The moment passed, and he set about rummaging through the drawers of Suroth’s desk as quietly as he dared. Light from the lanterns set in the courtyard streamed through the window, giving him just enough illumination to see what he was doing. A quick examination revealed that all of Suroth’s papers, books, and paraphernalia—whatever Hailen hadn’t managed to collect—had been taken away. All but one of the drawers stood empty.
Within that one drawer, however, Kodyn found a leather portfolio held closed by a leather thong. He untied it carefully and pulled out the stack of papers within. Holding the topmost parchment up to the window, he squinted to make out its details written thereon. After a moment, he managed to decipher the sloppy handwriting.
It’s a bill of lading for a caravan to Voramis. The contents of the caravan seemed innocuous enough, as did the next five parchments Kodyn studied.
Just as he reached for the sixth, however, footsteps sounded in the hall beyond, accompanied by the light of a lantern. Ice seeped into Kodyn’s veins as he froze, listening intently.
The footsteps were coming closer.
Instincts and years of training kicked in. With the deft fingers of a master pickpocket, he replaced the parchments and slid the drawer home. His eyes roved Suroth’s study for any hiding place. He settled on the nearest of a pair of well-stuffed armchairs that Angrak had installed in the office and, vaulting the desk, he dove behind the couch just as the door swung open.
The light of a lantern filled the room with a rose-gold glow. Kodyn pressed deeper into his hiding place and forced himself to take slow, even breaths. It was the first lesson every Hawk learned—fools that held their breath were always discovered at the inevitable gasp.
“…honored by your visit, Councilor Natoris.” Angrak’s voice drifted into the room, proceeded by the man’s heavy footfalls. “Though, I must admit my surprise.”
Only after the door closed did the second man speak. “Surprised that we would want to check up on you so early in your appointment, Angrak?” His nasal voice immediately grated on Kodyn’s nerves.
“Er…yes.” Angrak sounded hesitant, more than a little submissive. “I will admit—”
“Then let me make the Council’s position abundantly clear.” Councilor Natoris’s voice dripped contempt. “Your elevation to the Council was not because you are wise or noble or any other ridiculous sentiment that would make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”
Kodyn tensed as the couch behind which he hid suddenly creaked, as if beneath a ponderous weight. Watcher’s teeth! He’s sitting right there.
“The Council chose you because of the one value you possess: your ability to siphon off enough ore from the mines to make us a profit.” Natoris’ nasal voice came from mere inches away from Kodyn. “No more, no less. Until now, you have served us well, doubtless in the hopes of receiving this reward as we promised.”
Angrak’s voice grew unctuous. “And I thank you for honoring—”
“I will tell you when you may speak!” Natoris’ snarl cut Angrak off mid-sentence. “This reward is not because you are worthy of a place on the Council or because anyone else in the Keeper’s Priesthood believes you are capable of anything more than doing what you are already doing. You have a mind keen to the intricacies of graft and fraud. As long as you leave the matters of ruling Shalandra up to Madani, Tinush, and myself, you will remain in your position.”
The couch creaked again as the Councilor leaned forward. “But the moment you get it in that brain of yours that you are anything more than a mouthpiece, that is the moment that you cease to be useful to us. And trust me when I say that people no longer of use to us tend to be dealt with.” His voice took on a sardonic tone. “Just ask Arch-Guardian Suroth if you doubt me.”
Kodyn’s fists clenched at the disrespectful tone. The man spoke of Suroth’s death with the contempt of someone waving away a buzzing fly. Briana and her father deserved far better than that.
“I take it that I have made myself clear, and that I have no need to bring up that shameful secret you have tried all these years to cover up. There is no need for the Keeper’s Blades to suddenly learn of the true cause of your father’s death, is there?” A moment of silence passed, before Natoris sighed. “Yes, you may speak now.”
“I-I understand, Councilor.” A hint of fear echoed in Angrak’s voice. “I am very clear on my place and purpose within the Keeper’s Council.”
“Excellent!” Natoris’ cold tone became suddenly jovial. “Then allow me to celebrate your new position with you. I hear that the Arch-Guardian had a number of marvelous Nyslian reds tucked away in his wine cellar. Be a good man and have your servants fetch them for us.”
Kodyn ground his teeth, but swallowed the rush of irritation. Years on the streets had taught him patience as well as stealth. He could wait all night if it meant he’d get the proof required to convict Angrak of crime and get vengeance for Suroth’s death.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Evren awoke with a start. His hands dropped to the hilts of his jambiyas tucked into the back of his belt, every sense immediately on full alert for any danger.
Silence and cool darkness met his eyes. He had slept for hours, long enough for the sun to have set. The others had let him sleep, tucked into his little corner of Briana’s house. Such a strange sensation, like the moment of relaxation after letting out a slow breath. No danger, no threat, no daggers poised to kill him.
With a yawn, he climbed to his feet and stretched out the kinks in his back and neck. His eyes roamed the shadows of the upper floor. The room where Kodyn had been now stood empty and dark, but the light of a candle flickered in Briana’s room. Hailen and Briana were still studying Suroth’s journals.
He slipped toward the door and gave a polite, quiet knock before opening the door. Briana and Hailen both looked up from their positions hunched over Suroth’s journal as he entered.
“You’re awake.” Briana smiled at him.
“Yeah, thanks for letting me sleep.” Evren found his face stretching into an answering grin. “Where are the others?”
“Kodyn and Aisha went off to Angrak’s,” Briana replied. “Issa’s downstairs standing guard.”
Hailen shook his head. “No, it’s Hykos again.”
Briana raised an eyebrow at the boy.
“When I went down for dinner,” Hailen explained, “I saw Issa running off and Hykos taking up guard position.”
Evren’s eyes went to the plate sitting abandoned on the floor beside the bed. Bits of cold chicken lay beside an untouched loaf of flatbread and a pile of mixed olives, nuts, and dates.
“Go ahead,” Hailen said.
“I can always have Nessa bring you up some proper food,” Briana said, frowning.
“It’s okay.” Evren shrugged. “You live on the streets long enough, you stop being picky.”
Briana’s brow furrowed. “How long?” Her voice was quiet.
Evren thought back to the years he’d spent on the streets—hungry, cold, scared, desperate, never certain who to trust or who would stab him in the back. “Four years, give or take.” He bent, picked up the plate, and set about demolishing the scraps. “They weren’t all bad, though. I got pretty good at picking pockets. That’s how I ran into the Hunter, actually.” He chuckled. “I chose the wrong pocket to pick.”
“Or perhaps, given how it all turned out,” Briana said, “you chose the right pocket.”
Evren inclined his head. “Fair enough.” Abashed, he quickly looked to change the subject. “How’s the work on the journals going? Find anything interesting or useful?”
Briana grimaced. “Plenty of interesting, though not much useful.” With a sigh, she lowered the journal and rubbed her eyes. “Hailen’s making good progress learning my father’s cipher, but for me, trying to understand his writings on the Serenii is slow going.”
She flipped through the pages and settled on one that, to Evren’s eyes, was identical to the rest. “Look at this. He spends tw
o whole pages talking about the Serenii air canals that draw heat from the underground geysers up to the Palace of Golden Eternity.” Again, she flipped through the pages to another. “Here, he tries to deconstruct the mechanisms that supply Shalandra’s Wellsprings with water. All necessary things to know for the running of the city, but nothing that will help us in our current situation.”
“But there’s the prophecy.” Hailen’s voice was solemn, his expression somber as he met Evren’s gaze. “The one Brother Modestus spoke about before he…” He trailed off, shooting a glance at Briana.
Evren’s eyebrows shot up. “What?” He almost dropped the plate in his surprise. He’d all but forgotten about the words spoken by the dying Cambionari. “What prophecy? What does it say?”
Hailen flipped a page and, squinting down at the writing, read aloud:
When sword and scepter unite
The blood of ancients revived
Child of secrets, child of spirits, child of gold
Half-master seeks the relic of old
Then Hallar’s blood shall rise
And sow the final destruction from midnight eyes
“Very good!” Briana applauded. “You learn far faster than I ever did.”
Hailen beamed, but his grin faded a moment later as he returned his gaze to Evren. “This has to be the prophecy, right?”
Evren flashed back to the Cambionari’s words. “Must retrieve the Blade of Hallar. The prophecy cannot come to pass.” He’d called it “the Prophecy of the Final Destruction”—the “final destruction” mentioned in the passage Hailen had just read. “Find the sword!” Modestus had insisted. “Stop the prophecy and save the world.”
“Who is this Brother Modestus?” Briana’s question cut into his thoughts. “And what does he have to do with my father?”
Evren drew in a long breath. “Brother Modestus was a Beggar Priest from Voramis,” he said, slowly, his mind working as he tried to determine just how much to tell her. “He was sent to accompany me and Hailen here to Shalandra to steal the Blade of Hallar. He believed that somehow that relic was linked to the prophecy.”
“When sword and scepter align,” Hailen quoted.
Briana’s brow furrowed. “Like the scepter of the Pharus?”
Evren’s look must have matched Hailen’s visible puzzlement, because Briana smiled and explained.
“There are two things given to the Pharus upon his ascension to mark his reign.” She held up two fingers. “A crown and a scepter. Both remain in the Vault of Ancients, except for the Anointing of the Blades and the Ceremonies of the Seven Faces every four months.”
“And the Blade of Hallar is in the vault as well, right?” Evren asked.
Briana nodded.
“So there has to be some way that the sword and scepter align,” Hailen said. “And, in doing so, become a powerful artifact like one of these. Maybe?” He held up one of the Serenii stones.
Briana seemed to consider this. “It is possible. Both the Blade of Hallar and the scepter are said to date back to Hallar himself, though their origins are unknown.”
Evren had heard the Hunter’s story about the Swordsman’s blades, twin daggers made of pure iron that the people of Einan believed were wielded by the Swordsman, god of war and heroism, in the battle against Kharna. In reality, they were actually Serenii-made keys used to activate the magic of Enarium. Maybe the people of Shalandra just believe it’s a scepter, when really the Serenii intended it for something else.
“Modestus made it clear that we had to get the Blade of Hallar away from Shalandra, as the Hunter wanted,” Hailen said. “He literally said that it would save the world.”
“But the sword and scepter is just one part of the prophecy,” Briana said. “There’s so much more in there.” She plucked the book from Hailen’s lap and ran a finger down the six lines. “Like this about half-master, or the line on ‘Child of secrets, child of spirits, child of gold’.”
“I’ve seen those words written on the walls of the Artisan’s Tier, Cultivator’s Tier, and Slave’s Tier,” Evren said. His heart began hammering in his chest as a hint of worry gnawed at the back of his mind.
“That has to be the work of the Gatherers.” A shadow passed across Briana’s eyes at the mention of the cultists that had kidnapped her. “They believe in the Final Destruction. They want it to come to pass, for the world to be cleansed by the Long Keeper. That was why they murdered people in Praamis. They believed that people needed to be cleansed and branded with the Long Keeper’s mark in order to gain entrance into the Sleepless Lands.”
Evren scowled. “Crazy bastards!” Every priesthood had its fair share of crazy rituals and notions, but this particular belief outstripped them all.
“But what if they’re on to something?” Briana frowned, her expression growing pensive as she stared down at the book in her lap. “What if they, like your Brother Modestus, know that the prophecy could come true? Somehow, impossibly, they have deciphered the meaning of these words and understand that the Final Destruction is coming. The writing is literally on the wall, a warning for the people of Shalandra that Hallar is returning to destroy us all.”
Evren wanted to shrug it off, but Briana’s grave expression made him take the thought seriously.
“The Hall of the Beyond isn’t only filled with power-hungry people like Madani and Angrak,” Briana went on. “There are people who genuinely believe in the Long Keeper, the Seven Faces, and the Sleepless Lands. The Necroseti number in the hundreds, their resources virtually limitless. If anyone besides my father or the Secret Keepers could find the hidden meaning behind this prophecy, it would be them. Perhaps that knowledge was what led the Gatherers to split off from the Necroseti in the first place. If they did know, it could paint all of their actions—including the attempt on the Pharus and the Keeper’s Council—in a new light.”
Evren contemplated the statement, trying to put himself in the mind of a deranged death-worshipper. If the Vault of Ancients held the key to stopping—or heralding—the end of the world, he could see himself doing whatever it took to get his hands on said key. The attack on the Pharus might not have been intended to destabilize the city, but instead a Gatherer attempt to get into the vault to do exactly what Evren planned to: steal the Blade of Hallar and stop the Final Destruction.
“If that’s true, then it’s all the more important that we get into the Vault of Ancients.” Evren’s resolve hardened. “You need to find everything you can in those journals that would help us.”
“I’m working on it,” Briana said, and her face fell. “It’s slow going, but once Hailen gets a better grasp of my father’s secret cipher, we should make better progress. For now, we’ve got this.”
Evren arched a curious eyebrow as Briana reached for a scroll tube that lay on the bed beside her. He took it from her, popped off the cap, and drew out the rolled-up papyrus within. When he got a glimpse of the maze of intersecting lines that could only be corridors and pathways, he sucked in a breath.
“Is this the map of the Serenii tunnels beneath Shalandra?” He’d seen one much like it in Graeme’s secret room behind The Angry Goblin Bookstore—or, the same apparently chaotic network of tunnels that spread throughout the entire underground of Voramis.
Briana nodded. “Courtesy of Guardian Ennolar of the Secret Keepers, on my father’s orders.”
Evren knelt to spread the map out on the ground, and his eyes roved over the lines. It looked like a giant honeycomb, with markings for each of the five tiers, even for ways into the palace. Other markings—unfamiliar symbols and runes that had to be either Serenii script or a Secret Keeper cipher—littered the map.
He whistled. “This is amazing!” He lifted his face and grinned at Briana and Hailen. “We can go anywhere in the city with this!”
“Yes.” Briana returned his grin. “That map is going to be the key to getting to the Vault of Ancients now that I am no longer Dhukari.” Her grin never wavered, but Evren caught the sudden ti
ghtness in her face. “We can make copies, but you, Kodyn, and Aisha need to commit it to memory. We’ve got less than three weeks until the Vault of Ancients opens, and we still haven’t figured out how to get it open or what to do once we’re inside.”
“Maybe this will help?” The shy question came from Hailen.
Evren’s eyes snapped to the young boy and found Hailen holding up the long, narrow cylindrical stone—the stone he’d activated with his blood. Yet somehow, it looked different than before.
“I think…” Hailen hesitated. “I think it’s a key.”
Evren climbed to his feet and squinted at the stone. The stone had lost its glow and returned to its original black color, with the same Serenii runes etched into its surface. Yet the stone had changed—yes, Evren saw it now. Four stone prongs, each barely as long as his pinky fingernail, protruded from its tip.
“Look.” Hailen held out a hand for the object, and Evren gave it to him. “It does this.” He gave the object a quick twist to the left, and the prongs retracted, leaving only smooth stone. When he twisted it to the right, the prongs snapped out again.
Evren sucked in a breath. He snatched the key from Hailen’s hand and stared at it. There was no visible seam, yet somehow the stone twisted in his hands to retract and extend the prongs.
He spun to Briana. “Did your father know about this?”
The Shalandran girl’s eyes were round as saucers, surprise etched into every line of her face. “I don’t know,” she breathed. Her gaze dropped to the book and she flipped through the pages, but looked up again a moment later. “If he did, he never said anything to me. And we shared everything, which makes me think he didn’t find this secret.”
“Maybe it only did this when my blood activated it?” Hailen said.
Evren had been standing near Hailen when his blood and those strange magic words—Serenii words—had set it glowing. He’d never forget the low hum of power, which had grown so loud it rattled his bones. The final surge of brilliant light had nearly blinded him. Yet, looking at the artifact now, it seemed almost impossible that it could be anything more than a simple stone.
Heirs of Destiny Box Set Page 64
