When we reached Lenara’s office, I began to relax. I knocked, and the door swung open.
We hadn’t seen Agrir because he was already inside, along with half a dozen armed guards. So was Zeniri. Both he and Lenara were on their knees, hands bound behind their backs.
“Kamai,” Agrir said, before I could really process what lay before me. “The exact person I wanted to see. You’re just in time.”
26
MISUSED GIFTS
“What’s going on? What are you doing here?” I demanded, before I could think better of it.
Agrir raised gray eyebrows. “I should be asking you the same. And I think I will, once we’re finished here.” He gestured to Zeniri and Lenara. I realized that Zeniri’s handsome face had bruises blooming under his dark skin, as if he’d been hit several times. And not recently; maybe last night. They’d been holding him for a while. He hadn’t been answering his door because he hadn’t been there. “I’ve learned enough from them for now. In fact, we’ve just awoken them, and I’ve ordered their arrest.”
Awoken them? Gods, that meant they hadn’t just asked questions using words and fists. That had come first, and then … “Arrest?” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Why?”
“It appears that Zeniri is an unauthorized, unlicensed soulwalker who has been conducting his business in the palace under the guise of a courtier and pleasure artist. He stole vital information from someone close to the king and threatened to blackmail him with it—”
“Him? Let me guess,” I snarled. “Nyaren made these accusations.”
Agrir’s eyes flashed. He knew that I knew Nyaren was in the Twilight Guild. “The accuser wishes to remain anonymous for his privacy, but the pertinent authorities are aware. Zeniri could have obtained this information only one way, so I thought to recheck him for Heshara’s gift. Her misused gift, in this case.”
The hypocrisy was boggling, coming from him. He was not only misusing Heshara’s gift in spying for the Twilight Guild, but in serving Darkness. As high priest, no less.
As much as I was tempted to accuse him, that would reveal the Keepers. We were all still playing a game, still pretending, even though our lives were at stake.
Zeniri spat on the rug. His saliva was tinged with red. “You have nothing to prove I have taken any information from anyone. You searched my soul without provocation. I have practiced my art honestly—”
“Shut up, lying bastard.” One of the guards cuffed him upside the head. Zeniri’s eyes squeezed shut in pain, and my own fists clenched.
“Yes, still making that excuse, are you,” Agrir said, staring down at him, “after I discovered you’re a soulwalker? Even after I discovered all the places you’ve walled off in your soul? We’ll break into them eventually, you can be sure. It will just take time. And we’ll have plenty of that while you’re locked in a cell.”
Walls. Zeniri had protections in his soul too, probably to hide that he was a Keeper. Which meant they probably didn’t know yet. The Twilight Guild must have suspected Zeniri was a soulwalker, and now they were using that hunch to move against him. Agrir likely hadn’t had any real reason to search his soul—none that he could admit anyway—and he’d only been spurred to fabricate a plausible-sounding excuse by …
Me. It had to be. I must have gotten too close to the truth and drawn Agrir’s attention. He must have felt me pushing when I had tried to see into the guarded parts of the king’s soul, and then he guessed it was me, especially since Nyaren would have told him I was with the king at the time. And now he was using Zeniri and Lenara to get to me.
Agrir was watching me, his eyes curious and predatory. “We also traced this deceit to the source. Zeniri was approved by Priestess Lenara for court. We found the walled-off areas in her own soul, hiding the truth, which necessitates rechecking everyone else she has approved. We can start with you, since you’ve just arrived at such a coincidental moment.”
If they searched me and discovered I was a soulwalker, the whole world would know.
Zeniri stared defiantly from his kneeling position on the floor, but I could see the fear in his eyes. His life was about to end. He would be lucky to live out the rest of his days in a dungeon, never mind the inevitable loss of his reputation, his friends, his art … And I would follow him.
“No.” I backed away and a guard seized my shoulder.
Nikha flew into action before I could blink, smashing one guard in the face, breaking his nose in a burst of blood, and kicking a second’s knee into a new, excruciating angle. Even without weapons, she was formidable.
But not invincible. A third guard drew a dagger, ducked under Nikha’s scuffle with another two of his comrades, and stabbed her in the thigh. I cried out; she only gasped as her legs buckled and she went down. They soon had her subdued on the ground.
Agrir watched the proceedings without feeling. “Kill her,” he said flatly.
“No!” I screamed, struggling against the guard who held me, my voice splitting the air. The one who’d stabbed her raised his knife toward her throat. Nikha met my eyes. Hers weren’t panicked or at peace or anything I could easily name. They contained so much. Anguish. Stubbornness. Love. Maybe even a good-bye.
“If you do this, I’ll want to die, and he’ll be unhappy with you,” I screeched, lunging not toward Nikha, but for Agrir.
The disinterest in his eyes changed instantly to alarm. “Stop,” he told the guard.
Lenara’s head jerked my way.
“I’m curious what he thinks about much, of late,” Agrir murmured, and then turned to the guards holding Nikha. “Throw her in a cell, but make sure she lives.”
“He?” Lenara asked. The look on her face said enough. It was like I had torn out her heart and offered it to someone else. Zeniri’s own gaze was as sharp as daggers through his swollen eyes.
They thought I had connections to someone even higher than Agrir among the Twilighters, that I had been double-crossing the Keepers somehow. And who knew? Maybe I was.
The guards hauled Nikha, bleeding and still struggling, halfway to her feet and dragged her out of the room. I tried to hold her gaze, to show her I would try to make everything right, try to go after her, but my own captors held me in place, and Agrir’s voice drew my eyes back to him.
“And now we have an appointment in my office.” He nodded at the guard holding me. “But first, search her.”
He found the two vials, one of mohol, one of poison, in the hidden pocket in my gown. But they didn’t find my mother’s pocketknife tucked in my bodice. The thicker fabric, as well as my breasts, masked any sign of it, and the guard didn’t get so familiar as to grope overly much there. He was doing a job, if a brutal one, not looking for extra fun. Besides, none of them likely imagined I could do much with a weapon so small as to evade detection.
I doubted I could do much with it, either.
“Hm,” Agrir said as he eyed the vials in his hand before pocketing them. “I’m not entirely sure what these are, but they don’t reflect well on you. Now bring her, and have the other two locked up as well.”
“Kamai!” Lenara shouted, her voice betrayed, afraid, pleading—and still, under all that, concerned for me—but I was yanked out of the room before I could respond.
The trip to Agrir’s office was surreal. The temple had become a familiar place, not comfortable or warm, but soothing in its own way. Everything felt wrong now, twisted, as the black dome passed overhead and the checkered tiles flew by beneath my feet, the guard jerking me down the halls in Agrir’s wake. Had Heshara turned on me? Was she using Agrir against me, because I had turned on her by making promises to Vehyn?
Goddesses aren’t known to be forgiving, Lenara had once said.
I felt forsaken by the goddess, by the Keepers, by Razim, by my mother … even by Vehyn. Where was he while this was happening? Did he want this to happen, despite all we had shared?
Two more temple guards were stationed outside Agrir’s office, and they threw the door
s open for us, offering only curious glances. This was their high priest after all. It didn’t matter that he was hauling a young girl they probably recognized as a frequent visitor to the temple after him. If he asked them to help kill me, they would. Especially once they all knew I was a soulwalker.
Agrir instructed them to continue standing watch outside the room, keeping just the one guard with us. My captor held me still in the center of the great black rug, while Agrir went behind his imposing desk and removed his own vial of clear liquid. Mohol.
“I suggest you take this voluntarily if you wish to retain your dignity,” he said, striding back to me. “Otherwise, we’ll hold you down and pour it down your throat.”
I snatched the vial from him. Agrir gestured toward one of the long white couches. My knees were wobbly as I walked over to it and sat down. I unstoppered the vial with shaking fingers and looked up at Agrir.
“After you,” he said with a nod. He wanted to be sure that I took it and was deeply asleep before he entered the sleeping realm himself, probably so I wouldn’t try anything desperate to escape.
Which meant I would reach the sleeping realm before him—and reach Vehyn, who was my last hope. I quickly tipped the contents into my mouth and swallowed. Darkness, in turn, swallowed me.
27
WORST ENEΜIES
When I arrived in my clearing, for a heart-stopping moment I didn’t see the black door. But then arms encircled me from behind and hauled me back, across the threshold.
Vehyn spun me around, gripping my shoulders.
“I—”
“Be silent, Kamai.” But he didn’t say it angrily. He seized my hand and dragged me deeper into the study. “You’re not supposed to be here. So breathe quietly, if you must breathe.”
He situated me in a corner and waved his pale hands before me. Indistinct darkness flowed around me until I was completely covered. And then I was just another deep shadow, one of an endless number in this place.
But why did he need to hide me? No one had been able to enter the dark fortress before, or even see the doorway.
It didn’t take long for Agrir to enter the study through the black door. He did so hesitantly, his intense eyes darting about, his steps small. His gaze passed right over me.
Vehyn faced the priest, dark robe swirling, his arms crossed. “You know what I said, last we met. What are you doing here? What do you think you’re doing with Kamai?”
“My Lord.” Agrir bowed deeply, straightened. “It has been so long since we last spoke face-to-face that I thought … I wanted to check…” He swallowed, quailing under the weight of Vehyn’s expression. I really must have gotten used to that dark look, since it no longer had the same effect upon me. “I thought the girl might be here, but perhaps I was wrong.”
He had known what to expect, then—this unimaginable place. And Agrir must have known I didn’t have a nehym, because he didn’t seem surprised by its absence.
“You were wrong,” Vehyn said flatly. “As we established long ago, she’s not a soulwalker.”
“But…” He thought better than to argue that point directly. “Something isn’t right with her. She’s not sympathetic to our cause either, like I thought.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“She … she’s prying where she shouldn’t and working with those we suspect stand in opposition to us!” His tone was indignant, defensive. Afraid. Not of whatever I might be doing, but of Vehyn.
“I told you to leave her be.”
“I didn’t accuse her directly, because I know you’re … here … but she didn’t seem to be entirely under your control. I worried she was accessing souls, critical secrets, in ways I didn’t expect, and I thought it wise—”
“To test her? To test me? Are you certain that is wise? I told you never to come back here.” So Agrir had definitely already been here, behind the black door, at least once.
“I couldn’t have even if I’d tried, not since that whore, Marin…” He trailed off at the displeased look on Vehyn’s face. “Yes, of course. I’ll release her, unharmed, if that is your desire.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of his reference to my mother. Had she somehow forbidden others from entering the black door, not just me? Did it follow Agrir like it did me? Could others besides Agrir see it?
“It is my desire,” Vehyn replied. “I will keep her asleep in the meantime. Put her body in a safe place—not a cell.”
Cell or not, it wasn’t good if I was unconscious and unable to act.
Agrir hesitated. “I don’t mean to overstep, My Lord, and I know you have a far greater comprehension of the situation than I, but are you sure she isn’t risking everything we’ve been building?”
“I won’t explain myself to you. Get out.” Vehyn’s voice was deadly.
Agrir hurried for the door. Maybe he couldn’t quite wake up yet because of the mohol and had to pass time in his nehym until he could. He paused at the door and turned back, glancing around. His tone was obsequious, as if to leave everything on a better note. “She truly has the most remarkable soul I’ve ever seen. I’m sure you’ve had much to do with—”
“Out.”
Agrir scurried across the threshold, and the black door slammed behind him. As it did, my knees went out from under me, and I collapsed on the floor, gasping. But not because I’d been holding my breath, as Vehyn had suggested. The darkness dissipated from around me, and Vehyn turned to look down at me, his arms still folded. His face was distinctly displeased.
“Why…,” I rasped, “why does he think this is my soul?”
“Because it is your soul.” He smiled, an expression that definitely didn’t touch his flat black eyes. “Do you like what I’ve done with the place? Agrir certainly did.”
“Wait … no. No, no, no.” My breath was only coming faster, until my voice rose in a screech. I launched to my feet with it, my hands in tight fists. “You stole my soul?”
Vehyn shrugged, unbothered and unflinching. “I didn’t steal it so much as … occupy it … in your stead. But the door was always there for you, and I’m happy to share. Although, I must admit, I’ve made some adjustments over the years that are more to my taste.”
My volume only rose higher. “You turned it into a godsforsaken fortress of unending darkness!” I waved my hand to encompass it all. “What did it even look like before this?” My voice broke, and unmistakable yearning leaked into the words.
He squinted, as if scrutinizing the place he must have known better than any other. “Why, I can’t really remember.” Of course, he wouldn’t want me to know what my soul had been like before he’d transformed it. “Keep in mind that I never altered it against your own inclinations. I’ve merely encouraged this place to grow in the direction it wanted. Like a plant toward sunlight … or in this case, Darkness. But I didn’t change you, force you to think or act in any way, despite what you might want to believe. In a way, this was all you.”
Now he was being cruel, but his words gave me an odd sort of hope. “So my being a new soul, not desiring anyone like that, wasn’t you affecting me?”
His lips twisted in distaste. “Of course not, though as I’ve said before, the lack of such a desire isn’t a bad thing.”
I’d learned that on my own already; I just didn’t want him to be the reason for how I felt, not after everything I’d gone through to make peace with myself. Maybe my soul was tainted and broken, but at least that part of me wasn’t.
I forced myself to return to the arguably more critical matter at hand, my voice rising once more. “So if you didn’t steal my soul, how did you get in? I may have opened the door, but I never put you behind it in the first place.”
“Perhaps I’ll tell you if you take a deep breath and ask nicely.”
I let out a cry of rage and shoved him as hard as I could. He wasn’t expecting it, and he actually stumbled back a step.
“All my life, I thought I didn’t have a soul, which is bad enough. But this,” I shou
ted, “this is worse! It’s possessed. I’m possessed.”
“Possessed? I’m not some common, malignant spirit.” He hesitated. “Well, strictly speaking, I might be a spirit, but I’m better than most, and certainly not common.”
“Better? You’re Darkness Incarnate!”
“Is that bad?” He wisely didn’t wait for an answer. “My intentions are less petty, and I’m much more civil. A lost spirit would have ransacked the place. Come now”—he gestured around—“is this really so terrible?” Beneath his smirk, I sensed an edge of seriousness to the question.
I wasn’t in the mood for sparing his feelings. “Yes.”
His face closed off. “It could be much, much worse for you, you know.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Of course it is,” he snapped. “Don’t be deliberately obtuse. It’s irritating.”
“Oh, is it? Gods forbid I irritate you, the dark monster possessing my soul.” My words were riding the line between daring and dangerous.
His hands shot out and seized my arms faster than my eyes could follow. “Want me to act like the ‘monster’ you accuse me of being?” he asked, his voice low. “Because I can do that.”
Fear finally set in, my mouth going dry. I worked my tongue and swallowed, noting that his eyes still went to my lips—so at least he wasn’t so angry that he didn’t notice those anymore. Or maybe it was worse that he did.
“You said a long time ago that hurting me didn’t please you,” I murmured. At least, he’d said that the thought of killing me didn’t please him, but there were many ways he could hurt me besides.
“If you irritate me enough,” he said, as deep as a growl, “I may revise my position.”
“Let me go.”
His fingers loosened as if he wanted to listen, but then he said, “Only if you promise to stop trying me.”
“I promise,” I said, letting him have his little victory. I still had work to do, even more now.
He couldn’t let it drop at that, though, despite letting his hands fall away. “Your mother sealed me off, you know. She found the darkness in your soul the first night of your life. She shut me—and your soul—away behind a lovely black door.”
Beyond the Black Door Page 28