“They’ll be ready for us,” Cyrus said, putting a damper on her excitement. “You’ve already confirmed their paranoia. Even with their secrecy, they will take steps to prevent an attack.”

  The older woman shrugged his way.

  “So it might be dangerous. Has that stopped you before?”

  It was a fair enough argument, and Cyrus bit down his retort. The rest of the group looked to their leader. Thorda stared at Kaia, a fist pressed to his face. His thumb twirled at his white beard.

  “There is much beyond our control,” he said. “I would know the exact location of the ceremony, and the time. With Lord Mosau’s help, we may still organize matters to our benefit. Given the disaster at the docks, and the loss of so many soldiers, we cannot refuse such a potential victory no matter how dangerous or uncertain it may be.”

  That settled the matter, and it seemed most were in agreement. As for Cyrus, the shame of his loss to Galvanis burned inside his chest. A potential rematch filled him with a mixture of excitement and dread.

  “Then I shall return once we learn more,” Kaia said. She tilted her chin and addressed them with the full authority of her station. “I thank you, for your trust, and for all that you risk for our island’s freedom.”

  With her departure, tension eased out of the room. A future path was set. They had a mission, and an enemy to crush. What more could they want? Quiet attention was replaced with sudden, chaotic energy. Thorda exited for his room, while Arn and Mari laughed and joked about preparing another meal, this in the fashion of Arn’s homeland of Vashlee.

  “This I must see,” Stasia said, taking Clarissa’s hand. “Arn, cooking? Preposterous.”

  Cyrus watched them all depart for the kitchen, his tongue burning to speak but fearing to make the move. This secret. This truth. It would ruin him if he tried to swallow it down. Someone had to know. Rayan shouted farewells to the others, claiming the night too late for his old bones. Cyrus’s own decision made, he rushed the door while Rayan donned his coat.

  “Mind if I come with?” Cyrus asked.

  “You are always welcome,” Rayan said, granting him an easy smile.

  The pair walked the dark street in comfortable silence. The night sky eased Cyrus’s turmoil. Strange as it seemed, it felt like the stars were watching him. Caring for him. When he looked up at one particularly bright pair, he liked to imagine one was his father and the other his mother, both gazing down with affection at what their son had become.

  It would be affection, wouldn’t it? Or would they recoil in horror at the godly beast Thorda Ahlai created?

  Such somber thoughts kept his mouth shut. Rayan was no stranger to difficult conversations, though, and he sensed Cyrus’s apprehension almost immediately. He broached it casually, as if discussing a time for tea the following day.

  “If something bothers you, I am always here to listen, and to offer advice if needed.”

  “I know, Rayan, I know,” Cyrus said, relieved to have that first step taken by another. “That’s not… it’s not me I’m worried about. It’s you.”

  That got the paladin’s attention. He glanced aside, his eyes narrowing.

  “If you wish to worry me, you are successful. Speak. I am listening.”

  Cyrus stared at the passing cobbles beneath his feet while fighting for the right words. For all his shock and betrayal when that black helmet fell to the street, it would hit Rayan doubly hard. Part of him wished to keep the knowledge to himself. Now that Cyrus knew Keles’s secret, she wouldn’t dare show her face. She would assume he told everyone, and avoid any contact with her uncle.

  But keeping this hidden put the rest of his friends at risk. Cyrus couldn’t bear this burden on his own. Someone else had to know. Someone else had to help him understand, and no one would be better than the wise and kind-hearted paladin. Still, Cyrus could not shake the feeling he was bringing the old man a vial of poison and asking him to drink it for Cyrus’s own benefit.

  “It’s… it’s about Keles,” he confessed. There. No going back now.

  “What about her?” Rayan asked. He did a masterful job keeping his voice steady and his face impassive, but Cyrus could feel the worry in the air grow.

  “The armored paragon I fought before the boats came, the one who ambushed me and Arn… I unmasked her. I saw her face. It was… it was Keles.”

  The paladin halted in the street. His body was so still it was as if he had turned to stone.

  “You are certain?” he asked softly.

  “There is no doubt. I even spoke with her about her betrayal. I’m sorry, Rayan. I wanted to tell you sooner, I just…” His voice trailed off, and he shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

  More wretched silence, and yet Rayan’s questions were no better when they came.

  “You believe she was the one who informed the empire of our soldiers on the boats, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “Did she offer explanation?”

  You had to subjugate us. Humiliate us.

  “Sinshei told her the truth,” Cyrus said. “About her bloodline. About mine. Twice she witnessed Lycaena’s death, and then the Anointed One came and gave her the one thing we could not: hope. If she brought back my mask, and convinced Sinshei of my death, then she would be rewarded with rule over Thanet as queen.”

  “To betray her friends, her family, and her very faith, all for a crown?” Rayan shook his head, and he resumed the walk toward his home. The movement calmed him. “No. I refuse to believe things are so simple. She’s better than that. Stronger than that. Such a temptation would not have swayed her.”

  “Would it not, though?” Cyrus asked. “You saw her when the reborn Lycaena died. You heard her when Eshiel tumbled over the cliffside. Why would she trust us? Why would she believe we could offer anything more than heartache? She believes the only way to save Thanet is to cooperate with the empire instead of fighting it, to befriend those in power instead of opposing them.”

  “Have you the conviction to tell her she is wrong?”

  “I tell it with every battle I fight,” Cyrus said. “But I do not blame her. We’re fools and dreamers, Rayan. I fear she might be the only one who sees clearly.”

  “To forfeit all faith is not ‘seeing clearly,’” Rayan snapped. “It is a little death, and one I would not wish upon my enemies.”

  Cyrus tucked his hands behind him to hide their trembling. He couldn’t watch the reaction to such betrayal. He couldn’t speak truth to such hurt, not when his own pain overwhelmed his tongue. Despite the shock and anger he’d felt when her helmet fell, all that was left in him was regret, for when it mattered most, he had failed her.

  “I tried,” he said. The words tumbled out of him. “Believe me, Rayan, I tried so hard to convince her. To make her come back. I begged, I argued, but I’m too damn stupid, too damn simple. My words meant nothing. I don’t have your wisdom. I don’t understand matters of faith, a cruel joke given what I am becoming. All I could do was beg like a fool, beg and plead, a prince upon a stolen throne before the woman whose family was overthrown. Who am I to convince her? Who am I to tell her what’s right?”

  He would not cry. He would not cry.

  “Thorda crafted me into a murderer,” he said, the words pushed out through a constricted throat. “That’s all I am, isn’t it? All that matters is the blood I was born with and the lives that I take. It would make me a god, but before Keles, I am a lie. I cannot redeem myself through killing, and my crown is a betrayal. I have nothing. I’ve failed. Keles is lost. Vallessau is lost. The boats, they’re burning, they’re still burning…”

  Rayan spun, their walk halting so he might wrap his arms about Cyrus in a hug. Cyrus leaned in, burying his face in the shirt of the taller man. For a brief moment he feared there would be no give, that a mask of bone would forever mark him, but then he felt the soft fabric against his cheek. He shuddered with his eyes closed. Felt something within him crack.

  “Another person’s choices are not your own failures, child,” said Rayan. “We all walk our paths, however hard they may be. It is her decision that she walks, hers alone.”

  Child, Rayan called him. What child carried the blood of so many dead upon their hands? What child carried the hopes and dreams of an entire island upon their shoulders?

  The Light of Vallessau did, once upon a time. It broke her. He feared it would break him, too.

  “It doesn’t feel like it’s a choice,” he said. “It feels like she’s fallen down a cliff, and I was too slow to offer my hand.”

  The paladin pulled away, and he smiled despite his obvious pain.

  “Do not give up hope yet. She is not lost to us. No cliff is beyond the sight of our goddess.” He sighed and shook his head. “I always knew her faith was damaged, and its cracks ran deep, yet never did I think she would turn her heart to the God-Incarnate. Forgive me, Cyrus. I wish to walk the rest of the way home alone. I have much to pray over, and little time to do so before we set foot in the monster’s den.”

  CHAPTER 40

  ARN

  Nope,” Stasia said. “Not even close, now drink.”

  Arn emptied his glass and thudded it down upon the table. A belch followed, indicating his disdain at his failed guess. He and Mari sat on one side of the table, the newlyweds on the other. It had been two days since Kaia arrived with the news, and the time had passed with dreadful slowness. Cyrus was training, Rayan preaching. The four of them? They’d settled on a different sort of way to wile away the midday doldrums.

  “This hardly feels fair,” Mari grumbled. “A drinking game with a paragon? He could down a whole bottle before getting drunk.”

  “Given how bad he is at the game, he’s close to finishing a bottle already,” Stasia mocked. “Come now, Arn, you truly think it took me until I was twenty to bed someone?”

  He pointed an accusing finger in her direction.

  “You… you specifically asked me to guess when you first bedded a woman, mind you. I thought maybe you’d had a few awful tumbles with men in your younger years before you realized you liked the fairer sex.”

  Clarissa elbowed her wife in the side and let out a little giggle. She had drunk the least, yet appeared the tipsiest of them all.

  “Stasia strikes me as someone who’s always known what she wants.”

  “Not always,” Mari said, and shot her sister a sly smile. “Remember Lord ang-Uri?”

  For once, it was Stasia who blushed.

  “All right, yes, but in my defense, I was curious, and he was very, very pretty.”

  Arn laughed and slapped the table hard enough to shake the bottles.

  “I smell a story!”

  “You smell only yourself,” Stasia said, but the ire in her voice did not match her enormous smile. Clarissa was still leaning against her. Stasia absently stroked at her face and hair while smiling down at her.

  “Have we tuckered Clarissa out already?” Mari asked. She offered her own smile, but Arn suspected it was forced, as it had been for days, not that Arn was watching her closely or anything.

  All right, he was watching her very closely, but that didn’t mean he was wrong. She’d shed a mask in his presence on the wedding night, and now that he knew she hid so much hurt, he saw it clearer with each and every passing day. That smile. That bounciness. It was less a disguise and more a… choice, one made in the face of her struggles. To do so must require immense strength and resolve, and he loved her for it.

  A cold spike of fear flooded Arn’s every limb. Oh no. Oh shit.

  The door to the den opened, and Thorda’s whip-sharp voice startled Arn in his seat.

  “A moment if you would, Heretic.”

  For a single ludicrous second, Arn was convinced the man had read his mind and knew his thoughts about his daughter. His cheeks blushed, and he tried to hide it by lurching to his feet with a huff.

  “Yeah, whatever you need, we’re not busy here,” he muttered. He caught Mari staring at him as he left, and something about her smile was far, far too amused.

  Arn shook his head to clear his thoughts and followed the older man out of the den, down the hall, and toward his forge.

  “Given the importance of a potential attack on the castle, I would not send you unprepared into the melee,” Thorda explained as they walked.

  “I feel like I’m as prepared as I can be. I have my fists, and by the time we fight, I’ll have my sobriety. What more could I need?”

  Thorda flung open the door and entered his forge.

  “You insult me, paragon, when you fail to anticipate the potential benefits of my craftsmanship.”

  “And you insult me when you call me ‘paragon.’ I’ve left that life behind.”

  Thorda paused a moment so he might turn and dip his head.

  “Duly noted, Heretic, and accept my apologies, along with this gift.”

  He approached one of his shelves and retrieved a wooden box from up high. Without any ceremony, he offered it to Arn. It was surprisingly heavy, but that weight made sense when Arn opened the lid. Within was a pair of gauntlets bearing the pristine Ahlai-made craftsmanship known throughout all of Gadir. The metal was polished to a gleaming shine. The leather was dark black, and soft to his touch when he lifted the pair out of the box.

  “Did you need no measurements?” he asked as he moved the fingers. Metal plates were intricately layered one atop the other like scales so the joints were still protected.

  “I remember every weapon I make for the empire’s paragons,” Thorda said. “Consider it a blessing and a curse.”

  Arn donned the right to get a feel and was further impressed. The leather was soft and perfectly fit. The metal clicked with each oiled movement. He felt like his hands were armored with dragon scales. His fingers pressed into a fist, then opened. No resistance. Even the place where his thumb layered over the forefinger was given a carved groove to comfortably rest within.

  It was a barbaric thought, but by all the gods, Arn could not wait to hit someone with them.

  “You put effort into this,” he said. “More, I mean, than what I once wore.”

  There was pride in that faint smile Thorda offered him, but an equal mixture of sadness.

  “I never give my all to the paragon weapons, but I gave my all to these. There will be no priests and acolytes praying over them, but I assure you these gauntlets will endure whatever you ask of them. I have also taken the liberty to add symbols more appropriate to your role as a heretic.”

  Arn twisted his wrists and lifted them closer to inspect. Sure enough, Thorda had replaced the original clenched praying hands of the Everlorn Empire above the knuckles. In their place were three tails, expertly carved into the metal so that they could only be seen when the light hit them just so. Little symbols hovered about the end of each tail, one wisps of flame, one little snowflakes, and one arcing bolts of lightning.

  He brushed his bare fingers across the symbols, feeling the grooves.

  “You talked to Mari,” he said.

  “It was her idea that I craft these for you.”

  Arn returned the gauntlets to the box.

  “Then I will do all I can to prove myself worthy of such a gift.”

  Thorda’s smile was pleased, but he turned away to hide it and then dismissed him with a wave.

  “You fight alongside my family and my chosen warriors. You have already repaid this gift tenfold. If I ask anything, it is that you survive and put those gauntlets to good use for many years to come.”

  Arn winked as he tucked the box under one arm.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  He stepped out from the forge only to halt the second he shut the door. Mari waited in the hallway with her arms crossed and her foot tapping.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “They’re wonderful,” he said. “And I have you to thank, so thank you.”

  Mari clapped, and she bounced on her heels.

  “I knew you’d love them,” she said. “Can I see?”

  He opened the box, and she leaned over, her eyes widening at the shining steel. Her fingers dipped into the box, and she brushed the fox tails with her fingertips. Her smile softened. There was weight to that symbol, and it was no longer his alone to carry. Mari had whispered with Velgyn, and communed with her lingering essence amid the forest. What did it now mean to her? Arn didn’t know, but he wished he did. A silence fell over them both, and it was deep, it was solemn, it was religious.

  “They’re wonderful,” she said, ending the moment. Her hand retreated. Their eyes met. She was so beautiful, so happy.

  Arn bent down and kissed her.

  Oh shit.

  He withdrew just as quickly, their lips touching for less than second. His face blushed a deep red, and he retreated a step while slamming the box shut. A thousand jumbled thoughts ricocheted around in his skull, blasting away any potential words he might speak. But he had to speak, had to say something, because she was looking at him, shocked and confused and with eyes twinkling, her right hand pressed to her mouth as if horrified by his touch or perhaps only holding back a laugh.

  “I didn’t, I mean, it was dumb, that was dumb. I got… I’m going to go now.”

  Mari grabbed his wrist to keep him from fleeing. He flinched as if clutched by the jaws of the Lioness and not the little hand of a woman barely five feet tall.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “But next time, you ask first.”

  Her words were a cold breeze across a burning fire. Her hand released him. The feeling of her touch lingered. She winked at him, mischievous and playful. If Arn’s neck grew any redder he feared his head would pop like a smushed cherry.

  “Right, sorry, just… sorry.”

  He fled for his room, where he could embarrass himself no further. He was only halfway there when he realized exactly what she had said. He echoed the words in his mind, wanting to hope and yet embarrassed by the intensity of that hope.

  Next time?

  Arn placed the box on the bed, paced his room twice, and then exited. He had done something dumb. So what? He could make amends. He could… he could… a gift! Relief filled him, mixing with excitement. Yes, he could get Mari a gift to repay her for everything she had done. He rattled off ideas in his mind as he hurried out of the mansion and toward the nearest market. Nothing romantic, no flowers, no jewelry, right? But maybe he wanted something a little romantic. Did he?