There Will Come a Darkness

by Katy Rose Pool

  He closed his eyes and followed the ripples of the lodestone through the currents of esha that made up the world. He let the thrum of these currents wash over him, let his awareness of his body, his self, go slack as he reached out into the fabric of this shivering world. He did not direct the esha but let it direct him, letting it pull him deeper and deeper into the weaving currents, into the winding paths of sacred energy. But as the currents pulled him deeper, something else tugged, too.

  The memory. The lake.

  Hands grasped at him. Ice shot through him. No, no, no! He could shake it off, he told himself. He could do this. He felt his way along the current, as if tugging himself along a thread, with many thousands of other threads splintering and twisting together.

  Anton swayed, the water churning.

  He felt the dark maw of the frozen lake hungering for him. The water thrashed violently, as though shaken by a terrible storm. He collapsed with a splash, gasping, as the water surged over him. The scrying pool transformed into cracked ice, the broken columns into rows of towering trees.

  He was knee-deep in snow, salty tears stinging at his eyes, pinned and struggling, struggling, struggling.

  “Stop!” he begged. “Stop it, please!”

  He was free, racing to the middle of the lake, wind cutting across his cheeks, laughter rattling behind him. He ran as the ice cracked beneath his feet, ran and ran and ran, but he could not escape the widening chasm of the lake.

  He plunged down into icy water. Fingers pressed into his skin. Above him was a face, its mouth a wide smiling gash.

  Knife-cold water rushed over him. His lungs clenched painfully. There was no sign of the surface as he thrashed, the water dark all around him. He was floating; he was sinking. His lungs succumbed to the pressure. His heart slowed. His eyes drifted shut.

  There was only one thing now. Not the water, not the cold. Not that terrible laughing face. There was only his Grace, ringing through his bones, filling his veins, gripping him with cold, bony fingers, dragging him down, down, down into the darkness, down into the black pit, and he knew if he opened his eyes he would see it, the thing that wanted to consume him, wanted to destroy him, wanted to—

  * * *

  Anton woke.

  The mausoleum was still. He lay halfway in the scrying pool, his body doubled over the edge. Sunlight slanted through the broken roof above.

  Beru knelt beside him, worry creasing her brow. Ephyra hovered over her shoulder, watching with barely concealed impatience.

  “Did it work?” she asked.

  He shook his head and pulled himself up and over the edge of the scrying pool. “I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

  “What happened?” Beru asked.

  For a moment, her face looked like it was twisted into a ghastly scream, but when Anton blinked, her expression was normal again. Concerned.

  “I—I tried to tell you. I can’t use my Grace without seeing—” He tried to shape the words.

  Without seeing my brother holding me under the water.

  The memory of the lake flashed behind his eyes, like the snapping of teeth.

  “Without seeing what?” Ephyra pressed.

  He got to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I won’t tell anyone about you, I won’t ever mention you, but I can’t—this was a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  He ran from the scrying pool, tripping over loose stones and rubble from the dilapidated mausoleum walls as Ephyra called out after him. “What did you see?”

  The words chased him out into the evening air, echoing in his mind long after the mausoleum disappeared from sight.

  He thought he’d left his past behind, but it had come looking for him. And now he knew. He was still that scared, drowning boy. He always would be.

  9

  JUDE

  Jude was awake before the sun on the morning he was to become Keeper of the Word. He had barely slept, his body a knot of nerves and anticipation, his father’s words running through his mind.

  The Last Prophet has been found.

  Their hundred-year wait, over. Their sixteen-year search, at an end. The Last Prophet, waiting for Jude in the City of Faith.

  A sharp rap on the door of his room in the barracks pulled him from thoughts of the Prophet. He bolted from his narrow bed and wrenched the door open. His eyes widened at the sight of Hector standing on the other side.

  “What are you doing here?” Jude asked.

  Hector raised his eyebrows. “I can’t believe it’s only been a year, and already you’ve forgotten our routine.”

  Jude blinked. Before he had left for the Year of Reflection, he and Hector used to wake up every morning to practice koahs as the sun rose. Back then, though, Jude had always been the one dragging a reluctant Hector out of bed in the predawn twilight.

  Hector grinned like he’d read Jude’s thoughts. “Thought I’d come wake you up for a change. Though I realize now that was never going to happen.”

  “Today’s the ceremony,” Jude blurted.

  Once the sun ascended over the valley, the Paladin would all gather in the Circle of Stones, the complex of monoliths that overlooked the rest of the fort, to witness Jude choose the six others who would serve as the Paladin Guard and go with him to the Prophet.

  “We have time,” Hector said. He waited outside as Jude changed into the full Paladin uniform—soft, flexible boots, slim dark gray pants, a stiff shirt that fastened down the side, overlaid with Grace-forged armor as thin as silk, and a midnight blue cloak that swept across the shoulders. After today, he would wear this uniform not just as a member of the Paladin, but as their leader.

  “Ready?” Hector asked as Jude emerged.

  “For koahs? Yes. For everything else…”

  “You’ll be great,” Hector said, offering a smile as they wound through the quiet fort, making their way up the path to the highest waterfall in the valley. “What else did your father say about the Last Prophet?”

  The night before, Captain Weatherbourne had called all the Paladin to gather in the great hall to tell them the news.

  “He was found by an acolyte,” Jude replied. “One of ours. Father says he trusts this man more than almost any other.”

  There were many acolytes who still served the temples of the Prophets, even now that they stood empty. The acolytes had no authority; they simply maintained the temples and helped perform namings, weddings, and funerals for the public. A small number of these acolytes throughout the Six Prophetic Cities had taken secret oaths to the Order of the Last Light. These acolytes had another, hidden duty—to search for signs of the Last Prophet and alert the Order in Kerameikos if anything turned up. They passed this duty on to their apprentices, choosing carefully from those who had demonstrated their devotion to the Prophets’ legacy. There were few deemed worthy of holding the secrets of the Order.

  “The acolyte sent a message yesterday through the scrying network, saying he had found the Prophet in Pallas Athos,” Jude went on. “He told us they fit all the signs, but nothing else, not even their name. It’s safest this way. We can’t risk anyone knowing what we’re in Pallas Athos for. Who we’re there for.”

  This was why the last prophecy had been kept a secret for so long. To keep anyone except the Order of the Last Light from looking for the Prophet.

  “I can’t believe the Prophet is in Pallas Athos,” Hector said. “What was it they used to say about fate and irony being friends?”

  “Father says it’s fitting,” Jude replied. “The Last Prophet is finally found in the very city our predecessors left one hundred years ago.”

  “So the Order of the Last Light will make their return to the City of Faith,” Hector said. “I guess this means you’re leaving again soon.”

  “Tonight,” Jude said. “We’ll leave the fort and camp in Delos until morning.” The journey would take them five days in all. Once in the hidden cove of Delos, a ship with Grace-woven sails would carry them along the rocky coast and into the Pelagos Sea to dock
in Pallas Athos.

  Jude had grown up hearing tales of the city upon the hill, the city where the Order of the Last Light had served the Prophets for over two millennia. He had hoped, one day, he might see its marble columns for himself. That he might walk the curving limestone path of the Sacred Road, following the rows of olive trees to the steps of the Temple of Pallas. The City of Faith called to him from the stories of the Paladin, and now, at last, he would go there and meet his destiny.

  “This is really it, isn’t it?” Hector said, gazing out at the fort below. “All of the Paladin are gathered to see you become Keeper of the Word and choose the Paladin Guard. You know who you’ll choose?”

  “I’ve had my entire life to think about it.”

  “Penrose, of course.”

  “Of course.” Jude hesitated, glancing at Hector. “But sometimes people can surprise you.”

  Hector looked away. “You’re not the only one who was surprised I came back.”

  A cold discomfort gripped Jude. He did not want to be one more in a string of people who had doubted Hector. “I did hope for it,” he said.

  They came to a stop at the foot of the highest fall, the same spot where Penrose had found Jude the day before. He’d spent almost every morning of his teenage years in this place, with Hector. It was where Jude went when he needed to center himself. The flowing falls and the view of the river valley calmed his thoughts. Being here now with Hector, on the morning he was to become Keeper of the Word, felt right.

  He glanced at Hector again and couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Why did you leave?”

  The question fluttered between them like a leaf on a breeze. A long moment passed, and Jude thought Hector might not answer.

  But then, his voice quiet against the sound of the waterfall, he said, “I needed answers. Answers I couldn’t get here.”

  Jude’s chest clenched. The words wounded him, but he couldn’t understand why. He had so many more questions—where Hector had gone, what answers he’d been seeking, what had made him return. He stepped toward Hector. “Did you find them?”

  Hector’s eyes were the same black as the predawn sky. “I hope so. I think so. I want to be here, Jude.”

  Jude couldn’t tear his eyes away. He wanted to know everything, every second Hector had spent apart from him. But he would let Hector keep those secrets. What mattered was not that Hector had left—it was that he’d come back.

  “This is where you belong,” Jude said. “It has been since the day the acolytes brought you here.”

  The Order’s acolytes had found Hector on the island of Charis. Orphaned at the age of thirteen, Hector had taking refuge in the Temple of Keric. His Grace had already manifested at that point, and the acolytes had brought him to Kerameikos Fort when they’d seen he had the Grace of Heart. Jude had always felt like it was fate that had brought Hector to the Order. To Jude.

  Maybe it had taken leaving Kerameikos for Hector to realize that he’d always belonged there.

  A thin, rueful smile stretched across Hector’s face. “It really is so easy for you, isn’t it?” He shook his head with a laugh. “You’ve always been so certain. Of everything.”

  No, I’m not, Jude thought desperately. He was about to become Keeper. The Prophet had been found; Jude was days away from meeting him. But the same doubts plagued him, and they only seemed to grow. Part of him was glad Hector didn’t seem to see it—but another part of him wished he didn’t have to bear those feelings alone.

  “It’s why you’ve always been better at koahs than me,” Hector said, leaping onto a rock beneath the waterfall. “I’m still a better fighter, though.”

  “We’ll have to put that to the test,” Jude replied, leaping onto the rock, beside Hector.

  “Anytime.”

  They began to slowly move through the ten standard koahs. The specific sequences of breath and movement drew power from their Graces to enhance their physical bodies. There were koahs for strength, balance, speed, for each of the five senses, for endurance, and for focus. Each had three parts: breath, movement, and intention—the unwavering purpose beneath it all, the core reason one drew esha from the world and channeled it with their Grace. The greater the commitment to this intention, the more powerfully the Grace of Heart could be wielded.

  This was what Hector meant. Jude’s intention, the purpose for which he wielded his Grace, was his devotion to the Word of the Prophets. He tried to think of this and nothing else as he moved through the fluid second sequence, his Grace growing warm within him.

  But he couldn’t deny it was difficult with Hector so near. This was the only time Jude got to see him like this—focused, intent, unwavering. When they practiced koahs, it was with slow deliberation, every movement timed with their breath, every posture perfectly shaped. It wasn’t like the lightning-quick koahs one performed during a fight—these koahs were a meditation, a way to strengthen their connection to the sacred energy of the world.

  As he and Hector moved into a lunging form, raising one arm and stretching the other back, Jude imagined that the invisible, unknowable ripples of esha flowed between them, connecting them.

  The sky began to lighten in the east as they completed the last set of koahs.

  “Sun will come up soon,” Hector said as they came to rest, hands pressed against their chests. “Guess it’s time.”

  They hiked back down to the fort in silence. Usually, it would already be milling with activity at this early hour, stewards going about their duties in the kitchens, stables, and armory, and the Paladin beginning their practice in the training yard. But this morning, the barracks were empty, the kitchens silent. Everyone was gathered in the Circle of Stones, waiting for Jude.

  “Navarro.”

  Jude looked up to find Penrose waiting for them at the heelstone that marked the entrance of the Circle. She looked surprised to find Hector there.

  “You should join the others,” she said.

  Hector sent one last glance at Jude and then left his side to enter the Circle of Stones.

  Jude searched for judgment in Penrose’s eyes. “You should join them, too,” he said.

  Penrose hesitated. For a moment, he thought she might press him about Hector. She’d clearly wanted to the day before. But all she said was, “The choices you make now are no longer your own. They are the choices of the Keeper of the Word, sworn protector of the Last Prophet.”

  “I know.” Penrose’s words felt like a warning, one he wasn’t sure he knew how to abide.

  “May the light of the Prophets guide you,” Penrose said, and left his side to join the other Paladin.

  Jude’s apprehension grew as he looked up at the towering monoliths of the Seven Prophets that surrounded the Circle of Stones. Endarra the Fair, in a crown of laurel; Keric the Charitable, presenting his coin; Pallas the Faithful, with his hands clasped around an olive branch; Nazirah the Wise, carrying the torch of knowledge; Tarseis the Just, weighing with his scales; Behezda the Merciful, her hand outstretched; and the faceless Wanderer. Seven statues for the seven wisest men and women of ancient times, who had sought the knowledge of the fate of the world so that they might better serve their people. Who had given their people the power of the Four Bodily Graces. Who had lived for over two thousand years, guiding them in their destinies.

  In their shadows stood four hundred of the most powerful Graced warriors from the Inshuu steppe to the delta of Herat, their dark blue cloaks drawn across their breasts, the silver of their light armor gleaming in the dawn light.

  Jude felt their eyes on him as he crossed into the silent Circle of Stones, each gaze a weight that dragged with every step. With his own doubts flickering through his mind, he couldn’t help but wonder what the other Paladin saw—a boy, or a leader worthy of the mantle of Keeper of the Word?

  He took his place beside his father as the sun broke over the mountains, beaming light through the arch that marked the west edge of the Circle of Stones, illuminating everything in brilliant gold
.

  “Today,” Jude’s father proclaimed, “we gather in the Circle of Stones to anoint Jude Adlai Weatherbourne as Keeper of the Word and captain of the Paladin Guard.”

  The Paladin bowed their heads, touching their foreheads to the hilts of their swords.

  Captain Weatherbourne turned to Jude. “Do you swear to fulfill the duties of your office, to uphold the virtues of chastity, austerity, obedience, and to devote yourself, your Grace, and your life to the Order of the Last Light?”

  Jude’s hands trembled, but his voice remained sure. “I do swear.”

  His father lifted a torc of twisted gold and said, “This torc was crafted to symbolize our obedience to the will of the Prophets. With it, I bind you in service of the Last Prophet, to preserve the legacy of the Seven and the truth of their Word.” He placed the twisted gold wreath around Jude’s neck, fastening it at his throat. The metal hung heavy and cold against his skin.

  Next, his father picked up a silver and pewter reliquary, lifting its delicate top and dipping his fingers inside. “This chrism was consecrated by the great alchemists to strengthen our connection to the esha that flows through each of us.”

  Jude closed his eyes and felt his father draw the cool consecrating oil over the ridge of his brow.

  “With it, I anoint you, Jude Adlai Weatherbourne, Keeper of the Word and captain of the Paladin Guard.”

  Jude looked up at his father’s face, which even on this solemn occasion could not completely hide the pride he held in his son. Yesterday, his father had spoken of Jude’s destiny with conviction—how he had known when Jude was just a child that this moment would come. He shut his eyes, wondering if his father would still look at him like that if he knew the weakness buried in his heart.

  Last, his father raised the sheathed Pinnacle Blade between his hands. “This sword was forged to strengthen the Grace of the first Keeper of the Word. It must be wielded for one purpose, and one purpose alone—to protect the Last Prophet.”

  Jude’s hands shook even harder as his father lowered the sword into them. As his fingers curled around the intricate hilt and sheath, Jude felt his Grace swell within him, as if he were moving through a koah. This sword had hung at his father’s side for over three decades, his constant companion. As it had hung at the side of every Keeper of the Word before him. In Jude’s hands, it was another expectation, another promise he desperately hoped he knew how to keep. Another weight he wasn’t sure he could bear.