Page 75 of House of Dusk

“And she would not be the same,” said the Serpent. Sephre frowned at him. What did that mean? Was he speaking from experience? How was he not the same?

He blatantly avoided her questioning look. “There is no other option. You must stop it.”

“ Us ? What about you?” Sephre demanded. “You’re the god of death.”

“I am,” he said. “And my place is here now. I can’t leave it.”

“You left it to woo the Maiden,” Sephre said, knowing even as she spoke it that she was being unfair. Get over it, woman, she told herself sternly. More important things to worry about. The fate of the world and all. “There must be something you can do.”

“There is. This is the realm of the dead. It touches the world of the living in many places, not just at the shrine in Stara Sidea. I will see that you reach the city by tomorrow morning.”

· · ·

Sephre had considered insisting—as reverently as possible—that the Serpent open the path to Helissa City right then and there.

The sooner they reached Lacheron, the better.

Or Beroe. She doubted she could convince the agia not to go through with the invocation, but she was fairly confident she could knock the woman silly.

Then she’d noticed the dark circles under Timeus’s eyes.

The hollowness of his cheeks. After the firespeaking and war council, he’d inhaled the last stale bread and rinds of cheese she dug from Nilos’s pack, then fell almost instantly asleep, curled against the base of plinth that held the holy flame.

He likely hadn’t slept properly in days.

It was probably the safest spot for the lad in the entire labyrinth, but there were still skotoi skittering about, and Sephre had not come this far to lose him again.

She settled herself wearily against the base of one of the dead trees that lined the shore, prepared to keep watch.

Though as she leaned back against the gnarled bark, she saw that the tree was not so withered and wasted as she’d first thought.

There were tiny, dark-green leaves beginning to sprout along several of the branches.

She gazed at them, wonderingly, until she felt a presence behind her. Even then, she did not turn.

“You can sleep too, if you like,” said the Serpent. “Nothing will hurt you here.”

A blatant lie. The bittersweet ache in her heart was proof of that. She shook her head. “I’m not tired.”

“Hungry, then?”

“I gave Timeus the last of the food.”

Dark robes fluttered at the edge of her vision as he folded himself onto the stones beside her. He held something. A bowl heaped with figs. Dark purple, with a paler bloom, looking ripe as if he’d just plucked them.

“Those can’t be from the balewalker outpost. Are you growing fig trees down here as well?

” She nodded up to the tree. The leaves looked even larger now, and more vivid.

She still couldn’t identify them, though.

Maybe this was the fabled duskbloom. Whatever it was, clearly it appreciated having its proper master back in charge of the underworld.

“No.” He looked slightly sheepish. “The figs are...grave goods. Left by a woman mourning her son. They were his favorite.”

She arched a brow. “That sounds like sacrilege.”

“He won’t miss them. His spirit is...gone.” He dipped his chin, jaw tight.

“The skotoi?”

“Yes. They caused considerable harm. I have a great deal of work to do.”

He set the bowl of figs beside her knee. She peeled off her new gloves, but waited until he drew back before she took one. She tried to eat it neatly, but failed utterly. The juice spilled down her chin like sticky tears. “Shouldn’t you be off doing it, then?”

He winced. Was that possible? Could a god wince? He had fallen in love with a mortal once, so perhaps.

Sephre took another fig. This time she drew her dagger—Nilos’s dagger—to section it more neatly. She paid close attention to her work. “Do you remember?”

“Remember what?”

Her courage failed her. “The Maiden. Who she really was. The truth behind all the stories.”

She thought of the gray-eyed woman conjuring Lacheron’s face in that strange, watery vision. Staring at it, haunted by it. “You said she was a novice in the House of Dusk. That the Ember King somehow convinced her to destroy you. But there’s more to it, isn’t there?”

“Well, yes. Gamales of Tarkent spends twenty full stanzas going on about the Ember King’s preparations for battle, but honestly, no one needs to know that he wore a breechclout embroidered with flames.”

Evasion again. But she would not be turned aside. “Who was she, really? The Ember King’s bride?”

“No. The queen died in the first year of the plague. The Maiden was Heraklion’s daughter.” Nilos gave a rueful laugh. “Bards try to make every story a romance.”

“It sounds like there was already a romance in this one.”

He said nothing.

“He sent her to seduce you, but it didn’t work. I mean, yes, she did destroy you. But she also...cared for you.”

She wasn’t certain it was true until the words slipped free from her tongue and burned scarlet into his high amber cheeks. Fates, had she actually made the god of death blush?

“Well? Do you remember?”

A sigh. She couldn’t tell if it was relief, or regret. Or impatience with her mortal curiosity.

“More than before.”

Her hand slipped, the blade nicking her finger. She hissed, then stuck the cut into her mouth, tasting blood and figs. More than before ? Meaning, more than when he was Nilos?

“Here,” he said, pulling her hand from her lips. His thumb pressed the base of her wrist, and she could feel every throb of her pulse. He leaned over the wound, and for one terrifying and uncomfortably exciting moment, she thought he meant to kiss it.

Instead, he exhaled, the warm flush of his breath tickling her skin. A hum filled her, as if she’d swallowed a hive of bees. When he released her, the wound was gone.

He regarded her evenly, green eyes inscrutable.

She crossed her arms, tucking her still-buzzing hand away. “Impressive. But party tricks aren’t going to distract me. You remembered my hibiscus. What else do you remember?”

“I remember her name.”

Sephre sat very still, waiting.

“Martigone.”

He stood abruptly, a smooth uncoiling, graceful and just slightly inhuman. The long hem of his dark robe whispered over the stones, brushing her thigh. “Use it well.”

“That’s it?” she demanded. “That’s all?”

“All for now,” he said. “Come back to Stara Sidea after this is done. I’ll wait for you at the undying shore. And ask me again.”

Then he turned and left her with the figs and all her unanswered questions.

· · ·

“Are you sure you can do this?” Sephre asked Timeus.

The Serpent’s divine portal had brought them as far as the Helissa City necropolis, and they had spent the past hour making their way across the city to the Temple of the Fourfold Gods.

Now, they lurked just outside the main entrance.

Bright banners had been strung from the walls, decorated with Hierax’s chosen emblem, a flaming crown of laurels.

He had added something new: a stylized dagger in the center.

A celebration of the Ember King’s long-awaited union with his Faithful Maiden.

Timeus gave her an injured look. “I thought you said I could do anything. You sent me to destroy a wall of skotoi and free the spirits of the labyrinth.”

“I know you’re brave and wise and strong,” she told him. “But can you lie to the royal guard?”

He sniffed. “I’m a better liar than you.”

“What have I lied about?”

“After Nilos opened the portal into the city necropolis, and he said ‘Farewell, Sephre, don’t be long,’ and I asked if you were sad and you said ‘No, of course not, what a ridiculous notion.’”

“I’m not sad,” she told him, peevishly. “But I will be if we’re too late to stop the Ember King from destroying the world.”

He said nothing more, but there was an infuriating quirk to his lips as he stepped out and began pacing serenely toward the gate.

It was open, as it usually was during the day, presided over by the inevitable great bronze statue of Breseus.

Sephre recalled hearing that Hierax had brought in artisans to alter the features of the hero, to make it resemble his own.

Not hard to believe that such a man had been all too eager to believe that he was the Ember King reborn.

How had Lacheron done it? Clever manipulation of prophecy. Whispers and nudges. A thousand drops to form a sea of conviction. But why? Because he preferred a figurehead? She might never know.

There were four soldiers. Two standing a few paces beyond the threshold, beneath the portico, and two others further back. Timeus led the way toward the nearer pair of guards, his expression calm and serene, a proper ashdancer.

Sephre followed, keeping her eyes downcast slightly, bowing her head as she calculated how to take the soldiers down if things went sideways.

Fates, she hoped this worked. A coolness bloomed in her palms. The water of death, waiting beneath the thin veil of her gloves. But these soldiers were not her enemy.

“Hello,” Timeus greeted the guards cheerily. “Could you please tell us where to find Agia Beroe and the others?”

The soldier studied him, her gaze scanning Timeus up and down, lingering on the crimson flames embroidered along his sleeves.

“My name is Brother Timeus,” he offered amiably.

“Of Stara Bron. We’re not late, are we? I did my best, but we had to go all the way to the south market to find the incense the agia needs for the invocation.

You do still have it, don’t you, novice? ”

Sephre dutifully lifted the small sack containing a handful of olibanum that they’d borrowed from the necropolis earlier that morning, after emerging from the underworld. The soldier flicked a bored eye over Sephre, then frowned.

Sephre tensed, but the woman only glanced back to Timeus. “She’s a novice ? She’s old enough to be your mother.”

“I came to my calling late,” said Sephre, keeping her expression scrupulously serene. She noticed that Timeus had suddenly been afflicted by a coughing fit that caused him to cover the lower half of his face.

“Oh?” The soldier seemed more curious than scornful now. “What did you do before?”

“I was a soldier.”

“Huh.” The woman looked thoughtful. She nudged her fellow in the side.

“What do you think, Crisus? Should I put down my spear and take up prayers?” Then she laughed, and Crisus laughed, and they waved for Timeus and Sephre to pass inside.

“Turn left, and take the wide blue stairs. That will take you to the atrium.”

Timeus gave Sephre an arch look. “Come along, then. We shouldn’t keep the agia waiting.”