At the foot of the stairs, Anton stopped suddenly, swaying against the wall.
“What is it?” Jude asked. Anton was staring at the doorway with an unrecognizable expression on his face. It wasn’t quite fear, but something close to it, and beneath that was a sort of weary resignation.
The servant pushed the door open and smiled placidly. “Welcome. The lady is expecting you.”
The room was surprisingly plain, decorated as a very simplistic sitting room, with a couch along one side and plush chairs around it. A table sat in the middle, laden with sweets and wine.
The most elegant thing in the room was the woman who lounged in one of the chairs. She wore an Endarrion-style dress of deep purple stitched with an intricate pattern of silver stars. The red jewels that adorned her throat were so dark they looked black, except when the light caught them, as it did when she rose to greet them.
“Lady Bellrose,” Evander said, sweeping into a bow as soon as he crossed the threshold.
Jude was not sure if he was meant to bow, but he copied Evander’s movement anyway. Anton, however, didn’t move.
“We are honored that you called us here,” Evander said.
She waved the servant off with a flick of her fingers and he departed, shutting the door behind him.
Evander sat on the couch, closest to Lady Bellrose. Jude sat beside him, leaving room between them for Anton, who did not join them. He remained at the door, staring at Lady Bellrose with a hard, calculating gaze.
“Your friend is rather shy,” she remarked, pouring four glasses of wine as dark as her jewels.
Jude had never heard anyone describe Anton as shy, and the very notion of it was absurd.
“He’s never been in the presence of someone as high-ranked as you, my lady. Come sit down, Anton,” Evander said, as if Anton were a pet he could command.
Jude bristled, but he stayed silent as Anton sat between them, his gaze trained on Lady Bellrose.
“That’s better,” she said. “Now. I’m sure you can guess why I’ve summoned you here.”
Her piercing gaze shifted from Anton to Jude, and Jude felt like he was back in the Tribunal Chambers, his every secret flayed open to her.
“Jude Weatherbourne,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you. Both of you.”
Jude’s skin prickled. He had not told Evander his full name. And if she knew who he was, she more than likely could guess who Anton was.
“Who are you?” he asked.
It was Anton who answered. “She’s a bounty hunter.”
Both Evander and Jude turned to him in shock.
“You know her?” Jude asked.
“She’s a collector,” Evander said. “Anton, what are you—”
“I am many things,” Lady Bellrose replied, smiling. “All of them a little bit true. But none of them the whole truth.”
Jude narrowed his eyes. If she was a bounty hunter, she could be working for anyone. She could be working for the Witnesses.
“What do you want?” Anton asked.
She smiled briefly, as if this was an old joke between friends. “The better question, I think, is what do you want?”
Anton fell into restless silence.
“We want the Pinnacle Blade,” Jude said. At this point, it made more sense to speak plainly.
“Ah,” she said knowingly. “I might have guessed as much.”
“It belongs to me.”
“That sword was given to the Keeper of the Word by the Prophet Pallas,” she replied.
“Keeper of the—” The rest of Evander’s words were cut off in indignation. “What is she talking about?”
“Did you know?” Anton asked abruptly. “When you came to warn me about my brother in Pallas Athos, did you know why he was looking for me? Did you know what I—who I am?”
“Yes,” she replied evenly. “Does that surprise you?”
Jude looked at Anton sharply. Was she saying she knew he was the Prophet?
“You could have told me.”
“You weren’t ready to hear it.”
“I wasn’t ready anyway,” Anton replied, and then snapped his mouth shut, as if his own words had surprised him.
“Perhaps not.”
“Where is the Pinnacle Blade?” Jude asked, swallowing his alarm. The longer they spent in here with Lady Bellrose, the more uneasy he felt.
“Your Grace,” she said. “It’s abandoned you, hasn’t it?”
Jude reeled back, stunned. How could she possibly know that?
“The Pinnacle Blade won’t restore it,” she said. “The problem is within you, Jude. Your heart is in conflict.”
Before he could stop it, Jude’s gaze flickered to Anton.
Lady Bellrose rose from her couch, crossing the room to the armoire in a few fluid steps. She unlatched it, opened the doors, and lifted something from within with both hands.
When she turned back around, Jude leapt to his feet.
The Pinnacle Blade lay in her hands. The sheath gleamed in the low light, obsidian struck through with silver.
Lady Bellrose traced the seven-pointed star etched into its ornate hilt. “As soon as I laid eyes on it, I knew exactly what I was looking at.”
“How?” Jude asked.
“I know everything there is to know about the Order of the Last Light,” she said. “More than anyone alive.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Do you want your weapon back, Jude Weatherbourne?”
Jude clenched his hand, remembering the weight and balance of the sword, the power that had saturated his Grace.
“What do you want?” Anton asked, cutting his gaze to the woman. “Whatever it is, it’s yours. In exchange for the Pinnacle Blade.”
“So mercenary,” the woman said reproachfully. “What if I told you the sword is a gift?”
Anton and Jude exchanged wary glances. On Anton’s other side, Evander looked entirely lost.
Lady Bellrose sighed. “Anton, when have I ever done anything that didn’t help you?”
“You told the Pale Hand about me,” Anton replied. “That wasn’t very helpful.”
“Wasn’t it?” she asked. “As I said. The sword is a gift.”
She held it out to Jude. He reached for it.
“There is, of course, one thing you must do,” she said, and Anton made a noise of distaste. “The Pinnacle Blade is yours if you can wield it.”
“What do you mean?” Jude asked.
“The Blade will know,” she said, “whether you are truly the Keeper of the Word.”
Jude’s heart leapt into his throat. Again, he felt as though he were back in the Tribunal Chambers. “I am the heir to the Weatherbourne line.”
“A birthright is not a destiny,” she said. “What must you surrender to meet yours?”
Jude curled his hands around the sword’s hilt and closed his eyes, searching for the strength to rid his heart of its treacherous desires.
The silence of the room was abruptly broken by a loud knock at the door.
“Lady Bellrose!” someone cried. “We have to get off the ship right now.”
Jude, Anton, and Evander all startled. Yet when Jude looked at Lady Bellrose, she did not seem alarmed.
“Ah. I think your friends are here.”
“Our friends?” Jude repeated.
“The ones who attacked your fort,” she replied, as if this were obvious.
The Witnesses.
Jude advanced on Lady Bellrose. “Did you tell them where to find us?”
“Of course not.”
“Then—” His gaze swung to Evander.
The boy’s eyes widened and he held up his hands. “I don’t understand anything that’s happening right now.”
“We need to go.” Jude fastened the Pinnacle Blade to his belt and moved to the door. “Stay here. I’ll see if it’s safe.”
He opened the door and stepped into the corridor. He could hear frantic chaos below, partygoers screaming and stomping on the lower
decks, but the corridor was empty. He waved the others forward and they followed him into the corridor.
“There are lifeboats on the starboard side,” Lady Bellrose said.
Jude nodded. “Then we make a run for them.”
He led them down the corridor and out onto the deck to a row of lifeboats. Jude flew to the first one and knelt to begin hastily untying it. The metal shriek of a sword being unsheathed froze him cold.
He turned. Across the deck, the bright white flame of Godfire flared, illuminating the form of the masked Witness from Kerameikos.
He should be dead. Jude had seen him fall.
“Get on the boat,” Jude said to the others, and slowly stood.
Anton grabbed Jude’s sleeve, yanking Jude toward him. “I’m not leaving you.”
Lady Bellrose had the lifeboat rigged up, she and Evander inside it. They started to lower themselves down as Jude looked from the boat to Anton’s face.
Without pausing to think it through, Jude planted his hand on Anton’s chest and pushed him over the side of the ship. It was only a short drop into the lifeboat, where Evander helped brace his fall. Anton scrambled to his feet, staring up at Jude thunderously.
Jude turned to face the advancing Witness. He gripped the Pinnacle Blade and pulled on the hilt. It didn’t move. He tried again, now frantic, but the sword would not be unsheathed.
The masked Witness drew closer. “Step aside, Paladin.”
“You know I’m not going to do that,” Jude replied. He could still hear the sound of the lifeboat being lowered.
The Witness attacked, his flaming sword striking toward Jude’s shoulder. Jude gripped the Pinnacle Blade’s sheath just below the hilt and raised it to block the Witness’s attack. He moved with his parry, sidestepping the Witness as he surged forward.
They separated, and Jude skidded backward. He risked a look down at the lifeboat and saw that it was now in the water. The Witness shot toward the prow of the ship and leapt up onto the long wooden beam that ran perpendicular to the mast. Jude tore after him. The Witness spun, his sword swinging toward Jude’s head.
Jude ducked, and the Witness struck again. This time, Jude moved toward him, grabbing the hilt of the Godfire sword with one hand and sending his elbow into the Witness’s throat. The Witness fell back, throwing a hand out to grab on to the nearby rope net to catch himself, his mask slipping down and off his face.
In the light of the sword’s flame, Jude saw the Witness’s face for the first time. Pale scars crept up his throat like vines, curling over his cheeks and branching around his eyes.
Scars that looked like the ones on Jude’s body.
“You’ve been burned by Godfire,” Jude said. He suddenly understood why this man’s fighting felt familiar. He stepped back in astonishment. “You have the Grace of Heart.”
“Had,” the Witness replied, pulling himself up. “I burned that vile affliction out of my body.”
Shock and horror rippled through Jude. “You burned your Grace out deliberately?” His eyes roved over the Witness, taking in the scars.
“Why?”
“To purify myself of its corruption,” he answered. “And to prove that I am the most loyal of the Hierophant’s followers. The others can threaten the Graced and burn down temples, but only I have endured the searing pain of the Godfire flame. The flames destroyed me and they remade me. I emerged from them brand-new, pure and whole at last.”
Jude suppressed a shudder. As he had been desperately trying to find a way to restore his Grace, here was someone who had willingly sought out the Godfire’s devastation. He could not fathom it, and the mere idea of it filled him with such disgust he almost wanted to retch.
The Witness hurled himself back onto the beam and attacked Jude, forcing him to retreat until Jude was at the edge, staring down at the dark waters below. Ropes stretched down alongside the mast. Jude grabbed one as the Witness advanced.
“One day, Paladin, I hope that you come to see the truth,” the Witness said. “To realize that the Grace that you cherish is an evil aberration, a symbol of all your sins and the sins of those you worship.”
He raised his sword, and Jude jumped off the beam, rope still in hand. The rope caught fire as Jude swung above the water, Lady Bellrose’s lifeboat below. The rope pulled taut at the height of Jude’s arc and then snapped, sending Jude plummeting into the river.
The water enveloped him and Jude kicked hard, slicing through it until he emerged, gasping.
A hand gripped his collar and then another joined it, pulling him up out of the river. He flopped over the edge of the lifeboat, panting. Above him, Anton’s face appeared, his eyes furious.
“He could have killed you,” Anton said.
Jude closed his eyes. “You know what I am. You know what I have to do.”
Anton didn’t answer.
On the ship, they’d been playing pretend. Pretending they were not the Prophet and the Keeper of the Word, pretending their destinies didn’t matter. And it had been easy—too easy—to mistake the game for something else.
But Jude realized that he’d been pretending a lot longer. Since that first night in Pallas Athos, Anton’s face shadowed by candlelight in that tiny room in the taverna, pretending Anton hadn’t seen everything Jude had been trying to hide. Since the night in Kerameikos before the attack, pinning Anton against the shelves and pretending he was the cause of Jude’s fury.
But Anton had pushed and pushed until the facade cracked and Jude could no longer tell himself he didn’t know why his Grace wouldn’t work, why the Pinnacle Blade would not allow him to wield it. Jude’s heart was in conflict, and he could no longer pretend it wasn’t.
25
EPHYRA
AT SUNRISE, THEY REACHED THE PART OF THE DESERT THAT NUMIR CALLED THE salt pan. The skiffs could not travel over the salt the way they did over sand, so they left them behind. But Ephyra was almost grateful when they were forced to continue on foot—she had not been looking forward to being cooped up with Illya the rest of the way to the tomb of the Sacrificed Queen. She would rather bury herself in the sand. At least if they were walking, Ephyra could get up to thirty feet away from him.
Instead of the golden sand Ephyra had grown accustomed to, white crystal covered the ground as far as the eye could see. It shone brilliantly in the sun, broken by pockets of sand that made it look almost like seafoam. Long ago, this whole area had been covered in water. This was what it had left behind.
Frustration built inside Ephyra as the sun set behind them. They were as close to Eleazar’s Chalice—to a cure for Beru—as they’d ever been. Yet she’d never felt farther away. The others kept up a steady stream of chatter. Just ahead, Shara and Illya were talking about something evidently very funny judging by how often they broke into laughter.
Ephyra gritted her teeth and marched faster toward them.
“Then he told me that the real treasure was the friends—” Shara paused to glance at Ephyra. A shadow of panic passed over her face and Ephyra froze. Obviously Shara still wasn’t over the argument they’d had yesterday.
Illya raised his eyebrows. “Can we help you?”
“I need to talk to you,” Ephyra said to Shara.
Illya fell back, allowing the two of them a few feet of privacy.
“You can save the apology,” Shara began.
“What apology?”
Shara huffed in irritation, but there was something else in her eyes, and the way they would not quite meet Ephyra’s. It was a moment before Ephyra realized what it was—Shara was afraid of her.
Usually that was not something that would have concerned her. In fact, much of the time, fear was useful. Here, it complicated matters. Would Shara let Ephyra have the Chalice if she feared what she would do with it?
Ephyra steeled herself. “When it comes to it, when we get to the Chalice . . . I just want to know that you’re not going to renege.”
“Why would I do that?” Shara asked.
Frustratio
n twisted in Ephyra’s chest. “I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve been listening to what that snake has to say.”
“Illya has been nothing but helpful to us since we found him,” Shara argued. “I’m not worried about him.”
“But you are worried about me,” Ephyra finished for her. Shara’s expression confirmed it.
“Ephyra, you were perfectly fine with killing someone!” Shara said. “That’s—that’s not a normal response to this situation.”
“You don’t get it,” Ephyra said. “This is life and death to me. My sister is dying.”
Shara narrowed her eyes. “I just want you to know—I have been honest with you from the start. I’ve never lied to you, and in return, you’ve consistently hidden things from me. So I’m sorry if I can’t exactly trust you.”
“Then why are you even here?” Ephyra asked. “I know where the Chalice is. I don’t need your help anymore.”
“You think finding the Chalice is the hard part?” Shara laughed. “Sure, you don’t need me.”
“Then tell me that when we find it, you’ll hand it over to me like we said.”
“And if I don’t?” Shara asked. “Will you solve that problem by killing me, too?” Her jaw was set, challenging, but Ephyra saw that same shadow of fear. She was never going to win her over.
You don’t want to find out, she thought viciously.
The lake was filled with blood.
Ephyra blinked, wearily rubbing at her eyes. Maybe the desert was starting to mess with her head. The landscape on the other side of the salt pan was different from the rolling hills of sand they’d crossed to get there. Huge boulders and rock formations impeded their route. There were even a few plants dotting the ground—small, shrubby little things with spiky branches and rigid leaves. In the moonlight, they looked like hungry little monsters.
She was still staring at the blood lake when she realized everyone else had slowed.
“What is that?” Shara asked, her gaze on the lake ahead. “Is that a mirage?”
“No, it’s real,” Hadiza replied. “The people of Behezda call it the Lake of the Slain.”
As the Shadow Rises: Book Two of The Age of Darkness Page 21
