Page 54 of House of Dusk

“No.” Nilos’s smile was crumpled, as if he’d left it wadded in a chest for too long. “She wasn’t beautiful. And she belonged to the dusk, not the dawn.”

“The House of Dusk?” Sephre frowned. “She was a balewalker?”

“A novice. Newly arrived from the royal city with a large dower. Not gentle, but fierce and wise and full of love for the world. And the Serpent was weary of his work. Weary of the pain, weary of the constant vigilance required to guard his realm, to keep the skotoi in check as the plague sent more and more spirits for them to feast on. She was his one solace.”

A muscle in his cheek flickered. He was clenching his jaw.

“She brought him songs and stories from the mortal world. She told him of sunset and stars and the infinite swell of the sea. The perfect sweetness of a ripe peach. The utter contentment of a long day of work and a warm fire at the end of it. She made him laugh. And she made him want something more.”

“But it was all part of the Ember King’s plan,” said Sephre.

“Yes. The blade of oblivion would only work if the Serpent took mortal form. Knowing this, the Maiden begged him to come to her in the mortal world, in mortal flesh. Just one day. Even one hour.”

He was silent so long that Sephre coughed. “And then?”

“Then the Serpent fell, his power shattered. That’s all I remember.”

“You remember ?” Sephre repeated, warily.

There were all sorts of tricks that could supposedly awaken memories of past lives.

Sephre had tried her fair share of them as a girl, staring into still pools, walking backward holding her breath.

Hoping to catch a glimpse of herself doing great deeds, fighting alongside Breseus and Polypox, voyaging to the Pillars of Eternity.

Or even something more mundane, but worthy: bringing healing and comfort as a physician, growing old with a large family she had nurtured and kept safe.

All it got her were damp tunics and several painful lumps on the back of her head. She searched Nilos’s eyes. “You have the Serpent’s memories?”

He nodded, something flitting across his face too fast for her to catch. “More with each mark I take.”

“How many have you taken?”

“Not enough. Not all of them.”

“So you don’t remember why she went along with it? Did she know slaying the Serpent would cause the cataclysm?”

Nilos gave an eloquent shrug. “She had lost much. Suffered much. But she still loved the world. I don’t think she knew the devastation she would cause. She believed the Ember King’s lies.”

“Which would explain why she fled from him, afterward. Why she took the Embrace. She regretted what she’d done.”

His gaze shuttered.

“Do you remember her name?”

“No. Not yet.”

Sephre shifted, trying to ease the pain chewing at her shoulder. “And what about the rest? Everything that happened after the Serpent was destroyed? How do you know that someone took the Serpent’s place?”

“Most is rumors and whispers and bits of old histories pieced together into a ragged cloth. The skotoi themselves have revealed some of it.”

“Like their new master.”

“Yes.”

“Did you know the Maiden brought Letheko to Stara Bron and made the agia swear to keep it hidden from the Ember King?”

Nilos sat straighter, jerking his green gaze back to her. “The dagger of unmaking is at Stara Bron?”

“It was. But Beroe gave it to Lacheron. He was planning to bring it back to Helissa City, to give it to Hierax. Though if he’s so set on stopping the Serpent, you’d think he’d be trying to use it on you. He’s the one who set the prince on your trail.”

“Yes, an unfortunate complication.” Nilos grimaced. “It’s part of the reason I wasn’t able to reach you sooner. I’m sorry for that.” He frowned into the flames. “I should have been there.”

She squeezed her eyes shut against the images that swam up. Obelia, crushed under a mountain of rotting flesh. Halimede, her chest shattered. Timeus, torn away. Vanishing into a strange and baleful land, in the grip of a demon.

Timeus was so young, sap-strong and overgrowing himself with eagerness.

She could not fathom it, all that life trapped within the grimness of the labyrinth.

Every story of the land of the dead spiraled through her skull like a flock of corpse crows.

The luminous pools that slaked no thirst. The endless passages that taunted you with the promise of an escape that was always just beyond reach.

The strange, spectral gleam of the duskflowers that bloomed only in the netherworld.

She’d teased Abas about it, once. I swear one day I’ll go out there and find that you’ve managed to cultivate duskbloom.

The joke felt sinister now.

“It’s not your fault,” she said roughly. “And I can still save Timeus. The skotoi took him. They said I could have him back, if I followed them. Into the labyrinth.”

“You know it’s a trap.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course it’s a trap.”

“But you’re going anyway.”

“Yes. But first I need to find a way into the labyrinth. Preferably one that doesn’t involve dying. I heard there might be an entrance at Stara Sidea.”

“There was.” He winced as if the words were thorns. “But the House of Dusk was destroyed in the cataclysm. It’s only ruins now.”

“But you know where it is.”

“Yes,” he admitted.

So. That was it, then. This was her best option. A man who by his own admission was trying to restore the god of death, who already carried bits of divine memory and spirit. And yet, she could see no other way to reach Timeus.

“Take me there,” she said. “Help me get my novice back, and—and I’ll give you what you want.” She held out her wrist, the black lines of the Serpent’s mark standing out against her lighter skin.

His lips parted around a silent huff. Had she surprised him? Misgivings chased her, but she drove them back. Waited for him to speak.

“The ruins are to the south,” he said. “It should take us no more than a few days.”

Us . She drew in a breath, feeling the weight of it in her chest.

“So we go together,” she said. “We...work together.”

His smile winked at her, and for a heartbeat his teeth looked sharp as fangs. “We work together.”

“Does that mean I can trust you now?” she asked. “You still haven’t explained who you are. Who you were, before all this. How you ended up collecting the memories of a dead god. Did you grow up in a cult of serpent mystics?”

He didn’t answer, only turned his face away, staring into the fire. A tiny thorn of guilt pricked at her. Still, she would not take the words back. She waited.

“Trust is too easily broken,” he said. “You know my goal. I know yours. That will have to be enough for now.”

He stood then, turning away. “You should sleep. You’ll need your strength to reach Stara Sidea.”

· · ·

Her burns were already substantially better by the next day.

Instead of feeling like she was being flayed with a dull knife, it only felt as if hungry rodents were nibbling at her.

She’d endured worse, had marched on feet so raw her footprints were scarlet.

Held her post through the night with an arrow in her shoulder, the shaft broken off because there was no time to seek a physician.

“Do you need to rest?”

She stumbled to a stop, blinking past the late-afternoon brightness to find Nilos halted on the path ahead. Concern crinkled the corners of his eyes. She almost believed it.

“I can keep going,” she said, grimly.

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I’ve no doubt you can . But that doesn’t mean you should .”

She huffed out a breath, aware that her legs were trembling, that some part of her had collapsed with relief just to have this small break, halting to argue. “Shouldn’t you be encouraging me to keep going? More pain and suffering to feed the Serpent?”

“The Serpent wasn’t the one that burned you.”

She clamped her lips tight, trudging onward. Nilos joined her, keeping pace, radiating an infuriating aura of smugness.

They continued south, into softer, greener land. She’d spotted a few curls of smoke, heard the soft bells of goats. There were people here, somewhere.

“We’re nearly there,” said Nilos, nodding along the gray-green slope. “See?”

Sephre squinted ahead, but all she saw was a small stone-crafted shelter with thatched roof, so covered in lichen and moss it seemed just another large boulder.

“Stara Sidea is an old shepherd’s shack?”

His bark of laughter surprised her. “No. It’s another day by foot. But we can shelter here tonight. Your burns need tending. And sleep is the best physic.”

That might be true, assuming she could in fact sleep. Last night she’d been so exhausted that sleep was deep and dreamless. Tonight would be different. And if the nightmares came, she had no holy flame to drive them back.

But the shelter was snug and warm, and Fates, she did need the rest. She didn’t even have the heart to muster up a protest when Nilos left her there, saying he had to fetch supplies. Supplies from where, she wondered. Did he know this place?

She wakened from a doze at the sound of footsteps, blinking groggily to find Nilos returned with an armful of blue and tan cloth. “New clothes,” he said.

She frowned at the bundle, running a hand over the sleeve of her habit, picking at the yellow flames.

“Unless you’d prefer to walk around in charred rags?”

“No,” she said, the word rough.

“Turn round,” he told her. “I’ll check the burns.”

If she had longer arms she might have refused.

Instead she did as he asked, trying not to flinch at his touch.

He was gentle—probably gentler than she would be if their positions were reversed—but the bandages clung in places, and she couldn’t help hissing as he removed them.

Then again, at the numbing relief of the salve, the soft sweep of his fingers across her skin.

She caught herself against the maddening and utterly ridiculous urge to lean into his touch.

Instead she stared ahead, biting her lip, searching for something to distract her.

There were carvings in the stones that formed the walls of the shelter. A few rough outlines of animals and people, but mostly words, some foul, others nonsensical. Then one she recognized.

Nilos . The name had been carved carefully into one of the smoothest rocks, just beside the doorway. And under it, more roughly: is an ass-faced weasel.

“Is that you?” she asked, nodding to the graffito.

A beat. Was he trying to concoct a lie?

“Yes.”

She cocked her head, trying to see his face, but he shifted, bending closer to bind the fresh bandages across her burns. His breath brushed over the nape of her neck, making her skin prickle.

“Bold to tell the whole world how you really see yourself.”

“My brother added that part.” He sounded faintly irritated. Sephre hid her smile.

“So you have a brother? And...a home? Here?” She supposed even wandering serpent cultists came from somewhere. Still, it was a strange thought. Imagining Nilos as a boy.

More silence. There was a heaviness to it, a space that held pain or loss. “Cardis and I grew up in this village.” He drew on a smile. “Not quite the secret serpent-mystic temple you were expecting?”

No, it wasn’t. And it only seeded more questions. How had a boy from a village like this ended up on a quest to restore the Serpent? Then again, her own home wasn’t dissimilar.

“Is your brother still here?”

“No.” He moved more briskly now, securing the bandages. “How does it feel?”

Fine. What did it matter who Nilos was? Let him keep his secrets, so long as he took her to Stara Sidea and Timeus.

She rolled her shoulders, cautiously at first, then with more confidence.

There was still pain, but it was the dull tug of healing skin, not the raw agony of the previous day.

“Better.” Better than it should. She turned, frowning at him.

“What exactly is in that salve? Aside from yarrow and sunbane?”

“Ah.” He smiled, completely ignoring her question. “You’re an herbalist.”

“Which is how I know even yarrow and sunbane don’t heal burns overnight.”

“Then you still have something to learn.”

“Your brother had it right,” she told him sourly, but it only made him laugh.