Page 27 of House of Dusk

“No,” he said, with infuriating calm. “You’re going to let me go. Because you know I’m not your enemy.”

“You drugged me!”

“You needed the sleep,” he replied, glibly. “And I saved your life. You owe me.”

She bit down, stifling a growl. He had begun to back away from her, slowly, pace by pace. “Wait,” she called. “Come back with me to Stara Bron. If this is true, the agia needs to know.”

This could have something to do with Halimede’s oath. With the whatever-it-was that Halimede had sworn to keep hidden, to prevent a second cataclysm. With her suggestion that the Ember King’s true story was not the one scribed so neatly in ink.

“Alas, I must decline,” said Nilos. “I’d prefer to avoid being roasted like a spitted hare. Besides, I’m not the one with the answers you need.” Another step. He was nearly to the edge of the hilltop. “You need to find the Faithless Maiden.”

Faith less ? Sephre knew of the Faith ful Maiden, of course. She’d gone to war for her, after all. Was he speaking of the same woman? “That’s it?” she demanded. “Riddles and nonsense? That’s all you can give me?”

He winked. “Sorry. No time for anything more just now.”

Insufferable man. She lifted her hands, yellow flames snapping from her fingers. “Who is the Faithless Maiden?”

“ You should know better than I,” he answered, with a strange twist to his lips.

“What does that mean?” Her brain stumbled.

“Why me?” She was suddenly deeply afraid of what he might say next.

It was the same icy flicker of fear she’d felt when Halimede had spoken of Agia Cerydon’s warning.

There are those who carry the weight of the past, even if they do not know it.

Many things may be reborn, not just the Ember King.

Nilos cocked his head, letting the possibilities gnaw at her for another heartbeat before answering. “She ended her days in your temple. But then, the secrets of the Embraced are always held close.”

“The Embraced?” Sephre repeated, stupidly, thinking she must have misheard.

A few more paces and he would be beyond her sight. Probably beyond her reach. She remembered how fast he’d moved, back in the barn.

When he’d saved her life.

“Don’t worry,” he said, almost cheerfully. “We’ll meet again. You have something I need. And one day you’ll ask me to claim it.”

Enough. She flung a fistful of flames straight at him.

He leapt easily aside. She had one last glimpse of his grass-green eyes, a slice of a grin, and then he was gone, down the far side of the hilltop.

· · ·

The baby’s parents insisted that Sephre and Timeus join their evening meal and stay the night.

And it was hard to find a good reason to refuse, given that the likely alternative would be spending the night in the same barn they had sheltered in the previous evening, eating the last stale crusts of their travel rations.

“Do you think more skotoi will come?” Timeus asked her. He should have been asleep by then, curled under his cloak on the opposite side of the hearth.

“And face Brother Timeus the skotos-slayer? I doubt it.”

A muffled huff. She could practically feel the heat of his blush. “It was just an oil lamp,” he said. “Not the holy flame.”

“It was quick thinking. It was a deed worthy of an ashdancer. When I was a novice, the only thing I managed to set on fire was a tray of Sister Obelia’s apricot cakes, and that was because I put too much wood in the oven.”

Timeus stifled a laugh. Good. He needed his sleep, not a restless night worrying about unholy demons. That was Sephre’s job.

But the laugh faded quickly into a too-thoughtful silence. “What about Nilos? Do you think he’ll come after you?”

We’ll meet again. You have something I need.

“Let me worry about that,” she said, gruffly. “You should sleep. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

“I know. Sorry. I keep thinking about what he said. Or what you said he said. How could anyone have a piece of the Serpent’s power in them, and not know it?”

Sephre flinched, even though she knew he was talking about Castor and Iola. She hadn’t shared Nilos’s suggestion that she herself might also carry such a fragment. It was probably just another lie. She brushed her fingers over her arm, feeling nothing.

“And what do you think he did with it? Do you think he has a lot of them? I wonder how many there are.”

Good questions. “I don’t know,” she said, wearily. “Try to clear your mind. Think about something peaceful. Count your breaths. Agia Halimede will know what to do.”

Sephre had considered trying to chase after Nilos, but she had no idea what she would do if she managed to catch him. It was more important to tell the agia what they had learned. You need to find the Faithless Maiden.

Faith less . Not Faith ful . But he must be speaking of the same woman. Sephre supposed the Serpent would see the Maiden as his enemy, an ally of the Ember King. And it was she who had tricked him into yielding up what would become the Ember King’s most powerful weapon.

There were several variations on the legend of Heraklion.

In one, he was born a humble shepherd but was sought out by a soothsayer who foresaw his greatness in the stars.

In another, he came from across the sea in a boat of whalebone and silk.

There was even a version where he fell from the sky, and was found a naked child, alone in a hollow of melted glassy stone.

But all the stories agreed that Heraklion was brave and strong and true.

And of course such a man must have a beloved who was equally superlative: the most beautiful and clever in all the land.

So wondrous that even the god of death fell under her spell, and wished to claim her for himself.

On the day Heraklion was to marry his beloved, the Serpent struck, stealing her away to his sinuous and poison-threaded labyrinth to be his own bride.

But this Faithful Maiden—unlike Heraklion, her name was not recorded, which struck Sephre as deeply unfair—refused to be seduced by the Serpent.

Instead, she tricked him and managed to steal a fang from his own jaws.

Escaping back to the mortal world with her prize, the Maiden found her way to Heraklion, gifting him the fang with her dying breath, telling him to turn it against the Serpent.

For the god of death had already begun to wreak vengeance on the living world, unleashing the terrors of the cataclysm. The earth shattered, sinking entire islands, burying others in ash and molten earth, tearing apart the old empire.

Weeping for his lost love, Heraklion crafted the fang into the blade Letheko, the dagger of oblivion, with the power to destroy a spirit utterly.

Because of course the dagger had a name, while the woman who had sacrificed herself to gain it was left anonymous.

With the weapon, Heraklion destroyed the Serpent, but was himself mortally wounded.

He died promising that he would be reborn when next the world needed its most bright and shining hero.

So that was Hierax. And who was she to argue otherwise? Maybe the original Ember King had been an arrogant jackass too. She had seen plenty of terrible people accomplish great deeds in her time. Maybe you had to be a bit terrible, to make your mark on the world.

Or maybe the Ember King in those stories was a lie, as Halimede’s oath suggested. If so, maybe the real Faithful Maiden was not the brave and loyal woman of legend. Maybe she was in fact Faithless.

Which led to the second part of Nilos’s accusation.

Another troubling tidbit she had not shared with Timeus.

The secrets of the Embraced are always held close.

Was he saying that the Maiden—whether Faithless or Faithful—had been Embraced?

That instead of dying tragically in Heraklion’s arms, she somehow managed to make her way to Stara Bron so that some long-dead agia—perhaps the Cerydon that Halimede spoke of? —could burn her past away?

Why? What had she done that was so terrible?

And if that was true, how had her bones ended up far to the south, in Bassara, so treasured that her defenders would rather fight a war than yield them to Hierax? That question rankled most of all. Furies take the man.

“You’re right,” said Timeus. “I’ll try that.

Sorry.” A rustle, as he turned on his side.

“It’s just so strange, the way the world works.

I thought when I came to Stara Bron it would be boring.

Not boring in a bad way,” he corrected, hastily, “but, you know, mostly prayers and chores. Not fighting skotoi and rescuing babies from serpent cultists! Rhea will be so jealous! She’s probably still in training, sticking arrows in straw dummies. ”

“There’s nothing wrong with prayers and chores. And you’d have been safer if you stayed at Stara Bron.” She grimaced. “I shouldn’t have gotten you into this.”

“No,” he protested. “This has been the best week of my life!”

She shushed him. “You’ll undo all our goodwill if you wake that baby.”

“Sorry,” he whispered. “But it’s true, sister. I never thought I’d actually do anything worthwhile. I once overheard Mother telling Rhea that I must have been a wastrel in my last life, because I wasn’t amounting to much in this one.”

“Your mother sounds like a fool,” said Sephre, too tired to be tactful. “You’re doing a fine job with this life, from what I see. Skotos-slayer, remember?”

Silence. Then, softly, “Thank you, sister.”

And finally, blessedly, a rumble of sleeping breaths.

She ought to take her own advice. But Sephre had no peaceful thoughts.

She tried to imagine herself in the garden at Stara Bron, the sunlight filtering green through the vines, the air heavy with pollen and summer sweetness.

But dark coiling shapes rippled in the shadows.

She could imagine she heard them now, beyond the tight stone walls of the cottage.

And when she counted, all she could see were the bodies, tumbled in the streets of a city across the sea. A city that no longer existed. A city she had helped kill.

Groaning, she flipped onto her other side. She needed sleep, or tomorrow would be unbearable. In spite of herself, she thought of Nilos’s wine. His wry smile. You needed the sleep.

If she’d thought to bring dreamfast with her, she would have taken it. But instead, she had only the hollow echoes of her own skull, the rattle of her fears, and the holy flame kindling in her chest.

It was the flame she turned to, in the end, desperate. Please. Make it stop. Just let me sleep .

The sparks rose, warm and hungry. Her thoughts fell to ash, and darkness swam up to claim her.