Please not Zel. She is only a child.
The gold on me weighs me down, but I run until I reach the temple door. A side stitch is embedded like a knife in my waist, but I keep going because the door is ajar. It should be shut and locked. I shut and locked it last night.
I push the door fully open, and there is Zel. She is still breathing, her chest rising and falling rapidly, but I don’t feel any relief, because Eyo’s sentry, Lucius Calais, stands behind her. He holds a dagger to her throat with one hand, his other grabbing at her skirts. It takes a single moment to realize I interrupted whatever he was about to do to her.
Zel’s eyes are wide, and she’s going to scream. There’s a terrible glint in Calais’s eye. Now that he can’t exercise his physical power over her, he’s going to settle for the pleasure of killing her in front of me.
How am I going to stop him?
Zel is on the other side of the room, and I have no weapon on me.
Fool! Why didn’t I grab a blade? She’s going to die now, and there’s nothing I can do.
My stomach twists as bile rises in my throat. I have a moment, just one, to react. Half a heartbeat squeezes in my chest as she screams, the pitch high and haunting. My blood drips, trickling from my left wrist into my palm.
I dip my right fingers in my blood. Without even thinking about it, I sign in the air in a cutting motion. The same way I saw my father sign across his neck.
In a burst of inky blackness, death comes for Lucius Calais. Blood splatters Zel’s back and hair as his neck is sliced apart. Then blood pours out of his body like a fountain as his head is cleaved from his shoulders, cut cleanly in the direction I just signed.
I stand, stunned. I hadn’t even thought I could do that. But it wasn’t thought—it was all instinct.
Victory and horror flow through me, but as he falls, Calais retains enough of a grip that his dagger slits Zel’s throat.
No!
I rush forward and catch her as she collapses. But I was too late. Too slow. Crimson gushes from the wound on her neck—her life spilling out.
I try to stanch the bleeding, pressing my hands on her throat, but I know it’s hopeless. My blood can’t heal like the old king. I don’t have that power. No one does. Not even the most skilled healer could help her now.
All I can do is hold her as she chokes on her own blood.
We crumple to the floor, Zel’s body across my lap as I cradle her. I keep one hand on her neck, but I grip her hand with my other, trying to be some kind of hollow comfort. She tries to speak as she stares into my eyes, but all that comes out is a gurgling sound. Pure fear widens her eyes, her expression begging for help that can’t come.
And then there is nothing. Her brown eyes stay open, but they no longer see. Her hand falls limp out of mine.
When the light leaves her eyes, all I feel is rage. Consuming, deadly fury hits, my heartbeat roaring in my ears. My hands curl holding her as I look at Calais’s skull, his mouth open in shock.
I’m sorry I killed him. I regret giving him the charity of a fast death. I should’ve tortured him until living became worse than dying. He murdered her. He knew he would die, but in his very last moments, he chose to kill a fucking child. And I couldn’t stop him. I can’t stop any of these vipers as they slither and strike at will.
Rage bursts beneath my skin, the scream building in my throat. This time I don’t swallow it down; I let it out. My scream rings and echoes around the divining room. I scream until I don’t have any breath left.
The purple of the eternal flame draws my attention. The fire roars with righteous anger, the blaze rising in a column ten feet into the air. I stare and realize it’s not just my rage, but the god’s. A servant’s blood was spilled in a holy place, and the god of truth riots.
Enough of these lies and liars.
Come to me.
I move my fingers and call the eternal flame. It spills out of the brazier like water and then surrounds me the way it did when I was a child. I bathe in the familiar glow and hold Zel’s body tightly in my arms. The remains of Lucius Calais catch fire. His blood and clothes burn first, but then his body, his face is incinerated. The smell of charred flesh fills the air, and when he’s finally gone, I look past him.
That’s when I notice the Praetorian standing in the open doorway.
LVI.
Torren
I don’t understand what I’m seeing. I freeze and then shield my eyes, because Kerasea is surrounded by a purple bonfire so bright that it hurts to look at her. The heat radiating out is scorching, even from the doorway.
I raced here, worried she was in danger, thinking I could help, which now seems foolish. But I heard a scream. There was just a pool of blood, and I thought Lucius Calais was lying on the ground in two pieces. Now there’s only Kerasea cradling her servant girl. She and Zel sit unburned in the middle of the flame.
