“There is no one else!” Jude roared, backing Anton into the shelf. The scent of sweet wine hit his nose as Jude loomed over him. “You were the one who was meant to do this! From the moment you were born, from the moment the skies lit up for you, it was always going to be you. Don’t you get that?”
Jude gripped the front of Anton’s tunic, pinning him in place. Silence crackled between them.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Anton said, working to keep his voice from trembling, willing himself not to look away from the tempest in Jude’s eyes.
Jude swallowed thickly. “What is?”
“To believe in something so much, only to have it disappoint you.”
Jude made a low noise like he’d been struck. His hand fell away from Anton and he stepped back, stricken.
A wave of guilt swelled inside Anton. He forced it down, turning toward the door.
Jude’s voice sounded behind him, quiet and small. “They’re going to exile me.”
Anton froze. He felt suddenly cold, as if a draft had whisked into the storeroom. Exile?
In the hold of the ship Illya had imprisoned them on, Jude had been utterly defeated and without hope. That was how he looked now. Crushed. Back then, it was because Jude had thought he failed the Prophet. Failed Anton.
“How can they do that?” he asked. “After everything you did? After everything you sacrificed?”
Without meaning to, he glanced at the pale Godfire scars on Jude’s throat.
“The oath of the Paladin is sacred,” Jude replied. “And I tarnished it.”
“But you found the Prophet,” Anton argued. “They can’t just deny—” He stopped. They could deny it. Because Anton hadn’t proven himself. And without that proof, Jude’s sacrifice meant nothing. Without that proof, he had failed in their eyes.
“The Tribunal will deliberate tomorrow, but my heart already knows what the outcome will be,” Jude said, bowing his head. “I will accept the punishment for my mistakes.”
Mistakes. Those mistakes had put Jude in Anton’s path. Those mistakes had led to Nazirah. To the top of the tower, to the bottom of the sea. To Anton finally facing the vision that had haunted him almost his entire life.
And now they meant Jude would lose the one thing that meant anything to him.
“Come with me,” Anton said suddenly, the words tumbling from his mouth before he could consider them. He took a step toward him, suddenly overcome with this foolish, reckless possibility. “Jude—come with me. Leave before they can make you.”
But when Jude raised his eyes, Anton saw the hollow resignation in them.
Keeper or not, Jude would stay. He would accept whatever the Order decided because nothing was more important to him than his duty.
Not even the Last Prophet.
11
BERU
SULFUROUS MIST CLUNG TO BERU’S NOSE AS SHE PRESSED HERSELF AGAINST the wall of the springs. The cacophony of the camp was beginning to quiet as the fighters settled in for the night, oblivious to the girl who stood vigil in their midst.
The day before, Beru had been face-to-face with Hector, staring in horror at the black handprint that marked him as something not quite alive, but no longer dead.
“Hector,” she’d said, her voice faltering. “You’re a revenant.”
She’d feared meeting his eyes, but she’d made herself face the pain she saw in them.
“No,” he’d choked out. “No, that’s impossible. I can’t be . . . an abomination.”
When she’d reached for him, he’d caught her wrist, and again she’d felt a flood of horror and grief. His horror and grief. His eyes had widened in confusion, and then he’d dropped her wrist like it had burned him. Before she had a chance to speak, he’d fled back into the crowd.
Beru had watched him go, turning her hand over, as if she could find some sign of what their strange connection was. But her hand remained just a hand.
Ephyra had used Hector’s esha to restore Beru from the brink of death. But now Hector was alive again. It must have created some connection between their esha, the energy given to Beru still bound in some way to Hector.
That explained why she had felt Hector’s pain in the fighting pits. And his reaction when she’d touched him made her suspect that it wasn’t just her—that whatever seepage existed between their esha went both ways.
And what if . . . what if the esha in Beru was given back to Hector? If the energy was restored to Hector, then maybe . . . maybe it would make him whole again. Maybe Hector wouldn’t have to live a cursed half-life as a revenant. The half-life Beru had been living for six years.
He could have his life back.
This was how Beru could finally atone for the lives she’d taken as a revenant. A thread of esha connected her to Hector, and it was that thread that she would follow. Ephyra had taken his life. As her last act, Beru would give it back.
But first, she had to free him.
Which is exactly what had brought her here, waiting in the dark, dressed in a cloak and a cloth mask that covered the bottom of her face. The faint sound of someone whistling drifted toward her, growing louder. She peered around the wall to confirm it was the owner of the fighting pits, and then shrank back, listening to his footsteps and the creak of the wooden door as it swung open. A few moments later, she heard a splash and peeled away from the wall.
It was a low wall, just a few feet taller than she was, and the shoddy masonry made it simple to climb. She paused at the top, peering down into the bath area. Steam rose up from the spring pool, partially obscuring the man within. The steam would make it easy to get in without him realizing.
Carefully, she climbed down the other side of the wall. The stones were slippery from the steam, and Beru had to go slowly to avoid losing her footing. When she was safely on the ground, she crept behind him.
She gripped his hair, pulling his head back with one hand, and held a knife to his throat with the other. “Scream and your throat gets cut.”
The man whimpered.
“Do you know who I am?” she said, pitching her voice lower. “You can answer.”
“N-no,” he stammered.
“You should,” she said. “They call me the Pale Hand.”
The man whimpered again.
“So you do know who I am,” she said. She hadn’t been certain he would—the Pale Hand had never been sighted on this side of the Pelagos, but it seemed the rumors had spread far. “I’m here because of your so-called fighting pits. What you’re doing to these people is wrong.”
“They’re prisoners,” he spat. “They’re lucky to even get the chance—”
Beru tried to imagine what Ephyra would say. She pressed the knife, which she had stolen from the caravanserai kitchens, closer to his skin. “You’re the lucky one. I’m letting you speak instead of killing you right now.”
“Please,” he said. “Please, I—”
“I’ll give you a chance to live,” she said. “I don’t often do that. But I can sense that you have a conscience somewhere in there.”
“I’ll do anything,” he said at once.
Beru smiled beneath her mask. “Good. I want you to finish your bath. Go back to your room, gather your things, and leave this place. Alone. Tell no one. If I come back here tomorrow and see that you haven’t left, well—I don’t give second chances. Tell me that you understand.”
“I understand,” he said pitifully.
Beru let go of his hair. “I’m going to go,” she said. “And if you try to have me followed, or send anyone after me, I’ll kill you. If you turn around, I’ll kill you. Understand?”
“I understand,” he said again.
She withdrew her hand and backed away from the bath. He didn’t turn around. She climbed back over the wall and ran back to the caravanserai, her heart hammering the whole way. Pretending to be the Pale Hand filled her with awe and horror at what Ephyra had done to all those people. Beru had never threatened anyone’s life before, and Ephyra had done worse—she’d actual
ly killed. It made Beru sick with guilt, and in some twisted way it also made her miss her sister desperately.
But she was more sure than ever that leaving had been the right choice.
Beru woke before the sun the next morning. Dressing quickly and creeping out to the stairs overlooking the stalls and courtyard, Beru watched the caravan that had arrived the night before rush around to ready themselves for departure.
A deep voice floated up from below. “I’m telling you, we need to hire some protection. After that close call in Tazlib—”
“We can’t afford it,” another voice, this one much higher, argued. “You know that.”
“Well, we can’t afford to have our wares stolen by bandits, either.”
“Look,” the higher voice said. “If we make it through the rest of the summer, maybe we can do something during the harvest.”
“Through the summer? We might not even make it to Behezda!”
Beru knew all about the bandits who plagued the Seti desert. Her father had been a merchant, and each time he’d left on a journey Beru would cry herself to sleep, worried that he’d be taken by bandits. Ephyra had always been the one to calm her, reading to her and telling her all kinds of ridiculous stories just to distract her.
Her chest twinged at the memory, and she shoved it away as she padded down to the kitchens to grab a piece of bread and strolled into town as the sun rose.
When she arrived at the fighters’ camp, the dawn twilight had just lifted into morning. The fighters were already awake, and seemed to be engaged in some sort of altercation involving breakfast. Beru stood back to watch.
A short man was cowering behind an overturned table.
“If Sal’s gone, that means we’re not your slaves anymore!” yelled one of the fighters.
“What are you doing here?”
Beru startled, whirling around to find Hector standing several paces away, glaring at her in the morning sun.
“You’re freed, right?” she said.
He stared at her for a moment, disbelief and understanding crashing together. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
Beru bit her lip. Horror curled in her gut, rising through her like nausea.
“What did you do to him?”
She looked at him, shocked. “I didn’t kill him! I’m not—” She stopped herself.
“You’re not your sister?” Hector said.
Beru set her jaw. “I just maybe sort of scared him. A little.”
Hector’s eyes narrowed, and Beru felt a storm of emotion she could not quite parse, but it sent her heart kicking against her ribs and her fists clenching. Almost like she was angry.
It wasn’t her anger, she realized, as Hector turned and abruptly started walking away.
“Hey!” Beru called, trotting after him. “Hector, wait, just—wait.” She caught him by the arm as they passed the side of the barracks. “I saw the handprint. Someone brought you back to life.”
“Who?” he said. “Your sister? Where is she?”
Beru shook her head. Ephyra was the only person she knew who was capable of bringing someone back from the dead. And she had been left with Hector’s body.
But Beru could not believe that Ephyra had done it. The last time Ephyra had brought someone back from the dead, she’d killed an entire village in the process. She wouldn’t risk that again. Not for Hector.
“I think someone else brought you back,” she said.
“That’s impossible. That would mean that there’s—”
“Another necromancer,” Beru finished. They stared at each other, the enormity of her words permeating the air. “Another necromancer who wants you alive.”
A shout cut through the air, startling both of them. More shouting followed. When Beru glanced behind her, she realized that the fight she’d encountered in the camp had escalated into a full-blown riot.
Hector grabbed her arm, pulling her out of the camp, and past the fighting pits. Beru’s breath shortened as she struggled to match Hector’s brisk pace.
“What exactly do you want from me?”
She glared up at him. “To help you.”
Hector let out a mirthless laugh. “Help me?”
“Yes,” she replied, defensively. “There’s a . . . connection between us. Between our esha.”
“So what?” he spat.
Again, that anger, roiling through her chest and buzzing beneath her skin. It almost made her want to turn around and forget this whole thing. But his appearance here, in this middle-of-nowhere town, was the sign she’d been searching for. She wasn’t going to let him slip away.
“We’re both revenants,” she said. He flinched at the word. “What’s happening to me right now, that’s going to happen to you, too. You’ll start to fade. But . . . what would happen if the esha in me was given back to you? You could have your life back.”
There was nothing, Beru knew, that Hector loathed more than what he was now. What she was. He had called her a corruption, an abomination. He had taken her halfway across the world to kill her because he couldn’t stand to let such an unnatural creature live. She, and what she was, was the reason his family was dead.
“It’s not possible,” he said. “I died.”
She shook her head. “Not like I did. You died because your esha was stolen from you. If we could give it back—”
“I’m not supposed to be alive!” His words bit off in a furious growl and he stopped short. “What is this? Why would you want to do this?”
Beru looked away. “I left Ephyra behind in Medea. I won’t be able to survive much longer without her anyway. But . . . if I can do any bit of good in this world before I go, it will be worth it.”
She felt a small spark of surprise, and something akin to astonishment. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and for all that Beru could apparently feel his emotions, she had no idea what was going through his head.
“You wish to atone,” he said at last.
Beru’s gaze cut back to him. “Yes. I know I can never make up for the things I’ve done. For your family . . . for all the people whose lives were lost because of me. But I want to leave this world knowing I caused more than just pain.”
His jaw tensed. She felt his anger rise again, but now it was tinged with bitterness.
“You think that’s selfish,” she guessed.
He shook his head. “How would you even begin to do such a thing?”
“I don’t know,” Beru said. “But I know one place where we might start. The Daughters of Mercy in Behezda. They’re said to have a better understanding of the Grace of Blood than anyone. If there’s someone who knows what this connection between us is, it will be them. And maybe they’ll know how to set it right.”
She and Ephyra used to argue about the Daughters. Beru had wanted to go to them, to see if their long history and knowledge of the Grace of Blood could help them. Ephyra had always refused, too afraid of what the Daughters would do to a necromancer and a revenant.
“You want to go to Behezda,” he said slowly. “And just . . . walk up to the Temple of Mercy?”
“What are you going to do?” she shot back. “Stay here?”
She waved a hand at the dusty sandpits, empty at the early hour but littered with trash and soaked in blood and sweat and piss.
He narrowed his eyes. “How are you even going to get there?”
“There’s a caravan heading out right now,” Beru said. “If we hurry we can catch them. And it sounded like they need protection. I figured you’d be pretty good at that, right?”
She offered a tentative smile.
“This is foolish,” he said. “You can’t change what happened. You can’t save me.”
“Please,” she said, desperation cracking her voice. “Let me try.”
He shook his head, turning away.
Beru’s breath gusted from her lungs as he started to walk away from her. Sorrow ached through her bones. She was going to fail. She was going to die, and she would have done nothing,
nothing to fix any of it because Hector didn’t want her to save him.
And then he stopped.
“You . . .” he said softly, his voice wracked with grief. “I can feel it. This . . . pain.”
Her pain.
“You made me a promise, once,” she said, her voice shaking. “Do you remember?” Her grief was huge, and heavy, but within it she could feel the echo of Hector’s.
“I remember.”
She stepped toward him, wielding her grief like a blade. “So will you come with me?”
He turned back to her, and something had changed in him, the words he’d said to her back then haunting them both like a shadow. She felt his resolve, hardening in her chest as he spoke them again.
“Until the end.”
12
JUDE
JUDE HAD BEEN DRUNK ONLY ONCE BEFORE IN HIS LIFE, AN EXPERIENCE THAT had ended with him waking up slumped over the horses’ trough. Hector hadn’t let him live it down for months.
This time, he’d at least managed to make it back to his barracks, but everything before that was a blur. His mouth tasted like something had died inside it, and the pounding in his head protested vehemently against even the thought of sitting up.
The Tribunal was deliberating today. They were probably deciding his fate right now. Maybe if he just stayed inside this room he would never have to find out their decision and everything would remain precisely the same as it had been yesterday.
Jude sat up quickly, his head screaming in protest. He was struck suddenly with the sensation that there was something very important he needed to do. Memories from last night flashed back to him. Dark eyes, staring up at his. Lips curled in anger.
Anton. He’d come into the storeroom. What had he been doing there? Jude couldn’t remember, but he did remember the gambler’s anger. What was he so angry about?
It hit Jude at once. Anton had been in the storeroom gathering supplies. He had been trying to leave.
Jude scrambled out of bed, panic overriding everything else. Penrose. He had to find Penrose.
He was dressed in the clothes he’d been wearing last night. Even his boots were still on his feet. He flung open the door of the barracks, groaning when a bright beam of sunlight lanced through him.
As the Shadow Rises: Book Two of The Age of Darkness Page 10
