Too many eyes on me.
I looked northeast and forced a smile at the distant towers, imagining that Elise could see me—which she probably could. That had been the entire point of having them tag along in a civilian skimmer, right? A means of escape that wouldn’t risk starting a civil war between the Legion and the Sanctum.
Just in case.
The White Tower loomed above us, still the tallest structure in Divinity even after the Great Hall and several floors below it had all been obliterated by Carlisle’s final act. I’d wanted to ignore the sight of it on the flight in. But then I’d thought of everything Elise had said yesterday, and how I’d been failing to handle things since the incident. I’d decided it was time to look. I’d even tried to think thoughts of gratitude instead of guilt, staring down at Carlisle’s wreckage.
“Deep breaths, buddy,” Johnny said beside me.
I nodded and did as he said, noticing how tense I was.
So maybe it was going to take more than some deep-cutting words and a day of reflection to get me centered. But it was a start, at least.
“Hey look,” Johnny added, pointing off to the right of the tower, “they fixed the windows.”
He didn’t have to explain what windows he was talking about. I’d been unconscious by the end of our big fall from the tower, but Johnny and Elise had later told me about the way the glass had shattered in my wake as I’d acted like a human brake, venting our plunging velocity off in a raw outpouring of telekinetic force.
It had been a terrible night. The worst of my life, next to the night Al’Kundesha had taken my parents from me. And not just because of the fall. The fall, arduous as it had been, had been little more than a hard punctuation on the end of a night of horrors I knew would be with me as long as I lived.
And here we were again.
Maybe that’s why everything felt so wrong, marching across the courtyard, with its lovely flowers and its happily burbling fountains all continuing their cheery existence, refusing to acknowledge the darkness that had touched this place not even three cycles past. Or maybe it was the larger-than-life-sized sculpture of the prophet, Sarentus, at the base of the great Tower steps, his head bowed and his hands spread wide, palms upward, ready to receive the word of Alpha.
My mind flashed to the illustration Franco and I had seen back in Humility, in Pasty and Hawk Nose’s dungeon—Sarentus the prophet facing down the last of the Emmútari elders, his eyes so clearly rendered in faded blood red. Yet another reason we needed to find those two. Even thinking about the implications of that drawing this close to the White Tower filled me with concern that I might simply burst into blasphemous flames where I stood.
But no such luck.
Above, Glenbark was cresting the wide stone stairs at the head of our party beside the ordo prime of Bear Company. Dillard and First Squad kept closer to me and Johnny. I was glad Glenbark had chosen to keep the Hounds with me after Humility. Mara’s frosty looks aside, my shaking nerves were comforted by the familiarity of the legionnaires around me—especially Edwards, who lumbered along beside me opposite Johnny. I still wished I’d had the chance to speak privately with Dillard to apologize for once again complicating his life, but that would have to wait.
We passed under the great arch at the top of the sprawling steps and proceeded past the large sculpture of Alpha’s sigil. The shouts of the crowd seemed to grow more insistent the closer we drew to the Tower.
Demon. Savior. Scudbucket.
None of them knew the first thing about me, but every single one seemed to have an opinion about who and what I was. Some shouted thanks and words of encouragement. Others tried to rush in and throw rotten fruit, only to be quickly repelled by our Wolf Company escorts.
I did my best to shut it all out, staring up at the Tower instead—the jewel of Divinity. Of Enochia, really. Unlike most of Divinity’s architecture, there wasn’t a square inch of permacrete to be glimpsed on the Tower’s exterior. It was still there, of course, reinforcing the Tower’s formidable hardsteel skeleton. But no one saw that side of the Sanctum’s holy palace. To the outside observer, the White Tower was all sleek duraglass and glossy white alloys—so pristinely glimmering that it could be mistaken for a beam of pure, condensed light when the sun hit it just so.
We reached the tall duraglass doors. A small army of servitors and Sanctum acolytes were awaiting us with uneasy stares in the atrium, but I was mostly focused on the dozens of cream-and-gold armored Sanctum Guard lining the space. Most of them had been raised by the Sanctum, trained from the ages of twelve to eighteen as Legion tyros like Johnny and me, and then returned to take their stations here. I might have even known a few of the Guard in this room, but you never could tell through the opaque golden faceplates of their helmets.
As far as most civilians were concerned, Sanctum Guard weren’t so different than legionnaires, enforcers, or any other vessel of authority. The Legion, after all, almost exclusively followed the will of the Sanctum in times of peace. But this wasn’t a time of peace, and right then, I could tell I wasn’t the only one in our group thinking about just how much the Sanctum Guard were not the Legion’s soldiers. They belonged to the High Cleric—his own private army, nearly twenty-thousand strong. And right then, I couldn’t help but feel they were not our allies.
A tall wisp of a cleric swept across the polished atrium floor to meet us. He walked with a chronic hunch in his back, his arms crossed and his hands hidden within folds of his robe sleeves.
“High General Glenbark,” he said in a thin, airy voice. “Alpha’s blessing to you and your regiment.” His rheumy eyes found me and lingered as if to make it clear that said blessing did not apply where demons were concerned. “I am Cleric Housfeld. The High Cleric is expecting you if you’d allow me to show you the way.”
“Please, your holiness,” Glenbark replied.
It made me slightly uneasy, the subtle air of deference that came over her in this place. Or was that just my imagination?
I followed along, trying to ignore the frightened gazes riding me through the atrium. Together, the Tower’s massive mag lifts were plenty large enough to accompany our three companies of legionnaires, but Glenbark left Bear and Wolf Companies to wait below, keeping only Hound with us. I did my best to trust her reasoning and distract myself with the spectacular window view of Divinity as we climbed.
“The High Cleric has had to relocate to smaller quarters ever since the… incident in the Great Hall,” Cleric Housfeld said as we ascended, his tone carrying a hint of apology or embarrassment.
Incident? He knew who I was—knew that the incident he referred to had in fact been my botched execution, which had led to the death of hundreds, including Carlisle—and he was going to act like the unsettling part of all of this was that we had to meet the High Cleric in less regal quarters?
Johnny’s hand on my arm was a silent warning my control was visibly slipping. I closed my eyes. Relaxed clenched muscles. The lift slowed, and I opened my eyes to catch Glenbark glancing at me with what might’ve been a look of sympathy or warning. Maybe both.
Cleric Housfeld was pointedly avoiding looking at me. “This way, please,” he said, stepping smoothly between the opening doors as if he were eager to avoid spending a moment longer than necessary in the lift with us—or with me.
The wide hallway we stepped into was elegant to say the least. Rich, cream-toned marble floors. Vaulted ceilings, twice as high as you’d find in any other skyscraper in Divinity. Two dozen Sanctum Guard adorned the walls, their lines centered on an ornate wooden door I assumed must lead to the High Cleric’s current quarters. They stood at rigid attention as we approached, rifles in hand. I couldn’t imagine they normally kept a full squad posted outside the High cleric’s door, but it wasn’t any mystery why they were here now.
I fought the urge to squirm as a few detached from the wall to pat me down. They didn’t find anything. Bringing a few meager weapons would have served little purpose. Of course, if anyo
ne thought that meant I was unarmed, they hadn’t been paying very close attention. Still, the two Sanctum Guard appeared satisfied—though it was hard to tell through the golden faceplates—as they backed away and nodded to Cleric Housfeld, who promptly rapped his spindly knuckles on the door.
To my surprise, the High Cleric answered the door himself. He was a short, unassuming man, with thinning brown hair and kind eyes. “Alpha’s blessing to you all,” he said in a gentle voice, his eyes settling on me. “Please, come in, Haldin.”
His casual air threw me off balance. Here was the closest thing Enochia had to a supreme world ruler, and he was inviting me in as if for a friendly cup of caffa. I couldn’t help notice Glenbark looked a touch off balance as well. She was opening her mouth to say something when the High Cleric turned to her.
“If you wouldn’t mind, Freya, I would like to speak with Haldin in private for a moment.”
Glenbark didn’t look thrilled about it, but after a second, she relaxed and bowed her head. “Of course, your holiness.”
It didn’t exactly put me at ease, but when everyone’s attention settled back on me, I didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter.
I traded one last look with Johnny and strode into the High Cleric’s quarters.
Opulent and spacious were the first two words that came to mind as I entered the High Cleric’s quarters. Rich dark wood trimmings. Lush rugs. A reading loft that was itself far larger than my entire Haven quarters and well-stocked with real, hardbound books. If this was what qualified as inferior quarters in the White Tower, then—
My idle inspection drew to a sharp halt as I sensed them.
Six of them, so still in their dark armor that my brain hadn’t registered them as living things at first glance. The High Cleric’s elite Onyx Guard—the unit whose legendary reputation made even the specters sound unimpressive. They watched me from behind their black faceplates, motionless as their namesake.
I remembered to breathe, chiding myself for having thought for even a second that in private would have possibly meant alone. I was the Demon of Divinity, and he was the High Cleric. Of course we weren’t alone.
Behind me, the High Cleric closed the door, leaving the two of us in private with his six elite killers. He turned to me with something of a sad smile.
“Well then… Tea? Caffa? Anything else?”
Cup-full of poison, did he mean?
“I’m fine, thank you.”
He bobbed his head and went to one of the cushy leather armchairs facing the wide, curved duraglass panel that looked down on Divinity. “Please,” he said, waving at the armchair beside his.
I strode slowly around to the chair, wishing I’d thought ahead to dial my cloak out far enough to sweep the entire room for threats, but hesitant to adjust it now for fear the Onyx Guard might try to put me down if I did anything other than sit. So, I sat and did my best not to fidget. The High Cleric barely seemed to notice, staring thoughtfully out at the lines of skimmer traffic glimmering in the sun.
Now that I had a moment to think, I noticed the High Cleric’s mind felt different than that of any man I’d ever met—not telepathic, but not exactly defenseless, either. The minds of his Onyx Guard felt much the same. It was disconcerting, but I took some comfort from the fact that they didn’t seem to notice my probing.
“You know,” the High Cleric finally said, still staring out at the city, “the High General has messaged me no less than four times about you and those like you. Her most recent correspondence could even be reasonably construed as a warning about harming you. She seems to be under the impression that you are a vital resource to the war effort, regardless of your standing in the eyes of the Almighty.” Slowly, he turned to study me. “What do you think about that?”
“I’d rather not be harmed, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He smiled, and it looked genuine. “Oh, and I’d rather not cause harm, if that’s what you’re asking. But the fact remains that your existence is a challenge to the order of things, and a slight to the will of Alpha.”
The words teetered on my tongue, caught between caution and anger. “Is that why you tried to have me killed?”
He continued studying me, his face betraying nothing, until he finally looked back to the city and its air traffic.
“Do you remember your lessons on the black pin beetle scourge in the eight-hundredth and fifty-seventh year of Enlightenment?”
“Not… particularly. Why?”
He shook his head, unperturbed. “Perhaps something a little closer to your area of expertise, then,” he said. “Do you recall your learnings on Project Sentinel?”
That one was kind of hard to forget. As tyros, we’d heard all about the Legion’s pioneering effort to create a new, more potent form of combat stims. And it had even worked—at first. Radically increased alertness, analytical reasoning, reflexes, and a dozen other metrics that made the users perfect little super soldiers. It was only after years of using Sentinel that the underlying degradation started to show itself between doses. Deranged psychoses. Violent mood swings. All kinds of other unpleasantness we’d heard about in class.
“You were barely a child when the worst of it was breaking,” the High Cleric said, seeming to detect that his point had landed, “but I’m sure you saw some of the horrors your classmates with affected parents had to go through.”
He wasn’t wrong about that.
“I take it this is your way of saying we shouldn’t mess with nature?”
He tilted his head. “I’m merely pointing out two of the several thousand potent examples that’ve showed us, time and time again: when men think to bend nature to their will, it is the good, innocent people who are made to suffer. Mind-enhancing drugs. Well-meaning ecologists. Interventions so seemingly beneficial at the time, leading to such unintended consequences.” He raised a palm as if offering up something tangible. “The decline of natural order. The degradation of what is good and just.”
I clenched my jaw, quelling the flood of arguments I wanted to hurl at his bullscud point. “If you’re suggesting what I am is unnatural,” I said slowly, calmly, “then with all due respect, holiness, I believe there are gaps in your own understanding of this planet’s history.”
His lips quirked—not quite smug, but not far off. “You speak of the Emmútari. The great deceivers of old.”
The use of the order’s proper name caught me more off guard than maybe it should have. “Well, you know what they say about history and victors.”
His expression darkened, and for a flicker of a moment, I glimpsed something in him that gave me pause—a glint of righteous rage, brilliant as it was brief. It shook me.
I couldn’t imagine many had seen that look before. They say the office of High Cleric can only be held by one so devout as to have transcended such flawed things as hatred. And while I couldn’t have said for sure if the man hated me, in that moment, I saw something else, clear as day.
This man despised what I was. Despised it in a way that defied every inch of his kind eyes and holy grace.
“At any rate,” he said slowly, settling with unnerving speed back to a place of control, “the history is irrelevant. The simple existence of something in nature does not imply that it is something to be embraced or tolerated. Diseases. Cancers. Natural predators. We must defend ourselves by the means becoming of servants of Alpha.”
And there it was. The means becoming of servants of Alpha. Implying he had it on holy authority that my abilities didn’t make that list.
Never mind the glaring hypocrisy of the entire existence of the Seeker core. That was surely fine, right? Because he was the one ordained to decide where we as Alpha-fearing humans were supposed to draw the line, and he said so.
Scud, maybe it wasn’t even shoddy logic on his part. Maybe it was just that, to him, I wasn’t human at all. To him, I was a walking abomination—a threat to the natural order of things.
“Fine,” I said. “Never mind the hist
ory, and never mind the sanctity of what I am. You have a raknoth problem on this planet, and I’m guessing the fact you’re talking to me at all means you realize you don’t have a solution.”
He studied me. “Alpha will provide for us, as he always has.”
I stared at him, trying to gauge whether or not he was serious. “We have a host of tremendously powerful alien beings taking over our planet, using our own people to build and feed their army, and you’re telling me… Fine. You’re expecting a solution to fall from the sky?” I touched a hand to my chest. “Here I am. How are you so sure that’s not the will of Alpha?”
That shadow flashed across his face again, but was quickly swept clear by righteous tranquility. “All is the Will of Alpha, child.” He gestured out the window. “The routine tribulations.” Gestured to me. “The dark temptations. But it is curious, isn’t it? That these… aliens, as you say, would come here of all places in the universe and threaten us with abilities which only you and your kind possess any power to resist?”
“What I find curious, your holiness, is that you seem more concerned with casting blame and condemnation on my shoulders than with addressing the fact that there’s an enemy out there you don’t know how to beat. An enemy who can turn our legions against one another and grow their own armies as fast as ours can fall. The raknoth will consume this planet whole—millions dead, hundreds of millions—and you’re more concerned about the morality of my existence?”
The High Cleric raised a hand for pause. Focused as I’d been on what I was saying, I hadn’t even noticed the Onyx Guard ghosting closer around us, ready, waiting. I held very still, readying my own energy, trying not to look tense.
“And should I not be?” the High Cleric asked, calmly lowering his hand. “You are the one who seems to think you alone possess the ability to stop them.”
Demons of Divinity Page 27
