There Will Come a Darkness

by Katy Rose Pool

  His hand was still hovering by Khepri’s cheek. He let it drop to his side. “What did you mean yesterday, when you said that it was selfish not to tell me about the Godfire when we first met?”

  “We should go,” Khepri said, ducking her head. “The others are waiting.”

  “Khepri.”

  She sucked in a breath, shaking herself slightly. Her amber eyes, always disarming to Hassan, held something in them he hadn’t seen there before. Something like regret. Guilt.

  “The days after I arrived in Pallas Athos were some the worst of my life,” she said. “If I wasn’t worrying about the other refugees, I was terrified about what was happening back in Nazirah. I fixated on all the awful stories I heard about the Hierophant and what he and his Witnesses were doing. It was all I thought about.”

  It was what those first weeks had been like for him, too.

  “But when you showed up in the agora, it felt like, for a few short hours, despite all of that anger and worry, I could breathe again.”

  Hassan stared, stunned to hear her voice the thoughts that had run through his own mind, as though she had reached inside him and grasped them at their roots.

  “I didn’t tell you about Godfire or what the Witnesses were planning because I wanted to keep that feeling,” she said. “I didn’t want to ruin it with all that pain and horror. It was selfish. I was selfish, for wanting that when my friends—my brothers, are—” She choked on the next word.

  “I get it,” Hassan said softly. “In a way, it’s the same reason I didn’t tell you who I was. Because all of the responsibility and the weight of who I am would have drowned out everything else. That was selfish, too.”

  “I hated myself. For thinking about something that wasn’t saving my brothers.” She swallowed, her eyes searching his. “For wanting something else.”

  It was too much. He couldn’t let her leave it at that. Catching her hand in his, he said, “I wanted it, too.”

  She bowed her head toward his, but didn’t speak.

  “Now,” Hassan said, eagerness creeping into his voice. “Now you know who I really am.”

  “You’re right.” Her eyes met his. “Now I know who you really are. You’re the key to saving Nazirah.” She pulled her hand away slowly. “You are the prince. The Prophet. And I am your soldier.”

  As her fingers trailed from his, Hassan understood. He bowed his head, feeling foolish.

  From the moment he’d met Khepri, Hassan had felt the many ways in which they were the same. Both driven from the home that they loved. Both seeking a way to return to it. He’d thought the only thing standing between them was the lie he’d told her about who he was. But now he saw how the truth stood between them even more powerfully. Even a prince in exile had power over a soldier, and the more he tried to pretend that wasn’t true, the less he could be what she really needed him to be. What they all needed him to be.

  “Prince Hassan.”

  He and Khepri both turned toward the edge of the garden, where Penrose and Osei stood, their midnight blue cloaks swept over their shoulders.

  “It’s time,” Penrose said. “The army and the refugees are all waiting for you.”

  Hassan glanced back at Khepri, but she was already leaving the garden, her back to him. He took a breath and followed.

  There was no going back after tonight. Plans had been made, ships were on their way, and a century-old prophecy would soon be fulfilled. It still felt strange to even think it. That he would return to his country not just a prince, but a Prophet. That the vision he’d seen in his dream would soon be real.

  He pushed aside all thoughts of Khepri and blue lilies as he reached the edge of the garden where the others waited.

  “I’m ready.”

  35

  EPHYRA

  “Wake up.”

  Ephyra blinked slowly in the dim light. She tasted salt. Her face felt scrubbed raw, her eyes dried out and stinging. Had she been crying? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything—not how long she’d been in the cell. Not how much time had passed since the swordsman had left her here.

  Not whether her sister’s life was now in the hands of a man who wanted Ephyra dead.

  Polished black boots clicked against the cut stone of the cell. Ephyra sat up. In the doorway stood a man dressed in a fine charcoal coat. A man she was supposed to have killed.

  “Nice place,” Illya Aliyev commented, his gold eyes sweeping over the bare cell before coming to rest on Ephyra. She was chilled by the coldness of his smile. “I suppose they save the best cells for the most notorious murderers. Like you—the Pale Hand.”

  Ephyra froze. Had Hector done it, then? Had he proven to the Sentry what they both knew she was?

  But Illya waved his hands. “Just a rumor, of course. But the guards certainly believe it. They warned me at least three times not to come in here.”

  “Maybe they’re right,” Ephyra replied, her voice hoarse from disuse. Or perhaps from crying. “You sure you want to be in here with me?”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  “What in the Wanderer’s name do you want?”

  “Now, there’s no reason to be rude.”

  She glared. “That was me being polite. In case you forgot, you are the reason I’m in here.”

  “Is that so?” he asked, drawing farther into the cell. “I seem to remember it was my brother who took you to that temple.”

  Ephyra leaned back against the wall and pushed herself to her feet. “And was it your brother who tipped the Sentry off about alleged thieves? I’m not stupid. I know you set us up.”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” Illya said. “You just got unlucky.”

  Ephyra snorted, turning away. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  He leaned an arm on the wall, blocking her. “Then how do you feel about changing your luck?”

  She eyed him. “What does that mean?”

  “It looks like one of the Paladin broke my brother out of here. I don’t know the details. But I think you do.”

  Panic rose in Ephyra’s throat. He was talking about Hector.

  “Ah,” Illya said. Her alarm must have been plain on her face. “I’m right.”

  If Anton had convinced Hector to let him out of his cell, it could only mean he’d led him to Beru. And if Hector figured out what role Beru had played in his family’s deaths, he would kill her. Ephyra knew it. She still remembered how Hector’s father had turned on them, his grief transformed into murderous rage.

  Illya’s gold eyes were pinned on her. “You know where they went, don’t you?”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “That’s too bad, because I think we could help each other.”

  “How is that? You don’t have anything I want.”

  He cocked his head in a way that made him look eerily like his brother. “You’re stuck in this cell. I could change that.”

  Ephyra let out a laugh. “The Sentry isn’t going to just let a suspected murderer go free.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I know for a fact you couldn’t have committed those murders,” he replied breezily.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The night the Pale Hand killed the priest Armando Curio, you were with me,” he said. His expression changed, and suddenly he was cloyingly sweet. “Weren’t you, darling? I think I’d know if my wife was a murderer.”

  “Your wife?” she choked out.

  He shrugged. “My intended, if you prefer.”

  She wanted to tell him she’d prefer he never speak to her again, but he was offering her an alibi and freedom, and that was hard to pass up. If it wasn’t a bluff.

  “Why would the Sentry of Pallas Athos believe the word of some foreigner?”

  “My word is very good here in Pallas Athos,” he said with a guileless smile. “I have a few friends in high places. High enough that I can get a prisoner released on my word.”

  She didn’t doubt tha
t this was true. It explained how he’d managed to gain access to her cell.

  “I’ll be happy to tell the Sentry all of this,” he went on. “If you help me find my brother.”

  “Why do you need to find him so badly?”

  There was a pause, and when he spoke again, his tone was different. Quieter. “You don’t have a lot in this life you care about, do you?”

  Ephyra looked away. She supposed it was obvious how little regard she had for the rest of the world. Beru had always been enough.

  “It’s the same for me,” Illya said. “Sure, I can dress up and play the rich foreigner. I can enjoy a well-made meal, a well-played tune, a well-built woman.” His gaze swept over Ephyra. “But those things … none of them matter. Not truly. There are precious few things that do. You know that, don’t you? I suppose it took me a long time to learn. Too long, perhaps.”

  Ephyra watched his face soften until he looked just like the young man he was. Until she could almost believe that his words were as earnest as they sounded.

  “But now…” Illya let out a breath. “I see it. My brother is one of those rare things that truly matters. I will give anything to find him. To earn his forgiveness.”

  With the silent grace she’d learned as the Pale Hand, Ephyra drew closer until she was a breath away. “Oh, Illya,” she said softly. “I must look like the easiest mark in the Six Cities if you think I’m going to buy that horseshit.”

  Illya flinched. “I’m not lying.”

  She remembered he’d said the same thing to Anton. “What do you really want with him?”

  “I want to protect him.”

  “From what?” Ephyra asked. “I’m not going to pretend I know him that well, but I know what fear looks like, and the only thing that kid’s truly afraid of is you.”

  “Why else would I spend years trying to find him? Why would I spend half a fortune hiring scryers to track him down? Why would I race from city to city with nothing more than a whisper that he might be there?”

  Ephyra held her tongue. She did not want to have anything in common with the manipulator who stood in front of her, but she couldn’t help but compare his story to her own. She had traveled what felt like the world over to find a cure for her sister. Illya had done the same to find his brother.

  But just because they seemed the same didn’t mean they were.

  “Fine,” Illya said, stepping back. “You still think I’m lying. I’ll find him again on my own.”

  He turned toward the door and the corridor beyond, boots clicking sharply against the stone floor.

  Ephyra cursed. She needed to find Anton just as much as Illya did. If anyone knew what had happened to Beru, whether Hector had found her, it was Anton.

  “Wait,” she called. Illya turned with a polite smile that barely hid the smugness underneath. “I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t know where they went. But I can take you to where we were staying in the city. Maybe he’ll still be there. Maybe he won’t.”

  “That’s not promising.”

  “It’s better than nothing, and you know it,” Ephyra shot back. “Look, I don’t know what your game is, and I certainly don’t trust you, but I need to get out of here. Do we have a deal, or not?”

  Illya waved a hand. “Trust me, don’t trust me. It doesn’t matter. I need you, and you clearly need me, which makes us natural allies.”

  She snorted. “Natural allies? I tried to kill you.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Still might.”

  He smiled again, his expression half-wolf, half-pup. “I’m willing to take that chance if you are.” He held out his hand. “Allies?”

  She took it, swallowing as she looked into his honey-gold eyes. She’d spent most of her life bargaining with dark forces. It had never felt like this.

  “Allies.”

  36

  JUDE

  Jude woke slowly, his awareness ebbing and flowing like the wash of a tide. He was inexplicably damp, and the back of his mouth tasted sharply bitter. A dull ache pulsed through his shoulder as he tried to roll over, as if someone had tried to wrench his arm from his body. In a terrible flash, he recalled his sudden, violent fall from the mausoleum roof, and the broken stone that had cut through his shoulder. But when he pressed his fingers there, he found that the flesh had knitted back together, as though the wound had never been.

  He stared up at a low, sloping ceiling of cracked white plaster. A square of night sky peeked through the window beside him. The memory of the past day coalesced in his mind as he sat up on the narrow cot, burying his face in his hands.

  He was a fool, a fool, a fool. And Hector was gone.

  Jude would return to the villa. Tonight. The Guard and the Prophet would know now what had been so clear to him. He wasn’t worthy to be Keeper. He would beg the forgiveness of the Prophet, kneel at his feet, lay the Pinnacle Blade on the ground—

  The Pinnacle Blade.

  He shot to his feet, stomach plummeting when he didn’t see the sword beside him. He tried to think. He’d had it after falling from the roof, hadn’t he? And when they’d reached the Hidden Spring, Jude shaking with exhaustion, held upright by that boy—Anton—he’d had it then, too.

  He had already lost Hector. He could not lose the Pinnacle Blade, too.

  Panic pumped through his veins as he dashed out the door and down the stairs. Raucous laughter, overlapping voices, and clinking glasses filtered from the courtyard. Jude paused, considering. The thought of stepping foot out there filled him with unease. Cities and crowds were challenging enough for him, after spending his first nineteen years in the company of the same few hundred people in their remote fort in the mountains. But this went above even braving the crowds in the marina and in the streets. This was the type of place home to criminals and castoffs, ruffians and scoundrels. He could barely believe such a place existed in the City of Faith, and yet here he was. Just one more thing that had turned out nothing like he’d imagined.

  But if he was searching for a sword thief, he knew he’d do well to start here. Bracing himself against the damp smell of sweat, smoke, and spit, Jude stepped through the arched entrance. Strings of incandescents drenched the courtyard in a tawny haze. Between stone benches and laurel bushes, clusters of drunken sailors and Sentry cadets sloshed sweet wine and ale onto one another. Around them, coquettish women giggled and young men preened, their draped tunics all but baring their chests to the warm evening air.

  “Careful there.” A slender young man in a short tunic pushed past Jude with a wink, two pints of muddy-brown ale sloshing in his hands. Jude’s gaze followed him to the fountain in the middle of the courtyard, and then, as if drawn there, landed on a familiar figure a few tables away. Anton.

  He hadn’t left after all.

  He was gulping down a pint of ale with no small amount of enthusiasm, face flushing as one of the onlookers goaded him on. When the pint was empty, Anton raised it triumphantly. His eyes held briefly on Jude’s and a small smile flickered across his face.

  Not a smile. A smirk. The kind worn by someone who was used to stares that lingered.

  He seemed to be engaged in some sort of card game that had gathered quite a bit of attention from the surrounding drinkers. His gaze dropped from Jude’s as his cohort thumped him hard on the shoulder. He ducked down to face his opponent.

  And then Jude saw it. The familiar curve of the sheath, the gleam of the inlaid star at the perfectly balanced hilt. The Pinnacle Blade, sitting on a table strewn with cards, coins, and empty glasses.

  Jude’s vision went white. Anger pulsed like a hot fist in his chest as he charged across the courtyard. The rowdy patrons seemed to press in from all sides—stumbling, jostling, shoving—until at last Jude had threaded through the crowd to the card game.

  “You sure you want to risk it?” the man sitting across from Anton said, over the din of drunken chatter.

  Anton laughed. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “I wouldn’t,” J
ude said darkly.

  Anton flinched but didn’t turn to face him.

  “Well, now,” Anton’s opponent said, leaning his chin on his hand as he raked his eyes over Jude like a cat with a pretty bird in its clutches. “Who is this?”

  Jude wasn’t about to be intimidated by a taverna ruffian. “Jude Weatherbourne. And that is my sword.”

  The man raised his eyebrows. “Well, that’s interesting,” he said, “because your young friend here just staked it on a hand of cards.”

  “He—what?”

  Anton turned around slowly, his face a mask of innocence, which did not, for one second, fool Jude. “Shouldn’t you be upstairs, sleeping off your mortal wounds?”

  “Shouldn’t you be sitting in a cell?” Jude shot back. “Clearly, that’s where you belong.”

  Anton grimaced, dragging a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Could you possibly say that louder, just in case any of the off-duty Sentry here didn’t hear you?”

  “You’re a thief.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Anton replied primly.

  “You stole the Pinnacle Blade!”

  “What—your sword? I was going to return it.”

  “You wagered it!” Jude retorted, voice high with disbelief. “How are you planning on returning it if you lose?”

  “Oh, Jude,” Anton said with a laugh. “I don’t lose.”

  “That sword has been passed down in my family since the dawn of the Prophets. It has one purpose, and one purpose alone. And it is not to be wagered in a drunken game of cards!”

  “Well, if the sword is so important to you, maybe you shouldn’t leave it lying around where anyone could take it.”

  In that moment, faced with the smirk on Anton’s lips and the faint freckles that dotted the bridge of his nose, Jude felt he had never despised a single person more in his entire life.

  “You have no idea,” he said, his voice trembling with the strain of keeping it even, “no idea what you’ve done. Do you care for no one but yourself?”

  Anton’s jaw went tight, and Jude saw quite plainly that this accusation had wounded him. “If it weren’t for me,” Anton said tersely, “you’d still be bleeding out in that mausoleum.”