42. NECROPOLIS
NECROPOLIS
YSIRA
Below Mount Otavok, a battle raged.
Ysira could only guess at what transpired, waiting by the Gate and watching the temple walls shake.
All she had to go on were Commander Azaharo’s brusque exchanges with her subordinate outside.
Since radiotelegraphy equipment was useless in the temple, the poor man’s only job seemed to be to run back and forth, delivering updates.
He sounded exhausted and just short of panicked, but each time, so far, his message had been the same.
No forces breached the inner fortress. The Shrouded City’s defenses held.
Ysira prayed they would hold long enough. She couldn’t help them. She needed to be here, ready to travel to Zal Fel as soon as Neri brought word it was time.
Eventually, Ged approached her. She allowed it, less because she wanted to be anywhere near him than because she did not trust him enough to let him out of her sight.
The last time Ysira had been this close to him, save last night at the Gate, she had been eighteen years old and pregnant.
Just once, days before Neri was born, Ged had come to see her.
Whatever it was he’d meant to say, he had started by touching her without warning.
The feel of his possessive hand on her belly had sent Ysira into a white-hot rage.
She’d twisted his wrist around until he yelled, shrieked at him to get out—and from the look of raw fury on his face, she’d thought he might hit her.
Part of her wanted him to. But instead, as Ysira shrank back from him, Ged had walked away.
For an instant, today, she felt so fragile again. She hated the person she’d become—for years after giving birth and leaving the Citadel—apathetic and timid, prone to weeping every time she heard a baby cry. At least the gods, for all they’d done to her, had given her power.
“So,” Ged said. “You can’t be killed, and your new lover is the Church’s most promising addict. I must admit it’s not where I imagined you’d end up.”
Ysira refused to dignify that with a response. Then he said, “I do care for our son, you know.”
Ysira did not trust herself to speak. Her hands tightened around her glaive.
“I knew this world would be cruel to him.” Ged frowned, silent for a moment.
The High Lord’s markings on his forehead, smudged and beginning to flake away, crumpled.
“Neri is . . . so much like me when I was a boy. I had to learn difficult lessons, and I did my best to teach him the same. And look what he’s becoming.
He’ll be a god to these people, if only he can take that final step. ”
Ysira didn’t bother to disguise her contempt. “You think you did that?”
“I sent him to the canyon.” Ged’s expression remained self-assured. “I shaped him. I raised him.”
“Seth raised him.” Ysira met his eyes, unflinching, and this time anger flickered deep within.
“It’s thanks to me,” Ged said, “that we’re on the cusp of a new era.
” He was not exactly wrong, much as Ysira would rather bite off her own tongue than admit it.
Ged would never make amends for the way he’d treated Neri, and so Ysira refused to contribute to his justifications.
She snorted. “Your opinion of yourself has always been ridiculous.”
“Say what you like about me, but I’ve yet to be wrong. The last of the Zal Gatekeepers is dead or dying. Who else is there to guide Neri into the new world? You? He can’t even look at you. Brother Kheris cannot be relied upon. And Seth is gone.”
“A tragedy for you, of course.”
They had kept their voices low, mindful of the dozens of people present, but now Ged dropped all pretenses. “How dare you suggest I don’t mourn my brother?”
“Shut up,” Ysira spat. “There’s no need for posturing.
Not with me. I know what you are. I saw what you did—cutting off your beloved brother’s sword hand after he was already defeated.
You’re small, and you’re pathetic, and you will never be what you imagine yourself to be.
” Ged was angry now, so angry that, close as they were, she could practically feel the heat off his skin.
His knuckles whitened around the hilt of his sword.
“Try it,” she said. “See if you can harm me. You might even make it hurt. But you won’t be able to protect yourself from all these people”—she gestured—“who have been anointed with my blood. Who are loyal to Neri. Do you really believe he’ll support you, given the choice?”
Maybe Ysira had made another mistake, leaning in on Ged’s insecurity like a fracture. Because when he could not harm her—when he could not demand respect by indulging his anger . . . what was left?
But he muttered, “All my life, I could never be Seth’s equal. My mother preferred him. My own wife loved him. My father told me his greatest regret was that I had to be his heir.” Ged cleared his throat. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”
He seemed almost embarrassed. Much stronger, though, was his disgust—not toward Seth, nor even Ysira. Not toward anyone other than himself.
Ysira recognized it.
She was all too familiar with that self-loathing, the sort that hollowed her out from within.
It made space for a hungry thing, a creature prone to take and take and take, in desperate pursuit of some ill-defined objective that would prove her worth beyond anyone’s ability to doubt.
Nothing had ever been enough, for Ysira or for Ged.
Perhaps their son was doomed for it.
They sat in silence, unsure of what to say to one another.
At last Ged said, “You killed Damir and Casandra. I can’t kill you. And you want me dead.” He shook his head. “Where do we go from here?”
“For now? We fight.” That much, they both knew how to do. An unspoken understanding settled between them—an impasse, if not a truce.
Iyelekirin spasmed then, and Ysira flinched. Without meaning to, she jolted to her feet. The chamber trembled. Not from an outside force this time—but from within. The Gate shuddered. Energy rippled across the stone.
One of the knights, who might have been called Taraven, exclaimed, “What was that?” Her voice was terrified, awed.
Commander Azaharo simply said, “Var Naxal.” The militia leader waved over the Disciple with the box of demon keys. “Get ready!”
Minutes later, the Gate rippled again. A small brown figure stumbled through. Neri. He appeared unharmed, but he was covered in blood, his clothing singed.
“Something’s wrong,” Ysira muttered, though only Ged could hear her. Neri was supposed to simply run through to Otavok, leave the fighting to them.
“It’s time,” Neri said, between wheezes. “The way’s clear.”
On the other side of the Gate, there was darkness. Then a dozen giant, glaring lamps switched back on, in a series of crackling thuds, and Ysira saw carnage.
Body parts were strewn about in the wake of an inexorable force that had blasted through the area.
Blood soaked the sandstone, still wet and shining.
Much of the strange equipment was damaged, sparking erratically.
Not one corpse remained intact. A militiaman vomited, either from the Gate or from the stench of charred flesh and metal.
Ysira had emerged beside Commander Teheda, who took it all in with a stricken expression. “Zal Fel,” he murmured. “I never dreamed I’d set foot here in my lifetime.” His gaze lingered on the lamps and the damaged equipment. “They’ll pay for this desecration.”
Neri stood several feet away, still wheezing as Jacen spoke quietly to him. When Ysira went to them, Neri refused to meet her eyes.
“We’d better start climbing,” he said, pushing past her. “You get to Zivora and disable the tracking system before another hundred people die.”
Jacen gave her an apologetic grimace. “I know this wasn’t the plan.
But he did well. He was able to control it.”
To Ysira, the butchery around them looked anything but controlled. “You’re sure this didn’t put the whole base on alert?”
Jacen’s pale eyes flicked upward. “Nines says we’re still clear.
It’s like Urien said—the density of extradimensional energy makes it impossible for anyone down here to communicate with the rest of the base.
” As he nodded toward the Gate, a touch of reverence entered his tone.
“The Source protects us.” He blew out a breath, gathered himself. “How goes the fight at Otavok?”
“Defenses hold,” Ysira said. “For now. Where’s Seth?”
“With Nines, hiding out just below the spires. As soon as Ged’s team returns from Zivora, Urien will shut down everything but the elevator, destroy the communications center, and we’ll all meet between the spires where the transport lands.
Then Urien takes us up to the station. Nines and I wake up Seth, and I keep Tharanoth and Ileth distracted from the moment we dock.
The rest of you locate the two of them, and Neri destroys them while I have them pinned down.
” Jacen nodded to himself. “This will work.”
“I’m going to Zivora with Ged,” Ysira said. “We don’t know what we’ll face in the Cathedral.”
She glanced at Ged’s team—the knights, Sister Ilusha, and the last of the legitimate demon priests. Dacil Var Solai looked terribly out of place beside the likes of Ged and Saraida.
“Good luck, then.” Jacen touched her arm. There was a familiarity to the gesture that sent a shiver down Ysira’s spine. “Stay safe.”
He followed Neri across the stone expanse, toward the caves through which Ysira had first discovered the Gate.
Teheda jogged after them. From there, they would find the old path outside and ascend the spires.
Azaharo had set about securing the Gate’s perimeter, barking orders at her team to pick weapons off bodies and ensure none lived.
Militiamen guarded both entrances—the caves and the tunnel to the elevator.
Ysira fell into step with Ged’s team—Solai, Saraida, Sister Ilusha, and Knights Taraven and Goran—at the Gate.