Page 22 of House of Dusk
“No!” the man protested. “I swear by the Fates! It’s not true.”
“You do not need to lie,” Lacheron told the prisoner, his voice smooth as a pebble along the shore. “You cannot deceive the Sibyl of Tears. She hears the whispers of the Fates.”
The prisoner was terrified. He shifted his feet. He wanted to run.
“You have a choice,” Lacheron continued, still in that voice that should have been reading out shipping accounts. “You can tell us where to find the dagger now, of your own free will, and earn a quiet death. Or the sibyl will reveal your secrets, and you will die screaming.”
The man slid a terrified look toward Sinoe. “I don’t—I can’t—Fates, they’re all dead. I tried to stop them! Please believe me!”
Lacheron’s lips pressed thin. He gestured for the soldiers to restore the gag. “Then we’ll find our own truth.” Lacheron turned to face Sinoe. For the first time, there was a spark to sharpen his features, giving Yeneris something to catch hold of. A brightness in his eyes, which now struck her as a clear gray.
“Sibyl,” he said. “It’s time.”
The princess had gone very still. Like a small creature, sensing the circling eagle above.
“It’s very late, Father,” began Ichos. “Surely this can wait until—”
“You think the future of our realm can wait?” Hierax leaned forward, the long glimmering folds of his tunic catching the light. There was more gold at his throat. Glinting on his fingers as they gripped the head of the snarling lioness. “Lacheron has brought me rumors for months now. And tonight, a report of skotoi, spawned from our own necropolis.”
She held her face still, watching Ichos stir at that. How he glanced to Sinoe. Then back over his shoulder, at Yeneris. She settled her vision in the middle distance, ignoring him.
“The Serpent nearly destroyed the world once before,” said Lacheron. “And it was only the Ember King who saved us. Now, he must do so again. King Hierax must fulfill his destiny and reclaim the dagger Letheko. It is the only weapon that can slay the Serpent. Our only hope, if he returns.”
Yeneris floundered in the sea of words, trying to stay afloat. It was jarring to hear the fabled Serpent-slaying weapon namedLetheko, so close to her own people’s word for “forgotten.” But then, the Helissoni stories had always seemed so foolish to her. Why would one of the god-beasts grow jealous of the others? They were immortal creatures, vast and unknowable. Not like mortals, who loved and feared and hungered and hated. Some people want their gods to be mirrors, her mother had told her, once.But the wise know that a true god is a doorway. And that we can never understand what is on the other side, until we step through.
In the Bassaran legends it was mortals who brought pain and disaster to the world. Just as they still did, today. Easy, then, to believe this was just more Helissoni superstition. More of Hierax’s myth. And yet . . .
She thought of the ghouls at the necropolis. How those uncanny shadows had slithered and coiled like serpents. No mortal had caused that, surely. Not unless they’d dabbled with the abyssal powers.
A sudden blaze of light dazzled her. Blinking, she saw that Lacheron now stood beside the brazier. She hadn’t even noticed him light the coals, too lost in thought. Sloppy of her.
“Sibyl, you must seek visions in the smoke,” he said. “Tell us where the dagger lies.”
Sinoe did not move, except to shift her shoulders, as if she was bracing herself.
“It’s a shame the Ember King reborn doesn’t remember where he left Letheko,” said Ichos, his wry tone scraping the silence. “He was the great hero who wielded it, after all.”
The king moved so fast, Yeneris only had time to draw in a sharp breath. Then Ichos was coughing, sputtering, as Hierax’s gold-banded fingers squeezed his throat. Standing, the king was tall. Taller than his son, now dangling in his grasp like a fish on a hook.
“I suffer no disloyal tongues,” Hierax didn’t shout, but somehow his voice still carried, resonant, implacable. “Not in my own house. Perhaps it is time to cut this one out.”
The king held a sword. The blade pressed close to his son’s cheek. Yeneris bit the inside of her cheek.
Ichos went suddenly limp. “No,” he managed to gasp. “Please, Father. A joke.”
“I did not laugh,” said Hierax. The dagger trembled, the tip just beside Ichos’s mouth now.
It was Sinoe who broke the moment, abruptly pacing forward to stand beside the brazier. “Father,” she said. “Do you wish me to scry on my brother? Or on your prisoner?”
A strange question. But it had an instantaneous effect. The king released Ichos. The prince stumbled back a pace, turning to stare at the far wall, so that Yeneris couldn’t make out his expression. Only the hard set of his shoulders.
Hierax rejoined Sinoe and Lacheron, his expression cool once more. Yeneris suspected he was the kind of man who packed every grudge and resentment away carefully, like fine jewels in a silken box, to take out later and admire.
“Let us begin,” said the king.
Yeneris tensed, waiting. She had heard wild tales of Sinoe’s powers. That the girl fell into fits and spoke in the language of the Fates, which could only be translated by mystics and sages. That when she was in the thrall of prophecy her tears became blood, spattering sigils on the stones that told the future. Yeneris had discarded most of what she heard as fancy. The Sibyl of Tears had never prophesied in public before, after all. Even the incident at the necropolis might be merely coincidence, a dream that happened to match reality.
Whether they were true or false made no difference. Hierax used them to gain and hold power. All that mattered now was to take what she could of this night and use it for her own purposes. And to ensure that nothing betrayed her.
