Jude turned, meeting Anton’s eyes. “Whatever happens,” he said, “I’ll protect you.”
Jude had said those words before, as Illya’s men had ambushed them in the Hidden Spring. Before Jude had even known what Anton was. The words had stunned him. They’d seemed impossible, for no one in his life had ever said them before. But then there was Jude, with his serious face and his intense green eyes and his esha swirling like a windstorm. And when he said those words, Anton believed them.
He took Jude’s arm.
“You can’t run from this, Anton.” Illya’s voice echoed as they turned away from him. “Not anymore.”
Anton suppressed another shiver as Jude pulled him along the walkway toward the cavern’s entrance. Suddenly, Jude drew up short, throwing his arm out to stop him in his tracks. More guards, these ones wielding crossbows, were lined up above them, aiming their weapons down.
Ahead, at the top of the stairs, the bright flare of torches appeared. But the flames weren’t like any Anton had seen before—they were pale like moonlight.
“What is that?” he asked as the men carrying the torches spilled out onto the marble platform.
“Godfire,” Jude said grimly.
The flames were hypnotic, flickering like ghosts in the dark. Anton found himself unable to tear his gaze away. They were eyes, blazing like a sun, piercing him.
The guards above fired their crossbows. A dozen bolts sailed toward them. The Godfire flames flickered at his periphery as Anton dropped into a crouch, trying to make himself as small a target as possible. But Jude didn’t cower.
He turned, his sword a glint of blurred silver. His Grace surged like a roll of thunder. The crossbow bolts fell from the air at once, as though they’d been met with a gale-force wind.
Jude sheathed the sword at his belt before wrapping a hand around Anton’s wrist and hauling him to his feet. Together, they raced along the walkway, deeper into the cistern. Boots pounded against the marble as the guards followed.
“Jude?” Anton said uneasily. They were coming up quickly to a wall. “I don’t think this is a way—”
“This way,” Jude said, dragging Anton up a stairway cut into the rock. It ended abruptly on narrow platform. Three stone levers jutted out from the wall.
Faintly, Anton heard the sound of trickling water. He reached out and felt a thin stream of water flowing down the rock face.
“Stand back,” Jude warned, wrapping his hands around one of the levers.
Anton barely had time to react before he heard a great crunch. About three feet above his head, a stone panel in the wall opened and a deluge burst out, rushing past him and down the stairs. The flood lasted only a few seconds, after which Anton found himself staring up at the black mouth of a tunnel.
“They’re up there!” a guard shouted from below.
Jude laced his hands together in front of him. “Climb up.” Over his shoulder, Anton saw the bright flicker of Godfire torches as the guards ascended the stairs. “I’ll be right behind you.”
With a nod, Anton put his hands on Jude’s shoulders and stepped up. He grabbed onto the slick ledge of the tunnel. He could hear the guards drawing closer. Digging his fingers into the wet stone, Anton pushed off Jude’s hands and hoisted himself into the tunnel.
He turned back. “Jude!”
The guards were nearly on top of him. Jude unsheathed his sword just in time to meet the blow of a guard’s blade. He kicked the guard hard, and then turned to leap after Anton. But his foot slipped off the edge of the rock.
Anton dove forward, catching Jude under the arms. They stayed there for an unsteady moment, Anton trying desperately to hold Jude up without slipping on the wet stone.
A loud crunch sounded, and Anton caught sight of a guard with his hands wrapped around one of the levers on the platform. Squeezing his eyes closed, he sucked in a breath and pulled, dragging Jude into the tunnel just as the stone panel crashed shut, sealing them within.
Anton fell back, Jude’s solid weight falling beside him. It was pitch-dark, which made everything feel less real—like he was floating, like at any moment the world could slip out from beneath him.
The brush of Jude’s arm against his brought him back. “Where are we?” he asked.
“Underground canal,” Jude answered. “The water comes in from the aqueducts, and I guess they either divert it into the cisterns or let it flow through this tunnel. I imagine during the flood season this would be completely submerged.”
Anton recalled Illya’s lecture on Nazirah’s waterways and decided he’d heard enough about it for the rest of his life. “Then let’s be thankful it’s not the flood season,” he said. “How do we get out?”
Jude helped him to his feet. “We start walking.”
Anton could see absolutely nothing in the darkness, but he trusted that Jude could. “So was this your plan?” The sound of his own voice in his ears kept him grounded. “Wander around in the dark until we find a way out? I’ve heard worse, I guess.”
“I didn’t really have one,” Jude admitted. “All I know is that I—I heard you, and I knew I had to find you.”
“You heard me?”
“Your Grace. Like it was calling out to me.”
It had worked. The reverse scrying, or whatever it was that Anton had done, sending an echo of his Grace out as a call for help.
A call that Jude had answered.
“I can’t explain it exactly,” Jude went on haltingly. “But it led me to you.”
Though Anton couldn’t see Jude’s face, he felt his gaze on him, and he felt his own pulse tapping against Jude’s palm. It felt like they were standing at a precipice, the split second before leaping. But Anton wasn’t ready to face whatever lay below. Not yet.
“Anton—”
“Please just—Please, let’s just get out of here.”
Jude didn’t press. Anton kept his attention on his pulse, the rhythm of his feet against the wet stone, and the pressure of Jude’s fingers locked around his wrist, leading him through the dark.
60
HASSAN
Heart pounding in his head, Hassan raced up the stairs toward the trapped Herati soldiers. There were almost fifty still up on the balcony. A few had made it over the railing, but they were trapped there, hanging off the side, unable to jump to safety. One of them, he realized with a start, was Khepri.
“Hassan!” she cried in surprise when he appeared at the stairwell across from her.
He looked down at the chain in his arms, “Use this,” he called to her. “But be careful. It’s a Godfire chain.”
“Throw it to me,” Khepri replied.
Hassan tossed one end to her. She caught it, letting out an audible hiss of pain when the chain touched her hand. Her grip on the balcony slipped.
“Khepri!” he cried, instinctively moving toward her.
She caught herself just in time. “I’m all right,” she said shakily. She threaded the Godfire chain through the railing, letting one end dangle so it formed a kind of pulley. Then she glanced back up at the other soldiers and waved them down.
“Come on.” One by one, they used the pulley chain to lower themselves over the flames, their teeth gritted and their eyes watering with pain by the time they reached Hassan.
When the last one was down from the balcony, he beckoned to Khepri. “Your turn.”
She grabbed the end of the chain, swinging herself from the rail with considerable force. She let go midswing, sailing across the divide between the balcony and stairs to land squarely on top of Hassan.
His arms went around her automatically, and he braced himself to bear her weight.
Khepri looked down at him, her knees squeezing his sides. “Nice catch. You can let go now.”
Swallowing, Hassan unwound his arms from her waist.
“We have to get everyone down to the atrium,” he said.
“Not all of them can make it that far. The smoke—it’s so much thicker up here.”
“
We’re not going to leave anyone behind,” Hassan said. “Do you think they can make it up just two flights?”
“Up?”
He nodded and pointed two floors above, at a set of doors that opened to the platform that circled the outside of the tower. “The observation deck. There’s a set of stairs that leads down from the deck to the ground.”
“They’ll make it,” Khepri said, like she could will it true just by saying it. She directed the limping, stumbling soldiers toward the stairs. She and Hassan brought up the rear of the group, dodging through falling debris and coughing up the smoke that grew thicker the higher they climbed.
A cry came down from the first of their group who’d reached their destination. “The doors are locked!”
Heart sinking, Hassan shouldered through the crowd, Khepri at his back. The soldiers had cleared a space in front of the door, and two of them were trying to break it down through sheer strength.
The black smoke curled around them, thickening the air with its poison. Violent rattling coughs echoed through the tower. One soldier’s legs gave out, and he collapsed to his knees. Some soldiers were carrying those too weak to stand. Others crawled forward on shaking hands.
Time was running short. If they didn’t get outside quickly, they would all succumb to the smoke.
He had led them all up here, thinking this would be the way to get out. But he may have just doomed them all over again.
The two soldiers rammed against the door with their shoulders again. It didn’t budge. With a determined look on her face, Khepri stepped right up to Hassan, chest to chest, her eyes locked on his. For a wild moment, he thought she was about to kiss him. Instead, he felt her hands at his waist, unknotting the sash threaded through the top of his pants.
Logically, he understood that this was a dire situation that they might not make it out of. But at the same time, he couldn’t help the way his body reacted to a beautiful woman suddenly undressing him.
“What are you—?” He choked on the rest of the question as she stepped away, the sash in hand. He stared mutely as Khepri ripped it in half with her teeth. She handed one half to him.
“Do you still have the reliquary?”
“What?”
“Emir’s reliquary,” Khepri said. “They gave it to you after the funeral, didn’t they?”
He blinked and touched the bottle that hung tied from a loop in his pants. It held the chrism oil that had been used to anoint Emir in death.
Blue jewels and glass glinted in his palm as Hassan handed the bottle to Khepri. She flipped open the latch and stuffed the cloth inside, leaving a few inches to spill out the top.
“Light that with Godfire,” Khepri said to him, nodding at the other half of his sash, which was still in his hands.
Bewildered, he took the cloth and climbed down the stairs until he was close enough to the flames. The fire was uncomfortably hot on his skin, but Hassan withstood it until the end of the sash was lit.
He ran back to Khepri.
“Clear the way!” Khepri called, motioning to the soldiers standing in front of the door. They hastily stepped aside.
Khepri held the bottle beneath the burning sash that dangled from Hassan’s hands. She kept it there long enough for the cloth inside the chrism oil to catch fire, and then threw the entire thing—oil, cloth, and flame—against the doors before dropping to a crouch and pulling Hassan down.
An earth-shattering boom shook the tower.
Hassan looked up in time to see a small white inferno expand and then quickly dissipate, leaving a charred black opening in its wake.
A cheer went up, and Khepri looked over at him, grinning. They got to their feet and ran from the debris and smoke, into the open air. The rest of the prisoners were already through to the deck by the time they emerged.
“We made it.” There was a giddiness in Khepri’s voice.
Hassan looked over at her, breathing in deeply. Each lungful of fresh air was sweeter than the one before. As relief washed over him, he tugged her into his arms. Khepri’s arms looped easily around his neck, and he leaned in. When Khepri had kissed him on the Cressida, it had been desperate and full of the fear and guilt that had plagued them both. But here, now, with the night stars spread above them, Hassan kissed her, full of promise and hope.
They broke apart, and Hassan tried to memorize her face as it was in this moment—lips slightly parted, a flush suffusing her bronze skin, eyelashes fanning delicately out from those captivating amber eyes. It was strange that any part of Khepri—bold, brave Khepri with sunlight in her eyes and steel in her spine—could be delicate. But there were parts of her he had not yet come to know, and he could only hope that he would have time to learn them.
She smiled at him and then leaned back in to steal a tiny kiss that took Hassan by surprise and made him answer with a grin that he knew must look ridiculous.
“Come on,” she murmured.
Hassan folded her hand in his own. They followed the rest of the soldiers down the stone stairwell that wrapped around the outside of the lighthouse.
“How did you know that would happen?” he asked as they descended. “The chrism oil, I mean. You knew it would react with the Godfire.”
Khepri’s face hardened. “I saw it happen before, remember? When we tried to put out the source of the flame in the High Temple. The temple exploded when the Godfire touched the chrism oil.”
Hassan had forgotten that detail, so preoccupied with the other horrors he had seen and heard about that day. But Khepri had lost three comrades that night. Those memories, he knew, were burned into her mind.
“Well,” he murmured, “your quick thinking saved us.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs to find three familiar figures racing toward them.
“Penrose!” Hassan cried.
She, Petrossian, and Osei halted before Hassan’s group. They were sooty and damp from sea spray, but otherwise looked unharmed.
“You made it out,” Penrose said in relief. “Thank the Prophets. We were about to go back in to find you.”
“We got out through the observation deck,” Hassan explained. “Did everyone else make it out?”
Penrose nodded. “After you went up into the tower, we helped the others escape through the atrium. The Hierophant left some guards outside the lighthouse, but we took care of them. Annuka and Yarik are signaling the Order’s ships at the seawall to let them know to dock there. The harbor is too dangerous and overrun with Witnesses. But we have to go now if we’re going to meet them before the Witnesses figure out what they’re doing.”
Hassan nodded. He turned to the rest of the soldiers. “Everyone, go with Penrose. She will take you to the Order’s ships. You’ll be safe with them.”
Khepri stepped up to him. “Why does it sound like you aren’t going?”
He looked past her toward the lighthouse. “The Godfire flame is still burning up there. As long as that’s true, Nazirah is in danger. I won’t leave my kingdom again. Herat doesn’t need a conqueror, and it doesn’t need a Prophet. It needs someone who will fight for it no matter what.” He thought of his father, who had faced execution rather than give in to the Witnesses. “Even die for it if necessary.”
Herat still needed its prince. Hassan had never needed Grace or a prophecy to save his kingdom. He’d only needed the belief that he could, and all the rage and hope that had brought him here.
“You’re serious,” Penrose said, a pang of disbelief in her voice. “You’re going to stay here? With the Witnesses? Your aunt?”
“They’re going to burn the city, Penrose. Unless someone stops them.”
“But how?”
“I have a plan.” He looked up at the lighthouse. The symbol of Nazirah’s past. The tower that was his kingdom’s heart. The light that had guided him home. “You told us in Pallas Athos that there’s only one source of Godfire,” he said to Khepri. “If that’s it up there, then there’s only one way to put it out. We have to destroy the ligh
thouse.”
This was a conclusion Hassan had reached hours ago, when he’d first seen the pale flame burning at its top.
“It’s the only way,” he said.
“But Hassan—” Khepri began.
He silenced her with a look. “You told me on the Cressida that we always have choices. This is what I choose, Khepri. I’m going to stop the Witnesses.”
This would be his salvation.
Khepri held his gaze. “Then I’ll help you.”
“I can’t ask you to—”
“Of course I’m helping you,” she said. “You know that. My brothers are still here in Nazirah. If there’s hope we can save them, I’ll do whatever it takes.”
He peered into her eyes, his heart at war with itself. He wouldn’t be able to bear her getting hurt. But neither could he let her go.
“I bound my fate to yours, remember?” She squeezed his hand. “I already made my choice, Hassan. I choose you.”
“We do, too.”
Hassan looked up and saw Khepri’s lieutenant, Faran, standing in front of him. “We’re not leaving, either, Prince Hassan.”
The soldiers gathered behind him nodded in agreement.
“No,” Hassan said. “You should get to safety, to give our people a chance outside of this kingdom.”
Faran shook his head. “What is a people without their homeland? We came here to fight at your side, Prince Hassan, to stand up to the Witnesses. To reclaim our kingdom. So that’s what we’ll do.”
“You heard what the Hierophant said about me,” Hassan said. “What I am. I deceived all of you. All of this, it’s my fault. What I’ve done … it’s beyond forgiveness.”
“It’s the Hierophant’s fault,” Faran said fiercely. “And the fault of everyone who followed him. It doesn’t matter what they say you are, Prince Hassan. We know who you are. We want to fight beside you. For Nazirah.”
“For Nazirah,” the others murmured.
Hassan couldn’t quite believe it—despite everything, despite what he’d done, his people still trusted him. Still believed in him.
He turned to Penrose. “I guess this is it, then.”
There Will Come a Darkness Page 36