Anton turned sharply to look at his brother. In the chaos of the fight at the Hidden Spring, he hadn’t paused to think about why, exactly, Illya had tried to capture Ephyra, too. Now, though, he wondered. What could the Witnesses want with the Pale Hand?
“There was a complication,” Illya replied, his gaze dropping to the ground. “She killed two of my mercenaries.”
“Your mercenaries? Whose money was it that paid for them?”
Anton recognized the mild smile that graced Illya’s lips. It was the same smile he used to wear as their grandmother berated him, sometimes for hours on end. To Anton, that smile had been a warning that his own torment would come next.
“Yours, of course, Lady Lethia,” Illya replied lightly. “And need I remind you what that generosity got you?”
Lethia’s gaze returned to Anton. “You’d better be sure about him. You can’t afford another mistake.”
“Don’t worry,” Illya replied, haughtiness creeping into his voice. “I’m sure.”
“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. You did well in delivering the Keeper, at least.”
Jude. Anton’s heart lurched. It had been three days since they’d been taken off the ship and separated. Anton had tried not to think about the swordsman, though his mind had stubbornly returned to him time and again. Guilt clawed at his chest. He didn’t even know if Jude was still alive.
“It was mere luck they were together,” Illya said.
Lady Lethia smiled. “The Prophets would have called it fate.”
“Then fate is on our side.”
“Of that, we can be sure,” Lady Lethia replied. “But your job isn’t over yet. Find the answers we seek. If the Hierophant is satisfied, then we all get what we want. I will have Nazirah, the Hierophant will have his Reckoning, and you will have your place at his side secured.”
Illya bared his teeth in a smile. “It will be done.”
Anton shivered. Illya meant to do what their grandmother had tried to do—use Anton’s power, a power he had never wanted, in order to gain his own.
“Now, if you’d be so kind, I have other business to attend to,” Lady Lethia said, turning back toward the window that faced the sea. “My nephew will be arriving in Nazirah soon, and I must prepare his warm welcome.”
50
EPHYRA
The night market of Tel Amot was exactly as Ephyra remembered it. Violet-hued lights and sweet-smelling smoke cast a soft haziness over the square where the artisans and craftsmen of the city set up their shops to catch the incoming sailors and tradesmen from across the Pelagos. It sat at the junction of four roads that led out of the city to the surrounding villages. Tel Amot was the channel that funneled the Six Prophetic Cities to the Seti desert and the Inshuu steppe, and the night market was the gate between these worlds.
It had been over five years since Ephyra had set foot on this stretch of coast. She remembered their last day here, she and Beru huddled on the docks with the other orphans, waiting to board a ship that would take them all to Charis, the City of Charity. Beru had been quiet, but Ephyra had filled the silence for both of them, telling her sister all the wonderful things that waited for them in Charis. There would be ocean everywhere, all around them. More trees than they’d ever seen in their lives. And best of all, a family that would take them in. A new start.
The crease of Beru’s mouth had made it clear that none of Ephyra’s pretty words had convinced her for a single moment. But she’d let her sister keep talking anyway, seeming to understand that Ephyra needed to convince herself.
“You got somewhere to stay tonight?”
Ephyra shook off thoughts of the past as she turned to face the healer from the ship. She had kept her distance from him during the journey. She’d never spent much time around anyone else with the Grace of Blood. It put her on edge, as if somehow he could tell what she was. As if one small slip was all it would take, and then she would be faced with his horror and disgust at how she’d twisted the Grace of Blood into something terrible.
“I’m not staying here,” Ephyra replied, shouldering her bag and turning away from the market. “I have somewhere I need to be.”
Too much time had passed already. It had been more than six days since she had last seen Beru. Over two weeks since she’d killed the priest inside his extravagant room at Thalassa and used his esha to heal Beru. She would be growing weak. She’d need to be healed again. Ephyra didn’t know exactly how long she had, but if she didn’t reach Beru in time—
No. She would not think of it. She would find Beru. She would heal her, as she always did.
And then what? a treacherous part of Ephyra’s mind asked.
“You’re not planning on traveling outside the city tonight, are you? Marauders roam the roads at night. You don’t want to be caught traveling alone.”
Ephyra glanced back, realizing with irritation that the healer was still keeping pace with her up the dirt path that led out of town. “It’s funny, I don’t actually remember asking your opinion.”
He barked out a laugh. “That’s true—you didn’t. But you paid for passage on our ship, so now you get my opinion free of charge. Where are you in such a hurry to get to, anyway?”
“None of your business,” Ephyra replied. She took a right to head down a well-remembered road, quickening her pace. It was dark, unlit except by the moon above.
“Hang on, now,” the healer protested. His height made it easy for him to match her speed, but Ephyra sped up anyway, hoping he’d get bored and give up. “Hey, stop!”
Her foot caught on a hole in the cracked road, and she went flying to the ground. Her knees crashed against the dirt, and she let out a gasp of pain.
“I told you to stop,” the healer admonished, crouching beside her.
“I can’t,” Ephyra said from the ground, her voice coming out broken. If she stopped, even for a moment, then she’d have to think about where she was going. She would have to think about what was waiting for her there. And she would have to think about the fact that Beru was the one who had brought her back to it.
Hector wasn’t the one who’d bought those train tickets. Beru had, after telling Ephyra she wanted to give up. Coming back here, to the place where this nightmare had started, was her way of trying to convince Ephyra. Because for five years, Ephyra had warped herself into something cold and lethal, brushing aside her guilt and burying her remorse. It had been the only way to keep going, to keep being the Pale Hand, to keep Beru alive.
But now she stood on the road that led back to the very worst of her sins. To return meant unearthing all of her guilt. It meant seeing the truth of what she was. It was the cruelest thing Beru could do to her.
Maybe Ephyra deserved it. Maybe this was the punishment for all the terrible things she had done. If it was, she would bear it. She would face whatever horrors waited in Medea. For Beru.
The healer let out a heavy sigh and settled down on the ground beside her. “Look. Wherever it is you’re going—”
“Medea,” Ephyra said. She shifted so she, too, was sitting, side by side with the healer. “I’m going to Medea.”
In the moonlight, his face flashed with recognition. “Medea? But that’s…” He let out a sigh, pressing one broad palm against his face. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this. That village is gone. Everyone in it is dead.”
Ephyra turned away. She knew this, yet his words still hollowed her.
“No one knows for sure what happened,” he went on softly. “Some say a plague.”
It wasn’t a plague. It was me, Ephyra wanted to say. I am the one who killed them. A sharp sob clawed at her throat. She swallowed it down.
“If that’s where you’re trying to go, then I don’t think anything’s waiting for you there,” the healer said. “I’m sorry.”
Ephyra got to her feet. Maybe the healer was right. Beru had made her choice. She had fled back here, to the one place Ephyra could no longer ignore what she was and the things she had done
. She had returned to the beginning, because she wanted an end.
“Thank you,” she said to the healer. “But I still need to go.”
She turned toward the road. Toward Beru. If this was truly the end, they would face it together.
51
HASSAN
When Hassan had pictured his first steps onto Nazirah’s shores after two months, he hadn’t imagined himself blindfolded and bound.
Though he could not see, he knew every step of the journey from the harbor to the Palace of Herat. The spiced sweetness of blue water lilies hit him as the Witnesses led him through the palace gates, the familiar tune of the water organ in the central courtyard lilting around them. They passed beneath the shadow of the gaping arches that rose over the main steps of the palace and mounted the stairs.
The climb was the longest Hassan had ever endured. Each step felt like a lifetime. Is this what his father had felt like, only days ago, making his way to his own execution? He couldn’t bear to think of it. He focused on his feet, on the repetitive motion of each step that brought him closer to whatever fate awaited.
At the top of the stairs, on the grand portico that led into the throne room itself, one of his captors ripped the blindfold from his face. In the flickering torchlight, Hassan could make out the Witnesses’ close-shaved heads and white robes. And on the backs of their hands, the symbol of a black eye with the pupil a sun.
The Witnesses.
“You’ve been summoned by the queen,” one of them said.
For a blind, wild moment, Hassan thought they meant his mother. But the smug, almost excited look on the Witness’s face told him otherwise. Which meant the Hierophant had not been alone in deposing Herat’s royal family. Someone else had played a part. Someone who now called herself queen.
The massive doors of the throne room eased slowly open. Hassan turned to take one last glance at Nazirah, spread out before him from the harbor to the distant bank of the Herat River, some twenty miles west. Couched in the river’s embrace, the sandstone and tile of Nazirah’s homes, shops, market squares, and stadiums were laid out in a dizzying crosswork cleaved by the broad paved Ozmandith Road.
This was the city he loved. This was the city he had failed.
A low crunch signaled that the great doors were open. Hassan’s captors shoved him forward, and then he faced the gaping threshold to the throne room.
It looked exactly as it had in his dream. The gilded columns leading to the golden pyramid. The animal-shaped spigots, spewing water out from the pyramid to the moat below. The painted falcon spanning across the back wall. But instead of returning in triumph to claim his throne, Hassan was here as a prisoner.
The Witnesses led him to the edge of the moat that surrounded the throne. Clear water rippled over the iridescent black and green mosaic scarab at the bottom of the pool. Hassan slowly raised his eyes from this familiar creature to the one sitting on his father’s throne.
“Prince Hassan,” Lethia said warmly. “Welcome home.”
She looked the same as she had the day Hassan had left Pallas Athos. When she’d kissed his cheek and told him she would see him soon. A promise she hadn’t broken.
“Aunt Lethia.” Anger and disbelief ribboned through each syllable. It was like the world had tipped on its side, and no matter which way Hassan shifted, it would not right itself.
He’d known what it had meant when Cirion and his crew betrayed them on the Cressida, but he hadn’t been able to accept it. Even now, face-to-face with his aunt perched on his father’s throne like she belonged there, he felt there must be some mistake, some cruel joke had been played, some secret which, once revealed, would make all of this make sense.
“Aunt Lethia?” she echoed with a thin smile. “Come now, Hassan. You know how to address your new queen.”
“My mother is the queen,” he hissed. “Whatever you’ve done with her, you are still nothing but a jealous usurper.”
She pressed two long fingers to her temple, massaging it like he’d given her a headache. “I told you, Hassan, that anger does not serve you.”
“What have you done with the rest of my soldiers?”
“You mean the rest of your scraped-together band of misfits?” Lethia asked. “Don’t worry. They’re all alive. Imprisoned, but alive. You’ll be seeing them shortly.”
They were prisoners now. Because of him. “I put my trust in you,” he growled. “I put all their lives in your hands. And you—you betrayed all of us.”
“No,” Lethia replied. “You did. By leading them here, telling them that you were the Prophet they’d been waiting for. When we both know that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Hassan’s mouth went dry, his anger momentarily replaced with cold dread. He hadn’t told Lethia what he’d discovered after the Witnesses’ attack in the agora. He hadn’t told anyone, save for Khepri.
Lethia let out a laugh—it was the same sound he had heard on numerous occasions, but it was laced now with cruelty. “If there is one thing that has surprised me, Hassan, it’s that you carried on the farce for so long. You certainly played your part well. You were exactly what they wanted you to be. A leader. Smart, charismatic. Yet, when they find out what you truly are, do you think any of that will matter?”
“How—how did you—?”
Lethia clucked her tongue, pity in her eyes as she sat back on the throne. “I was more surprised than anyone when you had your dream that night. For a moment, I almost believed it. That you were the long-awaited Prophet, come at last.”
“That’s why you didn’t want me to come back here,” Hassan said, his heart sinking. “You never wanted to protect me. You were just afraid that if I proclaimed myself the Prophet, true or false, I would come to Nazirah with an army, reclaim the throne, and undo everything you and the Witnesses had done.” Everything suddenly felt so clear. “You … you’d been buying time for weeks. Refusing to tell me what was happening here. Hiding me away from anyone who might be able to help me.” He stopped suddenly, a new and terrible thought dawning. “No one else even knew I was in Pallas Athos. Why didn’t you just kill me? It would have been simpler.”
She gave him a withering look. “No matter what you might think of me, I’m not a monster, Hassan. You are still my blood.”
“So was my father,” he bit out.
“And I didn’t want him to die, either. He forced my hand, when he would not abdicate the throne.”
Fury rendered Hassan speechless. His heart lurched at the thought of his father, steady to his last, refusing to bow to his treacherous sister even when it cost him his life. Hassan could not waver, either.
“To be honest, I didn’t expect it from him,” Lethia went on. “I’d always thought of my brother as weak-willed in the face of conflict. But at the end of his life, he proved me wrong.”
Hassan swallowed his anger. “So you murdered my father but kept me alive because you knew you could make me useless. Cut off from the world. But then the Guard arrived and ruined everything.”
“It was a slight hiccup, I’ll confess,” Lethia said. “I never intended you to return to Nazirah. In fact, I would have let you remain safe in Pallas Athos after I finally took Nazirah for myself. But you insisted on getting in my way. So I came up with a new plan.”
“That’s why you offered Cirion’s ships,” Hassan said. “When you realized I was going to come back here no matter what you said, you made sure I would return as a prisoner.”
She smiled. “You are the brilliant little strategist, aren’t you? I saw how I could use your supposed prophecy to my advantage, and so I did. You made it too easy, Hassan. By then, I knew your dream was just that. A dream. Even before you knew it.”
“How?” he asked.
“Someone came to me, telling me they knew where to find the true Prophet. I only needed to provide a ship and a few favors.”
“You’re lying.”
Lethia laughed. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
“No one c
ame to you,” Hassan said. “They couldn’t have. Only the Order of the Last Light knows about the prophecy.”
Lethia’s lips stretched into a thin smile. “They think they’re the only ones who know of the prophecy. Arrogant, as always. But we have the true Prophet here in Nazirah. That was the Hierophant’s price. He promised me Nazirah, and in return I helped deliver the Prophet to him. Now that he has him, Nazirah is mine.”
Hassan took a step back. He could see so clearly every step that Lethia had taken to counter him and the Order. But he still couldn’t fathom it. “How could you do it? How could you sell our country to the Hierophant?”
“You of all people should understand,” Lethia said. “It’s the same reason you believed you were the Prophet. I was tired of being told I had to please people like my parents—like my inferior brother, my useless husband, and those selfish priests in Pallas Athos. Tired of knowing I would always fall short, because of a chance of birth.” She fixed her green eyes on him. “Just as you will, Hassan. You will never be enough, and you know that.”
“You’re wrong.” He met her gaze with defiance.
“Whether or not you agree with the Witnesses, you cannot deny that you have been held back by the rules set down by the Prophets centuries ago. That the Graced will rule, and the rest of us will merely be footnotes in their stories.”
Hassan didn’t say anything. There was a seed of truth in her words, and as much as he wanted to bury it, he knew it would only fester there, waiting to grow in the deep dark of his mind.
“I’ve always known I would make a better ruler of Herat than my brother,” Lethia said. “He was more interested in tinkering with toys than ruling a kingdom. But despite our ages, despite my skill at strategy, at politics, at everything that makes one fit to rule, no one ever considered that I would be the better choice. Because there wasn’t ever going to be a choice. Not when my brother had Grace and I did not.”
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