But Ephyra didn’t move. It wasn’t that she bought Illya’s remorse. It wasn’t the softness in his shoulders that held her back. It wasn’t the anguish in his eyes—it was the uncertainty in Anton’s.
You still don’t know what you’re running from, do you? Illya had asked.
Ephyra wondered if that was true. The way Anton had looked after he’d tried to scry for the Chalice, and then again this morning at the harbor, spoke of a kind of fear she wasn’t sure she fully understood. And she didn’t think Anton understood it, either.
A sudden barrage of footsteps sounded outside the temple.
“Is that the Sentry?” Ephyra asked.
Anton’s eyes were wide. “There shouldn’t be a patrol here for another hour.” He whirled on his brother. “Did you tip them off? Did you call them here?”
“Why would I do that?” Illya asked, eyes wide in a way that made the resemblance between him and Anton apparent.
A ghostly light appeared outside.
Ephyra glanced at Illya, torn. If they let him go now, they wouldn’t get another chance. Anton might never be able to control his Grace. Which meant Ephyra might never find Eleazar’s Chalice.
But if she was caught and the Sentry decided to lock her in their citadel, there would be no one to heal Beru again when she began to fade. She could risk her own life, but she couldn’t risk Beru’s.
She grabbed Anton’s wrist, making her decision. She dragged him through the sanctum, through the arched entryway onto the steps.
A high, loud whistle pierced the air. A blinding light shone on the two of them, stopping them in their tracks.
“They’re robbing the temple!”
“Stop where you are, thieves!”
Shielding her eyes, Ephyra turned back toward the temple. Illya had already melted into the darkness.
“Move, and we shoot!” the Sentry shouted.
There were over a dozen of them, their crossbows drawn in front of them. Too many for Ephyra to take on by herself without risking leaving innocent bodies behind. They closed in, pinning her and Anton on the temple steps. The scrape of swords being drawn rang through her ears.
“By decree of the Priests’ Conclave of Pallas Athos, you’re under arrest.”
17
HASSAN
Hassan woke early the next morning and dressed quickly for breakfast. He assumed Lethia wouldn’t miss this opportunity to show her hospitality to the Paladin Guard, and when he arrived at the terrace courtyard, he was not disappointed. The breakfast table was overladen with pastries stuffed with dates and chopped nuts, glass bowls of thickened cream drizzled with honey, pitchers full of jewel-colored nectars, and silver pots of rose tea.
Five Paladin in dark blue cloaks stood around the feast, looking more prepared for battle than for a morning meal.
Lethia was placid and welcoming at the head of the table, though Hassan did not miss the slight quirk of her lips that indicated she was annoyed by his lateness. The night before, when he had arrived back at the villa with the Guard in tow, she’d welcomed them with equanimity but confusion. The Guard had been reluctant to let Hassan tell Lethia everything they’d told him in the temple, but he had insisted. Lethia had kept him safe these last two and a half weeks and had kept his presence in the city a secret. He was sure she could be trusted to keep this secret, too.
While she hadn’t expressed any doubt in front of the Paladin, Hassan could tell as she listened to their claims that she was skeptical. For that matter, so was he.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” the copper-haired Paladin said to him as he took his place at the head of the table.
“Good morning,” Hassan replied. It was a moment before he realized that Captain Weatherbourne wasn’t present.
“Captain Weatherbourne sends his apologies,” the woman went on, as if anticipating Hassan’s question. “The Sentry sent word requesting to speak with him at the citadel. I’ll be in charge of your safety while he and Navarro are gone.”
“Thank you, uh…”
“Penrose,” she said with a brief smile.
Penrose. He mouthed the name to himself, vowing to remember it.
After a stilted conversation over breakfast, Lethia suggested he give the Paladin a tour of the gardens. Hassan had planned to sequester himself in the library all afternoon and read whatever he could find about the Order—but then he realized he was probably better off just asking them anyway, so he agreed.
“So,” he said, once they were all gathered in the gardens, enjoying the cascading fountains. “You all lived at Kerameikos Fort? What’s it like there?”
“Quieter,” replied the swordsman called Petrossian. He looked like the oldest of the Guard, and evidently wasn’t fond of idle chatter.
Osei, a larger man with skin as dark as ink, added, “Colder.”
Hassan heard a snort of laughter and was surprised to see it had come from the two tall, pale Paladin who’d been exceptionally quiet at breakfast. Penrose had introduced them as Annuka and Yarik.
“Desert dweller,” Annuka said, nodding at Osei. “No good with cold.”
Osei cracked a grin. He had a face suited for smiling. “Not all of us were raised drinking snowmelt instead of mother’s milk.”
“You’re from the Inshuu steppe, aren’t you?” Hassan asked Annuka.
“The Qarashi tribe,” she answered.
“Why did you leave?”
Annuka frowned. “Many tribes on the Inshuu steppe rely on the herds of wild oxen. But the oxen have been dying off. In one very bad winter, half our herd died. The other tribes came to raid us. Yarik and I fought them, many times, but it didn’t matter. Without the oxen, our tribe was dying. The others left, married into new tribes. When it was just Yarik and me left, the other tribes called a Janaal.”
Hassan remembered learning about the Inshuu practice of Janaal when a delegation of the largest Inshuu tribes had visited Nazirah. It was a way of encouraging more intermixing of tribes—the best fighters from each tribe would compete, and if they were defeated, they joined the tribe of the victor.
“None of the others could defeat us,” Yarik said. “And on the last day of the Janaal, a new opponent stepped into the ring. Not a tribesman. An acolyte. She told us about the Order of the Last Light. She offered us something to fight for again, though we would have to give up our allegiance to our tribe. But we no longer had a tribe. So we went and found new purpose.”
The Paladin’s tone was simple, straightforward, but Hassan could see the pain behind her words, and in the tenseness of her brother’s shoulders. They had lost their entire tribe, and with it, their place in the world.
“Were any of you born in Kerameikos?” he asked.
Penrose shook her head. “The oaths do not permit members of the Order from having children. With the exception of the Keeper, who does so only to continue the Weatherbourne line.”
“Then how have you persisted over the past century?”
“Are you always this curious?” Petrossian muttered.
“‘The Crown of Herat fits best on a curious head,’” Hassan quoted. “That’s what the scholars say.”
“Your question is astute,” Penrose said, giving Petrossian a look of admonishment. “The Order’s numbers have dwindled, it’s true, but we have acolytes all over the world who find new members. Most come to us as children, like Osei and Navarro. Some come later in life, like Yarik and Annuka.”
“The Order takes children?”
“Orphans,” Osei said. “But we do not swear the oath until we reach adulthood and choose to do so willingly.”
“But you all did,” Hassan said. “You all chose this.”
“Yes,” Penrose said. “For me, it was a calling. My whole life, I had felt drawn to the stories of the Order of the Last Light. Though I believed them to be long gone, I felt a deep connection with their noble purpose, so far removed from anything I knew as the daughter of poor farmers in the countryside outside of Endarrion. When my parents di
scovered I had the Grace of Heart, they sold me to a woman who would train me to become a dancer.”
Dancing, Hassan knew, was one of the most prized occupations in Endarrion, a city that valued beauty and aesthetics over strength or scholarship.
“I knew dancing was not my purpose. I hated the idea of performing for the people of Endarrion, who enjoyed luxury and beautiful things, while the farmers in the surrounding countryside starved,” Penrose went on. “When I reached the city, I went to the Temple of Endarra to seek guidance, hoping somehow the Prophets had a plan for me. One of the acolytes in the temple heard me praying, and told me the thing I’d most wanted to hear—that the Order of the Last Light still existed, and that I could join them. I left that night.”
Hassan was beginning to understand the people who made up the Paladin Guard. All of them, it seemed, had been forsaken by their homes in one way or another. All of them had been touched by turmoil. All of them had sought purpose. In that sense, they weren’t so different from him, or from any of the refugees in the agora.
Penrose’s eyes suddenly narrowed, her whole body going still.
In a flash, Petrossian was at her side. “I hear it, too.”
Hassan glanced around to find all five of the Guard with their hands at their swords, as if awaiting a threat.
With a slight nod, Penrose signaled Yarik and Annuka. They swiftly parted from the rest of the group, heading down the garden path that led to the villa’s outer courtyard.
“What’s going on?” Hassan asked. The remaining three members of the Guard—Petrossian, Penrose and Osei—formed a triangle around him.
“There’s someone trying to enter the villa grounds,” Penrose replied. An undercurrent of tension belied her light tone. “Not to worry. That’s what we’re here for.”
Immediately, Hassan’s mind leapt to the Witnesses. After the spectacle the Order had caused yesterday, and Hassan’s appearance at the Temple of Pallas, they had more than one reason to show up here.
An uneasy few minutes passed, and then Annuka reappeared at the end of the path.
“What is it?” Hassan asked.
Annuka directed her reply to Penrose. “It’s a girl. A Herati refugee, I believe. She was denied entry by one of the servants and then climbed over the wall.”
It had to be Khepri.
“Wait here,” Penrose said.
The words were scarcely out of her mouth before Hassan was pushing ahead of her, hastening down the path. Let them try and stop him.
When he reached the courtyard wall, he spotted Yarik’s hulking form by the main archway that led outside. In front of him, her wrists held by one of Yarik’s large hands, was Khepri.
“Release her at once,” Hassan said, summoning his best commanding voice.
“Your Grace—”
“At once,” Hassan repeated. The voice must have been more effective than he thought, because Yarik dropped Khepri’s wrists and shuffled away.
Khepri’s eyes were trained intently, distractingly, on Hassan. Slowly, she sank into a bow.
“Your Grace,” she said. The words sounded perfectly deferential, but he could swear there was a challenge in them.
“Please,” he said. “You don’t have to kneel.”
“But this is the proper way for a subject of Herat to greet her prince, is it not?” Khepri asked, her tone perfectly poised, her eyes lowered.
A cold bead of sweat trickled down the back of Hassan’s neck. “It is.”
“Perhaps, then, there is some other way I should pay respect to a prince who, until yesterday, claimed to be a student at the Akademos by the name of Cirion.”
There was no mistaking her tone this time. Hassan gritted his teeth. “I offer my apologies, but I did not think it safe to—”
“You concealed the truth of your identity, even after I told you why I had come to Pallas Athos.” Khepri’s eyes cut up to his. “You kept it from me.”
Heat flooded him, and with it, shame. “I did not intend to deceive you.”
“But you did.”
“And I have now apologized for it,” he replied, growing frustrated. “Twice—yesterday in the agora, and again now. I am sorry I lied about who I was, but the truth is, I am the Prince of Herat, and, as such, I will not permit you to speak to me in such a manner.”
“I don’t need an apology,” Khepri said. “And I will speak to you how I like.”
His eyes widened at her brashness, and the Guard, seemingly as one, moved toward her.
“No,” Hassan said, holding them off with a raised hand. “She is free to speak.”
A faint flush colored Khepri’s cheeks and neck, but she forged on.
“I have risked my life many times over, crossed the sea to get here. Because I want—I need—to know how we can take Herat back from the Witnesses. I came to fight for my country. I thought that’s what you wanted, too.”
Hassan flinched as though she had struck him. “It is what I want. More than anything. But what the Witnesses want—it’s more than just our country. There is more at stake here.”
“More at stake? You have no idea,” Khepri said. “You weren’t there after the Witnesses took the city. You don’t know what they did to us.”
The words tightened like a noose around his throat. Each day since the coup, he had been mired in sick dread, not knowing what the Witnesses and the Hierophant had been doing to his parents, and to the others captured along with them. “What are you talking about?”
“I want to show you something,” Khepri said. “And if, after you see it, you still don’t think I understand the threat the Witnesses pose, then I’ll leave you alone.”
He didn’t want Khepri to leave—not when she was his one real connection to his home. Not when she was standing here in front of him, eyes burning like twin suns.
“All right,” Hassan said. “I’ll come.”
“You won’t go anywhere without the Paladin Guard,” Penrose interjected.
Hassan had almost forgotten they were there.
“So it’s true,” Khepri said, staring over his shoulder at Penrose. “They said that the Order of the Last Light had returned to Pallas Athos. No one knows why.”
Penrose glanced quickly at Hassan. “We’re here because of the Witnesses,” she said. “We’ve had our sights on the Hierophant for quite some time, and what’s happened in Nazirah is of great concern to the Order.”
Khepri’s eyes darkened at the word Witnesses. “Then you should come, too. Whatever you’ve heard about the Hierophant, I promise you—the truth is much worse.”
18
JUDE
The citadel of Pallas Athos stood on a bare outcropping of rock that stretched up from the city’s second-highest tier. From here, Jude could see clear across the city, from the gleaming limestone edifices of the High City to the poorer neighborhoods that spread out between the mountainside and the harbor.
He and Hector met the Sentry captain in the citadel’s central courtyard, a wide hexagonal yard paved in limestone, surrounded by all the main Sentry buildings—the holding cells, the trainee barracks, and the prisoners’ tower.
“Great,” the captain grumbled as he approached. “I ask to meet with the Keeper of the Word, and he sends a gelding in his place.”
Jude felt his face heat and opened his mouth to correct the captain.
But Hector spoke first. “That is the Keeper of the Word you’re talking to, so I’d show some respect if I were you.”
The captain swept his gaze over Jude, clearly unimpressed. “You’re the Keeper? Huh. Well, in that case, let’s get to it. I don’t have all day.” He marched across the courtyard.
Hector caught Jude’s eye as they followed, shaking his head with a small smile. It made Jude feel marginally better about the captain’s error.
“The Archon Basileus asked me to meet with you,” the captain explained as he led them up the stairs to the citadel’s perimeter wall.
“He couldn’t meet with us himself?” Ju
de asked.
The captain snorted. “You’ll learn pretty quickly that no one in this city does much of anything themselves, unless it’s getting drunk with whores.”
Jude flinched. “What do you mean? The Priests’ Conclave governs this city. They set the example of piety and faith for the city—for the world.”
The captain snorted again. “Sure, maybe that was the case a hundred years ago, when this city had faith. Now all it has is leeches sucking at its marrow.”
Jude felt winded by the captain’s words, and the bland way he’d spoken them. If what the captain had said was even partially true, Pallas Athos was a far cry from the beacon of faith and holiness it had been when the Order was still there. The thought that the City of Faith had become a pit of vice sent something snaking unpleasantly through Jude’s stomach. It violated everything the Order believed, that he himself tried so desperately to uphold.
“What—Does that offend you?” the captain asked, glancing over his shoulder at Jude’s face. “What do you think happened to this city after the Order abandoned it? Or have you all just been pretending the Prophets never left and everything’s stayed the same since?”
“We’re not pretending anything,” Jude said sharply.
“Captain,” Hector said, cutting in. “We know the Order hasn’t been here to defend the city in a long time. But with all due respect, we’re here now.”
A flood of gratitude swelled in Jude’s chest.
“What does that mean, exactly?” the captain asked. “That you want Pallas Athos to go back to the way it was before? It’s too late. When you left, this city had no one to defend its people. The priests don’t care what happens here as long as they can continue to do whatever they like. It’s fallen to the Sentry to keep things in order, but we’re not Graced like you.”
There Will Come a Darkness Page 15
