Page 135 of House of Dusk
“I reached Brother Dolon!” he proclaimed triumphantly. “He said it was good luck that he happened to trade duty for the dusk vigil with Sister Polia, because Sister Polia always falls asleep, and so she never would have heard the firespeaking. But he heard me and he came and I told him everything that’s happened. He wishes you well, sister, in your new office, and, er—” the boy ducked his head shyly to the Serpent”—he congratulates you on your return, Lord Serpent. And then he toldmeall the news from Stara Bron!”
“Which is?” Sephre prompted, as the boy finally paused to take a breath.
“Agia Beroe left the temple four days ago,” said Timeus. “She’s agreed to perform the Blue Summons for the king. To call on the Phoenix to restore the Faithful Maiden to life.”
“It isn’t her,” said Sephre. “The bones, they belong to someone else.”
“Oh,” Timeus blinked at her. “How do you know?”
“I had...a vision.” Sephre could feel the Serpent watching her. It made her skin prickle, and a part of her wanted to ask if he had already known that. “When will Beroe do it?” she asked Timeus, instead.
“Tomorrow. She’ll likely be at the palace by now.”
Sephre rocked back on her heels, cast her eyes up to the iron gray sky, and muttered a curse. “There’s no way we’ll reach them in time. Even if we go back to Stara Sidea, it’s still at least a day’s travel to Helissa City. If we steal horses, and ride them bloody.”
She turned on the Serpent. “But we have to stop him. Lacheron has the god-killing blade, and now he has Beroe, and an excuse to summon the Phoenix. Everything he needs to slay a second god.”
“Yes.” His green eyes searched the middle distance for a long moment. “And break the second seal that binds my eldest brother.”
Timeus blinked. “The Sphinx?”
“No, the Sphinx is my sibling, not my brother. And while they’ve caused their fair share of trouble, they have no cause to destroy this world.” The Serpent smiled briefly, then began to pace. “Unlike our eldest brother, who has no name. My siblings and I took it from him, when we cast him into the abyss.”
He halted beside the glimmering pool, staring across the still waters. “Each of us gave a piece of our own power to seal him there. But mine was broken, when I died. And if my sister dies, hers will shatter as well.”
“Leaving just two,” said Sephre. “Is that enough to keep the First Power bound?”
“I don’t know. But with every broken seal his power will grow. When the first seal broke, he tore down mountains and sank islands. Shattered the old empire. With the second...” He shook his head. “There will be...many dead spirits.”
She sucked in a breath of dismay. “And no Phoenix to grant them new life.”
“You came back, Lord Serpent,” said Timeus. “She might, too.”
Sephre shook her head. “We don’t have three centuries.”
“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 shewasfairly 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.”
