As the Shadow Rises: Book Two of The Age of Darkness Page 7

  “Who else knows about this place besides you?” Numir asked.

  “No one,” Shara replied.

  “Well, someone was definitely searching for something,” Parthenia said, kneeling by one of the chests and righting it.

  “The question is,” Ephyra said, her heart thudding, “did they find it?”

  “Maybe one of Badis’s old crew returned to their former hideout?” Numir asked. Parthenia kicked her, not very subtly. “Ow. What?”

  “They’re all dead, too,” Shara said, letting a telescope fall with a thunk.

  A chill shivered down Ephyra’s spine.

  “What if . . .” Hadiza swallowed. “What if whoever broke into our hideout knew that Badis had the key to finding the Chalice?”

  Before Shara could answer, a dull thump echoed through the room. It thumped again, louder. It was coming from the back wall of the hideout.

  Shara’s eyes widened and she strode briskly across the room. Ephyra stepped back, her hand going to the dagger at her belt.

  Shara seized the handle sticking out of the stone wall.

  “What are you doing?” Ephyra hissed. “Whoever’s here could be dangerous!”

  Shara rolled her eyes. “Relax.” She tugged on the handle, and the wall began to move. “There’s a reason Badis picked this place as his hideout. This secret room is where he kept all of his really valuable stuff. See, it’s not that hard to find a secret room, if you know where to look. He made sure there were other precautions in place. Once you go into the room, it doesn’t let you back out, unless you know the password.”

  The wall opened, revealing a steel cage behind it.

  “I thought I heard voices,” mused the man behind the bars. “I don’t suppose you’re here to jailbreak me, are you?”

  It took a moment for Ephyra to realize she’d heard that voice before. Out of the shadows stepped a man she’d once tried to kill.

  Illya Aliyev.

  7

  JUDE

  JUDE WALKED BRISKLY THROUGH THE COVERED WALKWAY, KEEPING HIS GAZE level as he passed the Paladin practice yards and rounded the storeroom at the edge of the barracks.

  Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, Jude slipped behind the main row of barracks to the outpost building. He didn’t want to have to explain to anyone what he was doing visiting the Herati refugees.

  At the request of Prince Hassan, over one hundred of the Herati refugees from Pallas Athos had returned to Kerameikos with the Order of the Last Light. And though the prince had turned out not to be the Prophet—had turned out, in fact, to be the Deceiver, the first of the harbingers spoken of in the final prophecy—the Order had nevertheless honored his wish to keep the refugees safe. A decision Jude was grateful for—for more than one reason.

  He felt the refugees’ eyes on him as soon as he entered. A young woman approached him.

  “Keeper of the Word,” she greeted him. “What brings you here?”

  Jude’s stomach dropped at the title. He was still Keeper, for now. Yesterday’s questioning by the Tribunal proved that might not be true for long.

  “I need to speak with your healer,” he replied.

  She glanced at him, and Jude fought the urge to touch the cloak that wound around his neck. “Of course. This way.”

  She led him toward a small patch of grass that the refugees had converted into a garden. Two women, both at least twice Jude’s age, knelt in the dirt.

  “Sekhet!” the woman beside Jude called.

  One of the older women looked up.

  “The Keeper of the Word would like to speak with you.”

  The healer hobbled toward him, her wrinkled face scrunched in bemusement. “What can I help you with?”

  “There’s a matter I wish to discuss with you,” Jude answered. “A . . . delicate matter.”

  She seemed to understand at once. She signaled to her fellow gardener that she’d be back and then led Jude into a covered hut at the edge of the yard. As the door closed behind him, Jude undid his cloak, letting it fall from his throat and over his shoulders.

  The healer’s eyes widened as she took in the sight, but she said nothing.

  “You’ve seen this before,” Jude said, touching one finger to the pale scars that branched down his throat and clawed toward his heart. “Or something like it.”

  “I have,” the healer agreed. “Once, after the Witnesses took Nazirah.”

  “Godfire,” Jude said.

  The healer reached toward him. “May I?”

  Jude bowed his head in acquiescence. The healer’s hands were cool and clinical as she pushed aside the cloth of Jude’s tunic to see the span of the scars. She tilted him this way and that, examining him.

  “The Godfire burns I saw were . . . much worse,” she told him. “But the pattern of these scars are the same.”

  “I was burned in Nazirah,” he said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she replied, drawing her hands away. And she truly did sound sorry. “I’ve seen what it can do. I’ve witnessed the pain. Helped my patient through the worst of it.”

  “That’s the thing,” Jude said. “I don’t feel any pain. When I first woke up I did, but now . . . nothing.”

  The healer blinked at him. “No pain is usually a good thing.”

  Jude swallowed, pressing his lips together tightly. “When the pain subsided, I thought that it might mean my Grace would return to me.”

  On one of their last days aboard the ship before they’d returned to Kerameikos, Jude had woken up and his first sensation had been hunger. Not nausea from the pain, not the hollow ache of the burns, not the waves of burning and freezing. He had simply lain in bed, his stomach rumbling, laughing with relief. He remembered closing his eyes and reaching for his Grace.

  And feeling nothing.

  “I haven’t felt it. Not once since Nazirah.” He looked up, meeting the healer’s gaze. “It’s gone, isn’t it?”

  The healer was silent for a long moment. “From what I saw of the soldier who suffered the Godfire burns, the pain of losing his Grace was . . . immense. By the end of it, he could no longer speak. He was all but catatonic.”

  “By the end of it,” Jude repeated slowly.

  “He died,” the healer said gently. “It was as though without his Grace, his body slowly lost its will to function. It shut down.”

  A chill prickled over Jude as he touched his scar again. Is that what would happen to him? Was it happening already without his knowledge?

  “There is hope,” the healer said. “It’s not as if we know everything there is to know about Godfire and its effects. Until a few months ago, we didn’t even know it existed. And based on what you’ve told me, there may be a chance that your Grace was merely damaged and that there may be some way to repair it.”

  “How?”

  “That, I don’t know.”

  Jude closed his eyes. A chance. He needed more than that. Without his Grace, he could not fulfill his duties as Keeper of the Word. And in that case, the Tribunal might as well label him an oathbreaker. If he could not protect the Prophet, if he could not fulfill the promise he’d made to Anton aboard the ship, he had no place in the Order anyway.

  “I wish there was more I could do,” the healer said. “Perhaps the Order’s scholars may know of something that could help you?”

  “No,” Jude said, too quickly. “I mean—there are far more important matters they need to be tending to.”

  The healer’s eyes darkened with understanding. “Ah. How long do you intend to keep this a secret?”

  Jude swallowed. “Until I know whether or not I can fix it.”

  The healer nodded. “I won’t tell anyone. And I will keep looking for answers for you. I will ask the other refugees as well. Some of them knew others in Nazirah who were also marked by Godfire.”

  Jude didn’t ask this time whether any of those people were still alive.

  Jude entered the silent temple, consecrating himself with the chrism oil at
the threshold. The last time he had stepped into this holy place, his father had told him that the Prophet had been found, and Jude’s life had irrevocably changed.

  Now, it was about to change again. His Grace was gone. The Pinnacle Blade, lost. And tomorrow, when the Tribunal delivered their verdict, he might lose everything else, too. His position as Keeper of the Word. His Guard. His place in Kerameikos. His destiny.

  He wondered when the exact moment was that he’d broken his oath. Was it when he’d walked out of the villa in Pallas Athos, away from the person he believed was the Prophet? The moment he’d chosen Hector for his Guard?

  Or even earlier, the night that Jude had turned to see Hector’s body washed in moonlight and realized for the first time he wanted nothing so much as he wanted to touch him. Or perhaps it was much later, standing in a gambler’s den, his golden torc clutched in his hand as a bartering chip. Throwing his lot in with sailors and scoundrels. Trusting his fate to a gambling thief he barely knew.

  But then, that gambling thief had turned out to be the Prophet.

  Maybe it was none of those moments. Maybe Jude hadn’t broken his oaths at all. Maybe all that self-doubt and fear and yes, maybe even his faithless yearning, maybe it all had led him to Anton. To the Prophet.

  But soon, if the Tribunal went the way Jude feared, Anton would no longer be his responsibility.

  Someone drew up beside Jude.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you,” Penrose said.

  Jude opened his eyes. “Should you be speaking with me? The Tribunal might consider this—”

  “Jude,” Penrose said. “Please. I came to explain myself.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything, Penrose,” Jude answered wearily.

  “You deserved to hear it from me,” Penrose said. “Alone. Not in front of everyone. I’m sorry it happened like that.”

  “You don’t owe me anything,” Jude said. “What you said yesterday was the truth, wasn’t it? I abandoned my duty, and more than that, I—” He broke off. “I messed up in choosing my Guard. I chose Hector because I—well, you know why. And I left to chase after him instead of doing my duty. You all almost died in that lighthouse in Nazirah because of me.”

  “You found the Prophet,” Penrose said, her voice low but steady. “You saved him. You brought him to us.”

  Jude turned, walking away from Penrose toward the threshold of the temple.

  “He needs you, Jude,” Penrose called after him. “He doesn’t trust any of us, but he trusts you. He asks about you. Just talk to him, please.”

  Jude turned to her sharply. “Did you tell him?”

  “That you asked not to see him?” she said. “No. He thinks the Tribunal won’t let him.”

  “Good,” he said, reaching up to touch his neck, where the scars webbed out. “I can’t help him. I can’t help anyone.”

  “So you’re just giving up?”

  Jude breathed in slowly, pretending he was doing a koah. Except he couldn’t do koahs anymore because he had no Grace.

  “After your testimony,” Jude said tonelessly as he turned to face Penrose, “the Tribunal will have no choice but to strip me of my title, and at the very least exile me.”

  “You don’t know that,” Penrose said. “You don’t—”

  “I do,” Jude replied. “And you do, too. It should have been you from the beginning. If you were born to the Weatherbourne line, none of this would be happening.”

  Penrose drew back as though he’d lunged at her. “You can’t really believe that. That is . . . that is blasphemy against the Prophets. They chose you.”

  “Then they made a mistake.” He looked away. He didn’t want to tell her about his lack of Grace. It was too shameful, too horrible, and Jude was too afraid of seeing his own fear echoed in Penrose’s eyes.

  “How dare you,” Penrose said, fire in her voice. “How dare you question the Seven. How dare you even think you know better than them. You were so desperate to fight for Hector, yet you’ve already given up on yourself.”

  Hector’s name felt like a knife in an already bleeding wound. Jude had been willing to throw away everything—his duty, his oaths, the Order—just to keep Hector by his side.

  And it hadn’t been enough.

  He turned his back on Penrose once more. “Take care of the Prophet.”

  He walked out of the temple before she could reply. He didn’t know why he’d come. The Prophets were gone. They had no answers for him.

  The last light of the sun was fading as Jude made his way over the bridge and toward the fort. He bypassed the pathway that would lead him back to his barracks. He didn’t want to sleep. Usually, in such a state, Jude would go to his favorite place in all of Kerameikos—the foot of the highest waterfall, where he used to perform his morning koahs.

  That place reminded him of Hector, the way they used to practice their koahs there together, the one place in the fort where they could be entirely themselves. It was in that place, too, that Jude had realized what he felt for Hector. And in the same moment, realized that he was never going to be the person he was supposed to be.

  He didn’t want to remember that person. He wanted to forget him entirely, forget his shame, forget his own name. He wanted to forget that Jude Weatherbourne had ever existed at all.

  8

  HASSAN

  HASSAN AND KHEPRI SPENT THEIR FIRST MORNING AT THE GREAT LIBRARY exploring the rebel base.

  They had met most of the other rebels the night before in the observatory over cups of palm wine and plates of spiced stew, although Arash had not made an appearance. They’d reunited with some of their own soldiers—Faran had found his way to the Scarab’s Wing, along with a dozen others. Their bellies full and their hearts warm, Hassan and Khepri stumbled back to their room and into exhausted sleep.

  In the morning, after breakfast, Hassan had left Khepri to catch up with her brothers, and explored the familiar rooms of the Library alone, seeing how the rebels had transformed it into a functional base. It was almost funny—as a child, he’d been wildly jealous of the apprentices who got to live and work in the Library full-time. Nothing would convince him that living in the palace was superior. And now here he was.

  “Your Grace!” One of the rebels Hassan had met the previous night stood frozen in the doorway of a reading nook where Hassan sat, paging through a familiar volume of Sufyan’s Histories. The boy was young, perhaps younger than Hassan, and clearly had not expected Hassan’s sudden appearance.

  “No need for that,” Hassan said, waving him off. “Have you by any chance seen Khepri?”

  They’d agreed to meet back up before dinner.

  The boy nodded. “She was just in the workshops wing. Arash and the other leaders are having a meeting. They asked her to join them.”

  Hassan felt a prickle of irritation. Why would they have asked Khepri to join them but not him? It wouldn’t have been hard to send someone to fetch Hassan.

  His thoughts must have showed on his face, because the boy hastily added, “I’m sure you would have been invited, too.”

  Hassan nodded, shutting his book with more force than was strictly necessary. “I’m sure. Where is this meeting happening?”

  The boy hesitated. He was not, it seemed, sure that Hassan would have been invited.

  “The alchemy workshop,” he said at last.

  Hassan thanked him and then took off at a brisk clip. As he approached, he heard voices from within the alchemy workshop.

  Steeling himself, Hassan strode to the door and pushed it open.

  All conversation halted as he stepped inside. More than a dozen rebels, including Khepri, sat around a table in the middle of the workshop.

  “Your Grace!”

  Half the people seated rose to acknowledge Hassan. Arash, he noted, remained seated.

  “I heard there was an important meeting called,” Hassan said lightly. He kept his gaze on Arash and did not let himself glance at Khepri.

  “Just our usua
l strategy meeting,” Arash replied, matching Hassan’s airy tone. “You’re welcome to join us.”

  “As the Prince of Herat and sole heir to the throne, I think I should be here, don’t you?”

  Arash looked at him coolly. “Tirzet, please find the prince a cushion.”

  A willowy woman turned on her heel and carried a thick sitting cushion over to the table, placing it opposite from Arash.

  Hassan kept his eyes on Arash as he sank onto it.

  “We were just discussing our next mission,” Arash said. “We’d love your help.”

  “What are you planning?” Hassan asked.

  “As you may know,” Arash said, “the coronation of the new Queen of Herat is to be held in a week’s time.”

  Hassan’s blood heated. Lethia’s betrayal was still a fresh wound.

  “We thought we’d make our own demonstration to the city,” Arash went on. “During the procession.”

  “What kind of demonstration?” Hassan asked.

  Arash glanced at Zareen, the girl Hassan had met the previous day.

  “We want to create a disruption,” Zareen said. “I’ve been working with the other alchemists on smoke bombs.”

  “Smoke bombs?” Hassan asked. “The coronation is going to be crowded with civilians. If we set off smoke bombs, it could cause a panic. And aside from that, Lethia’s coronation is just a distraction. We should be learning more about what the Witnesses are planning.”

  Arash looked at him mildly. “We’re not working defensively here. If we waited to find out what the Witnesses were doing in order to act, we’d be constantly at their mercy. We want them on the defensive.”

  “If we make plans without any knowledge of what the Witnesses are up to, we run the risk of causing even more mayhem,” Hassan protested.

  “We are rebels,” Arash said dismissively. “Our job is not to keep peace in Nazirah. It is to overthrow this regime by any means necessary.”