At last—at last—Neri stirred and coughed.
Ysira nearly sobbed with relief. She made to cup his face, prod him awake, but drew back with a hiss. His bare skin was scalding. His eyelids fluttered open, unfocused, and she caught a flash of brilliant red. She had no frame of reference for what was happening. She needed an experienced healer, preferably Ogden.
A healer—or an exorcist.
She rolled Neri onto his stomach and hooked an elbow under his arm. She levered his body over her shoulders, taking care not to touch his skin. He had to weigh less than half what she did. This would be difficult, but she could do this. She had to.
She did not look back.
Ysira carried Neri out of the strange room, back through the temple, through the ravine, and out of the depths.
She found the path deserted. The sun had set. Nothing but the wind passed by, a whistling gale that whipped her hair against her face.Nothingstirred, no Osuun, no beasts, not even the buzz of insects. It was an awful silence, a hair-raising absence that thundered through her nerves—as though the canyon’s creatures could sense what now lurked inside Neri.
He would need water. Ysira’s own mouth grew parched, every breath rasping out of her like her lungs were lined withsand. Neri burned hotter and hotter. She had to layer her robe over the back of her neck to stand having him so close to her skin. Her passenger seemed to hate it too, and their inability to communicate had never frustrated Ysira more.
Calm down,she pleaded with it, to no avail. Her head throbbed, and the demon grew so restless, she had trouble keeping her balance. Her legs shook with every step. No matter how she shifted Neri’s weight, her shoulders trembled and her back ached. Still, she did not dare rest. She fixed her eyes on the terrain ahead, watching it pass beneath her step by step. Rock by rock. Grain of sand by grain of sand.
Only when she cleared the canyon rim did she let herself pause, and laid Neri down behind a pillar of rock. The stars and Oe shone overhead, painting the desert blue. Neri appeared to be in a deep sleep, barely stirring, but his pulse was steady.
As soon as Ysira bent her knees to sit, they buckled. She sagged against the rock, drenched in sweat, heart pounding. She had to keep moving. Get Neri to someone—anyone—who could help. Soon, very soon, but first she needed to breathe. To rest. To sleep . . .
10
VESSEL
JACEN
Jacen took a cart from the Citadel to the Inner City, not far from where his first chapel had been located. He was to meet Ged Semira on the ground floor of an empty tower, where he’d been summoned for . . . gods knew what. Jacen suspected he wouldn’t enjoy it. He arrived rather late and not at all sober.
The tower was one of many such structures in Zivora, an uninhabited surplus of space set aside for storage. The emptiness made Jacen feel like an ant crawling over the bones of something incomprehensibly greater than he. The Merchants’ Guild owned this particular building; the men standing guard were private contractors, not Guardsmen. He couldn’t decide whether he found that interesting or alarming.
The Knight Commander maintained a professional façade just long enough to get out of the guards’ earshot. At the top of a long spiral stair, Ged seized Jacen by the front of his robes and slammed him against the palestone wall.
“Damir hasn’t returned.” Ged leaned close enough that Jacen could see the silver flecks in his stubble and several places he’d cut himself with a razor. That didn’t bode well. Ged had a reputation for being as meticulous about his shave as he was his physique.
“It’s been almost two days,” he spat. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
Hard as it was to speak with a massive forearm shoved against his lungs, Jacen managed, “No.”
Ged loosened his grip enough to let Jacen breathe. “Don’t lie to me.” He sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “You’re too drunk to do a passable job of it. And I’ve had a thorough discussion with Seth. I know everything.”
Shit.Jacen tried to squirm away, but Ged blocked him. Not for the first time, Jacen—who was not a short man—resented the sheer physicality the bastard had at his disposal.
“Maybe they got lost,” Jacen said stubbornly. “You’re the one who sent children into the canyon instead of going yourself.”
“I trust my son as much as any knight of Zivora,” said Ged. “If anything’s happened to him, I swear I’ll?—”
Behind them, the heavy door to the observatory swung open. Seth stood there.
“Ged, for gods’ sake, get away from him.” Seth’s face was lined with barely restrained anger. “What are you trying to prove?”
With a look of deep disgust, Ged stepped back. “We have work to do. You’re in this now, whether you like it or not.”
He ushered Jacen into the observatory, an airy circular room with wide-open windows overlooking the darkened city. A surprising assortment of people stood around a palestone table: Saraida Ancarath, two knights Jacen didn’t recognize, and Sister Sionann Ilusha, an inquisitor of his own order. The thin, yellow-haired woman avoided eye contact.
The sixth individual was a thoroughly suspicious old man by the name of Ogden, who had once been a member of the High Lord’s court. Now he ran a clinic in the Knots. Even in the heat, he wore layered robes, gloves, and boots instead of sandals. He frowned at the sight of Jacen and told Ged, “When you said you’d enlisted a pair of telepaths, I didn’t think you meant the dregs of the Order.”
Sister Ilusha flushed bright red. She must have been recruited because she was easy to blackmail—it was the one thing she had in common with Jacen. It was an open secret that the Merchants’ Guild owned her.
