The chains snapped and fell away. Yarik, Annuka, Petrossian, and Osei drew themselves into protective positions, fending off the advancing guards and Witnesses. Jude darted through the fray to Penrose’s side.
“Penrose,” he said breathlessly. There was so much he had to say to her. But right now, only one thing mattered. “The Prophet. The Prophet is here.”
Penrose shook her head slowly. “We were wrong, Jude. The prince isn’t—”
“No,” Jude said, stilling her with a hand on her shoulder. “Not the prince. The true Prophet. I—I felt his Grace. I can still feel it.”
Penrose’s eyes widened.
“They have him,” Jude said. “Somewhere near.”
“You’re sure?”
“More sure than I’ve been of anything in my life.”
Her gaze hardened. “Then find him. Whatever it takes. That is our duty, and all of us would gladly give our lives to see it done. The Order’s fleet is in the harbor. Get him aboard one of our ships.”
Jude hesitated. He didn’t want to abandon the Guard again. But the Prophet’s Grace was an undeniable force inside him, echoing Penrose’s words. Find him. Whatever it takes.
He turned away from her, catching sight of the Hierophant lowering his torch to the ground. Jude did not think; he only reacted, flipping backward onto his feet. Before his eyes, a blazing white ring of fire rippled to life around the other members of the Order. A wall of Godfire separated them from Jude.
With one last glance at Penrose’s bright, determined face, he turned and locked eyes with the Hierophant.
He was utterly unprotected, the Witnesses around him distracted by the unexpected melee. The Hierophant’s eyes held on Jude, as if he knew exactly what thoughts were running through his mind. How easy it would be to push the Hierophant into the flames and turn his own weapon against him.
But the Prophet’s call thrummed through Jude louder than ever, demanding an answer. Jude turned away from the Hierophant and fled, battling his way through more Witnesses and guards until he was bursting out of the lighthouse doors.
Echoing shouts and footsteps pursued him as he emerged into the night. Clenching his jaw against the burning ache in his legs, he flew over the viaduct that connected the lighthouse to the mainland. The stars stretched over him. The call of the Prophet’s Grace strengthened to a steady pulse. It grew with each stride, pulling him like a lodestone.
His whole life, Jude had let his faith guide him. His faith in the Prophet, in the Order, had been unshakable. His faith in himself, less so. He’d spent so much time struggling to put his doubts to rest, to hide his fear.
But he saw now that they were a part of him as true as his Grace. He would never be rid of them. But he would fulfill his duty anyway. Even if he wasn’t worthy of it. Even if his devotion wavered.
The Prophet’s Grace was calling out to him, and Jude would answer.
It grew even stronger as he skirted the cliffs below the Palace of Herat, his feet swift and sure even on the slippery rock.
Tucked into the side of the dark rock face, he saw the black mouth of a cave. As he approached, the Prophet’s Grace amplified even more, like a warm hand beckoning. He followed on pure instinct and the blind faith that this strange pull would lead him where he needed to go.
Moonlight spilled over the stone walls as he entered the cave. Inside was dark, but Jude’s Grace allowed him to see that beneath a stone overhang, a set of stairs led down into gaping blackness. The pulse of the Prophet’s Grace pounded in his ears, but it was now joined by another pulse, beating in exact synchrony. At first, Jude thought that somehow it was echoing on the cavernous passage, but slowly he realized the truth.
He could hear the Prophet’s heart beating. The Prophet was down there.
He still had the sword he’d taken off the guard. Its curved shape and peculiar balance were unfamiliar to Jude, but he no longer had the Pinnacle Blade, and this was better than being unarmed. He gripped the hilt tighter as he began his descent. The stairway was cold and damp, but his Grace was warm within him.
He reached the bottom of the stairs quickly and found himself in a damp, narrow tunnel that took him farther underground. He did not want to think about why the Prophet might be so far down here, so he focused on the sound of his own breath and the Prophet’s real, thumping heartbeat, as he descended deeper.
They were joined by more sounds—the echoing splash of water, followed by a voice, terse and impatient.
“Keep going until I say stop.”
It was Illya Aliyev’s voice. Jude quickened his pace around the curve of the tunnel and then stopped. The tunnel ended abruptly, opening out to a cavernous chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling. About twenty feet below was a floor of smooth black glass, like a night sky devoid of stars.
No, not glass, he realized. Water. An underground lake. Marble platforms stretched out over the surface of the water, some raised on arches, some crumbling and eroded.
And on one of these platforms, Jude saw eight guards standing around a figure lying on its side.
The Prophet. His Grace rose to a crescendo. Jude let its power take him through a familiar sequence of koahs, for speed, strength, and balance.
He leapt off the edge of the tunnel and onto the platform below. The guards turned at the sound of his landing.
“There’s someone here!”
“Get rid of him,” Illya’s cold voice rang out.
Jude vaulted over three guards rushing to meet him, landing behind their backs.
“What? Where’d he—?” One guard lurched around, his sword slicing toward Jude’s chest. Jude danced back. The guard thrust again, and Jude met the guard’s blade with his own. The sound of clashing steel echoed off marble and water.
A second guard lunged at Jude from the other side. With a flick of his wrist, Jude withdrew his sword, sending the first guard toppling off the high platform, and spun to meet the second, striking her in the arm. She stumbled back with a gasp, and Jude dropped to a crouch, sweeping her legs from beneath her. She collapsed into the water with a splash.
The third guard reeled back as the remaining five caught up to them. “He’s too fast!”
The others held back, swords drawn, trepidation in their eyes. “You’re the swordsman,” one of them said. “The one we caught in Pallas Athos.”
“I am Jude Weatherbourne of Kerameikos, captain of the Paladin Guard, Keeper of the Word,” he said. “And you are in my way.”
With a sword in his hand, esha flowing through his body, and the drum of the Prophet’s pulse, close and rabbit-fast, Jude was without equal in this fight. He dispatched the guards readily. His way cleared, he raced along the torch-lined walkway, boots sliding over the slick marble stones. His vision narrowed to a single point—the small figure lying crumpled on the edge of the platform, whose pulse pounded in Jude’s ears.
The Prophet.
Jude reached his side and knelt. Turning him over gently, he pressed his palm against the side of the Prophet’s face.
His breath caught. He knew that face.
Once, across a dim, smoke-filled courtyard, he’d seen those lips twist into a teasing smile. Once, in a crumbling shrine, he had woken to see that forehead like a pale moon above him.
The Prophet was Anton.
Anton was the Prophet.
The certainty of it struck him like the edge of a blade. Then the boy who was both Anton and the Prophet sighed out a breath and opened his eyes.
Once, as the rest of Jude’s world had crashed down around him, his gaze had been drawn to the warm, dark eyes of a strange boy hunched over the side of a scrying pool.
Now, their eyes met again.
And Jude’s true north was found.
58
HASSAN
The lighthouse flashed with white flame as a ring of Godfire blazed to life. The brief melee in the center of the atrium had ended with Hassan and the Paladin Guard trapped inside the circle of Godfire, their hopes of escape dashe
d.
A sudden, violent cough wracked Hassan’s lungs as foul-smelling black smoke spilled from the flames. Hassan threw his sleeve over his nose. He watched his aunt, outside of the circle of flames, secure a scarf over her nose and mouth.
“Your Keeper has fled,” the Hierophant said. “He has shown himself to be a coward, rejecting the truth that I have offered him. But he will not escape the Reckoning—none of you will. Today, you will face your destinies.”
The flames glinted on the jagged curves of his mask as he turned to the Witnesses. “Light the rest.”
Hassan watched in horror as two Witnesses strode across the atrium to the foot of the balcony that wound up the sides of the tower. They lowered their torches to the ground, where the same black powder was spread in a line along the balcony. The powder caught flame, igniting all the way up. Cries and gasps echoed as the flames spiraled around the Herati soldiers, trapping them against the edge of the balcony.
“The smoke you’re breathing right now contains the noxious fumes of black rock,” the Hierophant said. “Slowly, these fumes will fill the lighthouse. One by one, each of you will fall to the poison.”
Hassan pressed his nose harder into his sleeve, lungs seizing.
“But you don’t have to die here,” the Hierophant said. “There is another choice. To be free, you need only walk through the Godfire flames. Purge yourselves of the sins of the Prophets, and you will be welcomed into our new city, transformed. Live, and let your bodies be purified of the corruption of Grace. Those are your choices—salvation or death.”
The Hierophant glanced at the Witnesses as he made his way to the staircase. That was all the direction they needed. Torches aglow, they followed him out of the lighthouse.
Hassan’s eyes fell on his aunt, who stood watching the flames.
“Lethia,” Hassan said, unable to hide the fear and desperation in his voice. “Lethia, please. Don’t do this.”
Over the silk of her scarf, her eyes met his. There could be no question of her conviction. He watched the shadows flicker across her face as he realized she was going to let everyone in the lighthouse either burn or die.
Slowly, she turned away, following the Witnesses out. A moment later, the tower resounded with the sound of the doors closing.
They were trapped inside.
The smoke thickened. Hassan and the Guard stood in a tightly packed circle, their backs to one another and their eyes on the ring of Godfire that surrounded them.
Hassan couldn’t stop coughing, his lungs working to expel the foul-smelling smoke.
“Cover your nose and mouth,” Penrose said, voice muffled by her cloak.
Hassan shrugged out of his thick brocade overshirt and tore off a strip of his soft cotton undershirt with his teeth. He tied the fabric around his face. It wouldn’t make much of a difference when the smoke filled the whole tower, but for now it provided some relief.
“Prince Hassan,” Penrose said from his left. “You can cross the Godfire flame. You can save yourself.”
She was right, of course. He could cross the flames and suffer only a few minor burns. He could get out of the lighthouse before the smoke killed him. But he would be the only one.
“I’m not going to leave you,” Hassan said. “I … I’m the reason you’re all here. I lied to you. If it weren’t for me—”
“It is your fault,” Penrose said harshly. “If you want to sacrifice your life out of guilt, then so be it. But you and I both know that is the coward’s way out. And despite everything you’ve done, I don’t believe you are a coward. If you truly feel remorse for your lies, you will find a way to atone.”
She was right. If Hassan perished in the lighthouse, there would be no one left to stop the Witnesses from burning the rest of Nazirah. But the thought of leaving everyone inside, to choose death or worse, made him feel sick. He looked up through the thickening smoke at the rows of Herati soldiers trapped on the balconies.
It was only because he was Graceless that Hassan could save himself. The others were trapped here by the power he had always wanted. The power he’d always thought he needed in order to lead his people.
But maybe he’d never needed it. Maybe whether he had Grace or not had nothing to do with who he was or what kind of leader he could be. Maybe all that mattered were the choices he made.
Salvation or death. Those were the choices the Hierophant had left them with. Burn out their Graces or die.
But those weren’t the only choices Hassan had.
He closed his eyes and summoned his courage. Then he took a step back. And another, until he was at the edge of the flames.
Only he could do this. Only he could cross the Godfire.
He opened his eyes, ran across the ring, and leapt. His skin seared. Tucking his legs beneath him, he hit the ground at a roll, and kept rolling to smother the flames.
He got to his feet, whirling back around to face the Guard through the Godfire, singed but alive.
“I’m not leaving you,” he said again. “I’m going to get you out of here. All of you.”
He didn’t have a plan. He had, at most, a glimmer of one. But it would have to be enough. He looked down and spotted a coil of chains—the Godfire chains that had been discarded after Captain Weatherbourne had cut the Guard free. Hassan gathered the chains, looping them over his neck before racing up the stairs. When he judged that he was high enough, he threaded one chain through the stair railing. There was no way to fasten it, so he’d anchor it himself.
“Penrose!” he called down to her. He raised the rest of the chain up in one hand. She seemed to understand quickly. With a nod, she turned to Osei beside her, and after a short conference, they got in position—Penrose at the far edge of the circle, her back to the flames, and Osei kneeling in the center with his hands cupped.
“Ready?” Hassan called down.
“Ready.”
He tossed the other end of the chain toward her. Penrose took a running leap. The chain swung down. Penrose launched up from Osei’s hands. She caught the end of the chain just as it started to rebound, arcing back toward Hassan.
He braced against the added weight. For a few precarious seconds, Penrose swung wildly on the suspended chain. Then it steadied, and Penrose let go on the backswing, sailing over the flickering fire below and flipping to catch herself on the railing of the stairs beneath him.
“You all right?” he called down to her.
“Keep going!”
Hassan refocused himself, gathering up the chain again and preparing to toss one end of it down to the next member of the Guard. With the same dexterous poise as Penrose, Petrossian made it to safety.
But the fumes of the smoke were beginning to affect Hassan. He fell into a coughing fit that left him light-headed and dizzy. He was running out of time.
When he’d recovered, Penrose was standing beside him. “If we can get everyone out of the lighthouse, there might be a way to get to the Order’s ships. But we need to move quickly.”
Hassan craned his head to look at the upper levels of the tower. The smoke was rising rapidly—down here, he and Penrose could breathe all right, but he could see that already on the topmost levels, there were people who’d collapsed to the ground.
“Get the rest of the Guard,” he said, shoving the chains into Penrose’s hands. She flinched at the contact with it.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get them out.”
When he’d let a false vision of victory guide him, he’d led everyone to this terrible fate. He hadn’t been good at being a Prophet, but he was good at this—making things up as he went.
And one way or another, he was going to get everyone out.
59
ANTON
Anton wasn’t drowning.
He woke gasping, water choking his lungs, his stomach heaving to expel everything inside of it. He wasn’t drowning, but he still felt like he was about to die.
His retching subsided, and slo
wly he became aware of warmth, of the gentle press of hands against his side. For a moment, he was utterly paralyzed, awash in the sensation of his pulse pounding through every inch of his body, like a gong that had been struck clear and true. He blinked away water to find a pair of wide green eyes staring back at him. Jude.
His esha was undeniable, as it had been the first time Anton had felt it in the marina of Pallas Athos, and again in the mausoleum. Now, every particle of air in the cavern seemed charged with it, warm and thick like a thunderhead. Anton’s own Grace tuned to it, the two ringing together in harmony, reverberating out from the place where Jude’s hands lay.
“It’s you,” Jude said.
A shadow moved behind him, and Illya appeared. Something gleamed in his hand, a dangerous silver in the low torchlight.
Anton drew in a sharp breath.
Without turning, Jude caught Illya’s wrist, seconds before the knife in his hand would have plunged through Jude’s back. His grip tightened until Anton heard a low crack, and Illya let out a howl of pain. The knife clattered onto the marble.
Jude released Illya’s wrist and stood to face him. “You are never going to hurt him again.”
Anton pushed himself to his knees and clambered to his feet. Over Jude’s shoulder, he could see Illya cradling his wrist. Gold eyes flickered to meet Anton’s gaze.
Jude’s stance shifted, as if trying to block Anton from view.
“I told you,” Illya said. “You can’t run from this anymore. You can’t run from what’s inside your own head.”
Anton shivered. What did you see? His brother’s voice hissed in his head. What did you see that made you want to—
He gasped in a breath.
“For five years, you’ve delayed this,” Illya said. “But the truth cannot stay buried. If it’s not me that unearths it, it will be them.” He nodded at Jude. Them meant the Order, the Paladin Guard.
Illya was right. Following Jude was just another path to the same outcome. Jude could lead him out of here, but he couldn’t help him escape from what truly haunted him.
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