Page 22 of Ensii
Word spread quickly, from house to house, street corner to street corner. The shrines and small temples to Anakti along the road were torched and the icons thrown in the streets. Even the golden icons were clubbed with hammers beyond recognition, the wood beneath the gold plate splintering and cracking as the fold frayed like a papery skin.
Talitha was a little surprised to see that none of them were taking the stones or precious metals and cloths left as offerings to the goddess. Everything was knocked down and burned.
Was this an example of what could happen when a people were deprived their basic needs? Was this simply pent-up anger and did these people truly renounce the war goddess? Or were they all secret loyalists to the Lonely God who had feared Nehemian—as she should have? Talitha would sort it out later.
For now, there was a wholesale attack. For every cry announcing Talitha and Ashek as the returned and rightful rulers there was another to decry Anakti’s high places. Even the frescoes along the sides of alleys—Talitha hadn’t even known they were there—were scraped off with chisels and spades.
What would they find when they got to the palace? Talitha didn’t dare speculate. Half of her expected a desolate ruin and the other half wasn’t sure Naram would have dared damage the beauty of his new home.
As their swelling ranks rounded the corner, she found that the latter was true. The palace of Ilios stood as it had for hundreds of years—golden, soaring, and massive.
Talitha didn’t remember it ever appearing so huge. It seemed to be a city of its own, sprawling and soaring and blocking out the stars.
How were they getting in? Talitha had lived here for her whole life and never found a secret way in and out as ensaak, much less as an invader.
“Is there a plan to get inside the palace gates?” Shaza asked drily from behind her shoulder.
“We’ll have to wait and see.”
“So that’s a no?”
Talitha didn’t grace him with an answer. “What happens will happen.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“Keep your northerners at the ready and wait for my command.” Talitha looked to Ashek. Their plan to catch Ilios unawares would not work so well now.
Already, a crowd had gathered around the gates, shouting up at the guards, demanding to be let in. Ilios was not a city known for its unrest. Come to think of it, most riots dispersed on their own if not the city guards within a few hours. It was a fat and glutted city, not used to insurrection.
It came as no surprise then that the scattered guards seemed unsure of what to do. They looked to one another from atop the battlements, helmets glinting in the light of their torches.
“In the name of Ensaak Talitha, open these gates!” came the repeated command over and over. A handful shouting Ashek’s name mixed in here and there. Talitha wasn’t sure if they were really Ashek’s people or if they were just confused as to who was taking this city in the first place.
“Do you trust me?” Ashek asked as they approached the gates.
It was a strange question. She wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out he had hidden more from her. That seemed inevitable. Of course there had been secrets and omissions. At the same time, she didn’t doubt that he had been willing to die for her. He had protected her and fought for her. And she could never forget his unadulterated awe when they made love, the way he moved over her like she was everything he’d ever wanted and never dared hope he’d have.
Heat crept up the back of her neck. “I suppose.”
Ashek nodded. They needed to trust one another if they were going to take the palace, never mind rule a city together.
As they approached, the gates creaked. Slowly, the massive bronze doors began to push outward, opening like the petals of a tiger lily.
Talitha shouted over the clamor. “Halt!”
The captains didn’t need to be told. In seconds, the order to draw up, to form ranks rippled across the night air.
Their shields locked into tight formation. Northerners, freed Ilians, and Hudspethites clustered together in a single shield wall, a motley of shields and yet united on a single front.
Talitha crouched behind her shield, peering between two lines of fighters. A lone armored figure appeared at the gates.
“Something’s wrong,” Talitha said to Ashek.
Her husband quirked one eyebrow. That statement probably sounded like the obvious.
“Look.”
The soldier who emerged was splattered in dark blood. From this distance, it was hard to tell if it was the light or if the blood was as black as it appeared.
