Page 214 of Brimstone

“Your oath mark,” he sighed, shaking his head.

Renfis nodded. “My oath mark. I was being called to serve. I didn’t have any choice but to go.”

I followed Renfis up a narrow set of stone steps cut into the face of the mountain, doing my damnedest not to look down or slip and fall on the treacherous ice. Onyx bounded up the stairs ahead of the brown-haired general, tongue lolling out of his head and full of energy, as if hehadn’tbeen dead less than an hour ago.

I grinned at the fox, overcome with relief . . . but I still managed to fake annoyance when I said, “Don’t leave me out, you two. What oath mark? What did you swear, Ren?”

The general ducked his head, seemingly embarrassed. His cloak swirled around him as he continued on up the stone steps. “You explain, brother,” he said, handing the task off to Fisher. “I’ve never liked telling this one.”

Kingfisher had insisted on coming up the steps behind me. He’d whispered something obscene into my head—something about staring at my ass and planning all the scandalous things he was going to do to it—but I knew he was only bringing up the rear so he could make sure I didn’t topple from the narrow steps and fall to my death. I was exhausted and genuinely worried I actually might do that, and so I hadn’t put up a fight.

He grunted under his breath. The wind whistled past my ears, but he didn’t raise his voice above its normal level; my hearing was just as sharp as his these days. “After we killed Old ’Shacry, the horde left Ajun, descending back down the mountain, and the people inside the city came out to bury their dead. Renfis’s sister was among their number. Merelle had always loved Ajun, so Ren asked the city elders if she could be buried here. They gave her a burial site at the very top of themountain—a high honor, in thanks for the sacrifice she made to protect the Ajun Fae.

“As soon as we were done laying Merelle to rest, Renfis felt a burning pain in his chest, much like the one he described just now. We were on our way back down into the city when he dropped down to his knees and let out a terrible roar.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Renfis cut in.

“So loud it caused anavalanche,” Fisher said, attitude coloring his voice. “The other mourners who’d been burying their loved ones at the top of the mountain knelt with Ren and began to pray. None of us had any clue what was happening. But the Ajun Fae told us that, as soon as your blood was one with the mountain, you belonged to it in a way. That, because Ren had buried his blood relative here, and she was his twin, no less, he was now a member of the Ajun Fae.”

“And only the Ajun can be called to join the knighthood who guard its gate,” Ren said quietly.

“So . . . you were called back here to watch the gate?”

“Not the gate that protects the city, Osha. Theothergate.”

A thrill of panic and adrenaline chased up my spine at that. Lorreth had told me of the other gate in the square at Inishtar. I’d promised that I wouldn’t go off on some harebrained mission to secure the brimstone we needed to stop the rot without Fisher, and in return Lorreth had told me where brimstonecamefrom.

“There’s always been a city here,” Fisher said. “Because there’s always been a gate. A portal between this world and another.”

“Like quicksilver but not,” I breathed. I could sense Fisher’s annoyance at that, that Lorreth had obviously told me what he had, but he refrained from voicing those feelings out loud.

“Yes. In many ways, the same. But in others not. The original Alchemists could never control it. Not even the strongest ofthem. It sent most of them mad. The gate would open by itself, and it wouldn’t close. Foul creatures used it as a doorway into this realm. They caused chaos and terror throughout Yvelia. Since no one could close the portal, the Knights of Orrithian were created. They were imbued with an old line of magic. Powerful. Six of them stand watch over the gate at all times, channeling their magic into wards that prevent all manner of evil from spilling into this world. They take it in shifts to protect not just Ajun butallof Yvelia.”

“When the quicksilver was stilled here, cutting us off from the other realms,” Renfis said, joining in the explanation despite himself, “the gate at Ajun remained open. Belikon declared it was a sign. He said that because it was the only gate left open, it would lead us to riches and glory. He brought a Faeling here to Ajun, to visit the gate. He was barely more than a boy. Belikon put a sword in his hand and declared that he should be the first to go through the gate and behold the paradise that waited for us on the other side.”

“Since this pool was different from all the other pools, he said I wouldn’t need the relic my mother gave me,” Fisher whispered.

Wait.

Lorreth hadn’t said anything aboutthis.

The stairs were steep, and the air was cold as ice, but those things had nothing to do with my sudden shortness of breath. “What are you talking about, Fisher?”

He carried on, speaking slowly, carefully, stripping all emotion from his words. “I was Oath Bound to him. Eleven years old. He said that I was already a fully grown male in his eyes, that I was ready to become a vaunted warrior of Yvelia, held in high esteem in his court. My mother had been dead a week, and he planted me on my knees in front of that stone and made me promise. It was easy for him after that. He ordered me to give him the relic, and then he ordered me into the pool.”

The wind howled as we climbed higher. It grew colder, too, sinking vicious teeth into the sensitive tips of my ears. I was trying to keep up, to understand what I was being told, but the cruelty of it all made it almost impossible.Thiswas where Kingfisher had entered the quicksilver.Thiswas where it had infected him from the inside out and almost driven him mad.

“I did as my king commanded. I stepped into the pool. As soon as my bare feet touched the tainted ore, I knew I was going to die. I was transported to another realm. A place . . .” Fisher trailed off, as if he’d reached the midpoint of his sentence and found the rest of the words suddenly missing.

“The king and his men waited for two hours for the Faeling to return,” Ren said. “And when he didn’t come back, the king feigned the loss of his stepson, the only remaining link to his precious Edina. He’d already bequeathed Cahlish along with the title that accompanied the land to his seneschal when the pool erupted and spat the Faeling out. His eyes were rimmed silver like the stars.”

“I didn’t know myself,” Fisher whispered. “It took me a long time to come back . . .mentally. Belikon was disappointed. He’d thought it a good way to dispose of me. One of the Orrithian Knights returned my relic to me, and Belikon sent me off to learn the trade of killing in his war camps.”

Ren had reached the top of the stairs and was waiting for us, grim-faced. “Inexplicably, the Ajun pool closed that day,” he said. “It’s opened and closed three times since, without warning. The knights always remained to guard it, just in case. No one’s been called to replace any of them in centuries. Until now.”

Those words. Where had I heard them before? It came back to me quickly. Back in Cahlish, in Everlayne’s room. Fisher’s sister had thrashed and shook on the bed, and that awful, dead voice had risen and come forth from her mouth.The gate is open. It cannot be closed. The gate is open. The gate is open . . .

“It opened again, didn’t it?” I whispered.