“Sir!” they saluted in unison.
“The Keeper’s Council has taken one of our own.” The Lady of Blades spoke in a cold, harsh voice. “We’re going to stop them, no matter what.”
“Yes, sir!” The men didn’t so much as blink. If anything, their expressions grew eager, a glint of delight shining in their eyes.
Lady Callista unslung her huge sword and marched out of the room, heading east toward the front entrance and the way out. Evren had to hurry to match her furious, driven pace, but he didn’t mind. They’d have to move quickly to intercept the Necroseti guards before they reached the Hall of the Beyond.
Please let us be in time!
The palace around him seemed to have transformed in the space of a few minutes. Scores of black-armored Indomitables raced through the corridors, the sound of their pounding boots, clattering armor, and shouted orders echoing off the high-vaulted ceilings and tiled floors. Lady Callista, however, strode through the chaos, her stride unbroken, an island of fury and determination.
A storm of fury brewed in Lady Callista’s eyes as she marched through the halls. Her boots clacked on the tiles so hard Evren thought the ornate marble would shatter beneath her feet.
Suddenly, a man barreled around the corner and raced toward them. The man wore the gold-and-white headband of a palace servant, but as he drew closer, Evren caught a glimpse of silver threading the cloth.
“My lady!” The man slowed and bowed to her. “I’ve just received word from the Indomitables at the gate. Ten minutes ago, a company of Necroseti guards was on the Path of Gold, dragging one of your Blades with them into the Keeper’s Temple.”
Horror thrummed within Evren. No! He felt as if someone had punched him in the gut, knocking the breath from his lungs.
The news could only be about one Blade. He’d failed Issa.
The servant’s words poured out in a rush. “The Dictator on duty didn’t know which, but…” He trailed off, confusion wrinkling his face. “My lady?”
Lady Callista had gone pale, all traces of fury burned from her eyes. She seemed to deflate, her towering presence diminished as worry, fear, and horror dawned on her face. “You’re certain?” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
The man’s brow furrowed. “Yes, my lady.”
“Go.” Lady Callista’s gasp sounded hoarse, faint. She turned to the Keeper’s Blades. “Go, protect the Pharus.”
The twelve black-armored men exchanged glances, as surprised by her reaction as the servant. Yet they were soldiers, professionals, and Lady Callista was their commander. “Yes, Proxenos,” they saluted, and hurried away.
Before they’d disappeared, one of the Indomitable Executors marched up the corridor. “Lady Callista, we have the Necroseti under guard, but the Keeper’s Council was not in attendance at the palace.”
Evren’s gut clenched. The bastards had locked themselves in the Hall of the Beyond. And they had Issa with them.
“Thank you.” Lady Callista nodded, her expression seeming dazed, as if someone had knocked her unconscious.
When she said no more, the Executor shot her a confused look. Finally, after long seconds, he turned and marched away, leaving Lady Callista and Evren alone in the corridor.
Evren swallowed hard, tried to find something to say to the Lady of Blades. It had been his fault that Issa was arrested, and now he’d failed to save her in time. What could he possibly offer that—
“No!” With a roar, Lady Callista whirled and drove her mailed fist into the wall. Gold-and-silver tile shattered beneath the blow, spraying shards and fragments in all directions. “No, no, no!” With each shout, she punched the wall.
The reaction stunned Evren. Such strong emotions were uncharacteristic of the Lady of Blades. When her blows finally stopped, she stood gasping for breath, her fists clenched so tight her mail creaked.
“They can’t have her,” Lady Callista whispered, her lips trembling. “I just got her back.”
“Surely there’s something you can do!” Evren insisted. “Send in the Blades or—”
“Or what?” Lady Callista’s eyes flashed, her face burning and furious, and she shook her clenched fist. “I want nothing more than to storm into the gates of the Hall of the Beyond and give Madani a taste of Shalandran steel up his backside. But…I can’t.” A note of horrible finality echoed in Lady Callista’s voice, a dread mirrored in her horrified expression. “There are too many Necroseti guards to fight through, and I have no more men to spare. Protecting the Pharus and restoring order to the city is my duty, above all others. I cannot sacrifice the future of Shalandra for…” Her words trailed off.
After long seconds, Lady Callista lifted her gaze to his. “It is too great a risk.” Tears sparkled in her eyes, but she brushed them roughly away. “The Keeper’s Council has her. Nothing short of an army will get her out, and my army is trying to save Shalandra. No, I can’t make a move, not until I find a better way to get to her without storming the Hall of the Beyond.” Her brow furrowed in contemplation, her eyes dark, filled with a storm of emotions.
An idea slammed into Evren’s mind, the memory of a crudely carved stone passageway.
He hadn’t failed. Issa might be prisoner of the Keeper’s Council, but he’d be damned if he let her rot in the Hall of the Beyond.
“You don’t need an army,” he said. “You’ve got me.”
Lady Callista turned to him, eyebrow arching. “You?”
“Yes, me.” Evren straightened. “I may not be a Keeper’s Blade or swing one of those great big bloody swords, but I’m all you need.” A fierce smile split his lips. “I’m going to break Issa out of the Keeper’s Temple!”
Chapter Forty-Two
Fight! A tiny voice screamed in the back of Issa’s mind. Twenty Necroseti guards surrounded her, spear tips mere inches from her face, chest, sides, and legs. Even her heavy Shalandran steel armor couldn’t turn aside so many blades. The spearmen would kill her if she tried to break free.
Better death than surrender!
Sorrow drowned out that defiant voice. She would die—one of the spears would slip through the gaps in her armor and she’d die, just as her grandfather had. The loss of her Saba—the Keeper’s Blade that had played the role of her grandfather her entire life—weighed on her, sapped the vitality from her limbs. A numbing chill permeated every fiber of her being, rendering her helpless.
She had no more strength to fight.
It had nothing to do with her wounds—the Keeper’s blessing had already begun healing the cuts and bruises she’d sustained—or the fatigue of battle, hunger, thirst, or too many sleepless nights. The death of her grandfather, coupled with his deathbed revelation to her, had shattered her to the core.
Her listlessness didn’t prevent the silver-armored guards from keeping a wary eye on her as they marched her up Death Row and onto the Keeper’s Tier. The world passed in a featureless, noiseless blur, an utter vacuum devoid of any life outside her thoughts.
Issa saw only the pale, lifeless, crimson-splattered face of her Saba lying on Killian’s training yard. Black Shalandran steel armor, spiked at the shoulders and elbows, his lifeblood mingled with the blood of his slain enemies. Beside him, a huge sword, its flame-shaped blade still glistening with gore and mud.
Her Savta’s words rang in her ears. In the strange stillness of the pre-dawn city, she could hear nothing else.
“Your parents still live. Mother and father both. You know them as Callista Vinaus, Lady of Blades, and Amhoset Nephelcheres, Pharus of Shalandra.”
Lady Callista and the Pharus. My parents. Even in her thoughts, the words sounded so strange, so impossible. She had spent her life wondering about her mother and father, who they’d been, what they’d accomplished, and how they’d died. She had dreamed of the day she passed into the Long Keeper’s arms. In the Sleepless Lands, she would finally meet them. Death would reunite them, and they would spend eternity as a happy family.
Reality was far cru
eler than her dreams. She had met her parents. Both, at the same time, the day she’d been accepted into the Keeper’s Blades. She had spoken with them on multiple occasions over the last few weeks. All that time, she hadn’t known the truth of who they were.
The truth drove an icy dagger into her gut. But Lady Callista knew.
The Lady of Blades had known, perhaps from the very first moment she laid eyes on Issa. All those strange, meaningful glances, those long pauses heavy with implication. She had to have known. It was the only explanation that made sense.
Then why didn’t she say anything? Every time they’d spoken, every word they’d shared, why had the Lady of Blades chosen to conceal the truth from her?
“Lady Callista chose to give you up to save your life.” Savta’s words rang in her mind. “Obscurity was your best shield against those who would use you, or kill you.”
But was that truly the case? Lady Callista had embraced Issa as a Keeper’s Blade, had taken her into her confidences and her war on the Keeper’s Council. The Lady of Blades trusted her.
Or so she’d thought. All this time, the woman had concealed the biggest truth of all: the secret of her blood.
That realization struck her the heaviest blow. The truth hadn’t relieved her burden, it had simply added to it. The death of her grandfather had been the final weight to shatter her will. Her life had changed too much, too quickly. She had lost a grandparent and gained two parents in the space of a few minutes. The Keeper-damned Pharus of Shalandra and the Lady of Blades, of all people. Everything she’d known was a lie.
All that remained was the question. What now?
The discovery of her parentage couldn’t just be ignored or forgotten, no matter how much Lady Callista wished it to be so. Endless possibilities whirled in Issa’s mind. What would the Lady of Blades say when Issa confronted her with the truth? Would she deny it, maintain the lie, all in the name of trying to protect her? Would she break down and beg for Issa’s forgiveness? Or, and this thought proved the most horrifying of all, would she do nothing at all? There existed a possibility that too much time had elapsed; Lady Callista could simply not care.
The burden of truth weighed heavy on her, dragged at her limbs. Her mind acted automatically, placing one foot after the other to match the pace of her captors. Confusion, uncertainty, and sorrow drowned the voice in her mind, the one that told her to fight back, to break free.
One moment she was stumbling up Death Row, the next it seemed she marched into the huge gate and through the Hall of the Beyond. The towering spires of the Seven Faces cast a deep, dark shadow over her, sending a shiver down her spine.
For the first time, Issa’s world swam into focus. She stood within the massive stone-walled arena, once more on the sands of the Crucible. The place where it had all begun. The place where she took the first step toward the death of her grandfather and the discovery of who she truly was.
The gates boomed shut behind her, echoing off the arena’s walls with a terrible sense of finality. Yet Issa couldn’t bring herself to care; she felt nothing but a deep emptiness.
Torches ringed a circle of figures that stood in the heart of the Crucible, just in front of the wooden platforms that Issa had scaled to claim her place as a Keeper’s Blade. The sight of the Divinities—Madani, Natoris, and all the rest. All save the white-haired, age-stooped Tinush.
Anger twisted the rotund, cosmetic-covered faces of the men arrayed before her. Madani’s eyes, as dark as the six black spots tattooed onto his face, narrowed to angry slits.
“We chose you to serve the Long Keeper, raised you to a position of prominence, and this is our reward?” Madani’s voice rose to a furious shout. “Desecrating these hallowed halls with your treachery? Murdering his servant in the dead of night?”
It wasn’t me! The voice in the back of Issa’s mind shrieked, but too faint for the words to form on her lips. She could only stare, empty-eyed, her mind numb, at the priests before her.
“A Keeper’s Blade is meant to be an example for Shalandrans to aspire to, not assassins for hire!” Madani stepped toward her, a snarl twisting his fleshy lips. “You are servants of Shalandra, protectors of all that is holy in our city. And you desecrated that with your cowardice!”
The words snapped something loose in Issa’s mind. Cowardice? A fist of iron slammed into her gut, sucked the breath from her lungs. Yet it also stole the chill from her limbs.
Madani ranted at her, shouting and gesticulating furiously, but Issa had stopped listening.
She was no coward. No matter what insults he heaped on her head, that one accusation would never ring true.
A coward would never make the choice to place the city of Shalandra above all. A coward would be incapable of placing the wellbeing of strangers over the safety of family and friends. A coward would never risk everything for the sake of the greater good.
Issa had done all that. Even when every fiber of her being ached to race to her grandparents, she had set aside her own desires out of loyalty, in service of the oaths she’d sworn. Even when it had cost her one of the only people in the world that loved her, that truly knew her, she stood by the choice.
The same choice her grandparents had made all those years ago. They had given up their Dhukari caste, their positions of prominence in the Keeper’s Blades, everything, all in the name of serving Shalandra. They’d made the decision long before they came to love Issa. And, even to the end, her Saba hadn’t regretted it.
Neither should she. It would take time for her to be free of the burden of guilt over the choice she’d made, yet deep down, beneath the sorrow and pain of loss, she knew it had been the right decision. Her grandparents would have done the same. And following in their footsteps was the best way she could honor them.
Madani had finally wound down from his tirade. He drew himself up to his less-than-impressive height. “In the name of the Long Keeper, you are hereby stripped of your title of Keeper’s Blade, your rank of—”
“No.” It was all she could manage. A single word, quiet and pained.
Madani’s words cut off mid-sentence, his mouth agape. “What?” He seemed taken aback.
From somewhere deep within her, Issa summoned the strength to stand upright. “You did not choose me.” Her throat felt thick, her voice hoarse. She swallowed hard and fought back against the chill in her limbs. “The Long Keeper himself chose me, right here on these very sands.” She lifted her bound hands and pointed a finger to the top of the Keeper’s Steps. “I serve him, not you.”
Outrage twisted the faces of the priests before her.
“We are his voice on Einan!” Madani thundered. “Vested with his authority, as his Divinities.”
Issa shrugged. “Then take it up with him.”
The voice within her, the one that screamed at her to fight, echoed loud in her mind. She would not give up. Her grandfather had stood firm in Killian’s smithy, battling to his last breath against overwhelming enemies. Just as so many Keeper’s Blades had before her.
Her thoughts flashed to her visit to the Keeper’s Crypts. Tannard had taken her there to rub her nose in her failure, but the sight of all those caskets standing silent vigil before the Tomb of Hallar had filled her with a fire.
Saba had been a servant of the Long Keeper, even if he hadn’t worn armor or swung a sword for nearly two decades. He, and Savta with him, had chosen to defy the will of greedy, grasping, treacherous men—men like the gold-and-black-robed priests snarling at her. She had sworn to protect Shalandra from any and all enemies, outside and inside its walls. Until she broke those oaths, she would be a Keeper’s Blade, no matter what men like Madani said.
She straightened. “I am a servant of death, chosen of the Long Keeper. You may speak the words, but you will never strip me of that.”
“You defy the voice of our god?” Madani’s face purpled. “By spitting in our faces, you spit in the face of the All-Seeing One! Your heresy shall not go unpunished.” He again tried to draw himse
lf up to a lordly height, but his paunchy gut spoiled the effect. “For your blasphemy and your affront against the servants of the Long Keeper, we, the Keeper’s Council, condemn you to death!”
“So you’ll execute me just as you executed Aterallis, an innocent man?” Issa’s voice rose to a shout. “I am proud to share his fate. And when the time comes, I will stand before the Long Keeper with my head held high! Tell me, priests,” she spat the words like a curse, “can you say the same? If you are truly in service to the Long Keeper, how do you justify the slaughter that has taken place in our city—a slaughter orchestrated by you? This is beyond evil.”
“Take her away!” shrieked Madani. “Lock her up in the darkest cell, there to await her execution.” A cruel sneer split his fat lips. “After sunset. You will never receive the rites to be interred in the Keeper’s Crypts. Your soul will languish in the forgotten hells for all eternity.”
Issa’s gut clenched, but she refused to show them her fear. “Remember this, Divinities. The Long Keeper comes for all. Even you!”
“Insolent child!” Madani snapped. “We have given our lives in service to the Long Keeper. Everything we’ve done is in service of his greatness.”
At his dismissive wave, the Necroseti guards dragged her away.
“Then I trust you have peace in your hearts.” Issa called out. “I just hope the Long Keeper will accept the explanation for all the blood on your hands!”
Anger drove the last of the chill from Issa’s limbs as she was marched toward a nearby doorway—the same one from which the contestants in the Crucible had emerged. The darkened hall beyond ran for ten feet before opening into a dark stone chamber. The light of the lamps burning there revealed row after row of cells with iron grates, heavy locks, and thick metal shackles anchored to rings set in the stone walls.
Lady Callista’s words from outside the Vault of Ancients sprang to Issa’s mind. In the days of Hallar, ancient Shalandrans had fought to the death in the Crucible, a primitive, barbaric system of justice by the people. These cells had likely been used to hold the prisoners awaiting trial by combat. It seemed the Keeper’s Priests had maintained them in the millennias since.
Heirs of Destiny Box Set Page 158