“What you just did there? It was all because of Ashhur. Your god gave you the power to heal. You prayed to him, and he lent you his own strength so you could bring someone back from the brink of death. Amazing, if you think about it. And you’ll never, ever be able to do that again once Karak has destroyed the god you love. The next time you try to save a life, you’ll have to watch someone die instead.”
Bardiya stood on weary legs, and as much as he wanted to deny his friend, he did not possess the strength to argue. Patrick’s face hardened.
“Your place is coming to the aid of others,” he said. “And your earlier example is shit. You may not blame the wolf for attacking a boy who wanders into the forest-I get that. But only a coward would stay outside the forest after discovering a child was missing.”
Patrick turned his horse, glaring over his shoulder as he rode away.
“And the gods help the man who would watch that child die instead of defending him from the wolf.”
CHAPTER 17
The figurine was a foot tall, illuminated by ambient light reflecting off the chamber walls. Ceredon knelt to study it, his elbows pressed into the round oaken table. It was of a naked woman, wide at the hips and bosom, her hair flowing about her in unruly spirals. Though the statuette had been carved from plain sandstone, he still thought he could see the peach hue of her flesh. Her eyes were black, bottomless pits where mere mortals such as he lost themselves.
The figure’s stance was odd: arms stretched up above her head, fingers fanned out, waist slightly bent, legs bowed and crossed at the ankles, head thrown back, mouth opened wide. The placement and pose invited wildly divergent interpretations: The upheld arms could represent a gesture of freedom or the stance of a bound woman; the arrangement of the bowed legs was common in both dance and swordplay; the opened mouth could be screaming in either pleasure or pain. Her every feature seemed to be wholly human, yet the curvature of her body was unmistakably elven. Ceredon shook his head. There was no contradiction here, no duplicity. This was the goddess, and for her, there was only balance.
“Celestia,” he whispered, placing his hands on either side of the icon and closing his eyes. “Please, tell me what I do is right.”
He sat listening to the rumble and creak of the massive crystal structure above him, waiting for some sign from his creator. But none came, not even a subtle shudder that might have suggested she was listening. Perhaps Father was right; perhaps Celestia no longer cared for her people.
“So be it,” he said. His eyes snapped open, and he leaned forward to place a kiss on Celestia’s bosom. “We may not be worthy of your love, but I have never stopped loving you. If you’re watching, please know that what I do now is out of love-love for the people you created, love for the wisdom you taught us.”
He stood up, took off his belt, from which his khandar still hung, and placed it on the table. He then removed a short dagger from his boot and examined it. The blade was sharp enough to slice down the length of a piece of thread. “I serve you always,” he whispered. “Even in the darkest of moments.”
Sheathing the dagger in a leather wrap and tucking it back into his boot, he lifted his eyes to his surroundings.
It is time, he thought.
He was in a chamber far underneath Palace Thyne, accessible via a passage in the crypts hidden beneath the sarcophagus of Ra’an Dultha, the first Lord of the Dezren. Tantric Thane, leader of the rebels fighting his father’s regime, had revealed the passage’s existence to him. “From the tunnels you can access any section of the palace unnoticed,” he’d said. “We have tried to use them before, but to no avail. The palace is too large, the tunnels too narrow, the rooms too numerous. It took us three full evenings just to examine eight chambers, and all we found inside were servants and underlings…and your quarters. However, if you could tell us exactly where to look…”
“No,” Ceredon had replied. “I must be the one to do the deed.”
He had first he met Tantric in his bedchamber in Palace Thyne on the evening when his room was discovered. It had happened after yet another patrol during which Ceredon had protected the very rebels he’d been assigned to exterminate. They’d talked for only a short time before Tantric handed him the dagger that was now stowed in his boot, marked with the Thane family crest, which would help steer suspicion away from Ceredon when he used it. After that, the old elf had told him of the secret door behind the emerald fireplace that connected to a series of narrow, interlocking tunnels, one of which led to Lord Orden Thyne’s secluded shrine, where Ceredon now prayed.
The time for prayers was over, though, and the elf breezed past the table, fingers sliding over the chamber’s glimmering green walls as he disappeared inside a geometrical trick: one wall was positioned slightly forward from the other, creating a nearly invisible gap wide enough to slip through.
Although the exterior of Palace Thyne was of shimmering emerald, the foundation and what lay between the walls was pure granite, hard and compacted and bleak. When Ceredon exited the breach, leaving behind the twinkling green chamber, he was thrown into near darkness. He waited for his eyes to adjust and then placed his foot on the first step of a constricted staircase. The well was a steeply angled upward climb, the walls so close on either side that he had to move sideways so as to not scrape his shoulders against the rough stone. Every thirteen steps, a level ended, and four narrow openings in the floor led to small, circular tunnels containing access points to concealed entrances in dozens of rooms in the palace.
He climbed floor after floor, keeping count of how many times the stairwell rotated, until he reached the ninth story. After another quick prayer to Celestia, he dropped on his belly and pulled himself forward on his elbows, entering the north tunnel and a darkness so bleak that even his elven eyes could not adjust to it.
Panic tickled at the hairs on the back of his neck. The blackness was a living thing, squeezing in on him, trying to crush him. He had never experienced its like before, not even in the deep caves or the catacombs beneath the city. An urge to retreat to his room filled him, and he had to fight it. He felt ashamed of his cowardice. It was only darkness, and he would navigate the tunnel as he must, his claustrophobia and fears be damned.
He inched himself along, shooing a few squeaking rats away, sounding like a rat himself as his cured elk-skin breeches scratched against the rough stone. His hand fell on one portal to the right, one to the left, one to the right, one to the left, each emitting a soft, whispery puff of fresh air. He counted seven openings before stopping, swiveling on his stomach, and steeling himself for the task at hand.
Reaching above, his fingers found a thin stone shaft. He latched onto it with both hands and pulled himself upward, sliding from the tunnel like a snake. The world brightened, the air growing pleasantly warm. There was a second shaft above him and he ascended that as well. The heat grew with each passing moment, and when he drew himself up, he met a haze of smoke.
Just like all the portals, this one opened up behind a wide hearth. Ceredon carefully placed his feet on the sooty stone ledge and inched his way to the side. He had to hold his breath to keep from coughing, and every so often one of the dying embers would pop and leap, threatening to scorch him. Luckily none did. Perhaps Celestia was looking out for him after all.
There was a latch on the far side of the interior of the hearth, and when he pulled it, the corner bent away with a quiet rumbling, opening space for him to exit. He crawled out, not bothering to slide the corner back into place. He’d need it ready for his escape. Brushing himself off, he pulled the dagger from his boot and stepped into Conall’s bedchamber.