by Callie Bates
But in the end, there’s nothing to do but crouch on Irene’s other side. I take her hand. It’s even clammier, the pulse weak in her wrist. But she grips back, ever so slightly.
Sabina looks at me. Tears stand out in her eyes. “We’re in a holy place. The gods should lend their aid. I’m begging them, Jahan.”
I swallow hard. She does know Tirisero is the god of lost battles, doesn’t she? “Sometimes the gods are deaf.”
Sabina looks away, and I see her throat work, swallowing down a sob.
Damn it all. Why did Madiya teach us to heal ourselves, but no one else? I remember the thin, useless magic I attempted on Finn. It was already too late. I have never been able to save anyone. Not even El.
And yet…my eye catches the stone carvings on the font. The god Tirisero presses his hand to a fallen woman’s chest, and in the next panel, she rises, whole.
All the hairs rise on my arms. He’s the god of losers. The god of cripples and the wounded in battle. The god of unanswered prayers. The god of wretchedness, of inexplicable cruelties, of unhealed afflictions. The god of unfulfilled hopes.
The god whose worship was abandoned after Paladius the First’s conquest of Ida. The god who, we’re told, ruled the senate and lost battles, no longer necessary since Paladius was famously invincible.
But what if that’s not the truth or even a fraction of it? Once again, I feel an awareness, similar to the stone circles in Caeris and Eren. What happens if I open the lid of the font?
Irene’s breathing is shallow. Her lips move, but she can’t speak. Sabina no longer troubles to hide her tears.
“We’re sorcerers,” she whispers. “Our magic ought to be able to do something, but…”
Maybe it can.
And if it doesn’t, if its power somehow destroys me, then I’ll have died trying. I’ll have died sparing Eren from war, as much as I can, and trying to save at least one life.
I stand and approach the font. The secret flame unified with the deep water, the heart of Tirisero. Maybe it’s a riddle about magic: the god who could transform into a bird, who could embody fire itself.
Pantoleon and Nestor couldn’t shift the lid of the font; they said it was sealed. But maybe that’s because they tried to open it the ordinary way.
Maybe they needed to use magic.
Open, I whisper with my mind, but the lid remains closed, hard and fast. I glance at Irene; she’s breathing shallowly. I don’t have much time. If it’s a riddle about magic, then perhaps it’s a clue as to how magic can open it.
Fire, first. I touch the font, the cool stone gritty under my fingers, and reach for the memory of fire contained in the stone. It seems unlikely—it’s stone, after all, it’s not flammable—but then I feel it, a sudden shift, a heat wrapping around the font’s inner circle, underneath the lid.
Gritting my teeth against too much hope, I reach for water. It surges up. Of course—the font is a well, reaching deep, deep into the earth.
Fire and water. I hold them both in my mind, two opposites embodied in the font. Now for the heart of Tirisero. I touch the carven man’s chest, but nothing happens. I don’t sense a divine presence. There’s just me and the fire and water ready for my command, and the woman dying on the floor behind me.
I try whispering the words aloud. “The heart of Tirisero.” Nothing, again. I clench my hands at my chest, sagging with tiredness. Maybe it was a fool’s hope. My ancestor could have opened the font—he would have known how. He would be ashamed of his legacy. Ashamed of my failure.
I lower my head. “I’m sorry, Mantius.”
Sabina gasps behind me. My eyes fly open. The lid of the font has lifted upward on unseen hinges, leaving a palm-sized gap between it and the font’s rim, where fire has burst to life.
Fire, and power. Power roars from the font, up through the depths of the well, funneled as strongly as any of the stone circles in Caeris and Eren. My mouth’s open. But there’s no time to stop and wonder. No time to question how I did it. This is something I can use. Or at least, I can try.
I drop back beside Irene, clasping her hand. Her eyelashes flutter. I reach for the power contained in the font, pulsing there, tangible now under the cracked mosaic, vibrating into the very walls around us. I am suddenly more awake than, it seems, I have ever been. Golden power rushes into me. I’m aware of my own body like a vessel into which gold light is being poured. I can feel my own beating heart, the roar of my own blood. I realize I can sense Irene’s body, too, coiled like a mess of darkening crimson knots, and beyond it Sabina’s, burdened with grief. Even in my inner vision, Irene’s wound throbs, a steadily dimming light.
I reach for it. And I hear myself whisper aloud the words Madiya taught me long ago. “Knit together, nice and snug, smooth and strong, casting out all harm…”
Nothing happens. Sabina’s head jerks up. She stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Perhaps I have, to recite something so childish aloud and imagine it might work, even with the power coursing through the very earth under my feet.
But then I feel it. The pulsing energy of the temple moves into me. It moves through me. Heat pours into my hands, radiating, brilliant.
I touch Irene’s wound—or rather, the space just above it.
The power erupts through me—teeming into her, working and binding and scalding me. I hear a distant voice. It’s mine; I’m shouting.
There’s something ugly in the wound. Grimy. Wrong. The shot. I reach for it with a command. Come out. It’s stubborn, but I insist. Come now.
It dissolves into powder and pours out of Irene’s skin.
Still, power pours through me. My skin seems to be on fire; my insides are dissolving into pulsing light.
A hand on my wrist. “Jahan?”
I squint through tearing eyes. I didn’t even know I’d closed them. Irene is sitting up—Irene, who was near death moments ago—looking at me with something between awe and terror. She’s alert. The sweat has dried on her face.
“You’re healed,” I say. The power steadies in me, and then, inexplicably, it rushes out, and I pitch face-first into darkness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Someone keeps repeating my name.
“No, Madiya,” I say.
But there’s a hand on my shoulder and I realize the voice is coming from outside myself, not within my own head.
“Sorry, Jahan,” Pantoleon says. “We need you.”
Every inch of my body aches. It’s no use to whisper a healing spell: This is no physical wound, but pure, profound exhaustion. All the same, I force myself to sit up. I’m in the temple chamber, on my rough bed, but I have no memory of getting here. Pantoleon crouches beside me.
“We had to carry you in,” he says. “Irene was sure you’d traded your life for hers—that you were dead.”
I cough a laugh. “I feel as if I came close. But Irene—is she—?”
“She’s fine.” Pantoleon pauses. “More than fine. She says she feels better than she has in all her life.”
I nod, even as my eyes start to close. I force them open. “That’s good.”
He looks at me, and even though it’s Pantoleon—steady, dependable, unflappable—there is some of the fear and awe I worried I would see. If I explained to him that I don’t even know what I did to open the font, he would surely not think it so extraordinary. “You were right,” I try to say. “About the font.”
“Yes, I see that.” He shakes his head. “How did you know, Jahan?”
I rub my face. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what the key was.”
We look at each other, and then he sighs. “I didn’t want to wake you, but we have a crisis.”
I might have known I wouldn’t get a decent night’s sleep. “What now?”
He tilts his head. “Don’t you hear it?”
“What—” I begi
n, and then I stop, listening hard. It itches the edges of my hearing.
Bells. A veritable roar of them, endless, ringing all around us. They must be ringing throughout the city, from every tower.
“Witch hunters,” I say, and Pantoleon nods. I look at him. “It’s not affecting you?”
He shakes his head. “None of us are affected—not here on the hill. But we got a message from Felix, demanding a meeting as soon as possible, away from the hill. He doesn’t dare come all the way here. Agapetos went out to send an answer, and as soon as he left the lower gate, he went mad. He almost collapsed. Had to crawl back. He said it was as if the bells were trying to shatter his mind. He’s safe now, but…”
“It affected him that quickly?”
Pantoleon shrugs, as if I shouldn’t be so surprised. “He’s resting.”
“I’ll take a look at him.” But why are the rest of them unaffected? “Is the well of magic I opened protecting us?” I can still feel it pulsing through the stones beneath me, throbbing like intangible fire.
“Perhaps.” Pantoleon hesitates. “When you opened it…all of us felt it. Like an explosion of light. You can feel it everywhere on the hill—even in the lower temple. It’s as if it’s so powerful, it blocks the bells.”
I rub my face. “I don’t understand it. Someone must have sealed the font and contained the power. I’ve never seen anything like it. Never imagined anything like it.”
“Nor have I.” Pantoleon eyes the ancient walls. “Whatever it is, at least it’s protecting us. It’s…immense. I feel half drunk with it.”
I laugh. “It’s cheaper than the Den. Now come, let’s find Agapetos.”
If I saved Irene’s body, perhaps I can soothe Agapetos’s mind. But how? I’ve never done such a thing, or I would have…I swallow hard. I touch the ugly ridged scar behind my ear. I would have healed my mother.
But the power here is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It pulses in the walls, now, in the earth beneath our feet, insistent, seductive, immense. Maybe it can grant the ability I would once have sacrificed anything for.
“Agapetos is all right now,” Pantoleon says gruffly. “It’s Felix we need help with. We have a different crisis on our hands.”
The realization sinks into me. “The witch hunters. The emperor has deployed them…”
“No one can get out. We’re an island here.” Pantoleon pauses. “And—even with our protections—they could still find us.”
I rub my forehead. Someone has to venture into the city, to see what’s come of our attack. The others are stuck here, but I’m immune to the bells. I can go.
We’ve emerged outside. It’s night, and smoke from distant chimneys fogs the stars. The city seethes around us, alight. And for once in my life I feel a cold fear of going out into it. Of discovering what we’ve done. What action the emperor has taken in retribution.
I can’t charm my way out of this. I have to face it. This is my city, there are my people; this is what we’re fighting for.
“I’ll go,” I say to Pantoleon. “I’ll check the defenses and meet with Felix.”
He nods. “He’s at the Den. Wants you there at ten.” He pauses, as if to add more, but in the end merely clasps my shoulder. He swallows, and I pat his arm. It seems like I should say something, but no words are adequate. I’m grateful we’re friends again. It sounds too simple, in light of all that’s happening. Yet it’s true.
I squeeze Pantoleon’s shoulder and hope that, somehow, the gesture conveys everything I mean it to. Then I turn and slowly walk down the long steps, into the city.
* * *
—
EVEN IMMUNE TO their cruelty, the constant tolling of the bells sets me on edge. I ghost through the streets, a shadow among shadows—only my shadow has a pounding heartbeat and sweating palms. Exhaustion dogs me, especially after I strengthened the defenses at the lower temple, but I shove it back. Some of the energy from the font lingers in my sternum, a giddy spark warring with the grittiness of my eyes and the tension in my shoulders.
The streets hum with activity despite the late hour—and not only with activity, but with witch stones. The sound is so dense even ordinary people must feel the insistent racket. It’s going to be a long walk to the Den.
Noise erupts on a street in front of me. I fling myself back against a wall. A man shouts. I creep forward.
A throng of imperial soldiers and city watch—and witch hunters—knot the street. They’ve surrounded someone; they’re struggling to subdue him. In the jogging light, as they move, I glimpse a man with a sack over his head.
“I’m not!” he shouts, his voice muffled. “Ask anyone! I’m not—”
Someone socks him in the gut and he doubles over, silenced. They wrestle him into a waiting cart. Chains rattle as they secure irons around the man’s wrists and ankles.
I stand frozen. Other people are already chained in the cart, sacks over their heads, irons clamping their wrists. Two women, another man.
I should have known Alakaseus Saranon would turn our rebellion into an excuse for a city-wide witch hunt. If he can’t get my people, he’s arresting anyone he can clamp hands on. Innocents, in all likelihood. No one will ever know whether these people are sorcerers or not; the witch hunters don’t trouble to conduct public trials. Or any trials, so far as I know. Where are they taking them? The Frourio prison, here in Ida—or the Ochuroma, north of Aexione?
With the latest prisoner loaded, the convoy moves on. I need to go to the Den—I have to make the meeting with Felix—but I’m halted by my own cowardice. I’m willing to run and let these innocents suffer the blame for what I’ve done?
I flex my hands. I’m tired, and the magic isn’t likely to come easy, even with the lingering spark of the font in my chest. If I make a show of force, they’ll probably only crack down harder.
I stalk after the convoy, keeping to the shadows. They stop again, a few streets later, to roust a drunk from an alley. He fights hard, viciously, but they subdue him with a few swift clubs to the legs and gut. Then he’s in the cart, the irons binding his limbs.
There’s a lull. The guardsmen and witch hunters gather in a knot, arguing over where to go next. The people sit huddled in the cart.
My magic is such a tired, aching thing, after healing Irene and destroying the fleet. I can’t take down all the witch hunters and guards, and the last thing I want is to make matters worse. Still. A small thing might be enough.
I slip past the men, holding my breath, though of course none of them notice me. I slide up beside the wagon and tug a woman’s sleeve through the iron bars. “Don’t run yet,” I whisper. “Choose your moment.”
Then I gather all their irons in my mind and break the fastenings. The clatter is lost beneath the echo of the tolling bells and the rattle of the small, tinkling ones the witch hunters carry.
I turn to run.
But there’s a noise in the street—a newcomer—no, three of them, on horseback. A lantern flashes over their leader’s face.
It’s Alcibiades Doukas.
As if he feels my gaze, he glances up. He sees me.
Have I lost my mind as well as my grip on my sorcery? I bolt.
“Seize that man!” Alcibiades shouts behind me. Did the old bastard recognize me, even in the dark with my growing mess of a beard? Or did he simply see my shape and movement, and suspect?
It doesn’t matter. I pound down an alley, struggling to compress space, but I’m only thrown forward a few feet, too drained to propel myself farther. I stagger gracelessly into a wall. There are torches and shouts behind me. I push myself through the fabric of the wall—slow, too slow—and stumble into someone’s back garden. I charge through a door into the silent house. It’s a useless struggle to muffle my footsteps. Out in the street—largely deserted—I sprint flat-out, a shadow flying among shadows. A beggar sits up to w
atch me pass.
I seem to have shaken my pursuit. Only distant shouts echo behind me. My lungs burn but I don’t stop running until I see the lights of the Den.
And the party of militia outside it.
I slow. There’s a witch hunter among them—I can tell by the infernal tinkling of bells—and, like the party I followed earlier, they have a cart filled with several people.
I rub a hand over my chin. Is Felix even here? Knowing him, this kind of danger would only seem a thrill, so I suppose he is. He’s probably watching the witch hunters with a smirk from some place of safety.
Careful to keep the shadows about me, I retrace my steps to the nearby alley. I’ll go into the Den by the back door—which, fortunately, is guarded only by the compost heap. I slip into the back of the tavern, then through the door to the cellar stairs, sagging in relief to find the cellar empty.
Voices murmur on the other side of the secret door. I let myself in.
“Jahan!” Felix jumps up from the table, his hat askew. “We didn’t know if any of you would make it tonight. Did you run into the militia? The witch hunters are everywhere!”
“I made it,” I say. Absently, because I’m staring at his companion.
“Jahan!” the man is saying. “What a relief! I should have brought—” But he catches himself and shakes his head, grinning. It’s Bardas Triciphes, of all people. He looks impossibly clean, impossibly well groomed, in a black velvet suit. Rings wink on his fingers.
“We thought you were dead,” he’s saying, “or that you’d fled back to Eren. I admit I almost didn’t recognize you beneath the beard. Felix, I can’t believe you kept this secret from us!”
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “How do you know you’re not under suspicion?”
He waves a hand. “His Imperial Majesty has never taken me seriously—my blood isn’t blue enough. And he can’t believe anyone—ah—close to him might be guilty of indiscretion.”
The empress, he means. I suppose it’s true, but we both know perfectly well that Augustus and Phaedra don’t suffer any such shortsightedness where the Triciphes are concerned. They would relish the opportunity to destroy their stepmother.
