He and Hector had decided to take a dip at midnight—Hector’s idea, of course, but Jude had been only too eager to play along. They’d snuck out from the barracks, winding through the fort to where the rush of the river was diverted into a gentler stream.
They’d stripped down to their underclothes under the great stretch of stars and flung themselves off the top of a waterfall. Despite the summer month, the water had still been bitingly cold—Jude remembered that, even now. And he remembered how Hector’s back had glistened in the moonlight when he slid out of the water and collapsed onto the bank, grinning as Jude fell beside him.
It had been quiet—so quiet all Jude could hear was the rustle of the trees, the murmur of water sliding over stone, the gentle thumping of two hearts—his own and Hector’s. It occurred to him that Hector could surely hear them both, too, and the thought quickened his heartbeat. When Hector turned on his side to look at him, brows drawn over luminous dark eyes, Jude was sure his disobedient heart would leap straight out of his chest and flop to the ground between them.
And then Hector had gotten up and walked back to the water, leaving Jude behind on the bank.
They hadn’t spoken of it, not that night or any night since. Perhaps it was something Hector had forgotten, their diverging lives and the passing of time making a sieve of his memories. Or perhaps even then, lying in the moonlight beside him, he hadn’t understood that, in the space of a few heartbeats, Jude’s entire world had been upended.
Jude was no longer the boy he’d been then. He had mastered his Grace, completed his training, taken his oath. He had found the Last Prophet.
But when he closed his eyes, he could still hear the frantic pounding of his heart against the cage of his ribs.
22
HASSAN
Captain Weatherbourne and Hector Navarro didn’t return to the villa until after supper. Hassan called them and the rest of the Guard into the library and told them what Khepri had showed him in the agora.
“Godfire.” Captain Weatherbourne spoke the word as though it were a curse, his expression troubled. “How did they even get such a weapon?”
“Khepri says they may have found it at the altar of an ancient temple in the desert. There’s no way to know for certain, but we do know that they mean to use it on the rest of the Graced in Nazirah,” Hassan said. “And the rest of the world, too, if we don’t stop them now. The Hierophant isn’t going to wait for the rest of the prophecy to unfold before he acts. We can’t, either. Not if we want to stop him.”
“No,” Petrossian said firmly. “Only two of the harbingers have surfaced. If we try to stop the Hierophant before we know the rest of the prophecy, we might end up helping him bring the Age of Darkness.”
“Meanwhile, the people of my country are at his mercy.” Fear bubbled up in Hassan’s throat as he thought again of his mother and father. The image of Reza’s charred body flashed through his mind, and he felt sick.
“I understand your desire to attack, but we can’t risk the Witnesses getting ahold of you, not before we know the end of the prophecy,” Captain Weatherbourne said firmly.
The irony was not lost on Hassan—that in order to prevent destruction, first he must let it unfold. But he could not trust, as the Paladin did, that the end of the prophecy would reveal itself to him. The Age of Darkness loomed, and he didn’t know how to stop it. He had no idea where to begin.
“You’re asking me to turn my back on my people,” he said.
“No,” Captain Weatherbourne replied. “I ask only for your patience. The world waited a hundred years for you to be born. We waited another sixteen to find you. We all can wait a little while longer, until we know the way forward.”
“Perhaps,” Hassan said, pushing himself to his feet, “if you all had done something instead of waiting, we wouldn’t be here now.”
Though he knew the Order wasn’t to blame for the coup, it felt good to lash out. But as he watched Captain Weatherbourne go pale, he regretted the harsh words.
“Perhaps it would be best to continue this discussion in the morning,” Penrose said, stepping toward them.
Captain Weatherbourne nodded. “It is getting late.” His eyes darted to the side of the room, where the Paladin named Hector stood with his arms crossed in front of him. “We could all use some sleep.”
But sleep evaded Hassan that night. He hadn’t managed a full night of rest since before the coup, but tonight the restlessness was worse. He did not want the peace of slumber, did not want to absolve himself of the guilt of bedding down safe in his aunt’s villa while his people lived in terror and fought for their lives in Nazirah. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt the same crackling anger he’d felt on the steps of the Temple of Pallas, facing the Witnesses. Anger at them, at the Order, at himself.
The hour grew later, and still he sat awake, rereading the third volume of Scholar Sufyan’s History of the Six Prophetic Cities, which he’d taken from his aunt’s library the first day he’d arrived in Pallas Athos. Whenever his thoughts began to spiral, he’d reread his favorite chapters—“The Winter Bloom of Endarrion,” “The Treaty of the Six,” “General Ezeli’s Last Stand.” He had a collection of first edition volumes at home, gifted to him on his fourteenth name day by the head librarian of Nazirah. But those books had been left behind, along with so much else.
Tonight, he paged to the chapter he’d read so many times he almost knew it by heart: “The Founding of Nazirah.” The thread that connected across two thousand years to Hassan’s own present. A vision of a tower of light shining across the Pelagos Sea led the Prophet Nazirah to the beaches of the southern Pelagos coast at the mouth of a great river. She had made her prophecy on that land—that it would soon become the center of knowledge, learning, and wisdom in the Pelagos, a kingdom of many peoples, attracting the brightest minds and the most powerful Graced. As long as the lighthouse stood on its shores, the Seif line would rule this land, the Kingdom of Herat.
Hassan’s tired eyes blurred as he set the book down. Nazirah’s lighthouse still stood, but the Seif line had fallen. The prophecy had been broken, just as the acolyte Emir had said. The Witnesses had undone it.
A promise of the past undone.
Nazirah had been ripped away from Hassan. The prophecy of his ancestors had shattered that day. But could it all mean what the acolyte said—that Hassan’s destiny was greater than what the Prophet Nazirah had seen two millennia ago? That his own prophecy would carve a new path to the future?
He closed his eyes, trying to calm his still-whirring mind and let himself sleep. Images of the lighthouse, of golden laurel crowns and banners waving down Ozmandith Road swirled together with the words of the final prophecy as he began to drift.
* * *
The city of Nazirah spread out below him. This was not the same Nazirah that Hassan had left—this city had been overrun by fear and shadow. Figures paraded between the building facades along the main stretch of Ozmandith Road. They wore white cloaks and carried torches of pale flame that cast ghastly shadows along the sandstone street.
Godfire.
Smoke poured from the torches, curling up from the procession and blanketing the once-shining domes and towers of Nazirah’s cityscape.
Hassan set his hands down on the solid stone parapet before him. He looked up and realized he was standing on the observation deck of the lighthouse of Nazirah. His back was to its flame, his face toward the harbor. To his left stood Khepri, curved sword strapped to her side, eyes burning fiercely. On his other side stood Emir the acolyte, his gentle face alight with fervent hope.
The soldier and the man of faith. Between them, Hassan, their leader. The Last Prophet.
Glimmering in the harbor were ships with sails the same color as the moonlight glinting off the smooth, dark water. Soldiers poured off the ships and onto the shore. Their forces met the procession of Witnesses and their turncoat soldiers and mercenaries, a sea of green, gold, and dark blue overtaking black and white. The flames
alight in the Witnesses’ hands flickered out like dying stars.
Hassan blinked and found himself inside the throne room of the Palace of Herat. Gilded columns depicting colorful scenes from Herat’s great history lined the aisle that led up to the throne, which sat atop a golden pyramid. On each of its four faces, water spewed from the mouths of animal-shaped spigots into the moat at the base. Behind the pyramid, a painted falcon stretched its wings across the back wall, crowned by the golden sunlight that spilled into the room.
Dawn had come.
All around him, subjects from all over the kingdom knelt before the throne of Herat. And on the throne sat Hassan himself, a crown of golden laurel on his head, the royal scepter in his hand.
Nazirah was his once more.
* * *
“Prince Hassan! Hassan!”
He woke with a start. The incandescent lamp beside the bed cast a hazy glow. Someone gripped his right arm tightly, and when Hassan turned over with a groan, he saw that it was Lethia, wrapped up in a silvery-blue silk sleeping robe, her lined face grim with worry as she knelt beside his bed.
His heart beat like a drum as he took in the sight of Penrose standing behind her.
“What’s going on?” Hassan asked, pushing himself up in his bed. He’d been roused frantically like this once before—the very last time he’d woken in the Palace of Herat.
“You were thrashing,” Lethia said, cupping the side of his face with one bony hand. “Penrose sent for me. Were you dreaming?”
The drumbeat of his heart picked up. “I … I saw…”
Penrose pushed herself toward the bed, standing by Lethia’s shoulder. “What did you see?” she asked, her eyes gleaming in the lamplight.
“Nazirah,” Hassan replied. He closed his eyes, summoning the image. It came back to him, vivid, real. “I saw Nazirah. I was standing at the top of the lighthouse, watching an army—my army—defeat the Witnesses. I saw myself sitting on the throne. It was a dream, but it felt real. It felt true.”
He opened his eyes to find that Penrose had moved closer, like a moth drawn in to the flame of Hassan’s words.
“What is it?” he asked, scanning her face for some hint of a reaction. “Was that … what was that? It wasn’t just a dream. It was…”
The shadowed future made bright.
Hassan had seen it. The breaking dawn over Nazirah. The end to a darkness brought about by the Witnesses.
“It was a vision,” Penrose said, awe blooming across her face. “You saw how to stop the Age of Darkness.”
23
JUDE
Jude was already awake when Penrose’s rapid footsteps pounded down the hall. Truthfully, he’d been awake for hours. Sleep had never come easy to him and now, in an unfamiliar place and with the other half of his destiny just down the hall, it deserted him completely.
But it wasn’t the Last Prophet or the Pale Hand that kept him awake. It was Hector. No matter how far his thoughts strayed, they always seemed to return to this: the secrets that Hector had kept from him, and the secrets he had kept from Hector.
So when he heard Penrose’s hasty approach, the first thing he felt was relief—whatever had brought her sprinting into his room at this early hour, it would distract him from the torture of his thoughts.
The door burst open, pale light streaming inside. “Jude! Wake up!”
Jude’s feet hit the cold marble floor. “I’m awake. What’s going on?”
Penrose faltered in the doorway. “It’s the Prophet.” She sounded out of breath, though the short journey down the hall couldn’t possibly have winded her.
Jude sprang to his feet. “Is everything all right?”
“He’s not hurt,” Penrose said hastily. “He woke up suddenly. He was thrashing. Talking in his sleep. When he came to, he said he’d had a dream. About Nazirah, about taking the city back from the Witnesses.”
“A dream,” Jude said slowly.
“Not just a dream.” Penrose’s eyes met his. “A vision.”
Jude was pulling his boots and cloak on before he’d processed what was happening. His thoughts were a raging storm, but these swift, familiar actions grounded him.
The end of the final prophecy. The answer to the darkness promised. Could it be?
He turned back to Penrose. “Have you woken the Guard?”
“I came here first.”
Of course. Jude was Keeper of the Word, and she needed orders. He nodded and strode to the door. “I’ll get Hector and Petrossian. Wake the others.”
They split at the hallway, Jude going right and Penrose, across. He could hear her tapping at Osei’s door as he passed.
He went to Petrossian’s room first, though it was farther away. Petrossian woke quickly and didn’t question Jude when he told him to report directly to the prince’s chambers.
Then Jude was back out in the hallway, facing Hector’s door, heart thumping. He willed it to stay steady. He was just waking up his friend.
Not his friend, he reminded himself. A member of his Guard. He needed to be clear about that, starting now. If what Penrose said was true, if the prince truly had seen a vision … the devotion of the Keeper of the Word had to be absolute. Unwavering. There could be no more distractions.
“Hector,” he called, hesitating with his hand on the twisted iron door handle. “Are you awake?”
There was no reply from within. Jude realized that though he could hear Penrose’s low murmur across the hall, and farther down, the creak of Yarik’s joints as he stretched, there was only silence on the other side of Hector’s door. No low thump of a heartbeat. No sigh of breath.
Jude’s pulse picked up as he pushed the door open.
The bed was neatly made, the curtains drawn back to the night sky. Hector’s uniform and sword were gone. And so was Hector.
“Where is Navarro?”
Penrose’s voice sounded from the open door behind Jude.
Jude shook his head, panic gathering in his chest. He knelt by the wooden chest at the foot of the empty bed and opened the lid. Inside, the dark blue cloak of the Paladin Guard lay folded, left there with intention.
“Jude?” Penrose’s voice was careful behind him.
Jude reached for the left-behind cloak, as if somehow by grasping it between his fingers, he could pull Hector back to him. No matter how much he’d wanted to believe that Hector would overcome his grief, the truth pitted his gut. Yesterday, Hector had come face-to-face with the darkest shadow of his past. He was not fine. He might never be.
“He went back to the citadel,” Jude said, rising. He was almost certain of it.
He may not have known the details of Hector’s past, but he still knew him, better than anyone else in the world. Jude left wounds alone to heal. Hector was different. He would pick at the seams of a scab until it ripped open again.
“Why would he do that without telling you?” Penrose asked, her expression tightening with alarm.
Jude hesitated. Telling her the truth would mean breaking his word to Hector. But she deserved to know. “Last night, Hector told me why he left Kerameikos. When he was a child, his entire family was killed by a girl with the Grace of Blood. A girl who left pale handprints on their bodies.”
Penrose’s mouth fell open. “Hector’s family was killed by the Pale Hand?”
“He left the Order to go searching for her.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What does that have to do with the citadel?”
“Yesterday, when we went to speak to the captain of the Sentry, we saw a prisoner there. Someone they’d caught in the Temple of Tarseis the night before. Hector recognized her immediately. He said it was the girl who killed his family.”
“The Pale Hand is here?”
“I don’t know,” Jude answered. “She wouldn’t admit it. It’s been years since Hector has seen her. But he was convinced.”
“What is he going to do?”
“I don’t—” Jude jerked his head sharply. “I don’t know.” He paused, the
next thought cresting like sunlight breaking through a storm. “But I have to stop him.”
“Right now, the Last Prophet is down the hall waiting for you.”
“I have to find Hector before he does something foolish.” Jude knew how preposterous it sounded. But somehow, that only made him more certain of the decision. “I won’t be gone long. The Guard will be under your command until I return.”
He started to brush past Penrose through the doorway, but she held fast to his wrist.
“Send someone else,” she said. “The Prophet needs you now.”
Jude shook his head. “No, I can’t—I—It has to be me. I’m the only one who can. If I can speak to him, I know he’ll see sense.”
“What if he doesn’t?” Penrose asked, her grip tightening. “If he disobeys the Keeper of the Word, that is desertion. You know that. You know what the punishment will be for him. What the punishment is for any Paladin.”
Jude swallowed. The oaths of the Paladin were clear. If Hector broke them, it would be a sentence of death. And Jude would be the one to deliver it.
“It won’t come to that,” he said, although his heart was less sure than his words. “It won’t.”
24
EPHYRA
The cell door scraped open, startling Ephyra awake. Dizzy with the remnants of sleep, she scrambled to her feet, yanking awkwardly on her chains for leverage. In the doorway, shadowed by dim light, stood Hector Navarro.
His fingers were wrapped around the hilt of his sword. Ephyra had no way to defend herself. Except the usual way. Her palms tingled with anticipation.
“How did you get in here?” she demanded.
“It’s just the two of us,” Hector said, stepping inside the cell at last. “So you can drop the act.”
“Where’s the other swordsman?” He’d reined Hector in before.
There Will Come a Darkness Page 18
