There Will Come a Darkness

by Katy Rose Pool

  “It’s Emir. The acolyte. There—The fire.” She let out a shaking breath. “Emir was in the temple, defending the other acolytes, trying to get them out safely.”

  He knew what she was going to say before she said it.

  “He didn’t make it out.”

  Hearing the words aloud was like a blow to the chest. Emir, the old acolyte he’d defended from the Witnesses. Who’d discovered who Hassan truly was. Who’d brought the Order here.

  Emir, whom Hassan had seen in his vision, standing at his side on the lighthouse of Nazirah.

  It couldn’t be. Hassan had seen him.

  “Are you sure?” The question scraped out of his throat.

  She nodded, eyes as hollow as Hassan felt. “I just found out. I came to tell you.”

  It was impossible. Emir had been in Hassan’s vision. He was supposed to be with them when they retook Nazirah. He couldn’t be dead.

  The sound of raised voices from outside the tent broke the ensuing silence. It sounded like a crowd had gathered. Hassan glanced at Penrose.

  “What’s going on?” he asked her.

  “Go on,” Penrose said gently. “They’re waiting for you.”

  Hassan glanced back at Khepri, stomach twisting with trepidation. There were still tear tracks on her cheeks. He didn’t move.

  “Go,” Khepri said, releasing him.

  Numb, he stepped outside, where the rest of the army and the refugees were gathering. One voice rose above the rest, and Hassan’s gaze fell to Osei, who stood facing the others. The rest of the Guard stood behind him.

  “One month ago, the Witnesses took the city of Nazirah under the command of a man who calls himself the Hierophant,” Osei said. “He believes that the Graced are a plague, one that he has promised to end. He has filled his followers’ ears with evil lies, lies that continue to spread throughout the land of Herat and beyond. Lies that have separated families and sown fear into the hearts of many. Lies that have exposed the Hierophant for what he truly is.”

  Hassan looked around. The refugees and soldiers were transfixed, captivated by Osei. Slowly, with dawning horror, Hassan realized what the swordsman was doing.

  “But the Prophets foresaw the Hierophant’s rise to power,” Osei said. “They saw the darkness he would bring. For the good of mankind, we kept it a secret until now, but it is real. A prophecy that foresaw the Hierophant’s rise and the Age of Darkness that will follow.”

  Whispers of shock and fear rippled through the crowd. Hassan just stood there, his own thoughts whirling madly. He had to stop Osei. He had to keep him from saying what was about to come next.

  But his legs were lead. His mouth, empty of words. He could only stand there and listen.

  “But the Seven Prophets’ last prophecy spoke of more than just darkness. They also saw light. A new Prophet, born almost a century after the Seven disappeared. A Prophet who can see into the future and stop the Witnesses. A Prophet who lives among us.” Osei held out his hand, his eyes boring into Hassan. “He is here. Prince Hassan Seif, the heir to the throne of Herat, is the Last Prophet.”

  The crowd turned from Osei to face Hassan. There was awe in their faces. Some even had tears in their eyes.

  Hassan could barely breathe.

  “Our Prophet has seen into our future and glimpsed our destiny to stop the Hierophant and the Age of Darkness. This is a fight for the future of a kingdom. Stand with the Prophet, and help us free the people of Nazirah and protect the Graced. Stand with the Prophet, and all of us—the people of Herat, of Pallas Athos, of the other Six Cities and beyond—can step out of the darkness and into the light.”

  “The Witnesses won’t get the best of us!” someone cried from within the crowd. “We’ll defeat them. I stand with the Prophet!”

  As one, the crowd cried, “I stand with the Prophet!”

  The call reverberated through the crowd. The Guard and the soldiers and refugees alike. Everyone who believed in Hassan.

  “I stand with the Prophet!”

  Their gazes crashed over Hassan like waves, so powerful that he had to look away. Their voices faded to a low drone in his head as something whispered out from the darkest part of his mind.

  You are not the Prophet.

  If Emir standing beside him in the vision was false, what about the rest of it? What had Hassan really seen—a vision or a dream?

  You are not the Prophet.

  It couldn’t be a lie. He had seen it. It had felt real. It had felt true.

  Or had he only convinced himself it was? Emir was dead. The vision couldn’t be true. So what did that make Hassan? If he wasn’t the Last Prophet, what was he?

  A prince without a kingdom. A boy without Grace.

  A liar.

  III

  THE TOWER

  44

  BERU

  Medea was no longer a village—it was a grave.

  The bodies of the villagers lay exactly as they had fallen when they died, but by now they’d all decayed to bones and dust. None of them had been disturbed; not even the jackals and the wildcats came to this place anymore. The trees were silent from the call of songbirds. The ants and cicadas had fled.

  Beru had come a very long way to reach the place where she had begun.

  Hector had honored her request to return to the village. It was Beru who had hesitated, Beru who had dawdled after their train pulled into Tel Amot Station. Not because she feared what lay ahead, but because she couldn’t face what she’d left behind. Now, in this place, her past and her future converged—two ends of a single thread, an impossible beginning and an inevitable end.

  The crunch of hard-packed dirt beneath their feet was the only sound as they made their way to the empty square. This was where the villagers used to set up market stalls to sell their goods and wares to caravans passing through. Beru could still remember the smell of roasting meat and fried dough, could almost hear the laughter of children and the mingling voices of neighbors gossiping and traders bargaining.

  Now, it was silent. Sandstone archways flanked each edge of the square. Flat-roofed shops, their draped awnings stripped away, stood empty.

  Hector stopped at Beru’s side.

  “There’s no one here,” Hector said, dark eyes sweeping the square. Past the Temple of Behezda and the old clock tower that was forever frozen at twelve o’clock, a twisted sycamore burst from the cracked earth.

  Five skeletons lay half buried in the dirt around it. One was small—the child it had belonged to would have been no older than eight.

  “They’re all dead,” Hector said.

  Beru wasn’t ready to see the look on his face. She could barely comprehend the scene around her, and she’d known exactly what awaited them in this village. She had chosen to come here, to come home, even knowing what was left of it.

  “Your parents and your brother weren’t the first innocent people to die because of me,” she said.

  Hector inhaled sharply.

  “This is what it took to bring me back.” Only now did she meet his gaze.

  “How did it happen?” Hector asked, his voice rough.

  It took all of Beru’s dwindling strength to think back on that awful day. “She didn’t mean to kill them,” she whispered. “When she saw me lying dead, she grabbed my arm and—”

  “No,” Hector said. “Not that. How did you die?”

  The question surprised her. What possible difference could it make to him? Maybe it was just the last piece in a puzzle Hector had spent the past five years putting together. What one tragedy could he trace the death of his family back to? What one choice had toppled into the next, and the next, and the next, that had led them here?

  “I got sick,” Beru replied. “Our parents, too. And many of the other villagers. There was a famine that year, and the lack of food made us all more vulnerable.”

  “That’s not it, is it?”

  She looked away. There was more, but she had never spoken it aloud. It wasn’t anything she knew to b
e certain, only a lingering question she’d never been brave enough to ask. Her illness had not come over her quickly. It had been slow, gradual, just like all the times of fading that had come after it.

  “Ephyra tried to heal me,” Beru said. “She had done it before, for others. Our parents had forbidden her from using her Grace—they tried to keep it a secret from the other villagers—but sometimes we’d hear about sick kids and … she’d help them. But for some reason, this time, it didn’t stick. I’d get better for a few days at a time, but then suddenly, I’d be sick again. Worse than I was before. It kept taking more and more to heal me. Ephyra has always blamed herself for failing to heal me before I died.”

  She looked out into the empty square. It was only here, in this place that held her past and her future, that she could face this last unanswered question. “But I think maybe it was me all along. Maybe there was always something wrong with me, something Ephyra couldn’t fix. Something no one can fix. Maybe it wasn’t being brought back to life that made me what I am. Maybe I was always meant for death.”

  In Hector’s eyes, she saw not horror or confusion, but resolve. He looked down at the sword in his hand. Whatever answers he had been searching for, he had them now. And Beru, even in her fear and guilt, felt relief.

  “I’ll give you a proper funeral,” he said. “Like I gave to my family.”

  Beru nodded, no longer trusting herself to speak. I want to go home, she had told Hector on the train from Pallas Athos. Now she was here. And she was scared. She didn’t want to die. But neither could she bear the burden of what her life cost any longer.

  Beru stood with her back to the sycamore and faced the end of her life. She didn’t look away as Hector’s sword scraped free of its sheath. Only as he raised his sword did she close her eyes.

  She held her breath as the blade sang toward her.

  45

  JUDE

  The first thing Jude felt besides pain was the sudden cold rush of water splashing over him.

  He shot to his feet. The whole world lurched, sending him stumbling back against a wall. His head swam. The floor rocked beneath him. He must have passed out at some point. The last thing he remembered was cold metal against his skin, a burning pain—

  “At last, he wakes!”

  Jude struggled to right himself, leaning against the wall. Heavy metal cuffs circled his wrists. Two men, both fair-skinned and taller than he, stood in a rectangle of light. He recognized them from the Hidden Spring. Mercenaries.

  Fear spiked in his blood, and on instinct he shifted forward to move through a koah. But the cuffs seared against his wrists, and a flare of pain ripped through him. He slumped back again, gasping. He turned to the side to retch. His insides felt like they’d been turned to ash. His skin burned with the same white-hot pain that he’d felt from the mercenary’s chain. These metal cuffs must have been forged in Godfire.

  Jude was cut off from his Grace.

  “Look at him,” one of the mercenaries said, tilting his head to the side. A long scar ran down from beneath his eye to his jaw. “They’re really quite pathetic when you take away their Grace. He can barely stand.”

  The other mercenary smirked and walked over to Jude. Something at his waist caught Jude’s eye. The damascened hilt of a sword, etched with a familiar pattern.

  “Oh, you like my sword, do you?” the mercenary asked, laying a hand on the hilt. “I think it rather suits me.”

  The Pinnacle Blade. Without thinking, Jude lunged toward the mercenary. His chains strained, yanking him to the floor.

  The mercenary tutted, reaching down to grab him roughly by the hair. He dragged him up, jerking his head back and baring his throat.

  “Maybe I’ll sell it, though,” he mused, his breath hot against Jude’s cheek. “I bet it would fetch a fine price. Almost as fine a price as you.”

  Jude shuddered as he met the mercenary’s cruel gray eyes.

  “’Ey!” the scarred mercenary shouted. “We’re not supposed to hurt him.”

  “Aww, not even a little?” He turned Jude’s head one way and then the other.

  “Illya said not to cause more damage,” the scarred mercenary said. “I don’t want to give that snake any reason not to pay up, do you?”

  The gray-eyed mercenary’s face twisted with displeasure. “What do you think the Hierophant will do with him?”

  Jude choked in a breath as the mercenary’s grip tightened. He had never been as helpless as he was now.

  “Whatever it is, I hope I’ll get to watch,” the gray-eyed mercenary said, lowering his voice as if he meant the words for Jude.

  “Let’s just give him his food and get out of here,” the scarred mercenary said.

  The gray-eyed mercenary threw Jude to the ground.

  “Eat up,” he said with a nasty smile as the other mercenary dropped a bowl to the floor. An unappealing brown liquid sloshed out. Sniggering, the two mercenaries left.

  The door clanked shut again, and a breath burst from Jude’s chest like a punch. He sucked in another as he curled himself inward, pressing a fist to his teeth, willing himself to stay calm. He was falling apart, his seams ripped out, leaving him empty and ragged.

  He took a shaking breath, and then another, and tried to focus on his surroundings. He was in a damp, dark enclosure—a cell? The wood of the wall pressed into his spine. It wasn’t just his bleary head—the floor really was rocking.

  He was aboard a ship.

  “So you’re awake.”

  A voice croaked through the fragile silence. Jude turned toward the side wall of his cell, which was less of a wall and more like a row of simple wooden slats nailed together. Through the finger-sized gaps between the slats, he could make out another figure. Anton.

  He hadn’t even known there was someone else here with him. If he’d been able to use his Grace, he would have heard Anton’s heartbeat, his breath. Jude felt blind.

  “How long was I—have we—?”

  There was the sound of shifting on the other side of the wall. “You were out for … a while. I didn’t know what they’d done to you back at the Hidden Spring. Those chains…”

  “Godfire,” Jude said. “That man said they were forged in Godfire. It’s the Witnesses’ weapon. It burns the Grace out of you.”

  He tried to keep his tone flat, but pain lingered in his voice. He remembered the rumors he’d heard about the Hierophant, even before coming to Pallas Athos. That somehow, he could block people from using their Grace. At least now, Jude knew how that rumor had started.

  It was a moment before Anton replied. “It’s not … Is it permanent?”

  “I don’t know.” Jude closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about that. The possibility that this pain, this emptiness, would persist even after the chains were taken off.

  “But it hurts you, doesn’t it?” Anton’s voice was timid now. “I could see, back at the Hidden Spring. And now, you sound…”

  Jude knew how he sounded. Defeated. He was. He was completely at the mercy of these men. If they wanted, they could keep him subdued and in pain for the rest of his life.

  Though that might not be much longer anyway.

  “What about you?” he asked after a moment, turning his head back toward the wall between them. “Did they hurt you?”

  “No,” Anton replied. “They didn’t hurt me.”

  The slight pause between his words settled uncomfortably in the stale air. The image of Anton’s fearful face back at the taverna flashed through Jude’s mind.

  “You knew they were coming for you,” Jude said. “Back at the Hidden Spring, you didn’t even question it. What do the Witnesses want with you?”

  “I don’t know,” Anton said.

  It had to be a lie. Jude knew it, even without his Grace to help him hear the hitch of Anton’s breath, the acceleration of his heartbeat.

  “Tell me the truth, Anton,” he said. “You were found with the Pale Hand. You’re being hunted by someone connected to the Wi
tnesses. Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re lying,” Jude said, growing angry. “That man, Illya—”

  “Don’t.” Anton’s voice trembled. “Don’t say his name.”

  Jude’s anger wilted. “You know him, though.” He thought again of Anton’s face when Jude had leapt between him and Illya. It was terror—terror that had cut through Jude’s own confusion as clean as a blade.

  “He’s my brother,” Anton answered after a long moment. “But I didn’t know he was connected with the Witnesses. I swear.”

  Jude pressed his head against his knees.

  “I’m sorry,” Anton said, his voice quiet against the background of Jude’s harsh breath.

  “Don’t,” Jude bit out. A fragile silence strained between them.

  He wished he could blame Anton, but this wasn’t his fault. Any of it. Jude was the one who’d recklessly thrown his lot in with him at the Hidden Spring. What had he been thinking, chasing Hector halfway across an ocean? Chasing a man who’d abandoned him, broken his oath, turned his back on Jude like he meant nothing to him?

  He should never have left the Prophet’s side.

  No—he should never have come to Pallas Athos at all. He should never have accepted the title of Keeper, when he knew he would only disgrace himself, the Order, his father. Every doubt in his heart had been right. He’d abandoned the Prophet. He’d lost the Pinnacle Blade. He had carried one hundred years of legacy and hope on his back, and he had let it all come crashing down.

  “I failed him,” he said quietly, the realization settling over him.

  “Navarro made his own choices,” Anton replied. “It wasn’t your job to stop him, no matter what you think.”

  “Not Hector.” Relief washed over Jude in speaking the words, as though now, finally, he was unburdened of the lie he’d told himself for so long. The lie that said he was equal to the duty he’d been raised to carry out, that said he would one day be able to set aside every doubt and misstep, and devote himself to the one thing—the only thing—that should have mattered. For nineteen years, he’d carried around that lie, and now he let it slip away. “The Prophet.”