Page 59 of House of Dusk

A half-dozen clay amulets were laid out on a waxed cloth. Yeneris snatched one up with trembling fingers. She turned, catching Sinoe’s attention with a sharp wave. The princess joined her, breathless, eyes wide as she took in Yeneris’s discovery.

Break the amulet, and the bracelet will open.

She didn’t think. Her fingers simply moved, twisting the clay sharply. The crack echoed, too loud. Foolish. She was a fool. And yes, she couldn’t regret it. Not if—

Sinoe lifted her wrist to display the golden bangle, still ruthlessly whole.

Yeneris’s hopes plummeted. She studied the snapped bits of clay, only realizing now that they were unmarked. No star signs or sigils, only plain red clay. “He hasn’t finished them,” she whispered. “We’ll have to try to come back later.”

“Enough,” Lacheron’s voice rose again. “You have your orders. Do this, and you will have what you wish. The interlopers will rule you no longer. We will all be free. Now go. I have work to do.”

A long, slow hiss spun out. Yeneris craned her neck, trying to see the ghoul, but all she could see now was Lacheron, standing alone.

And a faint ghost of black smoke drifting to the floor.

Having served its purpose, the ghoul had returned to the netherworld, destroying its temporary form.

Yeneris ducked back down, gripping Sinoe’s arm, holding her still, panic jolting through her veins.

They’d delayed too long. Lacheron’s steps approached from the far side of the room.

Toward the door? Fates, she hoped so. She didn’t relish being locked in here with a host of sleeping skotoi, but it was better than being caught.

“He’s coming this way!” breathed Sinoe.

The princess was right. The steps were not moving toward the door.

They were coming straight toward the worktable.

Keeping hold of Sinoe’s arm, Yeneris scuttled along the plinths, as if they were children playing catch-me-if-you-can.

Except that getting caught would be deadly.

For Yeneris, at least. Sinoe had value, as Hierax’s daughter, and more so as a sibyl. Lacheron would not kill her. Probably.

Heart thrumming, Yeneris pulled Sinoe beside her just as Lacheron reached the worktable. She could see him standing there for a long moment. Heard the faintest rasp of an old latch. Then words, too low to make out.

More steps. He was pacing along the worktable. Yeneris sent a plea to the Fates. Sinoe’s hand slid into hers, gripping tight as the Heron passed by on the far side of the plinth where they hid.

Sinoe’s grip spasmed. Yeneris turned, meaning to reassure the princess that she would keep her safe. But it wasn’t fear that had gripped her fingers so tight. She pointed to Lacheron, who had paused beside one of the braziers, and made the key-turning gesture again.

Yeneris squinted. It was hard to see. Lacheron had done something to the brazier. More incense, maybe, to hide the stench of the corpses.

Then she saw what Sinoe had seen. The wink of something red, tucked into the Heron’s sash. The key! But how could she possibly get it?

Yeneris rested a hand on the hilt of her favorite dagger. The one so sharp it could slice flesh like a ripe fig. Easy enough to slit the man’s throat. Destroy the Ember King here and now, before he could do whatever horrible, blasphemous thing it was he planned with the kore’s bones.

A breath, close beside her ear. “Wait. Look.”

Easier said than done. Yeneris’s eyes stung, tears blurring her vision.

The smoke had thickened, thanks to whatever Lacheron had cast onto it.

It reminded her of Sinoe’s prophesying. Even more so when she realized that Lacheron stood close beside the brazier, arms spread, muttering.

An invocation to the Fates? Was he praying?

Then a new voice spoke. It came from nowhere, and everywhere. It seemed to be inside Yeneris’s skull, to fill it until there was no room for her own thoughts. And yet she could not fathom a single word. It was no language she knew, or even recognized. She looked to Sinoe, who shook her head.

Lacheron swayed slightly as the terrible voice droned on.

Yeneris watched in fascinated horror as flames leapt from the brazier—strange sparks of dark purple radiance that seemed to suck her eyes into them, tiny windows into some other world.

One of the sparks landed on Lacheron’s wrist, flaring, singing his skin, and yet he did not even flinch.

Like Sinoe in the grip of prophecy, the man was in some sort of trance.

Yeneris knew what she had to do. “Stay here,” she breathed to Sinoe. “I’m going to get the amulet.”

Sinoe’s expression pulled taut with worry. “He’ll notice.”

“He’s in a trance,” said Yeneris, praying she was right.

“He’ll notice it’s missing,” the princess persisted. “Later.”

It was a fair point, but Yeneris didn’t see any other option. They needed that key. “Maybe he’ll think he dropped it?”

“Could you swap this?” Sinoe held up one of the unfinished amulets. She must have taken it from the worktable. Clever woman. A flutter of warmth chased back the tension grinding Yeneris’s belly as she took it.

“Yes.”

Carefully, she crept forward. Every nerve flayed. She was a living scream clenched between sharp teeth. A teetering goblet above cruel stone. And every step brought her closer to the Ember King.

The smoke fell silent. Yeneris froze, poised to rabbit away. She was so close she saw the rise and fall of Lacheron’s chest as he breathed, deep and slow. He spoke, and these words she understood.

“Yes, my lord. I have reclaimed your gift. And I know what to do with it now. I know how to break the cycle.”

Yeneris sidled closer. She held the blank amulet lightly in her left hand, limbering the fingers of her right. She could do this. She’d lifted heavier purses from far more attentive marks. Though not recently. But as she lifted her hand, reaching for the slip of red clay, she froze.

There were two.

They looked identical, but then, she couldn’t see more than the top inch. She glanced back to Sinoe. Found the princess frowning. Biting the side of her cheek, as if puzzling out a bit of one of her prophecies. Then she pointed to the right.

It made sense. The other was probably just another backup. And Yeneris only had one decoy. She drew in a steadying breath, breathing in calm and certainty. Then quickly, neatly, smoothly, she made the swap.

Lacheron shuddered. Yeneris grasped for the hilt of her dagger, had it half unsheathed before she realized the man was speaking again.

“Five days,” he said. “Five days and it will be done. The interlopers will rule no more, and the world will be yours, as it was always meant to be.”

The brazier began to pop and shudder, more and more of the strange purple embers flaring out. Yeneris backed away, but she was too slow. One of the sparks grazed the tip of her thumb.

A terrible roiling caught her, like being spun by the waves in a storm. Like when she was sick with the flux back in the camps, nausea turning her inside out, making her feel as if her body belonged to someone else, to another world with different rules. She was lost.

Until cool slim fingers wrapped her own, steadying her against the maelstrom. A breath of jasmine drove back the smoke. Sinoe’s shoulder lodged under her arm, and together they scrambled away, out of the chamber, away from the Ember King and his nameless master.

· · ·

“Are you all right?” Sinoe still hadn’t released her grip on Yeneris’s hand, though they were well away from Lacheron’s workshop of horrors by then, safe in the dim sweetness of the rose garden.

“I’m fine.” Yeneris tugged her fingers free. She didn’t want to, but the tip of her thumb still throbbed. When she turned her hand to catch the moonlight, though, she saw no injury, not even a bruise. Which was almost worse. “What was that?”

Sinoe shuddered. “Something I never want to see again. Fates weep. And I thought the talking corpse was bad.” She halted in the shadow of one of the painted statues standing guard over the flowers.

The bright colors were muted in the darkness, making it hard to identify the figure.

Probably Breseus, though. Half the statues in Helisson were Breseus.

And yet the most heroic person she knew was standing before her.

No statue, but a living, breathing woman.

Having survived the last hours of fear and horror, something in Yeneris surged up, hungry for life.

For something pure and brave and vivid. She tucked her hands behind her back before she did anything foolish.

Clearing her throat, she said, “Thank you. I’m—I’m glad you came with me. ”

Sinoe laughed. “Me? Honestly, I was just trying my best not to shriek and wail. You were the living shadow. And so quick and clever with your hands. It’s very impressive.”

Yeneris flushed. This was verging a bit too close to some of her more interesting dreams. She cleared her throat, thrusting the clay amulet at Sinoe. “Here. Let’s see if it works.”

The princess took the amulet, her expression thoughtful. Then she shook her head. “I think we should wait. It’s not as if I need to do a scrying this very instant. Lacheron said they can use the bracelet to find me. For all we know, he might be able to tell if it’s removed.”

“But...it hurts you.” Sinoe had tried to hide it, but Yeneris had seen her chafing at the wrist, seen the pinch of pain on her brow, even if she smoothed it away a moment later.

“I can bear it. I’m stronger than I look,” said Sinoe, grinning immodestly.

It was true. The princess might look as if she were made of thistledown and poetry, but she was stronger than that.

A sudden memory invaded Yeneris’s thoughts.

Her mother, smiling at her, as they knelt in the soft earth beside her father’s tree in the eternal garden, one of the fruits open between them, spilling the red-jeweled seeds.

Look how strong it grows, Ris. Just like your father .

Strong and sweet. She’d broken the seeds between her teeth, and the tart juice had run down her throat, and she had known that was what she wanted, too.

What she would dream of. Someone strong and sweet, with deep roots and dusky secrets. A lioness.

“Oh, really?” purred Sinoe. “A lioness. I like that.”

Had she said that aloud? Fates take her. She started to retreat, but Sinoe caught her hand, threading their fingers together as she had before. And just as before, it set the universe in its proper place, set every star ablaze.

Yeneris sucked in a breath of the night air, but it was full of roses, and there was a drumbeat of longing in her chest.

And then, abruptly, a very different drumbeat. Alarm.

“Someone’s coming!” she hissed. The steps were faint, but clear.

Approaching from the direction they’d just come.

Could it be Lacheron? Had he discovered the missing amulet?

Was he coming to reclaim it even now? Even if it was only one of the palace guards, they couldn’t afford to be seen. It would raise too many questions.

“Come on,” she said, “we need to—wait, what are you doing?”

Sinoe was pulling her sideways, behind the statue. Yeneris found herself pressed against the cold stone base, which only made her even more aware of the heat of her own body. “I thought you said you were going to defend me if we ran into guards?” she whispered.

“I am. Shush, or they’ll think we’re up to no good.”

“We’re hiding in the shadows in the garden in the middle of the night,” Yeneris pointed out. “Of course they’ll think we’re up to no good.”

“Yes. But not the kind that gets us dragged in front of my father.”

Sinoe pressed a hand to her shoulder, a fairly pointless gesture if she was trying to keep Yeneris from moving. But then Sinoe’s eyes met hers, and Yeneris knew she could never move again, that she would turn herself to stone, and endure a thousand thousand years, anything not to break this spell.

Yeneris didn’t know if she moved first, or if Sinoe did. She hoped that they moved as one. That Sinoe was as eager as she was for this.

For the softness of the kiss, for the press of warmth in the shadows, for an answer to a question that had been beating in her chest ever since the first day she saw those ridiculous twee hummingbirds and heard Sinoe sighing over a book of poetry.

And now she had her answer. Sinoe’s skin was silk and hot breath and something even sweeter that had no name. Yeneris’s heart spread new wings, fledging with urgency.

For long, aching moments there was nothing but Sinoe.

And then, on the fringes of her awareness, a slight noise—a grunt? A gasp?

Yeneris pulled away abruptly. Someone was walking away, continuing along the path.

“It’s fine,” Sinoe said, sounding breathless. “It wasn’t a guard. Only one of the gardeners. Though what there is to do this late at night, I’ve no idea. Watering moonflowers? Chasing away nightcatchers?”

Only a gardener.

But it wasn’t fine.

Because Yeneris had seen the gardener’s face, just as she slipped away. Mikat had paused to look back. Had no doubt wanted Yeneris to see. To know that she was being watched. That she was not the only blade hidden here in the palace of her enemies.