Page 81 of House of Dusk
Beroe drew herself taller. “I will do no such thing.”
Lacheron’s smug certainty crumbled slightly, and Sephre almost cheered. She had never been so grateful for Beroe’s high opinion of herself.
“What will you do then?” Lacheron demanded. “You cannot allow her to walk free.”
“No,” agreed Beroe. She turned to Sephre. “Don’t worry, sister. I understand, now. How this has been poisoning you, filling you with lies. Those things you said, earlier.”
“That was the truth.” Frustration boiled up her throat, spilling out. “He’s the liar.” She jabbed a finger at Lacheron. “He’s behind all of this. Just like in Bassara. He wanted Halimede out of the way because she refused to recognize Hierax as the Ember King. Because he wants someone he can control. Don’t let him use you!”
She could practically see her words bouncing off Beroe. In her eyes Sephre was raving. A child throwing a tantrum.
“We will do as Agia Halimede commanded, with her dying breath,” said Beroe, finally.
“What?” Sephre was honestly confused, trying to recall Halimede’s last broken words. Something about facing what she’d done, and remembering. And...water?
“We will burn away the taint,” said Beroe, simply. “You’ll be cleansed of the Serpent’s mark, and released from the pains and fears of your past. Just as you’ve long wished, sister. You will be Embraced.”
• • •
Sephre had never begrudged her small, windowless bedchamber before. It was warm and snug, and her hours in the garden offered all the fresh air and sunlight she could want.
Now, it was a prison. Complete with a chamber pot and a ewer of water. She counted the passage of time by the rotation of the soldiers standing guard in the hallway outside. It must be well past dawn by now. Half a day since the attack on Stara Bron. Since Halimede died and Timeus was stolen.
He was alive. He must be. The skotos wanted her, not the boy. They would not kill him. But what else might they do? Torment him? Feed on his spirit? At least she could take some comfort in the fact that he was a red brother now. He had a spark of the holy flame to protect him.
Frustration itched over her. She wanted to hit something. Lacheron’s face would do. Or Beroe’s.
Sephre grimaced. She had tried, but it was too little, too late. Maybe if she’d approached Beroe sooner, told her everything that first day after she returned, she could have convinced the woman to trust her.
Probably not. Sephre barely trusted herself. She sat on her cot, weary from pacing the five steps between the narrow walls, and angled her right wrist to catch the light of the small lamp. The mark was a shock, no matter how many times she studied it. It reminded her of the first time she’d seen her own reflection after the war. The fine lines around her eyes. The threads of wiry gray at her temples.
She understood what Beroe feared. Fates, Sephre feared it herself. What if the markwaschanging her? But it wasn’t as if the Serpent was whispering in her head, telling her to release a tide of demons into the world. And her own spark of yellow flame remained as strong as ever.
She summoned it, now, to brighten the cell. To drive back the gnashing images of Timeus being tormented by skotoi. Sephre might never understand the grand shape of the world, the machinations of the Fates, the epic struggles of the gods. But she knew that a boy she cared about, her apprentice, a young person placed in her charge, was in danger. Whatever else, she had to find him. Free him. Return him safely to Stara Bron.
The Embrace would steal that from her. She would lose her memories of Timeus. She would forget that he had been taken, that she had ever cared. This pain in her chest when she imagined him suffering would fall to ash.
But Timeus would still be a prisoner. The skotos had taken Timeus to lure Sephre to them. Because apparently she was so dangerous to them that they wanted not just to kill her, but to consume her spirit. To destroy her beyond any hope of rebirth, as they had Iola. Perhaps that was only possible within the labyrinth?
Or maybe she was giving the skotoi too much credit for tactical thought. Regardless of why they wanted to lure her to the labyrinth, if she failed to show up, they might simply consume Timeus, and annihilate his spirit instead.
She forced the thought back, buried it deep. That would not happen. She would find a way into the labyrinth and bring him out again. She would dare those drear dark walls, she would walk those mist-shrouded passages. She would face her own demons if she must.
Maybe shehadwanted the Embrace once. Maybe a part of her still did, even now. To be free of her shame, of the terrible things she had done. Zander’s eyes. The silent streets of Bassara. But those weren’t the only things the flame would burn away. And she needed to remember.
Sephre might not recall Halimede’s dying words exactly, but she didn’t credit Beroe’s interpretation. It hadn’t been a command, but a warning. Did she know about the Maiden burning her own memories to ash, leaving the world to believe the Ember King’s lies? Had that been one of the secrets Agia Cerydon had passed down?
If so, she could have been asking Sephre to discover the truth of what really happened three centuries ago. But even so, why tell her toremember, unless . . .
Halimede said she was watching for signs foretold by Agia Cerydon.Many things may be reborn, not just the Ember King.
Such as the Maiden herself?
When she was ten, her father had caught Sephre play-acting the Trials of Telemena, using a purloined melon to represent the Unequaled Pearl and his walking stick as the Swan-Wing Sword. He’d laughed, stinging her young pride, and she’d shouted at him—Fates, she had been a handful—that she could be a great hero reborn. He’d only shaken his head, gesturing to their humble home, their stark mountain.You think a great hero would bereborntothis?
Yes, she’d felt a pang of familiarity, reading the Maiden’s codex. Yes, they carried similar burdens. Similar wounds. But that didn’t mean she was the Maiden reborn. It would be too cruel an irony, even for the Fates. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with rescuing Timeus. He was her priority.
She heard movement in the corridor outside. Sephre carefully rolled her shoulders. Shook the tension from her arms. This could be an opportunity. The soldiers outside were well trained, strong, quick. She was out of practice, old, and exhausted. But highly, highly motivated. And they had already underestimated her once. She gave herself even chances of breaking past them. But then what? Back to the Hall of Doors to see if she could somehow open the same portal the skotos had?
