Zivora had been devastated. Buildings in the Knots collapsed, carts splintered, goats and kirikil running amok. Smoke from several fires still choked the air. Though the Inner City was largely intact, polyhedra lay smashed in the streets. People clustered around their split-open bodies, shouting in wonder and confusion at glittering metal innards.
The Disciples of the Gate had spread the word for citizens to gather in the plaza. Seth had assumed at least some would show, but he had not expected this: a mass of humanity, what seemed like blasted near every soul in Zivora. They had buried their dead, begun to take in the scope of their new reality, and now they demanded answers. They swarmed over the ruins of the White Cathedral, a current as swift and strong as the deepriver rapids.
To ensure the greatest possible numbers would see them arrive, Jacen had chosen an approach from the docks to the Citadel. Ysira carried the skull of the god Zephon—the first to die, brought before the High Lord by a scavenger. Seth carried the skull of Rakalem—destroyed in the battle by the Otavok Gate. They flanked Neri like points of a triangle, Jacen forging ahead, the tip of a spear driving through the throng.
Zivora’s liberators had come with a dozen warriors guarding them, but they needn’t have. The crowds parted for them, murmurs spreading in their wake. Seth caught the nameNaxal: first a whisper, then a shout. A prayer.
They climbed the damaged steps—all that remained of the White Cathedral. People pressed at their backs. The cacophony grew louder, more demanding. But Jacen’s voice rose above the clamor.
“ISTIL!”
Silence.He said it in Zal, long forbidden in these hallowed streets.
A hush fell over the crowd.
“AKSASIK!”Listen.And the silence was complete.
Ysira quietly translated for Seth: “The reign of the Black Sun has ended.”
“The gods are no longer watching. This city belongs to you.” Jacen pointed at a tetrahedron smashed in the plaza below. “Wehave ripped away their eyes and ears. We have broken their grip on this world.”
He waited for the ensuing cries to die down. “Your Church learned the truth, that the gods of Zivora were only mortal, and that they had lied to us. But when we challenged them, they struck us down.” He stabbed a finger at the ruins behind him. “They did this because they feared we would remember that their power was never ultimate. They taught us to fear the Source because they feared what we might do with it. And they were right to fear. These so-called gods, who have taken from you all your lives, century after century, have been destroyed.”
To Seth, Jacen had always been two different men. The first man, the one Seth knew in private, was soft-spoken, neurotic, and somewhat peevish. A change took hold whenever he became the second man—the priest. Calm and assured, he played the part of one who knew all the answers, who’d never had any cause to doubt. He looked into the crowd and met someone else’s eyes with each new sentence, engaging them, making them feel seen. He spoke the Scar’s long-forbidden language with the tones and cadence of a practiced orator.
But today, it was also more than that. Jacen had become someone new, a third man, who Seth had never seen before.
The prophet.
“This world is not what you were taught,” Jacen said, “and in the coming days, you will learn more difficult truths. Butone thingremains true and has been since the Cataclysm: Naxal defends the Scar. Your mothers and fathers told you the legends, and now, the moment is upon you. You saw the sun emerge, the shadow devoured. You saw that fire in the sky. You will see it again.”
Now Jacen pointed at Neri and moved aside so all could see him, watching the crowd with burning red eyes. “Here standsNeri Var Naxal. The false gods have fallen, and here—hererises their conqueror!”
Was he using his extradimensional senses—nudging individual minds or the crowd’s collective unconscious? Was such a thing possible? Was Jacen capable of it? Seth had never been able to tell, nor had he mustered the nerve to ask.
“Put your faith in Naxal, and you will see all the wonders of the heavens. Worlds beyond this one, free from famine and disease. Everything the false gods promised, but inthislife—for you, for your children, and for a thousand generations to come. No longer will we beg and pray for peace.”
Jacen took Zephon’s skull from Seth. He gripped it in his hand, gazing into those hollow eyes, then lifted it over his head. His voice rang out like thunder. “Behold—the Lord of Sorrow.”
He tossed the skull into the crowd. They clamored and groped at it, seeing the evidence for themselves. The old woman who’d caught it let out a wrenching noise, half a sob, half a shout. She held it aloft with trembling hands.
Many didn’t believe the skull was real. They shouted, pointed, and argued. Some cursed in the old gods’ names. Seth did not need to be a telepath to feel their pain and confusion. But he also felt the fire, such that this city had not seen in centuries. For now, it was only kindling, but this was just the beginning. The sparks before a blaze. The chills before an outbreak.
“This Harvest season, you prayed that your loved ones would be spared. Those pleas were echoed across the Dominion of the Black Sun. For those who could not see what you’ve been shown today—go out and tell them.Spread the word. Tell them who answered your prayers.”
The screaming of the crowd attained a choral quality, rising with the wind. A trail of ice trickled down Seth’s spine, even as the heat of rapture pulled at him. It was contagious—a starving, feverish thing. As he watched something take root, somethingthat would one day become uncontainable, he could not look away.
“All our lives we’ve lived in shadow. We do not fear the dark. We endured beyond the end of our world before, and we will again.” Jacen cut a hand through the air, pointing to the heavens. “And the stars will know our name.”
49
PROVIDENCE
SETH
Three cycles after that day at the plaza, a new ruling council was to gather in the High Lord’s rebuilt audience chamber.
A banner hung behind the throne: an inverted triangular spiral, blood-red on a black field. Neri sat before it. He wore a simple black tunic, and the symbols of rulership now adorned his forehead as a permanent tattoo. He should have been swallowed up by the stone chair; he was so much smaller than Avram had been, but his presence commanded the room.
