“Captain Weatherbourne!”
Jude blinked against the bright sunlight to find one of the stewards approaching with an alarmed expression. The Guard already knew, then. Perhaps they’d already gone after Anton.
“You’re expected in the Tribunal Chambers at once,” the steward said.
“Where’s Penrose?” Jude asked hurriedly.
“The Guard is in the Tribunal Chambers,” the steward said patiently. “The Tribunal is about to announce their decision.”
Jude paused. The steward wasn’t talking about Anton. It seemed the Guard still had no idea he was missing.
He tore past the steward, sprinting across the courtyard toward the Tribunal Chambers. He may not be Keeper of the Word for much longer, but he wasn’t going to let losing the Prophet be his last act. He reached the Tribunal and slammed through the stone doors, gasping for breath.
Immediately his gaze landed on the Guard, who were gathered around the central dais. They turned as he entered, and Jude felt himself flush. He hadn’t spoken to any of them except Penrose in over six days, but he knew what they were all probably thinking—that he’d failed them.
“Captain Weatherbourne!” a terse voice cried. The magistrate stepped out from behind the Guard. “Have a seat, please. The Tribunal has reached their—”
“I need a word with Paladin Penrose,” Jude said quickly. “It will take a moment only. I—”
“After the Tribunal declares its decision, you will be free to—”
He caught Penrose’s eye and gave her a pleading look. Penrose cleared her throat. “I, uh, I do need to speak with Captain Weatherbourne about some . . . lingering Guard business. It will only take a moment. We beg your apology, magistrate.”
Jude could almost hear the magistrate grinding his teeth as Penrose took Jude’s arm and led him back toward the doors. He must look like quite a mess for Penrose to breach protocol that readily.
“What’s going on?” she asked under her breath as they pushed back through the doors and ducked around the side of the Chambers.
“Do you know where the Prophet is?” he asked.
She looked at him quizzically. “What?”
“Last night,” Jude said, “Anton said he was going to leave Kerameikos Fort.”
“You spoke to the Prophet last night?” she said sharply.
“That’s the part you’re upset about? He could be anywhere. We need to find him.”
“Right, yes,” Penrose said, a grim set to her mouth. “I’ll send Annuka and Yarik to his room, and Osei to the temple. I have a few other ideas about where he might be. But, Jude—you need to go back inside and pretend nothing’s wrong.”
“What?” Jude said. “I need to find the Prophet.”
“No,” Penrose said firmly. “If he’s truly gone, we will find him. But the Tribunal can’t know that you’re involved in this.”
“I’m not involved, I just—”
The doors opened behind them, and the magistrate stalked out, looking incensed. Planting himself in the open threshold, he demanded, “What makes either of you think it’s acceptable to have an unsanctioned chat while the Tribunal is trying to declare their decision?”
“Our apologies,” Penrose said swiftly, stepping out in front of Jude. “The Guard can’t be here for the Tribunal’s decision. We have important matters to attend to with the Prophet.”
The magistrate nodded, still looking at her coldly. “Well then, attend to them.”
Penrose signaled to the rest of the Guard, who filed out without question. A strange sense of loss filled Jude as he turned and walked inside the Tribunal Chambers. He knew what the Tribunal was about to decide, and despite what she’d said the last time they’d spoken, Penrose seemed to know, too.
Jude wasn’t captain of the Paladin Guard anymore.
“Have a seat if you please, Captain Weatherbourne,” the magistrate said as they reached the center dais.
Jude stiffly took his seat on the stone bench in the center of the room, feeling as though he might jump out of his skin. Despair clawed at him as the seven veiled members of the Tribunal filed in from the back of the room.
“The eighty-first session of the Tribunal of Kerameikos is called back to order,” the magistrate said. “The Tribunal has reached a decision in the matters of the oathbreaking of both Hector Navarro and Jude Weatherbourne.”
The Magistrate droned on about the specifics of the Tribunal’s deliberation, the precedence of their decision-making, and all sorts of esoteric rules Jude could not begin to pay attention to. Jude shifted in his seat, trying to stop himself from leaping to his feet and tearing the fort to shreds in search of Anton. He couldn’t have left. He couldn’t have. The Guard would find him.
“Never before has a Keeper of the Word been accused of oathbreaking,” the magistrate went on, continuing some line of thought that Jude had already lost. “It is therefore this Tribunal’s decision that should the Keeper step down, his predecessor will reassume the role.”
He could not bear to think of what his father’s face would look like if Jude was forced to return the mantle of Keeper to him. He’d already lost the Pinnacle Blade. But he fought down the shame, firm in the knowledge that his father would protect Anton, and Jude would . . . he would just . . .
He would be alone. More alone than he’d been in his Year of Reflection. More alone than he’d been when Hector had turned his back on him. More alone than he’d been in front of the Hierophant, waiting to have his Grace burned out of him. He had no Guard, no duty, no Prophet. He was a name to be skipped over and struck from the record. He was a shadow.
The ivory doors burst open, and Annuka rushed in, an out-ofbreath Yarik trailing behind her, their footsteps echoing on the tiles.
“What is the matter with you?” the magistrate demanded, wheeling on them. “First the delay and now you interrupt—”
“You need to stop the Tribunal,” Annuka said. “The Prophet is gone.”
Penrose appeared at the doorway, and when Jude met her eyes, she just shook her head minutely. “They’re right. And if the Prophet is truly missing, Jude can help us find him.”
Jude was already on his feet.
“Absolutely not,” the magistrate replied. “Jude Weatherbourne stays here. The others can search for the Prophet.”
“Jude knows him best,” Penrose argued. “If there’s anyone here who can find him—”
“I said no!” the magistrate cried. “If you will not respect my authority as Magistrate of the Tribunal of Kerameikos, then perhaps I should convene a new session to look into your own wrongdoing, Paladin Penrose.”
Penrose looked indignant but fell silent.
“Now, if there are no further objections, can we—”
The doors opened again, and the magistrate spun toward them furiously. “We will not tolerate any more interruptions!”
“I hope I’m not too late.”
Jude froze. So did everyone around him.
In the doorway, against a backdrop of bright light, stood Anton. Jude could only stare as he swept down the main aisle of the Tribunal Chambers, looking as casual as if he’d arrived late to breakfast.
Penrose reacted first, striding briskly toward him. “Where were you?”
“I was on my way here,” Anton said mildly. “I thought perhaps the Tribunal would like to hear what I have to say.”
Penrose looked speechlessly from Anton to Jude. Anton didn’t even glance at Jude. His gaze was fixed on the magistrate and the veiled members of the Tribunal behind him.
A sudden memory of the night before flashed in Jude’s mind. It was nothing more than an impression—just the cold fury on Anton’s face and the word Jude had hurled at him—coward. His face now was almost blank, impassive, but Jude could see the nuances in his expression, the same icy anger underneath.
“I—we have not called you to speak, there is a procedure for—” the magistrate began.
Anton smiled brightly, and still the anger cra
ckled. “I call myself to speak.”
What was Anton doing? Jude wondered frantically, his breath coming in short bursts. He could not decipher anything beyond Anton’s anger.
“You have no authority over this Tribunal. We are deciding whether Jude Weatherbourne broke the oaths of the Paladin Guard. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Why does the Paladin Guard take oaths?” Anton asked.
“Why?” the magistrate scoffed. “Because they must cast aside their worldly desires and devote themselves completely to—”
“To the Prophet,” Anton finished. “To me. So I think my opinion here is very relevant, don’t you?”
The magistrate gaped at him, practically vibrating with outrage.
Anton apparently took this as an invitation to keep talking. “The Keeper of the Word is supposed to protect the Prophet, and from the moment I first met Jude, that’s what he has done. He found me. He saved me.”
His gaze at last met Jude’s across the Chambers, and Jude felt all the blood rush into his face as it held there. “He’s the only person who ever has.”
Jude swallowed heavily, wanting to look away but unable to. He had spent nineteen years perfecting his koahs and learning the history of the Seven Prophets, readying himself to find and protect the Last Prophet. But none of it had prepared him for Anton.
Anger, gratitude, and breathless hope spurred his heart to an unsteady gallop. He felt like he was back at the Hidden Spring, watching the game of Trove and River, waiting for Anton to turn over his last card.
“If you want to punish Jude for finding me, then go ahead,” Anton said, finally looking away from Jude and back at the magistrate. “But just because he didn’t do it exactly the way you wanted him to, doesn’t mean it was wrong.”
“That is not for you to decide,” the magistrate said.
“It is for me to decide,” Anton said, eyes darkening. “I’m the one who has to live with the consequences. I’m the Prophet—and you want to take away my Keeper, right when I need him the most. I saw something last night. Not a vision—I think it was something happening here and now. The Hierophant is searching for something. Something that could start the Age of Darkness.”
Penrose looked at him sharply. “You saw the Hierophant?”
“Even if that were true,” the magistrate said testily, “you have not proven you’re the Prophet.”
“Fine,” Anton said. “Then I will. Right now.”
The magistrate looked taken aback. Penrose even more so.
“We’ll go to the Circle of Stones,” Anton said. “If I prove I’m the Prophet, Jude stays as Keeper of the Word. If I don’t, then we’ll both leave.”
Jude could hear his own heartbeat ringing in his ears. There was one part about their argument the night before that he hadn’t remembered until now. Anton had asked Jude to go with him when he left Kerameikos. Jude hadn’t even answered. He hadn’t needed to.
Even so, Anton hadn’t left.
One of the cloaked members of the Tribunal raised a hand and beckoned to the magistrate.
“One moment,” he said to the rest of the room, and then he retreated toward the rest of the Tribunal to confer with them.
Jude slid his gaze back to Anton, his stomach lurching. The morning sun streaming in from the high windows caught Anton’s hair in a halo of light. He looked perfectly at ease, standing there in the center of the seven-pointed star. Jude desperately wished his drunken self had not called Anton a coward. Anger and gratitude and shame wrestled in his chest as he marched over to where Anton stood. He did not know what he would say.
But a crash of bells shattered the air before he could even try. Jude startled, pushing Anton behind him before he even registered what was happening. Those were not the bells that tolled the hour or the bells that called the Paladin to meditation.
These were another set of bells, ones that Jude had never heard rung in his nineteen years living at the fort, ones he had never hoped to hear in his life.
Kerameikos was under attack.
13
EPHYRA
WHEN SHARA HAD SAID THEY’D KEEP ILLYA ON A LEASH, EPHYRA HADN’T thought she meant it literally.
She eyed the cuffs in Shara’s hands. They were a pale, brushed silver, a green gem set in the center of each, gleaming like two eyes. Shara had gotten them during a previous heist, taken from a vault belonging to a retired general of the Behezdan army. They’d been hired to steal a helmet, but Shara had taken the cuffs, too, thinking they looked pretty. It was only later that she’d discovered their true purpose.
Ephyra watched with distaste as Illya held his left wrist out to Shara.
Shara placed one of the cuffs on it, and it tightened, fitting him perfectly. She started to put the other cuff on herself. Ephyra grabbed her arm.
“Give it to me,” she said. “I’m the only one I trust not to get tricked by him.”
Shara didn’t argue. She simply slipped the cuff over Ephyra’s wrist.
Ephyra didn’t take her eyes off Illya. He flexed his hand and held up his wrist, as though admiring the cuff. The cuffs were connected through artificery, as if an invisible rope tethered them to each other.
“They’re not a fashion item,” Ephyra snapped. “You’re our prisoner. My prisoner. You can’t get more than thirty paces away from me. Step one toe out of line and I’ll have you on the ground before you can blink. Got it?”
“I have so missed your warmth and sweetness,” Illya replied, shaking his sleeve over the cuff. “I’m looking forward to all this quality time we get to spend together.”
“One toe.”
Shara glanced at them and grinned, throwing her arms around their shoulders. “Come on, you two, we’re a team! Let’s see some camaraderie.”
“That’s not really a concept Illya is familiar with,” Ephyra muttered, moving out from under Shara’s arm.
“She’s just a little irritable,” Shara whispered conspiratorially to Illya. “Usually she’s a lot nicer.”
Ephyra rolled her eyes and started to retreat over to one of the sand skiffs.
“No, she’s not,” she heard Illya mutter behind her.
Ephyra paused, glancing down at the cuff on her wrist and then threw her arm sharply out in front of her. The soft sound of a body hitting the sand followed, then a hissed curse. Ephyra suppressed a grin and then made her way over to where Numir was restringing the sand skiff sail with Hadiza’s help, while Parthenia pored over one of Badis’s books in the shade.
“You three are all right with this?” Ephyra asked.
“It’s not like we’ve been able to stop Shara from working with unsavory characters before,” Hadiza said, giving Ephyra a pointed look.
“Illya’s different,” Ephyra insisted. “He’s manipulative.”
“Shara can handle herself,” Hadiza said. “We all can. And besides. There’s five of us, and only one of him.”
Ephyra gritted her teeth. She was not getting through to any of them. They seemed utterly unconcerned about the snake in their ranks.
Ephyra would just have to be vigilant enough for all of them.
“All right,” Shara said, striding over to them with Badis’s stolen mirror in hand. “Who wants to admire their pretty face in the mirror? Parthenia?”
Numir laughed, covering it badly with a cough.
“Is anyone else a little creeped out by this whole thing?” Parthenia asked. “I mean, who exactly would leave a clue to find the Chalice? Who is it even for?”
“The Daughters of Mercy?” Hadiza suggested. “Maybe they needed a trail back to the Chalice, just in case they ever needed to find it again.”
“It must have been the Daughters,” Illya said from behind her. “Because only someone with the Grace of Blood can use that clue.”
Shara turned to him. “And you know that . . . how?”
“‘I will show you the key to what you seek,’” Illya recited, “‘if you have the power to wield it.’ Only someone with the Gr
ace of Blood can wield Eleazar’s Chalice. Therefore, only someone with the Grace of Blood can find it.” His gaze slid to Ephyra.
She grimaced. If the mirror really did exactly as it said, she was the only one who could use it. But she hadn’t yet told Shara and the others what she really was.
“I know a few healers in Tel Amot,” Shara said thoughtfully. “But I’m not sure if—”
“We don’t need to go to Tel Amot,” Illya said.
It seemed Illya was going to force her hand. Ephyra glared at him and then turned to Shara. “Give that to me.”
Shara swung toward her in surprise. “What? You have the Grace of Blood? But you don’t have—” Her eyes flickered to Ephyra’s arms.
Ephyra resisted the urge to hide her arms behind her. They were bare, the brown skin unmarked by the usual tattoos that healers wore to aid them in their trade. She did not dare look at Illya, but she knew he was delighted by what was transpiring. The less Ephyra and Shara trusted each other, the more easily he could slither his way into getting what he wanted.
“Shara, no,” Hadiza said firmly, grabbing her arm as she held the mirror out to Ephyra. “You can’t give that to her.”
“We don’t really have another option,” Shara said.
“You don’t understand,” Hadiza said, casting a distrustful glance at Ephyra. “She’s dangerous. She’s Unsworn.”
Ephyra had heard that term before. It was used for people with the Grace of Blood who had never been trained how to use it. People who hadn’t taken the oath that said they would use their power only to heal, never to hurt. The stigma against people like her existed everywhere, but it was more acute in certain places. Places like Tel Amot, which had been touched by the destruction of the Necromancer Wars.
“We can’t trust her,” Hadiza said. She whirled on Ephyra. “I knew you were hiding something.”
Ephyra dug her nails into her palms. “I’m not going to hurt anyone.”
“Even if we believed you, that doesn’t mean you aren’t dangerous,” Hadiza said. “The Unsworn . . . those without the knowledge of binding and unbinding esha are prone to misuse their power. The laws are strict for a reason. Without training, their Grace is unpredictable. Even if they don’t mean to hurt people, they do.”
As the Shadow Rises: Book Two of The Age of Darkness Page 11
