Page 70 of House of Dusk

SEPHRE

S ephre’s knees cracked against the stones. She looked up, shivering, and felt as if the entire universe had somehow bound itself into those two green eyes. Utterly numinous, they loomed over her like the night sky, vast and timeless and cold.

He was beautiful, and terrible. Coils of shimmering darkness, glinting with a sheen of starlight.

They wove and twisted endlessly, the patterns absorbing her mind, almost dragging her into a daze.

She could not take his measure. He seemed to fill all the available space. To surround her, and encompass her.

She could only breathe, and blink, and tremble. It wasn’t fear. Fear she knew. Fear she could overcome. This was something else. Awe? Reverence?

Or possibly her weary brain had simply given up, unable to fathom the fact that this was the god of dusk, the embodiment of death, right here in front of her. And she had kissed him. Well, not him. The human he had been.

“Nilos?” She finally managed to shape his name, though it came out a whisper. Did he recognize her at all? Did he remember?

Really? She scoffed at herself. That’s what you care most about? Whether the god of death remembers that you kissed him? What mattered was the plan.

“Will you distract the other skotoi?” she asked, as if it were perfectly normal to be making battle plans with a giant serpent.

I will do far more than distract them.

His words whispered in her mind, which ought to have terrified her. But there was a dry warmth to it, almost amusement. It sounded like Nilos’s voice. Just a little. Enough to unlock her frozen limbs.

Which was good, because the Serpent was already moving, rippling out into the center of the labyrinth.

Now that Sephre had some distance, now that his eyes weren’t haunting her, she could better comprehend his size.

He was larger than any natural serpent, thick around as a horse at the broadest point.

And endless. There were still dark coils rippling past her, though he had almost reached the bridge.

But would it be enough? The boar-skotoi was enormous, too. What if—

The Serpent struck swift as lightning. One moment he was rippling across the stones, the next moment his jaws were around the neck of the boar-skotoi, his coils winding around its rotting body. The boar bellowed. Bone snapped.

My realm. My rules.

Within the coils, the boar began to crumple. Bone and rotting flesh fell to ash, sifting gently to the earth. A slithering darkness tried to escape, but the Serpent snatched at it, jaw wide as the sky, before snapping tight. Swallowing down what remained of the demon.

The remaining skotoi shattered. Some of them—the smaller ones, she thought—simply fled, twisting away into the depths of the labyrinth. But others remained, including all those that had clothed themselves in flesh.

The Serpent gave a snickering hiss. He drew back, away from the bridge. Away from the stone pillar where Timeus still hung.

This was her distraction. Sephre crept out from the passage, hunched low, scuttling. She gripped the small dagger in one hand. It was better than nothing, and she’d always had a good kick. But even better not to get into a fight at all right now.

A daze still clung to her thoughts, and breathing was becoming more of a challenge. As Nilos had warned her, without the Serpent’s mark, she was simply a mortal woman, walking the underworld. That was...not a good thing to be.

She quickened her pace, forcing her weary legs to a jog.

Dimly, she was aware of black coils lashing and rippling.

She heard the shrieks of the skotoi, the low, humorless rasp of the Serpent’s hiss.

And closer, the whispers of the spirits.

They drifted behind her, as if she were a falling star, and they her silvery trail.

Then she was at the pillar. Staring up at a lanky boy with overlarge ears who looked utterly astonished at her arrival. Though Timeus often looked astonished, so perhaps it had nothing to do with her.

“Sister Sephre? What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t lose my best apprentice.” She climbed up onto the stone plinth.

Stretching, she could just barely work the blade of the dagger under the cords that bound him.

Not rope, she realized, shuddering. Tendon.

She whispered a low prayer for the spirit of whatever corpse had been desecrated to provide them.

“Then I’d have all the bother of training someone new. ”

He laughed, though it came out as more of a croak. The bindings parted, loosening his hands. The boy collapsed, but she was quicker, and managed to catch one long arm. Fates, he really was just a collection of knobbly knees and elbows.

“Can you stand?” she asked.

“I think so.” He got his feet under him, easing himself upright.

“Can you call the flame? You need to get to the center of the pool. Drive off those other skotoi.” She pointed. A sigh rose from the spirits drifting nearby.

Timeus turned to her, confused. “I—But you—”

She shook her head. “I can’t do it.”

“But—”

“I’m not an ashdancer anymore. It’s...it’s too much to explain right now. But we need to drive back those skotoi, so that the spirits can reach the flame.”

He blinked. “Er. Right. So I guess I shouldn’t ask about that, either?” He pointed past her, to where the Serpent writhed and coiled, snapping at skotoi.

Sephre gave a hollow huff. “I’ll tell you everything later.” If there was a later. She caught the edge of the pillar as another wave of dizziness washed through her.

Timeus made a noise of concern, but she pushed herself back to her feet before he could reach for her. “I need you to do this, Brother Timeus,” she said. “You’re the only one who can.”

She stared at him, fixing his wide brown eyes with her own. She saw a flash of uncertainty—he still doubted himself—but resolve chased after it, and won. He nodded, lifting his palms, kindling handfuls of crimson flame. Then he turned and set off along the narrow stone bridge.

The spirits followed, their whispers louder now, eager.

Silvery-gray mist buffeted Sephre as she tried to follow as well.

Not that Timeus needed her. He was a red brother now.

And in time, he would be a yellow brother.

And who knew? Agia Timeus? That would be nice.

He was wiser than she’d first thought. Wiser than her.

Sephre was midway across the stone bridge when a great flare of light blazed out. Crimson, edging into orange and gold. And with it, a wail of dismay, a flinching ripple of fleeing shadows.

She was on her knees by then, though she didn’t remember falling.

But it was fine. She could still see them.

Sparks of brightness, ascending into that grim gray sky.

First one, then two, then a dozen. Then hundreds.

Like a rain of stars, but in reverse. Every spark a soul spinning out into the world, to be reborn.

She stared so long it made her eyes water. Or maybe she wept. The wetness slid down her cheeks, spattering her hands, lying loose in her lap.

“Sephre?” Timeus was back, leaning over her, eyes wide with concern.

“You did it,” she said. “Good lad. I’m very proud of you.”

His expression melted. Warmth flushed his brown cheeks. “Thank you, sister.”

“Not sister,” she reminded him. “Not anymore.”

He tensed, looking past her. A faint whisper hissed over stone. Scales.

The Serpent wove toward them. Then her vision blurred. No, it was the Serpent blurring, shifting and contracting, becoming a man again.

Nilos. He looked the same as she remembered. All lean strength and smooth coppery skin, hair trimmed to a faint shadow along his scalp. But his clothing had changed. Gone were the simple tunic, the worn leather sandals.

He wore a long robe of some shimmering dark cloth, caught at the waist by a silver belt. It left bare a long triangle of his chest.

Sephre stared. The Furies would definitely curse her for thinking impure thoughts about a god, and yet she could not bring herself to look anywhere else. Certainly not his face. She thought of the eyes of the Serpent, so vast and unknowable.

I will remember you, she thought, blinking as the world spun.

Hands gripped her, lifting her. She forced her eyes open again, expecting to see Timeus. But it wasn’t Timeus who held her.

“Nilos,” she said, forgetting that he was gone.

Something flickered across his face, too quick to catch.

The Serpent lifted her as if she were a feather, setting her on her feet. Turned her gently toward the far end of the bridge, where a bright flame burned within a bowl of stone. Sparks rose crimson and gold, from an unwavering heart of palest blue.

She found the last of her strength, enough to step free from his hands. To stand alone, at the edge of the stone bridge, with the waters of the Lyrikon spread on either side, and the flame blazing bright before her.

“Go to the flame, ashdancer,” said Nilos.

She could call him that, in the privacy of her mind.

She could believe that he was still there, some part of him.

She had promised to remember. Just as she would remember Zander.

And the woman with the baby. And the two men, who had died wrapped around each other, holding on.

She would never regret carrying the flame. Or her time at Stara Bron. The place—the people—would never leave her heart. But it was time to walk a new path. Assuming it doesn’t kill me .

She turned her back to the flame, shaky, but certain. “No,” she said. “Not this time.”

Then she let herself fall, backward, one step into empty air. A rush. A cry that was probably Timeus, because why would the Serpent cry out for her?

Then the waters of the Lyrikon caught her, and pulled her down.

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