40. SACRAMENT
SACRAMENT
YSIRA
Ysira’s childhood home had burned to the ground when she was eight years old.
Both her parents died that day, but her most vivid memory was of a Guardsman who’d pulled her from the rubble.
When no one could overhear, he had spoken soothingly to her in Zal.
In those days, when the language still came to her as easily as breathing, she understood his quiet prayer:
“A drop of water springs from the Source. It travels the deepriver to the ocean. It is only water. It is always water.”
Ysira still often heard it whispered over the sick and dying. Death, the Zal said, was an illusion. The nature of a soul might be unknowable, but it never changed. Whatever they were now, so they would always be.
She had found the thought a pleasant one.
But she had also never suffered any great loss.
She barely remembered her mother, she’d despised her father, and she had not mourned either of them.
A part of her had long believed that by keeping the world at a distance, by loving no one and thus losing nothing, she might come through life unscathed.
When had that changed? If only she could pinpoint the moment, whatever gods-forsaken moment in which she had decided to care, maybe she could undo it.
Because now grief tore a hole in her, and she was not prepared.
Iyelekirin stirred, as though perplexed by its inability to address Ysira’s pain. The demon could heal injury, poison, and disease, more quickly and efficiently with each new trauma, but it had learned nothing of this.
All Ysira could do was prepare for battle and remember what she had promised Ogden. He would never again see the stars, but he might yet have his vengeance. For all the parasite gods had done, Ysira would make them suffer.
She arrived at the Otavok temple, dressed in dark armor like Mondral’s and Solai’s, with a hard but flexible collar that stretched up to protect her brainstem.
Neri stood before the Gate, surrounded by knights, Disciples, and militiamen.
He wore only a fresh black tunic. No one had been able to locate armor in his size, and he would not have been strong enough to run in it, besides.
Ged loomed over him, giving Ysira little choice but to avoid them both.
She didn’t know what she would have said to Neri, anyway. Nothing about the task ahead had changed. But she had hoped, perhaps, to hold him. To say goodbye. When it came to Neri, Ysira could not distinguish love from grief.
She passed by Commander Azaharo orienting the knights to the Shrouded City’s arsenal of Firstborn weapons.
The towering woman produced a metal ball the size of her fist, then something that looked like two oblong cylinders fused together at a right angle.
Ysira had seen similar devices on the station.
“These are plasma weapons,” Azaharo said. “Seeing as we’re no longer concerned about exposure, we can take advantage. I don’t expect any of you to be proficient, but they’ll help buy you time to get in close, where our size and strength give us the decisive advantage.”
Nines, meanwhile, was listening intently as Urien held up a syringe, showing her how to use it. Beside them, Seth stood with his hands bound. He moved sluggishly, blind and deaf to the outside world, sedation titrated just light enough that—with a bit of psychic nudging from Nines—he could walk.
“Nines will administer regular doses, keep Seth moving and Turil oblivious,” Jacen said as he approached Ysira’s side.
“They’ll go with Urien to the communications center inside the tower and secure the Gate level.
No one enters. No one leaves.” He paused.
“I’ll keep eyes off Neri long enough for him to cross through the Gate and signal the rest of you to come through.
We’ll clear the level together. Then Ged will take his team to Zivora, lock the white room, and shut down the tracking mechanism.
We’ll all meet atop the spires, then Urien will pilot the transport to the station. ”
Jacen fell silent as they both did the math.
It had been at least an hour since Turil’s ultimatum—since the unfortunate knight had been killed by his tracking device and scores of others presumably died the same way.
Another hour or two would pass before Ged reached the White Cathedral. At least three hundred dead.
Ysira nodded in Seth’s direction. “You’re sure Nines can handle this?” “I trust her,” said Jacen. “Urien thinks we have enough sedative to keep Seth incapacitated for several hours.” His mouth tightened. “I hate doing this to him.”
Before Ysira could respond, a Disciple approached. He bowed. “Var Naktis. It’s time.”
He carried an ornate box carved of something that wasn’t quite stone. Even from several feet away, Ysira felt the pulse and buzz of dozens of creatures trapped inside.
The Disciple set the box on a pedestal and opened it to reveal a stack of long, thin tubes made of the same not-stone. He passed them one by one to the knights and militiamen who would travel through the Gate. Most held the tubes like they were rattlesnake eggs.
“Before you walk through,” said the Disciple, his voice echoing, “you twist open the tube.” He mimed the action.
“Like so. You hold it against your skin—it will be uncomfortable, but do not drop it—and step through with haste. Be wary, and have respect. To step through the Source is to step across the mind of the divine.”
Jacen examined his tube. As something audibly slithered within, he shuddered.
“However it feels,” Ysira told him quietly, “I promise it won’t be as bad as having one crawl inside your ear.”
He looked at her in alarm. She tapped the back of her head and nodded grimly. Jacen gave a short, nervous laugh.
Another Disciple produced an obsidian bowl—and a steel knife.
These, she held out to Ysira. “Let them see.” Ysira frowned at her, not understanding.
“They’ve seen Var Naxal’s power,” the Disciple clarified. “Now let them see yours. Anoint them as they go into battle.”
Ysira hesitated. But . . . to the void with it.
She held out her forearm and let the disciple make a deep cut.
She hardly felt it; she didn’t even feel like solid flesh and bone.
As the woman held the cut open, letting red blood drip into the bowl, Ysira might as well have been no one and nowhere at all.
She held her arm high, let all assembled watch the wound knit shut. A murmur echoed through the temple and grew into a shout—“Sun et nath!”—as the Disciple anointed the warriors of Otavok. With Ysira’s blood, she painted Naxal’s inverted triangular spiral on every face.
Asal Isebin, they called her. Mother of God.
Saraida accepted the symbol. Two of the knights followed her lead.
Through it all, Ysira held Ged’s gaze until he looked away.
Vindictive pride burned in her chest, even as it ached with grief and fear, even as she thought she might vomit, even as she reminded herself, You did this, you wanted this.
These people believed. She’d made sure of that, and now she knew this reverent awe for what it was: a cage. She felt its bars snap shut around her future and Neri’s.
All that remained was the Gate.
Nines, Seth, and Urien were already in position. Neri took his place behind them, and Jacen began to follow.
Then Ysira said, “Jacen.”
He froze at the sound of his first name. She’d never used it to address him before. She lifted her chin toward Neri. “Protect him.” Despite her best efforts, the barest hint of a tremor entered her voice. There was no time to say everything she wanted to, so she only said, “Please.”
Jacen bowed his head. “With my life.” They clasped forearms. His thumb brushed over her smooth olive skin, where moments before had been a gaping wound. She saw in him something akin to what she’d glimpsed at the baths—not quite passion, not quite fear. Deeper than both.
Urien stepped through the Gate. Nines and Seth followed. Neri looked back, just for a heartbeat. When his eyes met Ysira’s, he shook his head.
But those were not the eyes of a god. They were the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy, a terrified child. Her child. And then—
He was gone.
“Ysira.” Jacen had not let go of her arm, and she gripped his in turn, harder. Concern colored his tone. “Are you all right?”
No. She was not. But how could she explain that to him now? The way she was questioning every choice she’d ever made, every word she’d ever uttered, every creed she’d ever believed or disavowed.
She could not say I changed my mind. I want to go back. I was wrong.
I was wrong.
She could not. Because she saw the hope on his face, and the resolve, and knew that too much depended on Jacen Kheris. He was as vulnerable as he was powerful, a desperate addict in search of absolution, and she had seen in him the perfect instrument.
Don’t lose control. It was one of the last things Ogden had said to Ysira, and she owed that to him. She had set out to tear the old world up by its roots and build a new one, and that was a task with which she trusted no one but herself.
She could not break her prophet’s faith. She had no choice but to wield it, fan its flames, and hope it consumed only their enemies.
Instead of speaking, Ysira took Jacen by the shoulder and pressed her lips to his. First he was tense, but then he leaned in to her, cupping her face as he deepened the kiss.
They broke apart. He stroked her cheek. Breathless, he vowed, “Tomorrow, the sun will rise without a shadow.”
Jacen opened his tube and something like a grey-green beetle scuttled up his arm. He looked back at Ysira once more.
His face was radiant, beatific, as he stepped through the Gate.