She stepped toward him, grasping his forearm. Surprised, he wrapped his hand around hers.
“May Nazirah’s light guide you, Your Grace,” Penrose said, her tone fierce.
He bowed his head. “You, too.”
With a final nod, the remaining members of the Guard retreated, until they were three smudges against the dark sky.
Hassan turned toward the soldiers who stood ready to take his orders. “At dawn, the lighthouse falls.”
61
EPHYRA
Ephyra was thirteen years old when she brought her sister back from the dead.
It was a terrible, hungry year of drought and famine. The usual scatterings of caravans that passed through their town on the trading route from Tel Amot to Behezda had dried up like rain from the cracked earth.
Sickness began to spread. Ephyra and Beru’s parents succumbed to it quickly.
But when Beru had taken ill, Ephyra no longer cared about her parents’ warning about using her Grace. They were gone, and she wasn’t going to lose Beru, too. So she had healed her.
But Beru took ill again. And again. And again.
And then came the morning when Ephyra had gone to her sister’s room and found her lying cold on the bed. Ephyra had never known a more powerful grief than the one that overtook her that morning. It burst forth from her lungs and her throat, and shook her very bones.
Her cries drew her neighbors, who came and discovered Beru’s body. Ephyra knew they would burn it, just like the others. She kicked and fought as they dragged her away. The moment she couldn’t feel her sister’s cold fingers in her own, Ephyra blacked out.
She would never know what had happened in the time she was unconscious. Perhaps for the best. When she came to, she was lying beside her sister’s body. No—beside her sister. Because Beru was breathing again. Short, shallow gasps, her eyes twitching under her lids. And when Beru opened her eyes, Ephyra realized everything around them had gone quiet. The only sound was the breath on her sister’s lips.
And then, the first words of her second life: “What did you do?”
They never spoke about that day again. They never spoke of the slow walk from their home through the silent town square, the bodies of their friends and neighbors lying like broken dolls around them. They never spoke of the empty eyes and the suffocating silence.
It was the last time Ephyra had set foot in this village. Now she had returned, hoping to save her sister again.
Only she feared she was too late.
She stood at the base of the clock tower at the center of town, shielding her eyes against the rising sun. A thick cloth covered the bottom half of her face, to protect it from the dust storms.
Someone had been here. The evidence was in the loosened dirt above the market’s hard pack, in the freshly gouged wound in the trunk of the sycamore that stood at the edge of the village’s main square.
Yes, someone had been here. Ephyra touched the rough bark of the sycamore. There was no blood, nothing to suggest that there had been violence. She refused to consider the possibility. Instead, she moved past the tree, following the path away from the square, down the windy dirt road she knew well. The road that led home.
The house was exactly as she remembered it, down to the crack that ran from the top of the window up to the flat roof. She could almost believe that if she walked up the cobbled walkway and through the arched doorway, she would find her father sketching in the sitting room amid his stacks of journals. That if she walked into the kitchen, she would find her mother chiding Beru for her bruises and dirty fingernails.
But when Ephyra stepped through the threshold, the memory flickered and vanished like a ghost.
“Beru?” she called into the dark, dusty house. “Beru, are you in here?”
The crunch of footsteps broke the silence. Ephyra shot through the main sitting room and into the kitchen. The door that led to the yard swung open.
“Beru!”
But the person standing on the other side of the door wasn’t her sister. It was Hector Navarro.
He stared at her, frozen.
“What have you done to my sister?”
Hector stiffened, anger flashing across his face. “I’ve done nothing to her.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s where she belongs. Where you should have left her, all those years ago. Before you—”
Ephyra couldn’t listen anymore. She shoved past him, streaking out into the yard, her heart a frightened animal in her chest. “Beru!”
Beru lay beneath the acacia tree, her limbs folded beneath her like a straw grass weave.
Ephyra choked on her next breath, a raw, wounded sound bursting from her throat as she stood in the yard, her body frozen. She had crossed the sea to come back to her sister’s side, but she could not make herself cross this last distance.
“I didn’t do this.” Hector’s voice scraped through the air behind her. “You never should have brought her back. You never should have tangled the lines of life and death. You delayed this moment for over five years. You took countless lives. Now it will finally be set right.”
The words broke over her like waves, but Ephyra could barely hear them over the pounding in her head.
Beru couldn’t be dead. Not before Ephyra could get to her.
Her legs carried her across the yard to Beru’s side. She slid to her knees, taking her sister’s limp hand and pressing it to her cheek. Silent, aching sobs shook her.
Beru’s fingers twitched, curling around Ephyra’s thumb.
Ephyra sucked in a desperate breath, pressing her thumb to Beru’s wrist, above the black handprint. Beru’s pulse fluttered faintly.
She was alive. There was still time.
“I’m here,” Ephyra said desperately, combing a curl from Beru’s peaceful face. “I’m here, Beru. I’m here.”
“You should say your goodbyes. It’s over now.”
Ephyra startled at the sound of Hector’s voice, quiet and close behind her.
Why was I spared? Hector had asked her in the cell in Pallas Athos. Ephyra had taken his whole family but left him alive.
And now Beru needed another life.
Ephyra’s fingers tightened around her sister’s wrist. Hector was not like the people she’d killed as the Pale Hand. His death would not be an accident. And there would be no going back from it.
But without Beru, there was no way forward.
She shook herself and got to her feet, facing Hector. “It’s not over. This is not how it ends.”
Everything in their lives had led to this moment.
“It’s you or her. I choose her.”
Panic flashed in Hector’s eyes as she leapt toward him. He grabbed at the hilt of his sword, unsheathing it quicker than Ephyra could react. It sliced past her, and she stumbled back, her hand flying to where the blade had nicked her cheek. Warm blood gushed between her fingers.
Hector looked from her to the blade, his expression stunned. “I—”
Ephyra charged again, but Hector was ready for her. With Graced speed and strength, he pinned her to the ground, his sword at her throat.
“It’s over,” he said again.
She gasped out a ragged breath.
He lowered the sword. “Give up.”
For a moment, the world was still as they stared at each other. Two people who had lost everything. Neither of them able to let go.
With every bit of strength she had, Ephyra surged up at him, reaching wildly to clasp her palm around his arm. His eyes were locked on hers as she took a breath and focused on drawing the esha from his body.
His grip on her began to slacken. At first, it seemed he didn’t understand what was happening. But as he looked from her face to the hand around his arm, his eyes widened in panic. Her other hand shot up, her thumb finding the hollow of his throat. He gasped, his lungs heaving out desperate breaths, each shorter and shallower than the last. His pulse pounded wildly and then began to slow. The light draine
d from his eyes as he choked and went silent. Beneath her palm, his pulse stopped.
He slumped over, his weight pressing down on her. With a great cry of effort, Ephyra pushed him onto the dirt. She lay beside him for a moment, sucking in breath after breath. Hot tears stung her face. She was shaking.
She scraped herself off the ground and forced herself to look down at Hector’s body beside her, and the pale white handprint marring his skin.
Grief and guilt clawed at her throat, but she swallowed them down. Beru needed her.
The rest of the job went quickly. Ephyra had done this so many times it was like her body knew what to do without her direction. The blade, the blood, her hand.
And her sister, dying beneath the acacia.
Ephyra knelt at Beru’s side, brushing the curls from her forehead with her clean hand. She wrapped the other, dripping with fresh blood, around Beru’s wrist, over the dark handprint. She closed her eyes and focused on sending Hector’s esha into Beru. Filling her back up with life.
Please … please. It can’t be too late. Please.
A soft gasp of breath broke the silence. Ephyra opened her eyes and met Beru’s gaze.
“Ephyra?” she mumbled. “Ephyra, you’re hurt.”
She brushed her fingers against the blood that dripped from Ephyra’s cheek.
“I’m fine.” Ephyra couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face—one of relief and exhaustion. “I’m fine, Beru. And so are you.”
Beru looked up at her, brows bunched together in confusion. “I’m…” Her eyes fell to Ephyra’s bloody hand, still locked around Beru’s wrist. In a flurry of movement, Beru pushed herself up. Ephyra saw the moment Beru’s gaze caught on the corpse that lay in the yard. Her expression rippled with confusion and anger.
“Ephyra,” Beru said, her voice full of dread. “What did you do?”
62
JUDE
Jude heard the way out before he saw it. The high, fluting sound of wind through a tunnel whistled through the damp air.
He turned to Anton. “Do you hear that?”
They’d been journeying through the underground waterways for what felt like hours. Anton had kept close to his side. Jude wasn’t sure if that was because he was frightened or simply because he couldn’t see in the dark.
Anton tensed beside him, slowing. But Jude tugged him forward, quickening his steps.
“I think it’s an exit.” He took off, dragging Anton behind him.
Ahead, wan light marked the mouth of the tunnel. Dawn had broken while they were underground. The scent of salt and sea gusted in with the strengthening wind.
They reached the end and stopped short. The tunnel let out beneath a viaduct that jutted from the cliff, supported by cut-stone arches. Nothing but a sharp drop separated them and the waves of white and dark gray that crashed against the rocks below.
“This must be where the water drains to the sea,” Jude said, raising his voice over the sound of the wind and the ocean. He scanned the viaduct above them. He could easily climb up, but it would be more difficult with Anton.
And then Jude realized that Anton was no longer right beside him. He’d stepped up to the edge of the tunnel, his eyes locked on the churning water below. He started to lean forward, slowly, like someone was tugging him down.
“Anton!” Jude scrambled to his side, locking an arm around his chest to drag him back. Anton’s dark eyes looked dazed, disoriented.
He blinked, his vision focusing slowly.
Jude’s breath came in short bursts, panic still suffusing his body.
“Sorry,” Anton said quietly. Jude felt his chest rise and fall, and then Anton’s warm breath against his cheek. “I didn’t think…”
But he didn’t finish the thought. There was a part of him, Jude realized, that was still inside the cistern. He didn’t know exactly what had transpired there, but from the state Anton was in now, he had enough guesses to fuel a thousand nightmares.
The sooner Jude could get him out of here and safely aboard the Order’s ship, the better.
“You can let go,” Anton said. “I’m all right.”
Jude withdrew his arm warily and turned his attention back to the viaduct. There was a narrow ledge of rock protruding from the cliff face, and supports on either side of the viaduct that one could reasonably climb onto from there.
“I’ll go first,” he said. “You follow behind. Don’t look down.”
Anton looked up from the water. He nodded.
“I won’t let you fall,” Jude said.
He picked carefully over the rough, slippery rocks, pausing here and there to help Anton across a particularly tricky stretch. He didn’t breathe until they reached the viaduct supports, which were full of ledges and handholds that made it much easier to climb than the wet rock face. He reached the edge of the parapet first and pulled Anton up after him. With his face against the wind, Jude looked out across the span of the viaduct to the sea.
Silver sails on the gray horizon. Relief coursed through him. “The Order of the Last Light. Just like Penrose promised.”
He turned back to Anton and saw that his eyes had gone distant and dazed again, trained on the lighthouse tower that stood at the end of the viaduct.
Jude followed his gaze, and all of his relief fled. Smoke poured from the top of the tower. The Godfire torch burned brightly against the bleak sky.
The Guard. The other prisoners. They might still be in there.
Wind buffeted him as he stood there, torn once again between what he knew his duty to be and what his heart would break to lose. He had to get Anton—the Prophet—to safety. He knew that. But he couldn’t leave the others to die.
He turned to tell Anton to stay put, to run for the beach if he saw anyone coming. But once again, he realized Anton was no longer there.
A sharp spike of panic went through him, one that did not subside when he spotted Anton’s fair hair against the dark gray sky, racing toward the burning lighthouse. A stone staircase spiraled down the side. Jude watched as Anton began to climb. Toward the Grace-destroying flames of Godfire.
Heart in his throat, Jude raced after him.
63
HASSAN
The plan was very simple.
Under the cover of darkness, they had split into groups of six and hit every temple that stood along Ozmandith Way, collecting chrism oil and all the cloth and drapery they could find.
The streets of Nazirah were ominously empty. Most of the Witnesses, it seemed, were concentrated around the harbor, anticipating the Order’s ships, but small groups of two or three walked the streets of the city. One of these patrols had spotted Hassan and Khepri’s group leaving their third temple. Hassan had waited, heart pounding in his ears, while Khepri went after the Witnesses. They would lose every advantage they had if Lethia and the Hierophant discovered they’d escaped the lighthouse.
Khepri had returned unharmed, with one of the patrolling Witnesses in tow.
“What happened to the other one?” Hassan had asked.
“He won’t get very far on a broken leg,” she’d said.
“There’s no telling who else might have been spotted,” Hassan had said. “We should hurry.”
When they returned to the lighthouse, the others had already started soaking the cloth in chrism oil and packing it into wooden crates.
“Do you think it will be enough?” Hassan asked Khepri.
They were crouched down along the seawall that ran perpendicular to the lighthouse peninsula.
“It’ll have to be,” Khepri said, watching the other soldiers stack the crates against the sea-facing side of the lighthouse. With enough force against it, they hoped they would be able to destabilize the tower and send it crashing down into the waves.
“It’s time,” Hassan said when the soldiers had finished stacking and began to retreat across the peninsula. He stood, slinging a long coil of rope over his shoulder.
The most dangerous task fell to him. He was the
only one who could safely get near enough to the Godfire flame without risking anything more than flesh. He would be the one to set the fuse and light it.
“Wait,” Khepri said, rising with him. For a moment, Hassan was afraid she was going to demand to go with him, though they both knew that was too dangerous.
But instead, Khepri simply slipped her arm around him and leaned in with a brief but fierce kiss that left him reeling.
“I believe in you,” she told him. She placed a glass bottle into his hand and, with a gentle shove, sent him away from the seawall.
He hitched the rope higher on his shoulder as he made his way toward the lighthouse. Several of the Herati soldiers passed him, going in the opposite direction. They stopped upon seeing him and turned in a single, coordinated motion, touching their fists to the center of their chests in the royal salute of the Herati Legionnaires. Prophet or not, Deceiver or not, Hassan was still their prince.
He nodded to them in acknowledgment, and they went on their way toward the seawall, where Khepri waited.
Hassan continued to the lighthouse alone. When he reached the stacks of crates full of chrism oil, he unwound the rope and ran it between them. Then he unscrewed the top of the glass bottle Khepri had given him and poured its contents over the rope and crates.
He picked up the free end of the rope and let it spool out as he walked along the side of the lighthouse toward its entrance. He could already smell the acrid smoke within. Tightening his grip on the rope, he slipped his makeshift mask back over his nose and mouth.
He opened the doors, and smoke bellowed out. Hassan stumbled back, his eyes watering. The smoke was so thick he couldn’t even see the pale light of the Godfire flames within. Sucking in a great breath of air, he shut his eyes and charged inside. Heat and smoke assaulted him, pressing against him like a solid weight. He fought through the dark clouds, head growing thick with the fumes.
Trusting that he was headed toward the flames, he pushed forward blindly. The rope unwound as he ventured farther inside. A deep, hot ache wrenched at his chest.
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