“Expect what?” Seth demanded. “What is the Trial of the Gate?” He tried to approach Jacen. The militiamen crossed their spears, blocking his way.
“It’s what Elyas did.” Jacen forced his mouth to move. “He walked into the Source, defenseless, and a demon chose him. If he hadn’t succeeded . . .”
“He would have faced judgment,” Ogden finished, when Jacen couldn’t. “Annihilation, most likely.”
“She saidNeriordered this?” Seth exclaimed. “This is insanity.” But Jacen heard himself say, “This is justice.”
“You cannot possibly be considering this.” Seth rounded on Ogden. The old man raised a bushy eyebrow. A question, and an irritated one. “And you—not one word? You’re just going to let them do this?”
“This is out of my hands,” said Ogden. “We all heard quite clearly. We enter the city in accordance with their customs, and this one is among their most sacred.”
“Since when do you care about sacred rituals? I thought you had no use for religion.”
“I have never said I haveno usefor religion,” said Ogden. “It has a great many uses. I have plenty of incentive to keep these people happy, and so do you.” He jabbed Seth in the chest with a bruising metal finger. “I recommend you find a way to cope, and quickly.”
Seth looked desperately to Urien. Nines was frozen in a way that would have made Jacen try to comfort her, had he not felt as if he floated somewhere far from his body.
Urien gave an apologetic lift of his shoulders. “You must understand why it’s not my place to question.”
Hesaya opened the door, depriving Seth of the chance to respond.
She addressed Jacen. “Follow me.”
Jacen’s hands shook, so hard he had to grip them together to make it stop. But when he emerged into the open, he faltered in his tracks. Had to recalibrate his sense of scale. The triangular chamber was so vast as to seem impossible, as though he’d stepped from a world of insects into one of giants. Several layers of mezzanine soared up to distant skylights, motes of dust drifting through the dimness like blurry stars.
The walls loomed monolithic and bare but for the one that formed the base of the triangle, opposite the entrance. That one held a titanic frieze of twisting, visceral shapes, which hurt Jacen’s head to gaze upon too long. In the center of the chamber three obelisks, etched with glyphs, marked the points of a triangular dais.
No—not a dais; that was a pool, but so still and black, it could have passed for stone. Above it hovered a tear in the universe.
The ceiling slanted up and up, letting in a shaft of red light that fractured around that void, scattering strange patterns across the water. A lone woman, scarred and red-robed with a shaved head, waited there. Her left arm was a burned and twisted ruin, secured in a sling across her chest.
Seth jogged past the militiamen to keep pace with Hesaya. “If I could just speak to Neri. Or Ysira. I swear to you they would not?—”
Hesaya rounded on him, so swiftly, they almost collided. “Unless you want to follow Brother Kheris into the Source, you will stand aside and you will not interfere.” She swept a hand off to her left, indicating where Seth ought to stand.
“It’s all right,” Jacen said, though his voice came out a croak. Ogden gripped Seth by the shoulder, steering him toward Urien, Nines, and a silent row of veiled acolytes. But Seth held Jacen’s gaze, and it brimmed with a heat and terror he had never seen before.
The militiamen forced Jacen to his knees before the Gate. He found himself looking at a flower with bruise-dark petals. Thorned telkaan vines lined the edges of the inky water, roots spidering out in a hundred greedily drinking tendrils.
“I didn’t know they could flower,” Jacen murmured.
“Not in centuries,” said the woman in red. “This is a powerful sign.”
Seth made a choking noise. The woman ignored him and crouched in front of Jacen. She grasped him by the chin with her good hand, forcing him to meet her stark white eyes.
“You don’t know me,” she said. “But I know you. I am Eneva Nal Karak, and I am the last Gatekeeper. Before the conquest, I would have selected valak candidates and prepared them to enter the Source. I would have ensured that only the strongest, the bravest, theworthiestwere allowed to attempt this most sacred of tests.” Her lip curled. “But in these times, we are far less spoiled for choice.”
“I’m here to atone,” Jacen said. “All my gifts are at your disposal.” “You’re of Zal blood,” Eneva went on, like he hadn’t spoken. She tilted his head side to side, examining him. “Probably not enough to counter the enemy’s taint, but it might help.”
Without breaking eye contact, she took a polished obsidian cup from her robe and dipped it in the pool. She held it, dripping, in front of Jacen’s face.
“Telkaan,” she said. “A powerful hallucinogen, known to enhance extradimensional senses. It will impair you in this universe but open your mind to the divine.”
Ogden cleared his throat. “He’s in a bit of an unstable psychological state, just a few days sober. I don’t think?—”
“With due respect,” said Eneva, in a tone that conveyed anything but, “he deserves no more consideration than he offered my murdered allies.” She smiled mirthlessly. “Besides,I have little doubt he’ll be found unworthy. No need to worry about preserving his faculties.”
She held the cup to Jacen’s lips. “Drink.”
