As the Shadow Rises: Book Two of The Age of Darkness Read online

  It had led her east, to an outpost along the trade route between Tel Amot and Behezda. A town so small it didn’t even really deserve the label, consisting of a single caravanserai, a watering hole, and the fighting pits. The owner of the caravanserai and her wife, Kala, had taken pity on Beru and allowed her to stay there in exchange for helping out with their various jobs in town.

  “You missed the first few fights,” Kala said when Beru reached the medic station on the sidelines.

  “Medic station” was generous—it was more like a patch of dirt cordoned off from the crowd with a few benches in it. The pit fights were brutal and bloody, and there were no healers in the town, so a few of the townspeople doubled as medics, patching up wounds in exchange for a handful of the fighters’ winnings. Beru had talked to enough of the fighters to know that they wouldn’t get their injuries treated otherwise. The owner of the fighting pits didn’t even feed them unless they won.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Beru replied. Already she could see a few fighters sprawled out on the benches, worse for the wear.

  “What kept you?”

  Beru gave her the answer she’d been practicing on the walk into town. “I was cleaning stalls and lost track of time.”

  But the real reason for Beru’s lateness had nothing to do with mucking stalls and everything to do with the sudden, sharp pains that had been plaguing her for the past few days. She knew and feared what they meant. She didn’t know how much time she had left before her life faded, but she thought—hoped—she would have more. Time enough to do what that voice in her head demanded.

  Atone.

  It was Hector’s voice, she knew now. She could still recall the sound of it, low and rough, when he’d said that word to her in an abandoned crypt in Pallas Athos. He’d wanted her to confess that her sister was the Pale Hand. But Beru simply couldn’t betray her like that, no matter what Ephyra had done.

  And now Hector’s words haunted her. His death haunted her. It was his life that Ephyra had taken to heal Beru. The last life Beru would ever live. This one, she promised herself, would be different. She would spend it trying to follow Hector’s words.

  Atone.

  I’m trying. This job was a start. Healing, for the first time in her life, instead of harming. But it was so small in the face of everything she’d done. She knew what Hector would say. She wasn’t trying. She wasn’t doing anything. She was just waiting to die.

  The ringing of the gong jolted Beru from her thoughts. The next fight was starting. Another gong followed the first. Two meant a fighter had defeated two challengers. Most fighters would quit at that point, taking their hard-won earnings. But there were a few who chose to keep fighting—for their third win was worth twice as much as the first two combined. It was rare that any fighter won their third match, but they were always the most popular to watch.

  The announcer, who was also the owner of the pits, swaggered onto a platform, holding a small metal disk in front of his mouth.

  “Our next contender is the fighter we all know and love!” his voice boomed, magnified by artificery. “Give it up for the Bonecrusher!”

  The crowd cheered as the Bonecrusher stomped into the ring, sweat and oil dripping down his barrel-like chest. The low sunlight glinted off his shaved head, and the scar down his face made his sneer look particularly menacing. Beru had seen him fight before and knew his nickname had been more than earned. She might as well start prepping the splints for whatever poor soul had to face him.

  “And our brand-new fighter, already vying for the title of undefeated after winning his first two matches of the day—it’s the Sandstorm!”

  A smattering of applause welcomed the other fighter, much smaller than the Bonecrusher, as he stepped into the other side of the ring, his back to Beru.

  The Bonecrusher spat into the dirt. “Playtime’s over, kid.”

  He stomped down hard, and the whole pit shook with the force of it. The crowd roared its approval.

  The other fighter did not reply to the Bonecrusher’s taunt, his stance almost relaxed as the Bonecrusher prowled toward him.

  The Bonecrusher attacked. The smaller fighter dodged. Dodged again as the attacks rained down. He seemed to be almost taunting him, dipping into the Bonecrusher’s reach and then quickly dancing out of it. But Beru knew it wouldn’t last long—eventually the Bonecrusher would land a blow, and one hit could knock out a man the Sandstorm’s size.

  The Bonecrusher swung a fist. The smaller fighter didn’t dodge this time but deflected the blow with one hand, driving the other into the Bonecrusher’s side with deadly precision.

  The giant grunted and coughed. Blood dribbled from the side of his mouth.

  Beru heard the collective gasp from the crowd, who weren’t used to seeing anyone get the drop on the Bonecrusher.

  The Bonecrusher snarled, charging. The other fighter leapt, flipping over the Bonecrusher with ease, landing in a crouch at the edge of the pit beneath the medic station.

  Beru’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the fighter’s face for the first time. She knew those dark eyes. They haunted her dreams. And it was impossible that she was seeing them now.

  Hector Navarro was dead.

  Yet he was also right in front of her.

  His eyes flickered up to the cheering crowd and then caught on Beru’s. Satisfaction transformed into cold shock.

  Beru could not look away. Their gazes held, impervious to the chaos blaring around them. Beru couldn’t help but think of the last time he’d looked at her like this, his sword raised to bring her to her end.

  Then the clasped fists of the Bonecrusher crashed down on Hector, pummeling him into the sand.

  A jolt of sudden pain reverberated through Beru. She cried out, collapsing to the ground as though she were the one who’d been struck.

  “Are you all right?” Kala asked, rushing to Beru’s side to steady her. For a moment, Beru could not reply.

  “Crush him! Crush him!” the crowd chanted around them.

  “I’m fine,” Beru said weakly, just as another sharp jab of pain radiated out from her side. She clutched at Kala, gasping, and looked back down at the pit.

  The Bonecrusher had Hector raised above his head like a prized pelt. With a loud grunt, he heaved him into the air, tossing him into the side of the pit.

  Hector turned in midair, hitting the side of the pit feetfirst, and then sprang off, sailing toward the Bonecrusher. His knees hooked over the Bonecrusher’s broad shoulders. Twisting his body, Hector used his momentum to slam the Bonecrusher into the sand with a tremendous crash.

  The crowd was dead silent for a moment as the hulking fighter lay still. And then a roaring cheer went up, blocking out all other sound.

  Beru reached blindly for the bench behind her and sat down hard, the buzz of the crowd washing over her. Vaguely, she could hear Kala prepping the station behind her.

  Hector Navarro. Alive. It wasn’t possible. Was her mind playing tricks on her? Hector’s face haunted her dreams each night—maybe the haunting had spread to her daylight hours.

  She didn’t know what to feel. She had been so horrified when she’d realized that Ephyra had killed him. That had been her breaking point, the moment she could no longer live with what she was. What they had become, together.

  But now, as if it had never happened, Hector was alive. As if that awful day in the village of the dead had been erased.

  And the way her body had reacted when Hector had been struck by the Bonecrusher—she hadn’t imagined that sudden burst of pain.

  “Beru, I need you over there,” Kala said distractedly. Someone had already dragged the Bonecrusher into the medic station, and Kala was assessing his injuries. “Yandros, sit still.”

  Beru reached for another kit. It was only as she was making her way down the row of benches that Beru realized what Kala was asking her to do.

  Hector Navarro sat on the bench at the very end of the medic station, his shirt shucked off as he pressed h
is fingers against a fresh scrape on his forehead. He hadn’t seen her yet. She could still disappear into the crowd, make her excuses to Kala later.

  Beru stayed rooted to the spot, just watching him. And it was him. The same mess of dark hair, the same tall, corded frame. She stared, forgetting herself until he suddenly looked up, spotting her, and went still. Feeling strangely detached from her body, Beru approached.

  “Can I—can I see?” she said, indicating the cut on his face.

  He didn’t say anything, just slowly lowered his hand away from the wound without taking his eyes from hers.

  Beru knelt, her mind swirling with panic, grief, and confusion. Hector was dead. How was he sitting here, looking perfectly unharmed save for the injuries he’d sustained in the fight?

  She could not begin to ask him how he was alive, how any of this was possible, so instead she leaned toward him and gently touched his temple with her thumb. She felt a sudden stinging pain in her own temple, followed by a surge of dizziness. It felt as though the floor had dropped out from beneath her, like she had become unhooked from her body. Horror and anger and grief slithered through her like an invading poison.

  He jerked away. The expression on his face was one she had seen before—the moment he’d realized she was a revenant. And she realized exactly whose anger she was feeling.

  “What did you do to me?”

  She couldn’t speak. Her hand tingled where it had touched him.

  “Sandstorm!” a voice boomed to Beru’s right.

  Beru let out a breath as Hector’s attention turned to the Bonecrusher, who came stomping down the row of benches.

  “I want a rematch!” the Bonecrusher demanded.

  Hector’s expression slipped into lazy insouciance. “You want to get beaten again? If you insist.”

  “No one beats the Bonecrusher. I’ll prove it.”

  “Does it have to be right now?” Beru asked, rising from the ground.

  “This doesn’t concern you, little girl,” the Bonecrusher growled, advancing on her. “Stay out of it unless you want a turn in the pit.”

  Hector stood so quickly Beru almost didn’t see him move. “You want a rematch? Let me tie my arm behind my back so it’ll be a fair fight.”

  The Bonecrusher roared in anger. “I’ll break your arm, how’s that?”

  “Oh, for Keric’s sake,” Beru muttered, pushing herself between them. “You might as well take out your dicks and measure them.”

  The Bonecrusher and Hector stared at her with twin expressions of shock.

  “Yandros, why are you so mad at him anyway? Your masters keep you like a dog, hungry and ready to attack when they need you,” Beru said. “You should be angry at them.”

  “What did you just call him?” Hector asked, sounding perplexed.

  “Yandros,” Beru said, facing him. “That’s your name, isn’t it? You’re not the Bonecrusher. You’re not their attack dog. You’re a human, and I bet that under all that . . . muscle, you’ve got a good heart. Maybe you’ve just forgotten how to use it because you’ve had to use your fists for so long.”

  Yandros blinked at her. So did Hector.

  “We’ll . . . we’ll finish this later,” Yandros said, but all the fight was gone from his voice. He backed away and lumbered off without another word.

  Beru looked back at Hector, who was staring at her with an unreadable expression.

  “I forgot how good you are at that,” he said.

  “At what?” she asked.

  “Placating people who want to hurt you.”

  Beru knelt again, digging in her kit for a clean cloth, and then, taking care not to touch his bare skin, dabbed at his scrape. Their faces were inches away, and she could hear the sound of her own breath, ragged in her ears, as she worked. She fought to keep it even, to stop her hands from shaking.

  “You’re frightened,” he observed after a moment.

  “Did you come to this town looking for me?” she asked abruptly, holding his gaze.

  He shook his head.

  “I—How are you here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “I was hoping you would. There’s a gap in my memory. I remember Medea. I remember your sister arriving. And the next thing I remember was waking up in the desert, alone. I was found by a prisoner’s caravan. They brought me here, to the sandpits, to fight.”

  “You don’t remember what happened in Medea?” Beru asked, her voice weak. She let her gaze drift over him and realized that the pale handprint that had marked his throat in death was no longer there.

  What did it mean?

  “No,” Hector said. “What happened?”

  He had no idea what Ephyra had done to him. What Beru had done.

  She fastened a bandage over his scrape, pretending it took all her concentration. She didn’t have to tell him. She could leave this place and let him find out on his own. Turn her back on him the way she and Ephyra had when they’d killed his family.

  When she went to draw away, he caught her wrist, fingers curling around the black handprint that lay hidden under a cloth wrapping. His eyes were dark and intent, and she could feel her pulse racing under his thumb. And what was more, she could feel the desperate undertow of fear beneath his anger.

  His grip tightened. “Tell me.”

  Beru closed her eyes as unshed tears gathered there. “She killed you,” Beru said, her voice cracking. “Ephyra killed you to save my life.”

  “That’s impossible,” Hector said. He let her go, rising to his feet. A breath punched out of his chest. “She couldn’t have. I’m still alive.”

  She shook her head, rising too. “I don’t know how. It doesn’t make any sense that you’re here.”

  “Is she here?” Hector asked.

  “I left her in Medea. I couldn’t—can’t stand knowing what she did to you.”

  His face shuttered, his expression unreadable. “You should go.”

  “Hector,” she said, but he turned away from her.

  Beru froze, breath catching in her throat. She stared at Hector’s back, at the place beside his spine. There, just above his hip, was a black handprint.

  It nearly matched the one on her wrist.

  4

  HASSAN

  HASSAN’S COMPASS STILL POINTED TO THE LIGHT HOUSE. OR WHAT WAS LEFT of it, anyway.

  His gaze faltered over the blackened ruins on the shore. It felt like his city was no longer truly his own without its lighthouse.

  But here were more dire reasons why Nazirah was no longer the city he loved. Black and gold cloaked Witnesses marched their way down the street below. Hassan counted five of them, carrying chains and torches—not Godfire, just regular yellow flame—as they passed by the dark houses that lined the street. It was a quiet, residential neighborhood, far from the bustle of Ozmandith Road and the Artificers’ and Alchemists’ Quarters. There had been rumors that the Witnesses would be coming to this neighborhood, and the rumors had proven right. The Witnesses could only be here for one reason.

  He nudged Khepri, who was perched beside him on the roof. Soundlessly, she shifted her position, her body tense, her hand going to the blade at her hip.

  Hassan put a hand on her arm. Wait, he mouthed. With her Grace-enhanced sight, she could read his lips even in the dark.

  They both leaned forward, watching as the five Witnesses approached the door of one of the darkened homes. They paused there. Waiting for something.

  Three Herati soldiers emerged from the shadows at the other end of the street, wearing the distinctive uniforms of green and gold.

  Hassan glanced at Khepri and saw his own fear and anger reflected in her eyes.

  The Witness in the front of the group pulled out a hooked metal rod and the others stood back as he used it to break open the lock. The door swung in, and a light in the house turned on.

  “Now,” Khepri said, and prepared to jump.

  But Hassan held fast to her arm. “No. We need to find out where they’re taking
them.”

  A woman appeared at the door, looking incensed.

  “How dare you break into my home!” the woman yelled, facing down the Witnesses. “Who do you think you are?”

  “We are the loyal servants of the Immaculate One,” said the Witness with the metal rod. “We know you are harboring a heretic.”

  “Heretic?” the woman repeated. “Get out of my house! You have no right to be here.”

  “Hand over the heretic, by the order of the Hierophant,” the Witness said.

  The woman stared him down. “I would rather be paraded naked down Ozmandith Road than submit to you and your Hierophant.”

  “Restrain her,” the Witness said to the soldiers. Two of them moved forward to grab the woman. She dodged, striking at one of them and backing farther into the house, out of Khepri’s and Hassan’s view. They could hear glass breaking and a loud thump against the wall. A few moments later, the soldiers dragged the woman out of the house.

  “Let go of me!” she cried. Whipping her head around, she started to yell. “Help! Help!”

  Hassan felt Khepri tense under his hand. His grip was tight with the effort of staying still, of not leaping down and putting the Witnesses in their place.

  But they needed to know where the other Graced had been taken.

  The Witnesses poured into the house. Hassan and Khepri could only wait, knuckles clenched tight and hearts pounding furiously, until the Witnesses came back out again. And when they did, they were dragging another person, bound by Godfire chains.

  “Mom?” the girl asked, standing between the Witnesses and looking up at her mother, who stood helpless.

  She was a child. A child. No older than twelve.

  “Hassan,” Khepri said. It was just his name, but she packed so much meaning into that single word. They weren’t going to let a child get taken, no matter how much they needed to find out where the Witnesses would take her.

  “Let’s go,” Hassan said, and Khepri leapt from the roof. Hassan scrambled down behind her, making considerably more noise.

  “What is this?”