by Will Wight
Her face was growing hot, and she tried hard not to show any reaction.
Even Terrens spoke up. “We all just saw you shoot a beam of light through the water. That was brighter than any Pilgrim I’ve ever seen.”
A few other crewmen nodded.
Loreli’s shoulders slumped, and she felt a little energy drain from her. She had been so certain that they wouldn’t guess…
“Why did you give passage to an enemy?”
One and all, they looked confused. Captain Marstrom had already returned to the wheel, and he laughed aloud. “Enemy? The only thing we’ve ever heard about you is that you save people and fight Elders. Why wouldn’t we help you?”
In spite of herself, Loreli’s eyes misted up. She always tried not to get attached to the people of the current era, knowing that they would all be dead when she next woke. She always failed.
Loreli braced her sheathed blade on the deck. “Thank the God for all of you. We really have no time to waste; Kelarac is on the move.”
The sails snapped down at the command of the Captain’s Intent, and he gave her a salute.
“The Heart of the Aion is at your command, Regent.”
Chapter Eighteen
two years ago
Yala would never dare lie to a Regent, one of the most powerful Readers ever to walk the earth. So when Estyr Six asked where the Emperor was, Yala had to deflect with the truth.
“I apologize, Regent.” The telekinetic grip on Yala had loosened, allowing her to speak. “We had no intention of waking you. I’m afraid that some gas slipped through the filters in your containment, which required—”
“Yeah, I know what happened.” Estyr’s eyes drifted over the room again, and she inhaled slowly as though breathing in their Intent. “This wasn’t an accident. We were woken on purpose, just not by you.” She nodded to Shera, her gruesome halo of skulls dipping in the same motion as her head. “Who’s that?”
The question was deceptively casual, but beads of sweat popped onto Yala’s skin.
She kept herself intact with the iron will she’d honed over years of undercover action. “A rogue Gardener. After discovering your presence down there, she dropped an alchemical gas charge into the basement. We attempted to stop her.”
Yala’s prayers had changed. She now prayed desperately that Shera would expire, and the sooner the better.
Estyr’s brow furrowed into a frown and she drifted over, inspecting Shera more closely. One bronze shear lifted from the corner of the room, where it landed obediently in Estyr’s hand. “He touched this. It…did it draw his blood? She wanted it to. But she wasn’t bloodthirsty. I think it even wounded her to do so, in ways she didn’t feel. And this is…”
Her head jerked back, though she still held the blade. Everyone else in the room was still held in the grip of her power, as though invisible hands had seized everyone at once.
“…this stabbed the Heart of Nakothi. The Emperor granted it power. So did Tyrfang.” Estyr sighed and closed her eyes, and Yala even thought she heard distant cries, as from three ancient hydras.
The shear drifted over to Shera, sliding gently into her left-hand sheath.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Estyr asked, her eyes still closed.
“Yes.” Yala was proud that her voice stayed clear and strong.
“But he didn’t wake us…” The blue eyes snapped open again, meeting Yala’s gaze. Yala could read no particular expression in them, but still her blood ran cold. “That’s pretty interesting, don’t you think?”
Estyr held out her hand to one side, then slowly dragged her finger along the air.
From downstairs, Yala heard the grinding of stone on stone. When Estyr stopped moving, there was a great crash.
The other three coffins.
“Her smoke bomb landed next to my chamber. She invested a lot of Intent into it, for someone with no power. Good for her. And lucky for her that I was the first to wake.”
The lead ball, which had been fired from Yala’s pistol and then frozen in midair by Estyr’s power, fell limply to land on Shera’s chest.
A coughing and sputtering came from downstairs, followed by a man’s voice. “Oath to eternity, Estyr, you have to needle me in the eye when I’ve only been up for two blinks? Where are my shadeglasses…”
Estyr kept her attention fixed on Yala. “Did the Emperor tell you to wake us?”
“No,” Yala answered. Technically she was telling the truth.
“Oh, I see…half true. He told you we were down here, but he died before he could directly order us up.”
Yala focused on not shivering.
“Loreli,” Estyr called. “We need you.”
A woman’s long yawn came from below. “Has the time come already?” Then a quick intake of breath. “Where’s Father?”
A quick expression passed beneath the surface of Estyr’s face. “He’s gone, Loreli.”
A man’s head popped up from the trap door, black glasses over his eyes, his hair a wet mess. He wore a white robe identical to Estyr’s. “Gone as in gone, or are you blowing wind through a…” For the first time, Jorin surveyed the scene himself. When he was done, he sighed and pulled himself up to sit on the floor. “Well, rattle my bones. Didn’t think I’d live till this day. Didn’t think…”
He reached up to hold his eyes beneath the glasses, taking a long, rough breath through his nose. “Where is he now?”
Estyr looked to Yala for an answer.
“He is dead,” Yala assured him, reluctant to give any more details.
Jorin made a choking sound, as though forcing down tears. “His body, new-flower girl. Where is he?”
“I apologize.” She was never as likeable or diplomatic with clients as many of her fellow Consultants; one of the reasons she had been guided toward the Masons, where the only thing she had to conceal was her true allegiance. “He was buried outside the Imperial Palace, with a cemetery all to himself and a magnificent monument marking his resting place.”
“Not magnificent enough by half,” Jorin muttered. “Not until I’m through with it.”
Meanwhile, Shera was bleeding, and Estyr noticed. “Loreli! A life is at stake.”
Loreli was next up the ladder, her dark skin the same shade as the Emperor’s, her hair in a hundred braids like Kerian’s. Or rather, Kerian’s was like hers.
Tears ran in free rivers down her face, and her expression was contorted, but her brown eyes were still warm and comforting even through the pain. “Of course, Estyr. I’m here.” She climbed out, making a beeline for Shera.
Loreli lifted the silver sun-shaped medallion from her neck. She knelt next to Shera, raising her Soulbound Vessel high.
This was the first Beacon, the original that all Luminian Pilgrims in history had copied. She was the original Pilgrim, and the original Knight as well. The tactician, warlord, healer, visionary, religious icon: Loreli, Daughter of the Emperor.
The diamond at the center of the medallion shone bright.
White-gold light shrouded Shera, and balls of lead crawled out of several of her wounds as though obeying the Regent’s command.
In seconds, the wounds had closed up. Color even returned to Shera’s cheeks, her breathing evening out.
I’m under the axe now, Yala thought. Shera’s death had been her best hope of walking away from the Regents.
Loreli knelt next to Yala’s fallen Shepherd, channeling power into him.
“What do you know about the Emperor’s death?” Estyr asked, and Yala could feel the axe lower another inch.
Two of the four Regents focused directly on her, and she had no doubt that Loreli was listening as well. Yala had to keep matters to the bare truth if she wanted to escape with her life and authority—not to mention her entire Guild—intact.
“Will you allow the rest of my team to leave? These are secrets they are not qualified to hear.”
Estyr didn’t waste the time required to respond. Not in words.
Like do
lls, everyone except the Regents, Yala, Shera, and the man under Loreli’s care was picked up and moved out of the room. Before the door shut, Lucan’s unconscious body drifted inside as well, settling down next to Loreli.
That hadn’t been enough for a delay to allow Yala time to think, so she simply dove into the muck. “The Heart that had sustained his life had begun taking a toll on him.”
She still restrained her speech, in case anyone outside listened, and also because speaking vaguely allowed her some leeway with the truth. “Sensing this, he selected three young Gardeners-in-training to become a team that would watch over him. He wished to train them into a force that could do what was necessary, when the time came.”
Jorin pointed one finger at Shera, then a second at Lucan. “Where’s the third?”
Yala hadn’t intended to confirm Lucan’s identity, but of course they had divined it immediately. “The third was my daughter.”
“Who decided his time had come?” Estyr asked.
“I am not clear enough on the details to answer that with certainty.” Yala had, of course, done her research. But the events that had occurred inside the Emperor’s chambers were known fully only to the Emperor and his personal Gardeners. “I was not present that night.”
But Shera was. Yala didn’t say it aloud, but she hoped the implication would drive the Regent to anger.
Estyr floated over to Shera, holding her hand over the Gardener’s body. She left it there for a few seconds, eyes closed, breathing evenly.
When her eyes finally opened, she gave no sign of what she’d Read. “How long has it been?”
“About three years.”
“Three years…so let’s run this backward.” There was iron in the Regent’s voice now. “These Gardeners, these particular assassins, risk their lives to free us. After three years in which the Consultant’s Guild let us sleep as the Empire rotted around us. And before that, the Emperor told you he intended to release us before his death. Am I right?”
Yala swallowed, but didn’t retreat. It wasn’t in her nature. She bulled ahead. “He didn’t leave us instructions, so we had to use our own judgment. We have worked ourselves to the bone holding the Empire together.”
Estyr Six’s gaze softened into what Yala thought must be weariness. “True…that’s true. At least, you believe it.”
By then, Loreli had finished healing Lucan, and her bare feet slapped on stone as she moved over to regard Yala sadly. She reached out to the High Mason, taking Yala’s face in her hands.
Yala should have felt threatened by the contact, but there was no sense of hostility from Loreli. She radiated warm sympathy.
“You’ve carried a hard burden,” Loreli said softly. “Harder than anyone else knows.” Yala could feel that burden even then, pushing down on her shoulders, threatening to buckle her knees.
“You have lived a life in service to the Empire,” the Regent continued. “Thank you. Thank you for what you have done, and you can set part of your burden down. We are here now.”
Yala was shocked to find her eyes watering, her heart rising into her throat. She couldn’t remember the last time she had wept.
Estyr gave Loreli a wry look, though there was little humor in it. “Hard to strip her of her rank when you’re thanking her for her service.”
Loreli smiled at Yala and pulled away. “She made a hard decision. She has her rough edges, but she made it as best she could. Why would we punish her for that?”
“What is this indignity?” a man bellowed from downstairs. “Where are my clothes? Servants! Servants!”
“Bustle up here, Alagaeus,” Jorin responded. “We have…news.”
A short, squat Heartlander emerged from the trap door, scowling at everything and everyone. “Is this how they treat their betters in this age? Keeping us to mold in a basement?”
“Alagaeus,” Estyr said quietly, “if you smile or laugh or say anything to set my teeth on edge, I’m throwing you into the moon.”
His face spit into a sinister grin. “So you have chosen to rule as a tyrant after all? I thought your nobility was too important to you.”
“He’s dead.”
Yala watched the reality slowly dawn on the fourth Regent’s face. His face went from petty vindictiveness to disbelieving, then finally melted into something Yala would call ancient grief. “So he carried the world alone to the end. I would have…”
He straightened his back. “Well. Our work has been set before us, then, hasn’t it?”
Fresh tears ran down Loreli’s face. She walked over to throw her arms around Alagaeus.
The shorter man blinked, stiffening as though he’d never seen a hug before, but after a moment he relaxed into her embrace.
Jorin lifted his shadeglasses to wipe away his own tears, and this time even Estyr’s eyes watered. She floated down, landing on the stone and staring into the distance like a lost mortal.
Yala didn’t dare interrupt. She bent every thought, every scrap of her Intent, and every fiber of her body into pretending she didn’t exist.
Then Shera sat up, eyes wide, gasping for breath and drawing a weapon.
Chapter Nineteen
present day
Meia walked down into one of the Imperial Palace dungeons carrying a stick of incense and a box of matches.
There were many dungeons in the Palace, but these were connected to the rooms of the Imperial Steward. Calder had liked to visit whenever his schedule allowed.
It wasn’t unusual that he would want to visit his wife.
Meia was still uncertain how she felt about Calder’s death. Her interactions with him had led her to believe that he could be trusted, even worked with as an ally. He had been marked by Kelarac, but the Emperor had carried around a Great Elder’s heart for almost two thousand years.
She recognized that Shera had been working on behalf of the Guild by killing him, but she still regretted it. She wished they had found his body.
If she couldn’t express her respect in any other way, she wanted to at least visit his grave.
But his death still wasn’t public knowledge, nor had they found the body. The most she could do was to personally take on the job of interrogating Jyrine Tessella Marten.
She wasn’t sure she would call it an apology; it was just a…gesture. Something to make herself feel better.
It couldn’t be for Calder, because the dead didn’t care what happened after they died. Every Gardener was well aware of that.
The “dungeon” looked like one of the hallways upstairs, its carpet red and plush, its walls freshly painted. Servants and guards—just regular soldiers, not Guild members with the limbs of Kameira—walked up and down the row.
The doors were the major difference between this place and the hall for visitors upstairs. Rather than solid planks of painted wood, they were wide-set bars that made it easy for guards to assess the prisoners at a glance.
There were more prisoners than she expected. The Imperial Palace had plenty of dungeons besides this one, and any captured Independents had been released days ago.
Still, the hall was quiet. Something about the walls or the carpet absorbed sound. She could see a nearby prisoner grasping his bars and shouting until his face turned red, but she heard him only as a whisper.
The cell she was looking for had a dedicated guard and a servant standing nearby, both chatting with each other in words she couldn’t hear.
Meia presented a letter of authorization marked with the Steward’s seal—Jorin had been using it when his personal seal wouldn’t be recognized and the Imperial Seal would be overkill. She had used it to get into the dungeon as well.
She probably didn’t need it, as she was coming in with her Gardener blacks, but it was better to follow protocol if possible.
The guard saw her credentials, saluted, and unlocked the door. There was no second door inside, so the prisoner could rush out if she wished, though of course she wouldn’t make it past the three locked doors Meia had already pa
ssed to get to this point.
Jyrine didn’t try.
She sat gracefully on a padded chair as though hosting a reception. She wore a crimson prisoner’s suit, in which she looked quite comfortable.
She should be; she’d worn one long enough.
She had the caramel skin of Vandenyas, and her long hair—which she usually tied into a single braid—cascaded loosely down her back. According to her behavioral reports, she still spent time in the morning and evening keeping it brushed.
Jyrine leaned back in her chair, ankles crossed and hands folded in her lap.
Before Meia could introduce herself, the woman arched an eyebrow. “Hello, Meia. Where’s my husband?”
It was something of a surprise that Jyrine had been able to recognize her so quickly, but not impossible. If Meia had cared whether or not Jyrine recognized her, she would have sent someone else.
Meia showed no reaction, only setting the incense into a stand she’d brought with her. She placed the stand onto a nearby table—the furniture in this dungeon was just as high-quality as that provided upstairs.
“The Guilds have reached a peaceful agreement.” Meia struck a match, lighting the incense. “I have been sent to ask you a few questions about the Sleepless cult. If you cooperate, I can authorize a few concessions to your accommodations.”
While the room itself was nice, there were still restrictions on prisoners, even those in the Imperial Palace.
Jyrine nodded toward the table. “What’s that for?”
“I have a sensitive nose,” Meia said. “Now, what do you know about the intentions of the Great Elders?”
The prisoner watched her, clearly trying to decide what to say.
Meia gave her plenty of time to think, pulling out a notebook, pen, and inkwell from a pouch in her pocket. The longer Jyrine took, the more incense she would breathe in.
And the smoke, crafted by the Alchemist’s Guild, would loosen her tongue.
Another interrogator using this alchemy would have had to wear a mask or an invested cloth, which would give the prisoner a clue about the nature of the smoke. Meia’s body ignored most toxins, so she breathed without worry.