The man on the pallet was a patchwork of scars and blistered flesh. It was sloughing off in layers, revealing weeping pink sores beneath. Sickly pale skin covered half his face down to his collarbone. Tiny white scars, like fissures or the cracks in shattered glass, crept away from the burns, covering the rest of his body. He looked like he might have once worn the same hairstyle as Khepri—the close-shaved sides of the Herati Legionnaires—but it was now growing in thin, uneven patches. His mouth hung slack, breaths coming in shallow, rattling bursts. It was hard to imagine this frail, gasping man had ever been a soldier.
Hassan’s stomach clenched with pity and a tinge of revulsion, which he tried to swallow down, ashamed. Khepri knelt beside the pallet.
“Reza,” Khepri said, a soft smile on her face. She laid her hand gently on top of his. “It’s me, Khepri.”
Reza gave a pitiful groan in response.
Khepri looked up at the healer next to him, a short, dark-skinned woman with a round face. “Has there been any change?”
The healer shook her head. “The burns themselves are almost healed, though he will bear the scars. But the pain…”
A dry breath rasped from between Reza’s lips. “Please…”
Khepri started to get up from his side, but Reza’s hand suddenly gripped hers. Hassan moved toward them without thinking, but Khepri held up her other hand, signaling him to wait.
“Please,” Reza said again, his eyes now wide, staring at her. No, not at her. Through her. His eyes were blank, unseeing. “I can’t … The pain … Please…”
“It’s all right,” Khepri soothed. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Isn’t there something you can do?” Penrose asked, looking over at the healer. “The burns—”
“It’s not the burns that hurt him,” the healer said, shaking her head.
“No,” Reza moaned. “No, no, no, no … It’s gone. It’s all gone. I can’t feel it. I can’t … It’s gone! They took it. There’s nothing left. Nothing.” He dropped Khepri’s hand, arm falling limply to his side as he began to shake. Soft, almost inhuman whimpers escaped from his throat. The sounds were unbearable, the desperate, rattling gasps of a man on the edge of delirium. Hassan thought he had seen suffering, but he could not fathom what he saw in front of him now. He rooted himself to the ground, wanting desperately to flee.
“I think that’s enough for now,” the healer said quietly.
Khepri got to her feet, turning away from Reza and ushering Hassan and Penrose out through the curtain.
It was a moment before Hassan found his voice. “What … what happened to him?”
He could still hear Reza’s bitten-back moans of pain. Khepri took Hassan’s arm, leading him out of the tent.
“They call it Godfire,” she said at last. She addressed both him and Penrose as she spoke. “It burns the Grace out of you.”
Hassan swallowed roughly, his eyes stinging. The dull horror in Khepri’s voice and the echoes of Reza’s agonized moans told him everything he needed to know.
“The Witnesses did that?” he asked. Khepri nodded, and an anger like Hassan hadn’t felt since the morning of the coup wrenched at his gut. “Was it during the coup?”
Khepri shook her head. “They didn’t use it in the coup, but they’ve been secretly experimenting with it ever since. The Hierophant himself watches while his followers take captured Graced soldiers and hold them in the flame. Seeing what it does to them. How long it takes to burn their Graces out.”
Reza’s blank stare flashed through Hassan’s mind. He imagined what it would be like to be burned slowly, your skin blistering, able to do nothing but scream. Rage roared in his chest, until he felt he might choke on it.
“We heard rumors that the Hierophant could stop someone from using their Grace,” Penrose said. “But to burn it out of them? Permanently? None of us thought that was possible. We’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“How … how many?” Hassan asked. “How many people did they do that to?”
Khepri shook her head. “We don’t know. We think Reza is the only one who survived.”
“The only one?” Penrose asked. “They burned the others to death?”
“Some,” Khepri said. “The others took their own lives. They say that losing your Grace is the worst kind of agony. It’s not like losing a piece of your body … It’s like losing a piece of your self. I’ve seen what Reza has been through, and it’s like there’s a hollowness that’s slowly shredding him from inside out. Our Graces aren’t just our power—they’re our connection to the world. Without them we’re just … ash.”
Hassan’s skin prickled. He hadn’t even known he had a Grace until a day ago. Would losing it really feel like that? It was hard to imagine, but Reza’s agony told him everything.
What the Hierophant had done was nothing short of monstrous.
“Do you know how they made this … Godfire?” Penrose asked.
Khepri shook her head. “When Reza escaped, he showed us where they were keeping it, but I don’t think it was made. Not by the Witnesses, at least. The story goes that the Hierophant found it in the temple ruins in the desert where he took his most devoted followers. That’s why they call it Godfire—they say the flame was left at the altar of that ancient deity.”
“Another lie, I’m sure,” Penrose said. “No one has worshipped the old god in over two thousand years. I’d bet before the Hierophant took it over, no one had set foot in those ruins for nearly that long.”
Khepri shook her head. “Well, wherever the flame came from, it’s in Nazirah now. We think there’s only one source, a single white flame that burns continuously. Before I escaped, we were going to try to put it out.”
“What happened?” Hassan asked.
“Reza told us they were keeping the Godfire in the High Temple of Nazirah,” Khepri said. “My other comrades snuck up there in the cover of night. My brothers and I remained outside the temple to stand guard while they doused the flame.” She closed her eyes. “I remember how dark it was. A moonless night.”
Hassan moved toward Khepri as her face twisted.
“A patrol of Witnesses carrying Godfire torches found us outside the temple. My brothers and I fought them off. One of the Witnesses knocked over a font of chrism oil. He dropped his torch in it, and—”
She broke off, her eyes going wide and distant, as though she were back at the High Temple, reliving that night.
“There was a blinding flash of light, brighter than the sun, and a sound like the earth cracking. We were thrown to the ground, and all I could see was smoke and white flames pouring from where the temple had once stood. My brothers and I ran. And our comrades inside … they never made it out.”
She met Hassan’s gaze, her eyes clouded with pain.
Penrose let out a soft breath. “This is worse than anything we imagined.”
“It’s worse than even that,” Khepri said. “Because now that they’ve tested it, we know what the Witnesses plan to do with Godfire. Taking the city was just the first step. The next is igniting it. They’re going to burn out the Grace of everyone who remains there. Then … well, they’ll do the same to the rest of the world, if they have their way.”
“The Reckoning,” Hassan said quietly, his voice shaking. He remembered the words of the Witnesses at the Temple of Pallas. The Prophets are gone, and the Graced will follow.
He closed his eyes and saw pale flames rippling across his beloved city, leaving charred ashes in their wake. He saw his mother’s face, twisted in agony. He heard his father’s bone-shaking scream. He pictured finally reuniting with them, only to have them turn and look right through him with Reza’s empty gaze.
“We need to know everything we can about Godfire,” Penrose said briskly. “I want to speak more to your healer. Prince Hassan?”
“I’ll stay here.” He could not return to the dark tent. To Reza’s hollow gaze and haunting pleas. To the visions of agony and fire that flashed through his mind whe
n he thought of his parents.
Penrose disappeared into the tent without another word. Khepri made to follow her, but Hassan reached out and grasped her wrist, halting her.
“Why didn’t you say anything about this to me before?” he asked roughly. “I mean, when you—” He bit off the end, too angry to continue.
“When I didn’t know who you were?”
“Yes,” Hassan said, releasing her. “Did you not trust me?” He knew what a hypocrite he was being. He had no right to feel hurt that Khepri had not trusted him right away, not when he’d been lying to her. But his anger was stronger than his logic.
Khepri just shook her head, her eyes soft. “It wasn’t that.”
“Then why?”
“I—” She swallowed. “It was selfish.”
“Selfish?” Hassan wasn’t sure he’d ever met a less selfish person in his life.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, her tone edged with desperation. “You know now. This is what we face. The Hierophant and his Witnesses are going to burn the Grace out of every last man, woman, and child in Nazirah. That is the promise he’s made his followers, and he won’t hesitate to deliver it. Unless someone stops him.”
Hassan looked up at her. “Someone? You mean me?”
“I mean us,” Khepri replied. “I didn’t come here to run away from Nazirah. I came to find an army to take it back. All of us did. And we want the Prince of Herat to lead us.”
It was a stunning image to behold—he and Khepri, leading an army into Nazirah and striking down the Witnesses in one fell swoop. Retaking Nazirah. Toppling the Hierophant. Ensuring the safety of Herat, of his family, and all the Graced. He wanted it so badly, wanted everything Khepri did.
But Hassan had read every volume on martial history in the Great Library, had studied with some of the greatest military minds in Herat, and he knew that no matter how much he wanted a way to take back his city, what Khepri was suggesting was impossible.
“If Godfire is as powerful a weapon as you say, we won’t have any hope of stopping the Witnesses with a few hundred soldiers,” he said.
“It’s better than sitting here, across the sea, doing nothing,” Khepri replied. “We’re willing to risk our lives to save our people. Aren’t you?”
He knew the answer he wanted to give. The answer that would quell the anger shaking in his bones. But the sight of Penrose returning from within the tent stopped him. The Paladin Guard was here to protect him. To keep the Prophet safe. He couldn’t risk his life just to save the people of Herat when the entire fate of the Graced, and the world, rested on his shoulders.
He wished he could explain this all to Khepri, to tell her the reason for his hesitation. But the Order wasn’t ready to let loose the secret of the last prophecy.
“We should return to the villa,” Penrose said gently.
Hassan nodded, but he was still looking at Khepri.
“Make whatever choice you want, Prince Hassan,” she said. “But I’m going to fight.”
She turned and marched back down the row of tents. Hassan watched her go, his heart sputtering like the point of a compass that had lost its bearing.
21
JUDE
Jude found Hector standing beneath an olive tree in the Sentry practice yard, limned by the pale wash of the evening sky.
When they’d first reunited at Kerameikos, Jude had been relieved by how easily they had picked up their friendship again, and how like his younger self Hector still was. Now, Jude wondered how much of what he saw when he looked at him was colored by their past. If Hector had never come to Kerameikos as a child, if the two boys had not grown up getting in and out of trouble together, what might Jude see when he looked at this man?
“This is why you left, wasn’t it?” he asked. When Jude had chosen his Guard, he’d decided that he didn’t need to know why Hector had left. The only thing that had mattered was that he’d returned. But that had been a mistake.
“After you went on your Year of Reflection, the rumors about the Pale Hand reached us at Kerameikos,” Hector said. “I knew—I knew that it was her. The girl who killed my family. I was … obsessed. I left Kerameikos to track her, from Charis to Tarsepolis. I came up with nothing. I gave up on ever finding her. But now here she is.”
“Hector, I know you said you were sure, but it’s been five years since you saw her,” Jude said. “You were young, you’d just been through a great trauma, and—”
“You heard her heart beat faster the moment you mentioned the Pale Hand,” Hector said. “You know I’m right. I know what she really is, and I can prove it. We can stop her.”
“She could have just been scared,” Jude said. “And besides that, she’s a prisoner. There’s nothing she can do from inside that cell.”
Hector’s hand clenched the hilt of his sword, knuckles white. “She’s dangerous, Jude. I’ve seen what she can do. It’s … it’s unnatural. We can’t let her live.”
“What are you saying?” Jude asked. “You want to kill her?”
“She’s the second harbinger of the Age of Darkness. The prophecy is clear what her destiny is.”
“No, it isn’t,” Jude said. “Until the prophecy is completed, we don’t know what role any of the harbingers will play in the Age of Darkness. Or what would happen if one of them dies. We must be patient, and trust in the Prophet.”
Hector shook his head, staring out at the empty yard. “Where she goes, darkness follows. Allowing her to live a moment longer is a grave mistake.”
Jude had never heard this cold, furious tone from Hector before. Carefully, he asked, “Are you saying this because you think she’ll bring the Age of Darkness? Or is it because you want revenge for your parents’ death?”
Hector whirled on him, eyes blazing. “So what if I do? I see my family every night in my dreams. My mother’s withered body. My brother’s lifeless stare. That pale handprint on my father’s silent, still chest.”
Jude’s chest clenched tight with the thought of a young Hector, still just a boy, waking to find the cold bodies of every person he had ever loved. He swallowed, forcing his voice to be steady. Calm. The voice of the Keeper of the Word. “You are a Paladin of the Order of the Last Light. Your allegiance is to the Order, to the Prophet. You cannot allow grief to cloud your judgment.”
Hector looked away again, toward the olive tree. When he spoke, the harsh edge of anger was gone. “I can’t just separate out my feelings the way you can, Jude. Everything that happened before you chose me for the Guard, it’s not like it’s just over. It still matters. It’s been years, but whenever I close my eyes, I can hear their voices. They call out to me, begging me to help them.”
His grief was a fist closing over Jude’s own heart. Hector had not trusted him with this. He had kept this pain secreted away for all these years, had borne it alone rather than bare himself to Jude.
But Hector wasn’t the only one to blame for the distance between them. Because as much as Jude wanted, more than anything, to be Hector’s friend, there had always been something else between them—the unspoken understanding that one day Jude would be his leader, too.
Hector’s eyes shuttered closed. “I don’t know how to make it stop.”
“You must,” Jude said, guilt clawing at his throat even as he spoke the words.
“I’ve tried. I have. I have devoted myself to the Order. I took my oath, just like you wanted me to. But this feeling will never go away.” He looked back at Jude, his eyes haunted. “I can’t just keep pretending it will.”
“It’s not always easy for me, either,” Jude said before he could stop himself. “Putting aside everything for our cause. For the Prophet.”
Hector smiled. A twisted wretch of a smile. “Don’t be stupid, Jude. You were born to this life. I had to learn it. I had a family, and she took them from me. She took the people who loved me, the only people who loved me, and you’ll never know what that feels like, because you never had that, and you never will.”
Jude stiffened, sucking in a breath as if he’d been struck. Hector was right, of course. Jude didn’t have a family. He had the Order. He had his father, who’d sired him but had little hand in raising him. Jude was his son, his successor, but the bonds of family meant nothing to the Order. Jude knew this. He’d always known it. But Hector’s words rang in Jude’s ears, a truth he’d never named before.
“I’m sorry,” Hector said, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean—”
“No,” Jude said. “I … You’re right. I don’t understand.”
“It’s just … now that I’ve seen her, now that I know she’s here—” Hector looked away from Jude, his jaw set and his shoulders tight.
Jude wasn’t sure what more he could offer, how to navigate Hector’s grief and the line that had been drawn between them. He touched Hector’s shoulder. “Hector…” But the look in Hector’s eyes—haunted, wary—stopped him.
“I know who you want me to be, Jude. But I don’t know if I have it in me.”
“You do,” Jude said, desperation drawing his voice taut. “You can. I chose you to be in my Guard because I believe that. I believe in you.”
Hector tensed beneath Jude’s hand. Finally, he looked up. “You won’t tell them, will you? The Guard? I don’t want them to look at me like—”
“I won’t,” Jude promised. “I wouldn’t.”
Hector nodded and looked down at the hand on his shoulder. Jude withdrew it quickly. But before he could say anything else, offer anything more, Hector turned away and walked off into the darkening evening alone.
Jude curled his fingers over the palm that had touched Hector’s shoulder. Hector had kept his grief locked away from Jude, but his was not the only heart that held secrets.
There had been a moment, before the Prophet, before his training, before he was Keeper of the Word, when Jude had finally realized his own secret. When all the doubts he’d ever felt about himself and his destiny had finally made sense. A moment, once, beneath a swollen summer moon, when his heart had given itself away.
There Will Come a Darkness Page 17
