RECKONING
JACEN
Jacen had begun to feel marginally better, in that he was no longer convulsing or arguing with ghosts. The blinding pain in his head had faded, and the last time the guards tossed him a piece of stale flatbread, he had actually kept it down.
There was about three days’ worth of stubble on his face.
Between his robes stiff with dried sweat and vomit, his greasy hair, the overflowing bucket of waste in the corner he’d missed more often than not .
. . the dreadful stench seemed to have settled into his bones.
At least his broken nose was clogged enough to dull his sense of smell.
Soon, he became aware of another presence nearby. Not the guards. They were always three in number and kept their distance, tense as bowstrings, hands never far from their weapons.
He didn’t think he was hallucinating again. The other presence flitted about like a moth, drawn to the spark of Jacen’s consciousness. Another telepath.
Nines? he ventured.
You’re alive. She was taken aback. I haven’t been able to sense you in a while.
Where are you?
A cell, I think. Inquisitors came to the chapel. I had time to send a pigeon to Seth, but I don’t know if they saw. I didn’t see where they took me. It’s dark. Her mental voice was far more expressive than her physical one, conveying a depth of anxiety that made Jacen sick with guilt.
How long have you been down here?
A few days, maybe? I’m all right. They didn’t hurt me. A pause. What happened to you?
Jacen couldn’t stop himself from laughing aloud, a harsh, congested bark that made a guard peer into his cell. He faked a coughing fit, though there wasn’t much point. They’d heard worse from him.
I broke into the archives without a plan. Got caught. Stupid idea.
He hesitated. I’m so sorry you got dragged into this.
Nines did not seem angry with him, but most telepathic novitiates were adept at concealing that.
What are they waiting for? Jacen wondered, mostly to himself, but Nines answered.
There’s something going on up there. There was a telepath with the guards, but he had to leave, and they couldn’t spare anyone to replace him.
Jacen could not disguise his astonishment. Even at his best, he would not have been capable of such a perceptive range. Now he could barely sense what was going on in this very room.
Ged, he surmised, once he’d gotten over it. Akkani knew what he had planned. I must have accelerated his timeline.
Perhaps this would be to their advantage. Chaos on the surface might well provide them with an opportunity to escape.
The coup? Nines asked.
Jacen winced. Of course, she was already imprisoned for complicity. Yes.
A moment passed, then Nines said, What next?
Jacen had grown lucid enough to be surprised he was still alive. Each new breath came unexpected, every heartbeat a reminder he had not thought this far ahead.
I suppose we wait for an opportunity. In the meantime . . . there are some things you should know.
Nines took the truth rather well.
Perhaps because she was so young, had not spent Jacen’s additional two decades steeped in dogma and tradition.
She was not yet so far gone that she had to wrestle with the futility of her whole life’s work.
She listened with pensive curiosity as he told her all he’d discovered and what Akkani had revealed. When he’d finished, Nines mused,
I wonder where the gods get their bodies.
I haven’t figured that out yet. The god—the archdemon—in the tower storeroom had inhabited an ordinary man. Maybe that had been a temporary, discreet alternative to the ethereal beings to which Jacen was accustomed.
The thing in the canyon that killed the god . . . that’s a demon too?
Nines asked. A demon that can destroy other demons?
I think so. I need to see it for myself.
A long while passed in silence. It might have been hours as they both struggled to think of a way out of this predicament.
When Nines reached out again, it was in fear. What was that?
Jacen had to concentrate for a time before he sensed what she did. A disturbance on the fringes on his consciousness. It was subtle, but he had sensed such a thing before and knew it for what it was: a herald of tragedy.
When he was a novitiate, a tavern in the Knots had caught fire and collapsed.
Dozens had been trapped inside, and their deaths—some sudden, some long and painful—had caused a ripple.
People smelled the smoke, heard the screams. They shouted in the streets, alerting others in their homes.
Rodents and insects fled the area. Pain, fear, and horror spread like sparks on the wind, touching everything that lived.
The ripple had reached Jacen all the way in the Inner City, asleep in Brother Marez’s chapel.
He had awoken with his heart pounding, drenched in sweat.
This time, whatever had happened was much worse.
He tried to stand, as though he might peer outside his cell and see something, but his legs had gone weak. He waited for the lightheadedness to pass, then said through the shock, I have no idea. He asked Nines, Can you sense outside?
Only in the Cathedral. They’re blocking off entrances. She paused.
People are trying to get in.
Eventually, they heard it too. A rumble overhead as the Cathedral itself trembled.
“Fuck this,” said one of the guards.
“Where do you think you’re going?” said another.
“I’m not just going to wait in this pit for relief that isn’t coming. I’m getting out of here, and so should you.”
“There’s nowhere safer than the Cathedral,” said the third guard. “Don’t be stupid.”
The first guard hesitated. Slow and subtle, Jacen nudged his mind. He had to be cautious. If he was too obvious about it, one of the others would put an arrow through his neck. He settled for a whisper of a thought, enhanced by the man’s own rising fear:
You’ll die here if you stay.
“Fuck this,” the guard said again, and began to pace away.
The door to the labyrinth creaked open. Footsteps halted. Another guard started to speak—but the words caught in his throat.
“Evening, friends,” came a deep voice that, unless Jacen was hallucinating again, belonged to Seth Semira. It echoed in the pit, the loudest noise in days. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“My lord.” The guard seemed unsure whether he wanted to salute or sound the alarm. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Shit, you’re right,” said Seth. “I must have taken a wrong turn.” There was a shuffle of footsteps. A ring of metal striking stone.
Someone shouted and dashed from his post over Jacen’s cell.
After a very short time, the fighting ceased, leaving only the sound of someone’s heavy breathing.
The lock clicked open. Seth appeared overhead as he hauled the grate aside—winded, his bearded face flecked with blood, but unharmed.
He wore his knight’s armor without the white cloak, sword still sheathed at his hip. Jacen had never heard him draw it.
“Time to go.” Seth extended a hand. He hauled Jacen out of the cell. The guards’ bodies lay motionless around him.
With sudden softness, Seth’s fingers grazed Jacen’s face. “What did they do to you?”
On instinct, Jacen pulled away. “Broke my nose.” His voice was hoarse. “Sobered up.”
Seth gave him a look that was half horror, half exasperation. “That is not what I meant.”
Jacen shook his head. “I Later. We have to find Nines.”
Seth checked a couple of cells before he found the right one, unlocked it, and helped Nines out. She gazed blearily around, unsteady on her feet. Her white hair was a tangled mess, her grey robes filthy, but in the physical sense, she appeared whole.
“We owe you,” Seth told her. “I got your message. Akkani wanted to do this quietly, but by the time she sent her inquisitors, Ged and Saraida had already mobilized the Guard.”
Nines picked at a spot on her robe. “What’s going on?”
Seth sighed heavily. “Where to begin? Ged launched coordinated attacks on the docks, Guard headquarters, and a few other key strong-holds. But . . . well, it’s a bit hard to explain until you see it. It’s not good.”
“Any word from Ysira?” Jacen asked.
“No.” Seth knelt to take a dagger from a guard’s belt, flipped it around in his grip, and handed it hilt-first to Jacen.
“There are a few places she might have brought Neri—Ogden, to start. They burned his clinic to the ground and took him into custody, and since he’s not here, he’s probably being held at the palace.
I know my father wanted to question him personally. ”
Jacen slipped the dagger into his robes and dragged his thoughts back to more pressing matters. “I have to get out of the city. I don’t expect you to follow—either of you.”
“I just broke you out of that cell,” said Seth. “No one made me do it.” “I’m so sorry,” Jacen said anyway. “I never meant for it to come to this. And everything I said, at the clinic—”
“You didn’t mean it,” Seth said shortly.
“I know. But you weren’t wrong about everything.
” He motioned toward the labyrinth beyond the pit.
“There are secret passageways all over the Citadel. I know of one that leads from the Cathedral to the palace, and another from the palace to the deepriver. We’ll find a boat there. ”
“If I were Akkani,” Jacen said, “I’d have sealed those off at the first sign of trouble.”
“Oh, she did. But she doesn’t know I have a key. Stole it when I was eight. How do you think I got in here?” Seth offered Nines an extra dagger of his own. “Most of the action is in the city proper, but we may have to fight. Ever done this before?”
Nines stared at the dagger as though it might bite her. She put it away with the same haste she might use to pick an insect off her food. Seth seemed to understand. “I’ll go first; you stay close. Jacen remembers enough to be useful. Don’t you, Jace?”
In truth, Jacen had been an abysmal swordsman and a worse marksman. He was a passable sprinter. His telepathic abilities were another matter, but it had been years since he used them in combat.
He cleared his throat and nodded.