42. NECROPOLIS #3
Ysira lunged—not fast enough. Jarak caught her by the arm before she could bury her blade in his shoulder.
He flipped her over his back. Slammed her to the floor.
He snaked his arms around her throat from behind, choking her out.
Ysira bridged her hips in an attempt to throw him off.
Didn’t work. She tucked in her chin, shoved his right elbow up, and seized his wrists.
She wrenched his arms straight, freeing a hand, and drove her fist into his mouth.
Jarak slipped, only a little. He straddled her.
She got hold of his ear with her teeth. She bit down, brutal enough to make even a telepath second-guess her intent, and ripped.
Jarak rolled off her, howling. He barely recovered in time to dodge Ged’s descending sword.
Then Goran’s. Then Saraida’s. Behind them, the Guardsmen and the knight lay dead on the floor.
Shaking two teeth loose from her knuckles, spitting blood and cartilage, Ysira joined the fray. The Chief inquisitor’s twin blades spun and slashed with impossible precision. But he was alone against five now, and he was human, and his strength had begun to fail.
With a shout of enraged desperation, he spun and hurled one sword at Ilusha.
“Traitor!” he shouted. His psychic presence surged.
They all felt it. But as he tried to burrow into Ysira’s mind, Iyelekirin squirmed in warning.
Rage splintered through her head, forcing Jarak’s presence out, making him freeze for an instant.
It was enough. Saraida drove her blade through his stomach.
Brother Jarak lay gasping on the floor, hands flailing like he meant to patch the hole in his torso. As Ged loomed over him, the Chief Inquisitor choked, presumably out of habit, “Lord Semira.”
“You pathetic lapdog,” said Ged. “You gave these parasites your life, and you’re nothing to them.”
Jarak coughed. “Your father was right about you.” Ged’s face twisted. In one blow, he cut off Jarak’s head.
Ilusha had caught the priest’s blade in her flank. She grasped it by the hilt.
“Don’t—” Ysira started. Too late. Ilusha ripped the blade out. She pressed her hands to the wound with a groan, blood soaking her robes.
“Did the inquisitors warn anyone?” Ged demanded of Ilusha.
“No.” She winced as though it hurt to speak. “I stopped them. But we should hurry.”
Ged returned to the pyramid and pressed his ring into its base.
Projections of light, not unlike those on Tharanoth’s map of stars, flared to life between the mirrored domes.
Numbers, letters, shifting diagrams . . .
Ysira could not deduce what Ged was doing.
She suspected he didn’t understand much either.
She busied herself by dragging the bodies aside, lining them up so they couldn’t be seen from where the white door opened.
There would be no hiding all this blood or the grisly mess that had been Knight Taraven.
But Ysira couldn’t bring herself to leave her allies where they’d fallen.
She lingered beside Solai’s body and gently closed the demon priest’s eyes.
“Did you know her well?” Saraida asked from behind her. With a shake of her head, Ysira stood. “No.”
“She died bravely for a noble cause,” said Saraida. “It’s the most any of us can hope for.”
It was the sort of thing Ysira would have said at sixteen, dreaming of knighthood and glory.
But where was the glory in a battle none of them had any choice but to fight?
What was the point of bravery, in the face of a higher power?
And what was nobility but a trammel, in a fight for one’s very existence?
It seemed so unfair that they should have to pay in blood, to sacrifice so much, for what was already theirs by rights.
Perhaps Ysira ought to be grateful she never achieved those girlhood dreams, because she could not look at these deaths and see anything but a waste.
Nor could she feel anything but rage. She didn’t want to.
She considered what else she might say to Saraida—this woman who had not quite been her sister and would never again be her friend. Nothing came to mind.
“I think I’ve locked the door,” Ged was saying.
“This is taking too long,” said Ilusha. “It might be time to just destroy the blasted thing.”
“Need I remind you how much depends on this blasted thing?” Ged snapped.
“More depends on our mission.” Ilusha tried to cut a hand through the air but stopped as the movement elicited too much pain. Her white face, drained of blood, shimmered with sweat beneath the palestone lights. “We’re running out of time.”
“If you’re through trying to help,” said Ged, “shut your mouth.”
His movements had grown abrupt, even agitated. He was sweating and kept fidgeting with that ring.
Of course. This wasn’t just about Zivora’s infrastructure, was it?
Ged saw the pyramid and everything it controlled as power.
His power, already slipping out of his grasp in every other way that mattered.
He had a death grip on what was left, and he would never willingly let it go.
Ged and Ilusha were still arguing when the priest froze—sudden enough to make Ged shut up, too.
His eyes narrowed. Ilusha’s widened. Her voice went thin with panic. “Something’s wrong.”