The door to the gatehouse closed with a bang, and the Prince pocketed the coin. He turned and looked at the innermost sanctum of Banelyn, the Inner City, where lived the Most High Blood, the city’s ruling aristocracy.
Palaces rose up around him on every side, grand and decorated with more wealth than the Prince supposed the Commons would ever see. There were sculptures, well-manicured lawns, and beautifully crafted fountains. But what caught the Prince’s eye was the Cathedral.
The Cathedral of the Empress was known throughout Lucia, and the Prince had heard stories of its grandeur all his life. But being here, standing in its shadow and seeing it for himself, was the first time he truly appreciated it.
The light of the moon and stars was just bright enough to highlight the curving, majestic lines of the stone, the way its towers speared the sky and the central dome seemed to cap the world. It was a visible incarnation of the power of the Empress—for she had built it, if the legends were true, simply by standing at its center and willing it into existence.
The Prince shook himself out of his reverie. The building was grand, but he needed to continue on his path. He needed to find the sixth sign, the…
The six penitents, who knelt on humble knees, staring at him from the face of the Cathedral, each golden statue in its own alcove.
His heart soared. The Path led inside the Cathedral. Of course!
He reached the huge wooden doors quickly. They were still open for late-night worshipers, and he passed through them. Inside the Cathedral, he was vaguely conscious of the beauty all around him, but the only thing that concerned him was the seventh sign. He needed to find it, he was so close….
A glint of gold to his right, in a large basin of water. He crossed to it and saw the sixth golden coin, and a mixed wave of relief and anger coursed through him. He reached into the fountain, doing so quickly and as surreptitiously as possible, as there were members of the Most High nearby in their long, elegant robes, praying to the Empress even at this time of night, and various servantscleaning. He grasped the coin, pulled it out and thrust it into his pocket, silently chiding himself for almost missing it. If he didn’t have all seven coins when he came to the Seeker, he would be turned away.
“Who are you, and what are you doing in this Cathedral?”
The voice behind him was deep and threatening, and the Prince spun to face its owner. The man was tall, bald, and very menacing. He wore the long brown robes and golden rope of a Lesser Seeker. The Prince opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the man’s eyes looked behind him and saw the empty basin, then took in the Prince’s clothing and his bulging pocket of coins, and spoke first.
“What is it you seek?”
Relief flooded through the Prince, and he spoke the rest of the ritual. Once he had finished, the man became rather kindly and took him by the arm. He pointed him up the center aisle of the Cathedral and wished him luck. The Prince thanked the man and nearly ran toward where he had pointed, only stopping himself from doing so because he knew it would raise an alarm, and possibly keep him from his goal, which was now within reach.
His eyes ran across the front of the Cathedral, looking for the seventh sign, the seven-pointed star, the Star of Light. Panic grew in him when he couldn’t find it. He neared the large pulpit, and the wooden pews on either side of him began to dwindle, but still he couldn’t find it.
He scanned the area again. Nothing. The ceiling—nothing. The floor—nothing.
Where was the sign?
He turned, ready to go back and ask the man again for help, and as he did, he saw it. A small, unobtrusive wooden door, far to the side of the Cathedral, hidden in the shadows, with the golden star inlaid in the wood.
Sharp movement out of the corner of his eye—he turned to the front of the Cathedral, and there, standing in the shadows just inside the open doors, wasthe Exile girl, her green eyes locked on him with ferocious intent, blazing like the eyes of an avenging spirit.
Fear—blind, senseless fear—grabbed the Prince. It was impossible that she could have followed him, and yet there she was. He turned and ran for the door with the seven-pointed star, hearing shouts behind him as servants and Most High saw him and raised an alarm.
He grabbed the metal ring of the door and pulled. The door swung open on oiled hinges; he crossed the threshold and slammed the door shut behind him, locking himself in darkness.
Chapter Ten: Seek and Find
For a long moment, he just stood there, wrapped in darkness. His breath echoed heavily in his ears, and he was hardly able to think. He half expected the door to open behind him, and for all the attendants and the bald, menacing Lesser Seeker to come in and pull him out. Perhaps the Exile girl would find a way in and slit his throat in the darkness.
But time passed and none of those things happened. More time passed, and his breathing slowed, and he found himself able to think again.
He was through the seventh door. The Seeker was here. The Seekermustbe here.
“Hello?”
His voice came back to him in hollow echoes, and he realized that he wasn’t in a room but in a long passageway. As his eyes adjusted to the black, he also began to realize that he wasn’t in total darkness. He could vaguely make out a light far away, in the distance in front of him. He began to move cautiously toward the light, both hands stretched out before him, inching ahead one step at a time. With each step, the light grew brighter, and soon he was able to lower his hands. A little farther along he found that he was indeed in a long passageway: a downward sloping half-circle made of cobblestone walls. The floor was nothing but smooth, hard-packed dirt, and his simple Commons boots left little impression on it.
Down the passage he went, until he could make out the light source: a guttering, shifting torch held in an iron wall bracket. Beyond it, the passageway curved to the right and continued down.
The darkness began to close in on him again as he left the torch behind. This was a message from the Seekers: there was some sort of religious dogma here,he knew, about Seeking the Light of Truth even in the dark when all seems lost. But such contemplations were lost on him. All he was worried about was tripping over actual stumbling blocks, not metaphorical ones.
The passage continued to curve right and downward and he realized he would soon be directly beneath the Cathedral itself. Another light became visible in the distance, and he moved toward it, faster this time, and just beyond it found a simple wooden door.
A coin lay at his feet, and he bent to pick it up. But before he had touched it, he noticed something odd: there were six small indentations in the floor that looked too perfectly spaced to be there by coincidence. Slowly, he pulled the other six coins out and placed them, one by one, in the holes, which, he was unsurprised to find, fit the coins perfectly. As soon as his hand left the metal of the final coin, there was a click from above where he had knelt.
