Page 67 of House of Dusk
That eager girl with her shining armor and her shining notions felt like another person to Sephre now. Not a stranger, exactly. More like...a younger sister. If only she could reach back through time and shake her. Tell her that glory was a sword with no hilt. That it sliced you open if you tried to wield it.
What would have become of her, if she’d been less naive? Would she have left the army? Returned to her father, to sheep and high mountains and the life that had once chased her away with simplicity and tedium?
Or maybe she would be dead. Hung from a thorn tree with a severed tongue, like the governor of Tarkent, and her husband, and two of her children. Because the governor’s teenaged son had sung a ridiculous song about the Ember King trying to woo the Faithful Maiden with a series of increasingly large and suggestive vegetables. Because anything that questioned the glory of the Ember King was a threat to Hierax’s power.
Like, say, the fact that the Faithful Maiden had not died in her supposed lover’s arms, but had instead fled to Stara Bron and hidden his most powerful weapon beyond his reach and named herself faithless. That the bones he had waged a war over might not even be hers.
“Sister?”
Timeus stood in the herbarium doorway, the early evening shadows etching his cheeks and wide eyes. The knot in her belly relaxed, just slightly. She could use a distraction. Something uncomplicated that even she couldn’t corrupt. He was a good lad, and she’d missed him. “You’ve excellent timing, Brother Timeus.” She set her palms to the table to hold her wine-soaked world steady. “How would you like to learn the proper way to grind plessuda root? I promise, it’s not nearly so tedious as it sounds.”
He shifted his weight, reminding her of the first day he’d shown up in her garden.
“What’s wrong?” Her voice went sharp, honed by a series of terrible possibilities. Halimede, dead. The dagger, found.
“N-nothing, sister,” he stammered. “I’d be happy to learn how to grind plessuda. But...I was wondering...that is...I need your advice.”
Sephre blinked. Since when wasshewise enough to give out advice? “Did you forget how to tell the difference between the skinbite and the mint?”
“Smooth must shun, jagged harms none,” he recited. “No, it’s that...well . . . Sibling Vasil wants me to take the crimson vigil. They said we need every ashdancer we can have ready to face what’s coming.”
Sephre let out her breath, caught by an unexpected burst of pride, sweet enough to drive back the despair that had been swamping her. “When?”
“Tonight.” His smile flared and faded. “Or...some other time...whenever I’m ready.”
“Vasil thinks you’re ready.”
“I suppose so.” He eyed her. “But doyou?”
“That’s not advice,” she said. “That’s permission. And you don’t need it.”
His expression twisted, wrestling with this. He didn’t believe her.
“Do youwantto be an ashdancer?” she asked, more gently.
“Yes,” he effused, his certainty a delight and a terror. “I want to help people. To be the flame that stands against the skotoi. Now more than ever. It’s just...” He sagged slightly.
“It’s dangerous,” Sephre finished.
“No. I mean, yes, it is, and I’m not brave or anything. I still have nightmares about Kessely. But even so, I helped stop it. I did something good. I want to keep doing that. Even if it’s dangerous.”
“So, what, then?”
His cheek dented, caught between his teeth. “I just keep thinking about everything I’ve done wrong in my life. How many mistakes I’ve made. I know you said we all make them, that we learn from them. But how do you know when you’ve learnedenough? I don’t know if I’m—if I’m good enough. For the flame. What it...what if it doesn’t want me?”
She laughed. A short, sharp bark, wild with disbelief. This pup. This lovely boy, thinking that anything he had done in his short, innocent life couldpossiblybe so terrible.
“I mean...I’m not like you,” he said. “I’m not a hero. I keep hearing my mother’s voice, telling me—”
“Lies,” Sephre snapped, abruptly furious. At his mother. At herself. At a world where someone like Timeus thought that he wasn’t good enough. That she, Sephre, murderer and despoiler, was a hero.
“Sit,” she said, roughly.
Wordless, big-eyed, he slid onto the seat across from her. The nearly empty wine jug sat reproachfully between them. Sephre fought the urge to sweep it away. Instead, she poured the dregs into two cups, then pushed one across the table. “Drink. It’s medicinal,” she added, before he could protest. She lifted her cup. “To Zander.”
It was the first time she’d said his name in ten years. It should have shattered her. Instead, here she was, a mouthful of wine sloshing down her throat.
“Who was he?” asked Timeus.
