“Thank you,” he told Saraida, and touched her arm. “I won’t forget this.”
Saraida regarded his hand with mild bemusement until he withdrew it, looking rather hurt. “Do whatever you must.” She stalked out of the room and shut the door, leaving Ysira with no escape route and nowhere to look but at Seth.
The years had been kind to him. He had a proper beard now and a strong, substantial build. He had come with a priest, and . . . Ysira blinked. She knew him, too, though it took her longer to recognize him. Back in their Citadel days, he’d worn grey robes and had a number for a name: Ninety-Nine.
He had an unkempt, somewhat feral appearance, with white-blond hair, a long nose, and black robes that had been tailored for a larger man. He was fair-skinned, probably of Dalish origin, but unlike Saraida or Ogden, his face had grown neither freckled nor leathery brown in the desert sun. He was almost as stubbornly white as his eerie eyes.
“Ysira.” He motioned for her to sit.
She did not. “You look terrible.” She was a little disappointed when the priest didn’t respond. “Did they ever deign to give you a name?”
“Brother Kheris,” he said stiffly, then seemed to decide he’d made this awkward. “Jacen.”
Ysira turned to Seth. “This is a surprise.”
He was looking at her in a way that made her nervous—fondly. “How long has it been? Ten years?”
“Twelve,” said Ysira. At least Ninety-Nine—Jacen—looked as uncomfortable as she felt.
Then Seth said, “I need your help.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Audacious of you.”
“This was a mistake,” Jacen muttered. “I’ll find someone else, or—” Seth didn’t let him finish. “Ysira—it’s Neri.”
Neri.The name rang through Ysira’s skull, bell-clear and horribly familiar. She could only stare at Seth, sick to her stomach, until she managed to grit out,“What did Ged do?”
“Nothing yet,” Seth said, and for a moment, Ysira could breathe again. “Ged is . . . sending him to the canyon. I need you to bring him back before anything happens to him.”
“Why?” “Because?—”
“Why would Ged send a child in there?” Ysira used her knight’s voice, the one she’d learned at the Citadel and had been very good at, back when it mattered.
This time, Jacen answered. “I’ve seen evidence of a demon in the canyon. It—” He pressed his lips together. “Ged believes he can use it as a weapon. Such a demon requires a telepath to become its vessel. Since Neri is a telepath—albeit barely?—”
Ysira laughed. It startled Jacen, enough that he stopped talking.
But what else could she do?
She had been seventeen when she left the Citadel, determined to leave that humiliating chapter of her life behind. Less than a cycle later, she’d been Harvested. By the time she realized she was carrying Ged Semira’s child, it was far too late to do anything about it. She didn’t even remember most of her pregnancy. She’d been off . . . somewhere. Wherever the gods took their sacrifices, before they cut her throat and left her fordead. She had returned to Zivora in a body she did not recognize, to a life that was no longer hers. Officially, she no longer existed.
Her own future was destroyed, and any son of hers would have suffered the same fate. But the son of a future High Lord of Zivora? He should have the world at his fingertips.
Forthisto happen instead?—
She laughed harder, until tears leaked from her eyes and Seth said, “He’s not joking.”
“Of course not,” said Ysira. “It’s not remotely funny.” She wiped her face and jerked her chin at Jacen. “You’re the expert. This sort of possession—would it kill him?”
It wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Different demons had vastly different impacts on their hosts; she knew that from experience. But people in the Knots still whispered of heat and shadow, of a red thing deep below the desert that called to them, hungering. She shuddered despite herself.
Jacen stalled before answering. “I don’t see how it wouldn’t.”
He looked half a corpse. Whatever was going on in his head, Ysira didn’t trust it.
“What’s your plan, then? I go to the canyon, and . . .”
“Damir and Casandra will go with Neri,” Seth said. “You’d have to avoid them, split them up.” He hesitated. “We need to make it look like Neri disappeared somewhere in the desert. Then bring him back to Jacen’s chapel.”
