Page 36 of House of Dusk

She bit the inside of her cheek. “He claimed he wasn’t responsible for the murders. He might not be our enemy.”

Ichos regarded her for a long moment. “It’s not my job to decide that. My job is to serve the Ember King.”

Was there the faintest twist of bitterness on the words? Maybe even despair?

“Does your father often send you to kill his enemies?” she asked.

There it was again, in his eyes. It was achingly familiar. For a moment his jaw worked, and she thought he might answer. But all he said was “Good day, sister,” as he quit the room.

· · ·

Sephre glanced around the garden. She could almost slip right back into her old, comfortable groove. The mint needed thinning, and there was plessuda root to grind. Timeus was with the other novices, enduring one of Sibling Vasil’s notorious meditation exercises. The herbarium was serene and quiet.

Instead, she held her breath and slipped the codex out from the jar of exceedingly well-named offalwort leaves where she’d been keeping it hidden, trusting that the noxious stench would ward off both overly curious novices and nosy royal advisors.

Not that Sephre had seen much of Lacheron in the past two days. He spent much of his time in the temple archives, and she had invented a plethora of urgent tasks that kept her busy in the herbarium and safely out of sight. The short interview in the Hall of Doors had been more than enough.

Ichos was likewise absent, having departed in pursuit of Nilos soon after their awkward conversation in the infirmary. And there was absolutely nothing she could do about that. She certainly couldn’t warn Nilos, even if she wanted to. Which she didn’t.

What she wanted was answers, but thus far the codex had not given her anything but more questions. She flipped through the mold-mottled pages, but they were as impenetrable as they had been the last dozen times. The only clues were the tantalizing handful of fragments she’d already gleaned.

She smoothed a hand over the battered leather case. Who were you? What did you do? Where did you hide it? And why?

Only silence answered her. She snorted. What was she expecting? She was no sibyl, just another flawed and foolish mortal. It hadn’t been the Fates that led her to the codex. Only her own curiosity and a draft in an old building.

A gust of wind stirred the drying sheaves of thyme and sage, the long loops of shagvine hanging from the rafters above.

The lanternflowers rattled their crimson globes.

Gooseflesh shivered up her arms. The garden was too quiet.

Sibling Vasil was keeping the novices busy with training.

If the world was tilting toward oblivion, Stara Bron needed every fully ordained and fire-wielding ashdancer they could muster.

Fates. Did she actually miss Timeus’s ceaseless chatter? No. It was only that he’d become a habit, in the past weeks.

And because he reminded her of Zander.

And because—she forced herself to admit the truth of it—Sephre had never been a solitary creature. She’d been forever envious of the other village children who had siblings. Maybe that was why she’d enlisted. The promise of comrades close as kin.

And she’d found it. Zander and Vyria and Calchas. The bonds between them forged in the crucible of the training camp, then tested by war.

Then broken. Only Vyria was still alive, last Sephre knew. She wondered if she’d gone back to the sweetheart she’d left behind. Cybele? Cylene? Sephre ought to remember. Vyria had the girl’s name tattooed across her wrist. She used to kiss it, for good luck, before battle.

Did Vyria still have nightmares too? Maybe Calyce— that was the name—chased them away.

Sephre had never visited them. Best not to trespass on whatever joy and peace Vyria had managed to reclaim. Coward, she told herself. You’re not that noble. You’re just afraid she’ll ask what really happened.

What really happened. That was the question, wasn’t it?

No one wanted to bare their shame to the world.

Better to burn away the mistakes. Like the author of the codex.

Sephre echoed with that yearning. And yet.

..she needed to know, if she was going to keep Stara Bron safe.

No one else was going to suffer because she made the wrong choice.

She flipped the codex open to the last page.

. . . request granted...faithless . . . no more . . .

. . . blade...hidden . . . only agia...claim it . . .

. . . will ensure...never . . . again . . .

Sephre had considered a number of possibilities as to where the blade might be hidden.

Perhaps it was sewn into the heavy golden mantle that was kept sealed away in the temple treasury, brought out for the high holidays.

Or secreted into a hidey-hole in the walls of the agia’s office.

In either case, she doubted it would remain secret for long.

Lacheron’s soldiers had spent the last two days digging holes throughout the Terrace of First Light, heedless of the priceless tilework crafted by Kalanthe herself. Where would they dig next?

She closed the codex and went to replace it in the jar. Halimede still clung to life in the infirmary, but she had not woken. There was no one to guard the blade.

No one except Sephre.

And it was time to act.

· · ·

She decided to start with the agia’s office. The treasury was locked, and the main gates barred at night, but none of the other doors at Stara Bron were ever sealed. And it was nearly time for the chorus of high sun, which meant Beroe should be in the Great Hall.

Even so, Sephre crept up the stairs, careful to muffle her footfalls, an excuse sheathed behind her lips, just in case. Five steps from the top, she heard voices. She nearly retreated, but the words were faintly muffled. Coming from inside the agia’s office. She crept closer, listening.

“The blade isn’t in the treasury and there is no record of it in the archives,” Beroe was saying. “Nor is it hidden beneath the Terrace of First Light, as your soldiers so helpfully proved with their extensive excavations, Lord Lacheron.”

If there was any sarcasm in her tone, she had done an excellent job filing it away. “Indeed,” said Lacheron. “Your solicitude has been most welcome, Sister Beroe. The Ember King will need allies like yourself in the days ahead. People who are not afraid to act. If only Agia Halimede were so brave.”

If it were Sephre, she would have socked the man on the jaw for such an insult. Beroe, of course, was more politic. “Agia Halimede’s devotion is beyond question,” she answered carefully.

“I mean no slight to your predecessor,” said Lacheron, smoothly. “No doubt she had her reasons for rejecting the king’s request.”

A pause. “What request?”

“Oh,” said Lacheron. “I assumed she had shared the matter with you, sister. You are her anointed successor, after all.” He added just a tiny twist of doubt to the words.

Beroe clearly felt the sting. “She did not,” she answered flatly. “But perhaps you would enlighten me. Given that I act now in her place.”

This was the Heron she knew. The man who could convince you to do anything, could make you believe that whatever solution he offered was the only real option. And Beroe was falling for it. Too lost in her own sense of injury, her entitlement, her ambition.

“To restore the Faithful Maiden to life,” said Lacheron.

“You mean to free her from the curse that traps her spirit in her bones,” said Beroe. “So she can finally be reborn into a new, unblemished life.”

“No,” said Lacheron. “Not reborn. Restored to life, so that she may be reunited with her lost love, as was prophesied.”

Impossible. Unthinkable.

On the other side of the door, Beroe drew in a sharp, scandalized breath. “Not even the holy flame has that power.”

“But the Phoenix does,” said Lacheron. “And if the agia of Stara Bron summons her, she will come.”

“In theory, yes,” admitted Beroe. “The Phoenix promised the first agia that she would return, if ever there were a time of great need. But the Blue Summons has never actually been used. It’s...it’s...”

“Unprecedented,” said Lacheron. “Yet we live in unprecedented times. The Ember King has returned to us. Skotoi walk the mortal world, and the minions of the Serpent seek even now to restore him to power.”

“Yes.” Beroe sounded wary. “But even so, only the agia has that power.”

Only the agia.

The rest of the conversation slid away, muted by those three words. That was it. The treasury, the terrace, the agia’s office, none of those were truly beyond reach of someone with enough determination and a handy company of soldiers with no scruples about destroying priceless architecture.

The certainty clicked into place, a well-fitted boot.

Sephre knew where to find Letheko. She turned away from the door to the agia’s office, toward the narrow archway to the left, the one that led out onto the mountainside, where a set of well-worn steps carved a path to the summit, and the flame that burned there.