At last, something Seth recognized flashed across his nephew’s face. Neri’s narrow shoulders rose and fell, his breathing suddenly shallow. But when he spoke, there was iron in his voice.
“We are.”
After the fall of Zal Fel, they returned to Otavok through the Gate.
For Seth and Jacen, without demons, it shouldn’t have been possible. But Nerispoketo that fracture in reality, in no language Seth understood. With a shudder like a skipped heartbeat, the Gate seemed to listen.
Neri said, “The Source will let you pass.”
Jacen stepped through without hesitation. Seth did not dare follow until Ysira took him by the hand, her other arm around his shoulders, and guided him through.
The inner sanctum of the Otavok temple, the library, and the fields remained intact. But the Shrouded City lay in ruins, its buildings blasted to rubble by weapons of immense power. The invaders must have gotten word, at some point, that Neri was no longer there, because they’d left nothing standing.
The militia had fought valiantly, bolstered by Urien and Ogden’s stolen technologies, but they had taken heavy losses before the Firstborn surrender. Bodies littered the streets, and the stagnant, humid underground air was dense with cries of mourning. Soon, though, there was also joy. Relief. And, of course, adulation.
Few of the city’s denizens knew what Seth had done under Turil’s control or that, only yesterday, he’d been chained in a cell below the library, but still he felt like an intruder. He followed Jacen and Ysira through the sandstone halls with the thundering pulse of one being hunted for sport, even as they insisted Mount Otavok was the safest place for them to be.
After some interminable number of hours, the chaos receded enough that the others began to speak of rest. Neri and Jacen remained at the temple—for what, Seth didn’t think he wanted to know—while Ysira escorted Seth to the library’s residential wing. She showed him to a room with a soft bed, a wash basin, and a secluded terrace overlooking the lake. Bioluminescent flora soaked the walls in a warm golden glow.
It seemed that finally, Seth would be left alone. The thunder in his heart escalated into panic.
If there was anything he wanted less than to remain in public, it was to be alone. How many times, when the demon goddess inhabited him, had control of his body been seized? What had it been used to do? Could he ever trust himself again?
No. He could not be alone.
He gripped Ysira’s arm. “Don’t go.” “Seth . . .”
“Please.” His voice broke. “Please.”
She sat on the bed beside him. What Seth felt for Ysira was less than love, and he suspected the same was true of her. He still had a million questions, questions to which he wasn’t even sure he wanted answers. He knew in his bones that she had done something terrible, something that might well make him hateher, andyet.He also needed her. He needed her, and so right now, he could not allow himself to feel anything else.
When he began to weep, unable to hold it in any longer, he fell against her. He wept as he hadn’t in years. Ysira held him close for so long, he lost track of time, until somehow his lips found hers.
She pulled away, a question in her eyes. She cradled his face in her hands like a shard of glass, as if he might break, as if she might bleed. But perhaps he wanted to break. Perhaps she needed to bleed.
Jacen found them there. His telepath’s gaze traveled over them both until Ysira stood. Seth thought she might leave, but instead, she took Jacen by the hand and guided him to sit beside them on the bed. She drew Seth’s one hand toward them, linking it with Jacen’s. Their fingers laced together. Not a question, but an answer.
Ysira and Jacen met each other’s eyes. Something passed between them with alarming intensity. Without letting go of Seth’s hand, Jacen pulled Ysira toward him and kissed her. Her shoulders went loose as she leaned in to him, and the most exquisite gasp escaped her. Seth watched them, enraptured.
When they broke apart, he drew them both into his arms and held them. He could have stayed there for an eternity. But before he could think twice, Jacen was helping him get his shirt off. Seth’s lips found Ysira’s once more. He wove his fingers through her hair as he tilted his chin up to kiss Jacen. Ysira unfastened Jacen’s robes, and he removed her armor. He ran his hands reverently over her naked body, lingering over the only scars she’d keep forever.
They started slow, taking turns with one another. Three became one, physical and mental boundaries blurring. Jacen didn’t even seem aware he was using his gifts until Seth tasted Ysira’s sex on Jacen’s tongue, bittersweet and wet as rain. Whenshe cried out, he felt it—a rush of fire, a wave so strong, it was almost painful, blood surging and clenching low in her core.
Quiet worship turned to ecstasy, and Seth wondered if he might die from this. The notion flitted across his mind and swiftly evaporated. He forgot everything but pleasure, forgot everything but them. They moved as two forces of nature, neither entirely human, and Seth was the earth between them—their anchor and their battleground.
Much later, Jacen and Ysira lay on either side of Seth, wrapped against the soft, solid warmth of his torso. Their fingers twined together on his chest as he stared at the ceiling, thinking to himself,This is everything I ever wanted.
It was an inane thought, given that he felt so full of fear.
48
ICONOCLASM
SETH
In the morning of what would have been the final offering of the four hundred and fifty-first Harvest, the red sun rose into a clear blue dawn. That same afternoon, a force made up of Otavok militia and Zivoran City Guardsmen claimed the Citadel plaza in the name of a new god.
In all the chaos, what remained of the old regime fell quickly. Seth had watched statues pulled down, the palestone painted red, gardens watered with blood. Ysira assured him that the violence would soon end, but now was the time for a swift, decisive transfer of power.Later, they could do this the slow, civilized way.
