Page 77 of House of Dusk
She curled her fingers into fists as Beroe reached for the codex. It felt like a violation to share it, but if it would convince Beroe to believe her, it was worth it. She waited as the other woman flipped the fragile pages, frowning at the mold-spattered paper. A breath of despair blew up her spine. The words had seemed so powerful, earlier. But what were they, really? A thimbleful of whispers.
Beroe’s expression was unreadable.
“Maybe you don’t trust me,” said Sephre. “Fine. But you trust Halimede, don’t you? You know she refused to recognize Hierax as the Ember King. She must’ve had a reason. It’s dangerous to deny him. If you love Halimede, if you still respect and honor her as your agia, then at least consider that she did it for a good reason.”
“A reason she neglected to share with me.”
Sephre clung doggedly to her patience. “Are you really going to ignore all this because your feelings are hurt? Look, I don’t know the full truth either. Halimede didn’t tell me everything. But something terrible is coming, Beroe. And I’d rather not face it alone.”
She searched the other woman’s face, hunting for any sign that the words had reached her. Was that a softening in her jaw? A spark of thoughtfulness in her eyes?
A bell began to toll. Sephre bit her cheek in irritation. Surely prayers could wait for this. But the bell rang on, no mellow call to worship. This was sharp and strident. A warning. A call to arms.
Stara Bron was under attack.
• • •
The bells were still ringing when they met Brother Dolon in the cloister. His round face was grim. “It’s skotoi. I don’t know where they all came from. There must be a dozen of them. Obelia managed to close the outer gates, but they’re coming over the walls. She and Vasil and some of the reds are holding them in the courtyard for now. But I don’t know how long they can last. They...they just kept coming. What do we do?”
“We do our duty,” said Beroe, unwavering. If she had doubts, she hid them well. “They will not claim this holy place. Not so long as we hold the flame.”
The acting agia led the way onward, down the passage that led to the courtyard and the gates. The bells had stopped ringing, but Sephre could hear the dim screams and shouts from below, mixed with other noises, slick and slithering, inhuman. Whatever ashdancer had been raising the alarm was now dead, or fighting for their life. Sephre’s nerves crackled. She held flame at the tips of her fingers. It must be enough.
“Do you know where Lacheron is?” she asked Dolon.
“No. I haven’t seen him. Or his soldiers.”
So much for the Ember King and his glorious defense of the mortal world.
They emerged beneath the pillared portico of the temple, above the wide, shallow steps that led down to the courtyard.
A pall hung over the sky, turning the world dim and smoky. The air was heavy and hot and thick with decay, turning Sephre’s stomach. It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing.
The outer gates were gone, the oak beams torn apart. And through them surged a flood of corpses. Many of the skotoi no longer looked even remotely human. Some hunched like crabs, scuttling on multiple needle-thin legs. Another rose tall but limbless, a mountain of flesh that surged slowly but inexorably across the stones, shifting like molten wax. And yet here and there she caught a glimpse of something terrifyingly, wrenchingly human. A hand, reaching from a slurry of meat. A single eye, wild and brown. A row of perfect white teeth rippling along the tip of a tentacle.
A dozen ashdancers formed a line along the base of the steps, holding back the monstrous tide from the temple. Flames spattered her vision with crimson and gold. Squinting, she made out the sturdy figure of Sibling Vasil, sweeping a lash of flame to drive back a skotos with wide strips of gray, flaccid skin hanging from its shoulders in a gruesome mockery of wings.
Someone called a warning as the limbless mountain fell upon the center of the line. It swarmed over a young red sister, enveloping her like a rising tide. Then Sister Obelia was there, shoving gouts of flame at the monstrous thing, driving it back so that two other ashdancers could pull the girl free. The rotting hulk turned on Obelia, surging over her. Sephre’s breath caught. Her hands jerked up. But she was still too far away. She could only watch as the other woman fell, crushed beneath the relentless tide of flesh.
“Fates have mercy,” murmured Beroe.
Sephre bit down on something much less holy. But her body did not betray her. Or maybe it was a betrayal, howwellshe remembered this: the flicker of lightning along her nerves. The quickening of her heart. Her mind slowing, clearing, focusing. No sword now, but the flames were in her hands, and in her heart. She threw herself down the steps and into the fray.
She took the place of one of the red sisters, holding the left flank. And then there was only the battle. The slap and groan of unliving flesh, the taste of ash coating her tongue, the dazzle of flame in her eyes.
And the weariness of her body. The strain of each step. The tremble in her arms.This is nothing,she told herself grimly.Rememberthe Scrimfang raiders? You held them off all night. You didn’t even go to the privy.
Granted, she’d also been twenty years younger. At least this battle wasn’t likely to go on so long that she’d piss herself. Thank the Fates for small mercies. The flames of the ashdancers were doing their job, destroying the smaller skotoi easily. But the shifting hulk that had killed Obelia was proving harder to vanquish.
Sephre edged closer to the thing, chafing at the bite of wrongness.Of course this feels wrong. You’re surrounded by demons trying to destroy your home.
Except that they weren’t. The skotoi had taken the courtyard easily, and yet they weren’t advancing up the steps, into the temple. Even that horrible boulder of flesh seemed to be...holding back? Were they simply conserving their numbers? Were the skotoi clever enough for such things, without the Serpent to command them?
She remembered Nilos then. What he’d said to her, at Kessely. That the skotoi had found a new master. Was he the one who had sent this host to attack Stara Bron? To destroy the ashdancers?
The truth struck Sephre in the gut, driving out her breath. She understood the wrongness. Why the flow of the battle itched at her.
Because itwasn’ta battle. It was a distraction. A feint. But what was the true goal, if not to simply wipe out the ashdancers? What did the demons want?
