As the Shadow Rises: Book Two of The Age of Darkness
Page 14
He heard another groan and hurried toward the sound. A moment later, he caught sight of Jude’s crumpled form leaning against a tree. Relief gusted through him. Jude groaned again, pained, and Anton dropped to his knees at his side.
“Hey,” he said gently, his chest still tight with worry. “It’s all right.”
Jude’s eyes closed. “Thought you were gone,” he panted. “I thought—”
“I’m here,” Anton said at once. “You were passed out, and I went to get supplies at the outpost. The Witnesses—”
“I saw them,” Jude said. “Hid.”
“Good,” Anton said firmly. “I don’t think we can go back to the outpost, though. It’s not safe.”
“It’s not safe to go back to Kerameikos, either,” Jude said, wincing as Anton helped him sit up.
Anton let that statement wash over him, along with the guilt it inspired. “Are they going to be all right? The Guard, and the rest of the Order?”
Jude’s face clouded over. “They will,” he said, more like an incantation than a true answer. “They’re the strongest fighters in the world.”
Anton bit his lip. “The Witnesses know you and I escaped. Maybe they don’t care about the fort, maybe they just want to find us. We can outrun them.”
Jude nodded. “We need a plan. A place to go, somewhere safe, so we can contact the Order and—” His face crumpled as he sucked in a sharp breath and doubled over.
Anton reached out to steady him. “First order of business is taking care of that.”
Jude lifted his hand from his side, and Anton saw that his shirt was wet with blood. “I’ll be fine.”
“You’re completely delusional,” Anton replied, turning to rifle through his bag of supplies. “Take that off.”
Jude averted his eyes, staring studiously at the tree next to him as he shrugged out of his tunic. At first Anton thought Jude was embarrassed out of prudishness, but a moment later he realized the true source of Jude’s discomfort.
Over a week ago, Anton had sat beside an unconscious Jude on the ship back to Kerameikos, horror filling him as he saw the full extent of the damage Jude had suffered from the Godfire. Now, Anton’s eyes traced the white scars webbing down Jude’s throat to his chest. That same sick feeling rose in his throat like bile. Back on the ship, he had run, unable to face what his own fear had cost Jude. Now, Anton stepped toward him.
“Here,” he said quietly, moving into Jude’s space as if to embrace him. Jude watched, jaw tense, as Anton wrapped the cloth bandages around his rib cage, over the wound and around his back. He reached for Jude’s discarded shirt. “You need to put pressure on the wound,” he advised, balling up the shirt and pressing it against Jude’s side. Jude grunted in pain and then reached over to take the shirt from Anton.
Anton dropped his hands, but something stopped him from moving away. His gaze drifted back down to the scars on Jude’s chest, and without thinking, he reached up and brushed his fingers against them.
Jude flinched beneath his touch, and Anton went still.
“Why didn’t you leave?” Jude asked after a moment. His eyes were on Anton’s hands. “Last night, in the storeroom.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
The question appeared to be entirely earnest. Jude, evidently, had not figured it out on his own. Anton dropped his hand. “You said they were going to exile you. And I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
Jude pressed his lips into a thin line. “You shouldn’t have gotten involved.”
“What does it even matter anymore?” Anton asked. “You just said we’re not going back there.”
Jude’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “You’re . . . angry at me,” he said at last. “You just defended me to the Tribunal, you went against the entire Order of the Last Light, but—you’re angry.”
Anton sat back on his heels. The awful thing was that he was angry, even after Jude had just risked his life to protect him.
“Whatever I said to you last night, I apologize,” Jude said solemnly. “I was not myself.”
Anton stood. “I don’t care about last night.” He snatched up his bag and began stalking across the grass. “Let’s get going before the Witnesses find us.”
Jude trailed after him. “If it’s not about last night, then what is it about?”
“Nothing,” Anton said. “I’m not mad.”
“I don’t believe you,” Jude said. “And right now we need to depend on each other to get to safety. Tell me why you’re angry so we can—”
“Because!” Anton burst, whirling on him. “Because you broke your promise!”
“Promise?” Jude repeated. “What—”
His confusion resolved into understanding.
Anton met his gaze, his jaw clenching against the words. He couldn’t say them aloud.
Jude said them instead. “Whatever happens, I’ll protect you.”
A tremor ran through Anton. He hated how much he’d believed those words when Jude said them. Hated how much he’d wanted them to be true. He’d learned long ago not to rely on anyone else—not to trust a helping hand that didn’t come with strings attached.
But then he’d met Jude, and for some stupid reason, Anton had believed that he would protect him. That he was meant to protect him. Maybe it had to do with the way Jude’s esha had called out to him before they’d even met. Or the way Jude had thrown in his lot with Anton over a game of cards in Pallas Athos.
Or the way he’d come for him when Anton had been trapped in the dark pit of his own nightmares, and pulled him out.
“All I’ve ever done, my whole life, is run,” Anton said, looking away from Jude’s bare, vulnerable face. “And you told me to stop, and that night on the ship after Nazirah I thought—well, I thought maybe I could. Because you would be there, just like you were in Nazirah.”
“Anton,” Jude said softly.
“But you haven’t been,” Anton went on, squeezing his hands into tight fists. “In Kerameikos, I was forced to relive that awful vision over and over and over. Alone.”
Silence followed this confession, filled only by the sound of Jude’s soft breath.
“There was nothing I could do,” Jude said at last, sounding miserable. “I can’t . . . I can’t be the Keeper of the Word anymore. I can’t protect you.” He looked away. “My Grace. I haven’t been able to use it. Not since . . .”
“Nazirah,” Anton said. He’d suspected as much, but to hear Jude confirm it made guilt burrow in his chest. “That’s why you could touch the Godfire chains.”
Jude bowed his head.
“But I can feel it,” Anton said. Even now, he sensed it, fluttering hesitantly, a faint buzz in the air. Not the storm he used to feel, but not gone completely. “It’s faint, but I can feel it, Jude.”
Jude looked pained. “Well, I can’t,” he said, choking out the words. “When I try to summon it, I . . . it doesn’t come. I think it’s not just the Godfire. I think it’s me. Something happened on that lighthouse and now . . .”
Anton wilted. Something had happened on the lighthouse. Anton had happened. If he hadn’t been so scared, Jude never would have been near the Godfire flame. It was his fault that Jude was . . . broken.
“We’ll find a way to fix it,” Anton said. “Maybe a healer—”
Jude shook his head. “I went to a healer. There was nothing she could do. And it doesn’t matter, anyway, now that I’ve lost the Pinnacle Blade—”
“The Pinnacle Blade,” Anton interrupted. His dream from the night before came back to him, the heavy weight of the sword in his hands. “Jude, that’s it.”
Jude stared at him.
“That’s what you need to—you know, to get in touch with your Grace again.” He remembered the sheer power that Jude had channeled when he’d unsheathed the sword. Power like that—maybe it could make Jude’s Grace whole again.
“I don’t . . .” Jude trailed off. “We have bigger problems than my Grace.”
“That’s exactly what I meant when I said we have bigger problems,” Jude replied. “The Hierophant. The Age of Darkness. That’s what we need to focus on.”
“Jude, just—please,” Anton said. “All I have is my vision and now this dream to guide me. I can barely make sense of them but I’m trying.”
Jude shook his head. “We don’t even know where the Pinnacle Blade is. One of your brother’s mercenaries stole it from me when we were captured.”
Anton’s dream tugged at him again. Someone’s voice—the Nameless Woman?—called to him.
“I know where it is,” Anton said. “You have to trust me, Jude. We need to do this.”
Jude opened his mouth and looked like he was struggling for words. “I—where?”
“Endarrion,” Anton said. “It’s in Endarrion.”
Anton had taken only enough salted meat and nuts from the outpost to last them five days. Eight, if they really stretched it. Jude had estimated that Endarrion was about a ten days’ journey from Kerameikos, but their pace was slowed by Jude’s injuries and the winding terrain itself. They kept close to the river, but not so close that the Witnesses would easily find them, and they changed into a spare set of clothes from the outpost to disguise themselves.
They slept side by side each night, sheltered by the tarp Anton had taken from the outpost. He hadn’t slept beside someone since he was young—before his brother had turned on him, they’d used to curl up on the rug beside the hearth to keep warm in the winter. He’d never allowed himself to be that vulnerable in front of someone since.
But now, it wasn’t his own vulnerability that troubled him—it was Jude’s. They were both light sleepers, and Anton would sometimes wake in the dark and watch Jude’s profile, lit by the moon, and the soft rise and fall of his chest. He looked so young when he slept, and Anton wasn’t sure exactly how that made him feel, except sometimes it drove him to get up and pace around their campsite to loosen the weight in his chest.
On the sixth night, they camped in a copse of trees, and when Anton awoke the next morning, it was drizzling lightly. The soft tap of rainfall was so relaxing, Anton almost forgot about all the dangers stalking them. Almost.
Jude was no longer beside him, and Anton carefully picked himself up, crawling out from under the tarp and shielding his eyes against the bright gray sky.
He found Jude by the river, moving stiffly through familiar forms that Anton identified as koahs. Anton leaned against a tree to watch, unsettled by how easy it would be to sneak up on Jude now that he couldn’t use his Grace. But even without it, Jude’s movements were elegant, almost mesmerizing.
It was several minutes before Jude spotted him, and he quickly fell out of his form, looking as though Anton had caught him doing something shameful. They stood there for a moment, rain misting around them.
“It’s habit,” Jude said.
Anton tilted his head. “You think you can summon it.”
Jude shook his head, but his next question betrayed him. “Can you feel it?”
Anton closed his eyes and searched for the familiar whisper of Jude’s Grace. He felt it now, as light as the rain that fell around them. He opened his eyes and met Jude’s gaze. “I can always feel it.” He touched the bark of the tree. “Even before I knew you, I felt it.”
“What do you mean?”
Anton bit the edge of his lip. “The moment you arrived in Pallas Athos, I felt your Grace. I can feel everyone’s esha, but yours was . . . different.” That was a mild way to put it. When Anton had first felt Jude’s Grace in the harbor of Pallas Athos, he’d been nearly struck down by the force of it, how it had swept over him like a crackling storm. “It scared me.”
Jude’s thick brows drew together in concern. “Why?”
He wasn’t quite sure how to explain what he’d felt. Even now, he didn’t understand it fully. “It overwhelmed me. Made me want to find you, but made me terrified of what would happen if I did. It felt like if I faced you, you’d know everything about me, even the things I didn’t understand myself.”
Jude’s lips parted in surprise. His eyes flashed with something like recognition, and then he let out a huff of breath that sounded almost like a laugh.
“What?” Anton asked.
Jude shook his head, almost smiling. “Nothing.”
Anton dug his thumbnail into the tree bark, feeling somewhat foolish, as if he was missing some part of a joke. He pushed himself off the tree and cleared his throat. “We need to find something to eat.”
He had taken some fishing line from the outpost, which Jude cut between two rocks and tied to a tree branch while Anton rooted around in the mud for worms. When he came back, he was so muddy that Jude let out a startled laugh at the sight of him. Anton retaliated by hurling a glob of mud at Jude, which he dodged. Anton pounced on him, scooping up mud and letting it ooze down the back of Jude’s tunic, smooshing it against the side of his neck for good measure.
“Mercy, mercy!” Jude said, laughing and shoving Anton away.
Anton grinned, triumphant, and thus was not expecting it when Jude dropped a handful of mud onto his head. Anton wiped at it furiously and then charged at Jude. Three quarters of an hour later found them both breathless with laughter, washing off as best they could in the river. By then, the sun had peeked out from the clouds and they left their clothes on a rock by the side of the river to dry, changing back into their old clothes.
It was almost midday by the time they caught any fish.
That evening, several miles downriver, they cooked the fish over a fire, stripping the outer layers off damp wood.
Anton had spent most of the past six years in cities, so it was strange to be out in the wilderness where the only sounds were the river and the rustle of leaves. He watched the firelight flicker over Jude’s face. He seemed more at peace here than anywhere Anton had ever seen him. This was also, Anton reflected, the most at peace he himself had ever been—despite the Witnesses, despite his nightmares, despite what lay ahead.
“How does your wound feel?” Anton asked that night as they lay side by side on their bedrolls, embers from the fire casting warmth over their toes.
“Better,” Jude replied.
“We might want to let it breathe after we get to Endarrion. It’ll heal faster that way.” Or maybe they’d find a healer to patch him up properly.
Jude shifted onto his uninjured side. “How did you learn how to do this?”
“Do what?”
Jude’s gaze dropped to his bandaged ribs.
“I was on my own for a while as a kid. When I got hurt there usually wasn’t a healer around.”
“When you got hurt?” Jude asked slowly. “Hurt how?”
Anton shrugged one shoulder. “Things happen. The world is a dangerous place.”
“And there was no one to protect you,” Jude said quietly, as if to himself.
Anton’s eyes flickered up to meet Jude’s. For the most part, Anton tried not to think too much about the years he’d spent between leaving Novogardia and coming to Pallas Athos. Nights on the street, nights searching for refuge any place he could find it, nights weighing a bad option against a worse one. He hadn’t had anyone back then, but that had been . . . well, not fine, but it was what he knew. He’d seen kids his age in worse states than him. He’d gotten by.
But now, looking at the horror in Jude’s eyes, Anton considered his past through a different lens for the first time. Jude had grown up in the safety of Kerameikos Fort. He’d never had to wonder where his next meal would come from, nor what he would do the next time an older, stronger person demanded something he didn’t want to give.
“Jude,” Anton said. “It’s fine. Really. I’m fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Jude said sharply. “It’s�
�they should have found you earlier. I should have found you. And because I didn’t, you—you had to—”
Anton stared at him, not knowing what to say. “It is what it is, Jude. Whatever happened back then . . . whatever I did, it got me here. Maybe it would have been better if the Order had found me sooner. But maybe not.”
Jude didn’t answer for a long moment. Then, looking up at the sky, he said, “There’s just . . . a lot about your life that I don’t know. Sometimes when I look at you, it’s like I’m seeing two people. The Prophet, and the boy who bet my sword on a game of cards.”
“I’m not two people, Jude,” Anton said.
“I know,” Jude replied. He closed his eyes and turned on his side, silent for a moment that stretched long enough that Anton started to doze. But then Jude’s voice drifted back over him, quieter than before. “Sometimes I feel like it would be easier if you were.”
Anton opened his eyes and looked over at him. “What would be easier?”
But the only answer was Jude’s gentle breathing.
17
BERU
PERSUADING THE CARAVAN TO TAKE THEM TO BEHEZDA HAD BEEN EASIER THAN anticipated. The leader of the caravan, Orit, had been quick to accept Beru’s offer to have Hector guard them against the bandits who plagued the caravan route.
He kept his distance from Beru throughout their first day of travel. She busied herself by asking the caravan merchants about their wares and letting them teach her how to guide the camels.
Dust choked the air as they marched through the desert. The sun was already beating down on them by midmorning. Beru ceased trying to wipe the sweat from her face. Orit’s daughter, Ayla, lent her a scarf to wrap around her head to protect her from the elements.
When they stopped at midday to rest and water the camels, Beru found that despite the heat, she couldn’t sit still. When one of the other merchants asked if she could bring some straw reeds up to the top of the wagon to dry, she readily agreed.
“We used to make baskets in my village with these,” Beru said, watching Vira the cat bat at the reeds like they were particularly slowmoving prey.