The sun broke over the horizon, spilling dawn’s light across the city. It painted Govinna’s walls and kissed the bridges that linked its two halves together, setting its high rooftops ablaze with coppery fire. It fell across the courtyard, making long shadows of the buildings to the east. When it fell upon the balcony and on Beldyn himself, the air about him came alive, sparkling in the golden morning, falling in shimmering waves from his body, in a cascade that poured down from the tower’s heights.
The throngs remained silent a heartbeat longer, staring in awe, then bellowed in reply, louder than any dragon’s cry, clapping hands and stamping the ground as the chant took over again. “Beldinas! Beldinas! Beldinas!”
Beldyn stood amid it all, bathed in the newborn sun-glow, smiling.
* * * * *
Amid the furor, a lithe, dark shape huddled at the courtyard’s edge, staring up at the balcony with eyes like green, burning splinters. No one came near Sathira. Though they didn’t see her crouched in her native shadows, the cold that surrounded the demon kept people away. A few folk even signed the triangle, muttering warding prayers at the unnatural chill. She laughed silently, for she had no mouth, and her talons clenched as she glowered at Beldyn. Let the mortal folk believe in him, she thought. It will only make their weeping more bitter when it comes.
First, though, there was the day to get through, or what remained of it The sunrise had thwarted her as she sought to cross the yard, but winter was near, and the days were growing shorter. In a few hours, there would be darkness to spare, and she could move freely again. Let Beldyn live one more day—it would only sweeten the taste of his soul.
Hissing in anticipation, she pulled back into the darkness, into shadows so thick that none could see her, not until she struck. Let them fear me, she thought.
Then she was gone, lost in gloom cast by the morning light.
* * * * *
The halo of sunlight vanished from Beldyn the moment he stepped back into the tower. By the time the sky began to darken again, though, the familiar silver glow had taken its place. All that day, he remained in the Pantheon’s worship hall, receiving the folk of Govinna. Many came simply to kneel before him, bowing their heads to kiss his medallion while Cathan looked on with steely eyes. Though Ossirian’s men made them yield their weapons at the temple doors, the young bandit kept one hand on his sword at all times.
Scattered among the supplicants came others, those who had been there to greet him when he arrived in the city the day before: the sick and crippled, some leaning on other men’s shoulders as they drew near. Many were victims of the Longosai, but there were others, too, who did not bear the dark blotches that marked them as plague-stricken. The healing light flared for them all, as it had so often in Luciel, filling the shadowy hall again and again as Beldyn laid his hands upon the supplicants. Those with the Creep rose from their knees, untainted. A woman blind since childhood blinked back tears from eyes that could see once more. A man paralyzed from the waist down rose and began to walk. Some laughed for joy, but many others wept, murmuring tearful thanks while Beldyn sprinkled them with holy water and signed the triangle in farewell.
Ilista stayed near at all times, standing silently behind the altar. Beldyn was getting stronger, his powers holding up better than in Luciel. Then he had only been able to heal eight a day and one at a time. Today in the Pantheon, though, he touched more than a score of Govinna’s folk before sending them away again, fully cured. Ilista watched as one by one they rose, as healthy as if they had been well all their lives, and the light that hung around Beldyn grew from a flicker to a dazzling glare.
In the end, though, even the Lightbringer tired, and as the sunlight that lanced down from the hall’s high windows shifted to evening crimson, Beldyn’s endurance finally gave out. His shoulders slumped and his eyelids drooped as he pronounced Paladine’s blessing upon a healthy young boy who, only moments before, had been covered with weeping sores. As the child’s sobbing mother led him away, he gave a weary sigh and shook his head.
“No more,” he breathed. “Tell them they can return on the morrow.”
Cries of disappointment rang from the vestibule as the temple’s clerics turned the rest of the people away, then the worship hall’s dragon-carved doors boomed shut, blocking them out. Beldyn walked to a pew and slumped down onto it. Ilista watched as he spoke briefly with Cathan, then the young bandit bowed and withdrew, disappearing out a side door.
“His sister,” Beldyn said when he caught her look. “He hasn’t seen her all day. I told him he could stay with her tonight.”
Ilista nodded, sitting down beside him. “You did great things today.”
“Not enough.” He shook his head, gesturing about the worship hall. “How many more are out there, for every one I helped today?”
She nodded, thinking of the mobs that had been in the courtyard this morning. Probably they were all still there. She rested a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t ease the world’s suffering in a day.”
“Not without the Miceram” he whispered.
Ilista looked up at the mosaic of Paladine on the ceiling, her stomach twisting. Even when she’d heard Kurnos had declared her Foripon, she hadn’t thought of herself as a traitor to the empire. Now … she had brought Beldyn here, had stood by as he all but named himself Kingpriest this morning.
What does that make me? she thought. Paladine, how am I to serve thee?
She didn’t hear Ossirian come in, didn’t see him until he was nearly upon them both, lowering his bearish form to genuflect toward the altar, then bowing to Beldyn as he came forward.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Durinen,” the lord replied. “He’s awake and asks for the one who healed him.”
Beldyn nodded. “Very well,” he said, rising from the bench. He smiled at Ilista. “There are things I wish to discuss with him as well.”
* * * * *
The Little Emperor would not receive guests from his sickbed, so he had moved from his private chambers to the study. He was still weak from his wound and leaned heavily against his desk, staring across at Ilista and Beldyn when Ossirian showed them in. His eyes narrowed, his mouth drooping into a grave frown.
“I hear,” he said, “that you have been making my subjects your own.”
Ilista’s brow creased at the words, and Ossirian scowled as well, but Beldyn folded his hands politely.
“Pardon, Your Worship,” he said from within his mantle of light, “but that is not quite right. They have come to me. I only received them.”
“Hmph,” Durinen replied with a shrug. “Well, I am a practical man. I know I have little power to stop you.” He pressed his fingertips against his stomach, where the quarrel had been, and his eyes closed for a moment, remembering. “Besides, perhaps you are right to do so. There are things I know about you that even you have not yet perceived.”
Beldyn nodded. “The Miceram, you mean.”
The Little Emperor’s eyes flared wide, and Ossirian let out a snort of laughter. Durinen glared at him, lips pursed, but chuckled in spite of himself. His eyes flicked to Ilista, then back to Beldyn. “You do know, then. How much have you guessed?”
“Very little,” Beldyn replied. “Only that, whatever the tales might say, you may know the truth of the crown’s disappearance.”
“Indeed,” Durinen said, raising an eyebrow. “That is a great deal already.”
He rose and shuffled across the room to a bookshelf where several scrolls lay. He peered at them for a moment before producing one, then walked back around the desk and handed it to Beldyn. He said nothing, standing back as the young monk removed the silken tie about the parchment and unrolled it. Ilista crowded nearer and Ossirian too, as Beldyn studied the scroll. The words it bore were in the church tongue, as was a well-rendered illumination of a man in rich finery—flowing white robes and jewels, an emerald diadem on his brow. His face was dusky, his hair close-cropped, his face shaven. His prominent nose and piercing
eyes gave him the look of a hawk.
None of this caught their attention, however, so much as what he held in his hands. There was a second crown, wrought of gold and aglitter with rubies.
“Pradian,” Durinen said. “The man who would have won the Trosedil had he lived, whose dynasty should be ruling the empire entire and not just this province.” His mouth twisted bitterly.
Ilista shuddered as she stared at the image. The man glaring back out at her had dared to challenge the Lordcity from this very temple a century before. She felt a strange kinship with him. Both of us traitors to the throne, she thought. Her eyes went back to the ruby crown in his hands.
“The Miceram,” she noted. “He stole it?”
“No!” Durinen snapped. “Not stole. Claimed it, as his due. He was at Vasari’s side when he died. He held him in his arms and heard the Kingpriest name him heir, but there was no one to witness those words, so it came to war. Here he ruled until he died untimely, and Ardosean seized the throne. We Little Emperors have kept the truth alive, ever since. We alone know where he hid the Crown.”
“Hid it?” Ilista pressed. “Why? Surely, if he’d used it—”
“Then people would have called him a thief, as you just did.” The patriarch shook his head as Ilista flushed in embarrassment. “Whoever wears the Crown may rule, but Pradian wanted the people’s respect. He meant to win the war on his own terms, then reveal the crown to affirm his claim. He would have done so, too, but for one killing arrow.
“Your next question,” he added, raising a hand as Ilista’s mouth opened to speak, “is why none of his heirs have simply donned the crown. You hold the answer in your hands. Read.”
Beldyn and Ilista looked down the page, and Ossirian craned to see as well. There, written in archaic calligraphy, was a verse:
E Pradian Miceram nomid, e saw, nouton aulcam si adomfrit cilid, beton ‘tis cir boniit, bareis op onbordas. Bebo ninlugit attaid sum ib torpit.’
“And Pradian took the Crown of Power,” Durinen recited, shutting his eyes, “and concealed it beneath the temple he had built, saying ‘Let this remain here, guarded from the unworthy. Let the way not open until it is needed again.’
“We have all tried to bring it back, we Little Emperors,” he went on, “and we failed. The door it lies behind did not open for Theorollyn, who was first after Pradian, and it has opened for none since.”
The study was silent as Beldyn read the text again. His eyes settled on Pradian’s hard countenance, then rose to meet Durinen’s stare. “Where does this door lie?”
“In the catacombs,” Durinen replied. “There is an old fane there, far beneath the Pantheon. Its location is written elsewhere in the text you hold. But beware. The door is only the first—”
It happened so fast, Ilista barely had time to note the sudden chill that bit the air within the study. The shadows in the corner nearest to the Little Emperor came alive, bleeding outward like ink spilled on a page. A horrible noise, like a hyena’s mad cackle mixed with the droning of carrion flies, filled the air as they enveloped Durinen. Two green slits appeared within them, flashing like storm-trapped lightning. He stiffened in its nightmarish embrace, the color draining from his face.
Eyes wide with terror, the Little Emperor opened his mouth to scream.
The darkness tore out his throat.
Blood sprayed from Durinen’s body, turning the front of his robes bright crimson in an instant. Ilista heard someone scream, then realized it was her own voice as warm droplets spattered her face. The Little Emperor stood erect a moment longer, making a ragged, gurgling noise as he clutched at the dark, wet smile that had appeared beneath his chin. Then the darkness let him go, and he toppled face-first to the floor.
No one moved. Ilista’s mind cast about, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Her gaze rose from Durinen, lying in a spreading scarlet pool, to the shadow-thing that was changing now, taking on solid form—sinuous and wavering. Its poison-green slit-eyes narrowed on Beldyn.
She knew then, with a sudden rush that robbed her of breath—knew why it was here. It was no coincidence—the creature had been sent to kill the Lightbringer. What horrified her most, however, was the certainty of who had sent it.
Palado Calib, she thought. Kurnos, what have you done?
Time slowed as the shadow demon stared at Beldyn, tensing like a coiled serpent. It eyed him warily, wavering as it regarded the aura of light that cloaked him. He stared back, his eyes wide with fear for the first time since Ilista had known him.
A loud ringing filled the air, and time sped up as Ossirian jerked his sword from its scabbard. “Guards!” he barked. “To me!”
The door burst open at once, and the two bandits who had stood watch outside the room burst in, weapons at the ready—then stopped in their tracks, their jaws going slack as they saw the Little Emperor’s gruesome remains and the shadow looming over the scene. They blinked, their faces turning the color of chalk.
The shadow didn’t hesitate. Whirling, it rounded on the guards with a snarl, then flowed across the room with a grace that was at once beautiful and horrific. The men froze before it, transfixed. It ripped the first man apart with three quick sweeps of its claws, hurling the scraps aside in a gory shower. The man’s partner screamed, panicking, turned to run—and died just as swiftly, a single talon of shadowstuff, as solid now as iron, punching through the back of his skull. He dangled lifelessly from the demon’s claw, then went down in a heap when it jerked free.
Seeing his men fall, Ossirian hurled himself forward, swinging his sword as the shadow turned back toward Beldyn. He hacked at it viciously, a mighty two-handed blow that would have cleft a man in two from neck to groin, but the creature was no man. The weapon passed through it as though it wasn’t there and bit into the wood-paneled wall behind it. Ossirian stumbled, thrown off balance, and barked a vicious curse.
With another shrieking laugh, the shadow grabbed his head in its claws and squeezed. Ossirian screamed, then a sickening crunch cut him off, and his arms and legs drooped. The demon let him go, and he fell beside Durinen, blood streaming from his nose, mouth, and ears.
It had all taken less than a minute.
The shadow hovered over the corpses, four ruined things that had once been men. Ilista thought, oddly, of Cathan, the boy from Luciel who had sworn to protect Beldyn. He would be a fifth, now, if he were here. A mercy, perhaps, that he was not—but neither was anyone else.
Except for her.
She watched, her whole body turning cold, as the demon turned toward Beldyn once more. It hissed, long blood-dripping claws flexing, and she knew she had to do something. Strangely, there was no fear—only sorrow that after all she had gone through, it came to this. She reached to her throat, drawing out her medallion from beneath her robes.
“Paladine,” she murmured. “Please be with me.”
The shadow leaped with a snarl, an arrow of darkness streaking across the room. Ilista was quicker, though, reaching out with her free hand to shove Beldyn aside. He stumbled back with a shout, slamming against the wall.
“Efisa, no!” he screamed.
Ilista ignored him. Instead, she yanked the medallion free, its chain snapping, and thrust it forward as the shadow struck her. Its claws sank into her flesh like spears of ice, and the pain was horrible, a hundred times worse than when the wyvern’s talons had struck her, but she shoved the pain aside, pressing the medallion into the heart of the shadow demon as its talons ripped her open. The creature’s laughter was all around her, sounding like a hundred leering madmen. Red mist fogged her vision, but she blinked it away, forcing her breath out in a shout, fearing she would never draw another.
“Scugam oporud!” she cried, her breath fogging in the shadow-born cold. Demon begone!
The laughter twisted, turned into a furious scream as silver light flared, filling the room.
* * * * *
Silence, darkness.
“Open your eyes, child.”
&nb
sp; Ilista knew the voice. She did as it bade.
She stood in Durinen’s study, surrounded by carnage. The Little Emperor and Lord Ossirian lay side by side like broken dolls. Before the doors, the bloody tatters that once had been the men who guarded the room, glistened red. At her feet…
She felt an awful rushing within her, like falling in a dream. The thing that lay before her was her own body, torn asunder by the shadow demon’s talons. Beldyn sat beside her, his fine robes smeared with her blood, cradling her head in his arms. He had his own medallion in his hand and was praying over her, and with sick understanding she knew that he was trying to heal her. Even if he’d still had the strength, though, it was too late. Finally, after a long moment, he slumped forward, pressing his face against her lifeless forehead, and began to sob.
She felt a wistful ache at that. She had never seen him weep before.
“Here, child,” said the voice again.
She looked up, at the bedchamber’s window. It was open now, the silver moon glowing behind it. Standing before it was Brother Jendle. The fat monk smiled at her, his eyes shining.
Turning from her own corpse, she stepped toward him, then knelt on the blood-slick floor, bowing her head. “My god,” she said. “I have tried to work thy will.”
“I know, child.” He rested a pudgy hand on her head. “It’s time for you to rest now.”
She looked up then, and sudden, joyful tears sprang to her eyes. Brother Jendle was gone, and in his place stood a great dragon, its scales gleaming like mirrors in the moonlight. Glancing around, she saw the bedchamber, too, had vanished. She was on a mountaintop now, bare stone and snow beneath the stars. There was something familiar about the scene, she thought, and then she knew. It was the same place she had seen when she tested Beldyn, months ago, when he had pulled the stars down from the sky.
“Come,” said the platinum dragon. “We have a long way to go.”
Ilista stared at the heavens a moment longer, then signed the triangle. “Farewell, Beldinas,” she whispered.
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