Page 2 of House of Dusk

SEPHRE

S he followed Beroe along the hallway, darkly wondering what state she’d find her workshop in when she returned.

She’d left Timeus cleaning up the bed of kitchen herbs, which at the very least wouldn’t poison the lad.

She just hoped he didn’t accidentally root out the carefully tended hibiscus she’d finally managed to shepherd through the cold, wet Helissoni winter.

“They’ve laid the corpse in the crypt,” said Beroe, turning down a side passage that descended in a twist of narrow stone. She lifted one hand. A spark of yellow flame kindled in her palm, lighting their way.

“Where was she found?”

“Two shepherds spotted her body this morning, in one of the ravines along the southern road. She’d been missing for five days.”

Well, that didn’t bode well, though it could explain why they had been unable to reach the girl’s spirit.

Sephre drew in a bracing breath as they emerged from the stairs.

She regretted it instantly. The air reeked of sweet smoke, nearly making her gag.

And not just smoke, she realized. A fouler scent beneath it. Rot.

Four braziers had been set at the corners of the low, square chamber. Those must be the source of the incense-laden smoke. The other smell came from the stone plinth at the center of the room, where a linen-shrouded form lay still and silent.

Sephre’s legs stopped moving, pinning her at the threshold, her mind lurching back again to the silent streets. The hum of flies. She curled her hands into fists, fingernails biting her palms, bringing her back to herself.

“Agia.” She dipped her head to the woman standing beside the plinth, her tunic a white blaze in the gloom, the sleeves embroidered with blue flames that matched the sparks kindling in the depths of her dark eyes.

Halimede was a small woman, and it seemed to Sephre that she shrank a little more with every passing year.

As if the flame she carried was burning her away, bit by bit, until only skin and bones and holiness remained.

And yet being in her presence was like standing beside the sea. Or beneath an achingly clear sky full of stars. Something vast and timeless that made all your troubles seem small as ants.

“Thank you for coming, sister,” said Halimede. “I’m sorry to ask this of you, but we must know if—” She paused, seeming to reconsider her words, “—what became of her.”

“I thought it was a snakebite.” Tragic, but not uncommon. And for all that Beroe might see some uncanny hand at work, Sephre did not think Halimede the sort to leap to conclusions. But the agia was clearly troubled by something.

“Perhaps,” she said. “But I would still value your input.”

Sephre swallowed. Her eyes avoided the plinth. “But she was bitten?”

It was Beroe who answered, moving to the corpse. “Yes. Here, on her arm.”

The shroud was loose, the wrappings untied. The linen rested lightly, tracing the lines of the small body beneath. Only the girl’s right arm was uncovered. Her skin was gray and mottled, but even so the punctures were clearly visible, raw and red.

Sephre took a step closer. If she focused on the bite, she wouldn’t have to think about the fingernails, trimmed short and neat. Or wonder who had woven the beaded bracelet clasping the girl’s wrist. None of that was her concern.

She measured the space between the punctures with a fingertip. “It wasn’t large. Probably a brown viper. They’re common enough in these hills.” As a girl she’d learned to watch for them sunning themselves.

“And are they common enough in the middle of libraries in the heart of the royal city?” Beroe arched a brow.

Halimede made a quelling gesture. “Go on, Sister Sephre. Tell us what you see.”

Right. No sense in dithering. She pulled back the shroud. Beroe made a small noise and retreated several paces. Sephre remained silent, but only because she’d been grinding her jaw tight in preparation.

Five days in the hills had not been kind to the girl. Sephre would have put the time at twice that, based on the state of the corpse. In a way, it was a relief. The bodies that haunted Sephre were fresh. Their eyes stared at her untouched. Even Zander’s, startlingly blue, staring up into the night.

No. Not now. The blue eyes faded away, lost in the shimmer of yellow sparks.

She forced herself to focus on small details.

To think of the corpse as a stretch of soil she was working, one patch at a time.

Eventually the job would be done, but she owed it to the girl to do it properly.

The poor thing couldn’t be more than fifteen.

And here Sephre was, three times that and alive in spite of everything. The Fates had a bitter sense of humor.

“What was her name?” She should have asked the question sooner.

“Iola,” said Halimede.

Time passed. Sephre’s shoulders knotted, muscles in her back twitching.

There were a few scrapes and bruises, nothing out of the ordinary for a hill girl.

She’d broken her arm, but that was years ago, and mended well.

“There’s no sign of any other serious injury,” she said wearily, as she worked her way down the girl—Iola’s—left leg.

“The snakebite must be what killed her.” She hesitated.

“Though by the state of her body I would’ve guessed she’d been dead far longer than five days. ”

Halimede’s eyes sparked. “What could cause that? Venom?”

Sephre shook her head. “Some venom causes putrefaction, but not like this.”

“What’s that?” Beroe asked. “Just above her ankle.”

A bruise? No, the dark mark was too regular, too precise. Sephre leaned closer, lifting the girl’s foot gently as she called a spark of light to her free hand to illuminate the mottled flesh.

The shadows fled, revealing a sort of faceted ring. Seven points linked by seven lines. Her breath slid out uncertainly, not wanting to leap to conclusions.

Beroe had no such compunctions. She made a sound a charitable person might call outrage, but which sounded more like triumph to Sephre’s admittedly biased ears. “The Serpent!”

“How is that the serpent?” It looked nothing like a snake to Sephre.

“It’s a constellation,” said Beroe, impatiently. “A star sign.”

“I know what a constellation is.”

“Then you know the Serpent’s constellation is made up of seven stars. Just like this mark.”

Sephre did not know that, but she wasn’t about to admit it to Beroe.

She had grown up in the mountains, taught by the slash of wind and demands of her father’s sheep.

She knew the Spear of Breseus that foretold the coming of winter.

The bright eye of the Beetle that always hung constant in the north, guiding her home on late nights bringing in the flock.

And she remembered her father, one lean finger tracing lines across her freckled cheek.

The sign of the Archer. You must have been a great hero in some past life.

It was a common belief, that the Fates left such marks, hazy portents of what might be, if you could divine them from the freckles on your skin or the lines on your palm.

But the mark on Iola was something more than freckles.

The lines were dark, as if drawn in ink.

Sephre swallowed the tightness from her throat.

She thought of Zander’s arms, so beautifully banded from elbow to wrist with complex chevrons that entreated some Scarthian wind spirit to guard him.

Was this mark a similar invocation? Meant to protect? If so, it had failed.

Beroe turned away. The corpse had served its purpose, and now her attention was on Halimede. “Agia, we can’t ignore this. The signs are clear.”

“What makes you think I’m ignoring this?”

The agia’s arched brow would have sent Sephre to her knees in obeisance, but it only drew Beroe taller. “You haven’t even informed King Hierax of these deaths.”

“Because we still don’t understand the nature of them. The girl’s mark could be a coincidence.”

“And forty-seven deaths by snakebite in a single year? Is that a coincidence? Even Sister Sephre admits that the body has been corrupted beyond what she’d expect.

Beyond what is natural .” Righteous sparks snapped in Beroe’s eyes.

“If the Serpent has returned, only the Ember King can banish him. And yet you refuse to recognize him.”

“I recognize that Hierax rules Helisson.” Halimede spoke softly, but with iron in her words. “But we belong to the Phoenix. Not to any mortal king, even if he is the Ember King reborn.”

“Even if ?” Beroe huffed. “Hierax brought the Faithful Maiden home to Helissa, just as the sibyl foretold. He cast down those who cursed and defiled her bones. He has proven beyond doubt that he is Heraklion reborn, the hero of all ages!”

Sephre could bite her tongue no longer. “He sat safe in his palace while thousands of soldiers died across the sea.”

Beroe’s mouth folded flat. “Died gloriously, to bring home his long-lost queen.”

Sephre drew the shroud over the corpse in a single, sharp motion.

Her words wouldn’t sway Beroe, any more than her own father’s warnings had swayed her.

I know it looks like freedom, lass. Coin, companions, a chance to leave this simple life.

But you will be a tool. Are you so sure you trust the hand that wields you?

At least he hadn’t lived to see her shame.

By the time she understood, by the time she returned home with laurels on her brow and blood on her hands, her father had been two years in his shroud.

She’d visited the crypt, whispered to him that he was right.

Some said that the spirits in the labyrinth could hear the prayers of the living.

Maybe it had given him strength to find his way through the perilous land of the dead, to win rebirth. His body had fallen to ash soon after.