed it,” Illya replied. “The people in the north aren’t like the ones in the Six Cities. They never worshipped the Prophets. When they disappeared, my grandmother’s family thought it meant it was finally time for their line to rise again. To undo the prophecy of the Raving King and restore the Novogardian Empire to its former glory.”
“And she thought that … that Anton was going to be the one to restore your family to power?” Ephyra asked. “Anton? The kid who gets beat up over cards and can’t scry without nearly drowning?”
“She was convinced of it,” Illya replied. “She’d waited her whole life for a Graced child. And finally, she got one. The day we discovered Anton’s Grace was the worst day of my life.”
“Did he hurt you somehow?” It wasn’t uncommon for children just beginning to control their Graces to cause accidents. Ephyra had always suspected it was one of her parents’ biggest fears, and the reason they tried to hide her Grace and begged her not to use it. In hindsight, maybe they’d been right to be so scared.
“No,” Illya replied. “He saved my life. Used his Grace to lead our grandmother to me after I’d gotten lost in a storm. And the moment she saw me there, shivering and terrified, she turned her back and threw her arms around Anton, weeping because she knew he was the Graced heir she’d been waiting for. It was like I didn’t exist.”
“So Grandma didn’t love you, and you took it out on him,” Ephyra said drily. But her chest clenched—she couldn’t help but see how something like that could mess a kid up. If it was even true.
“Yes,” Illya replied. “She and my father gave him all their attention, remembering me only when they needed something to scream at. So when their backs were turned, I would hurt Anton. He was the special one, and yet that was one power I could wield. He didn’t deserve it, but back then I couldn’t see that.”
“And now?”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “He’s been alone this whole time, and it’s because of me. Everything he’s gone through—I should have been there alongside him. I’ll never have that back.”
She wanted to believe him, she realized. It would make her feel better if she could tell herself that helping Illya wasn’t betraying Anton.
“What changed?” she asked.
“I found … purpose,” Illya replied. “Somewhere to direct all the pain of that neglect. Somewhere I could feel useful, for once.”
The words struck a strange chord with Ephyra. She, too, had found purpose. Keeping Beru alive. It hadn’t mattered what she’d had to do in pursuit of that purpose. It still didn’t. In the cell, she’d told herself she wasn’t like Illya. Calculating. Cold. Ruthless. But whether Illya’s remorse was real or not, whether he truly wanted to protect Anton or do something much more sinister, Ephyra knew she would have made the same choice to help him.
She could only fool herself for so long. Maybe it was time she recognized the person she’d become.
She looked back to the remains of the broken table. Beneath a splintered leg, something glinted. She leaned over, reaching for it. It was a bracelet—Beru must have finished it after their argument. A string of colored pottery shards surrounded one tiny glass bead. It was the bottle stopper Ephyra had brought Beru the night she’d killed the priest.
She slipped the bracelet onto her wrist and stood up. “Come on. If Beru and Anton were here, they must have left through the sanctum. There could be more clues up there. Something we missed.”
“The sanctum is all rubble and ashes,” Illya replied. “How exactly are we going to find clues in there?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not giving up,” she said. “If you really want to make up for what you did in the past, you won’t, either.”
She held her hand out like he’d done inside the cell. He took it, long fingers clasping her palm.
She hadn’t really allowed herself to look before, but now that they were standing close in the dimly lit alcove, Ephyra could admit that Illya’s face was rather striking. He and Anton shared similar features, but where they were boyish and pretty on Anton, on Illya they were regal, elegant. It wasn’t difficult at all to believe he was descended from a line of northern emperors.
“It’s this way,” she said after a moment, realizing she’d been staring too long.
She led Illya up the stairs slowly and emerged into the dark shrine. She didn’t know exactly what she expected to find there. Something. Some sign that Beru had gotten away, that she was all right. But just like Illya had said, all they found was ash and rubble. A once-holy place now given to decay, like the city itself.
She stood in the center of the s
hrine, in front of the scrying pool and beneath the hole in the roof. Behind her, she could hear Illya shifting loose rubble, picking around the shrine. The sound of his footsteps moved farther away, toward the gaping threshold.
“I found something!” he called.
Ephyra whirled around, scrambling over the piles of rubble to the main steps, where Illya stood, frowning down at something between his hands.
He glanced at Ephyra as she drew up beside him. “Never mind,” he said apologetically. “I thought it was a note, but it’s just trash.”
In his hands was a sheet of crinkled white parchment paper. He started to ball it back up, but Ephyra quickly snatched it out of his hands.
“Wait,” she said. “Trash isn’t just trash.”
As the Pale Hand, Ephyra had often found creative ways of tracking her victims. The kills had to be meticulously planned, which meant taking whatever was at her disposal to learn more about her targets and using it to her advantage. Over the years, she’d discovered that one of the best ways to learn about someone was to look at what they threw away.
She brought the crinkled paper to her face and sniffed it. Sugar and nuts. When she lowered it, Illya was looking at her like she had done something truly objectionable. Ignoring him, she flipped the paper over, scanning for the ink stamp she was almost certain she would find.
In the bottom corner of the paper, she could make out a light green stamp in the shape of an olive.
She looked up at Illya, who was still staring at her askance. “This is from the bakery up the road,” she told him. It was a favorite of Beru’s, though Ephyra had warned her against going there too frequently, lest the baker begin to recognize her.
His expression didn’t change, and Ephyra tucked the paper away impatiently. “The baker might have seen something that could point us in the right direction.”
Illya waved his hand toward the empty street. “It’s the middle of the night. I’m pretty sure anyone who might have seen anything is asleep.”
“So we wake them up,” Ephyra said, starting down the steps and pulling him after her.
* * *
There Will Come a Darkness Page 26