Page 137 of House of Dusk
“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 anovice? 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.”
CHAPTER 38
