“You fear he is right, and that terrifies you.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “Is it? The bruises on your hand say otherwise.”

  He wanted her hand gone. He wanted her gone. Twelve hours of prayer, and this was his reward? The touch of her fingers was like ice to his warm flesh.

  “Arn has nothing to offer,” Dario said, deciding he must reject these doubts all the clearer. Showing weakness to the daughter of the God-Incarnate was not acceptable. “He speaks of other gods, of sins and deaths, and of the cost of our campaign across Gadir. They are childish protests, no more than that. There is no substance, only doubts and questions. He would tear down the pillars and replace them with mystery, and that, I cannot abide.”

  Sinshei’s hand retreated.

  “And yet you still wonder. Answer me, paragon, and answer true. Do you believe Lucavi’s conquests to be justified?”

  Damn this woman. Would she not just accept his answer? He stepped closer, daring to use his height and size to intimidate her.

  “I have walked fields of battle strewn with corpses numbering in the tens of thousands,” he said. “If I was one to doubt, I would have already broken. My faith is strong. My heart is true. Question me no more, Anointed One.”

  In response, the diminutive woman reached, as quick as a viper. Her fingers closed around his injured hand and squeezed. Pain shot through him as fingernails dug into his swollen skin. He clenched his jaw but dared not resist. To do so would show weakness.

  “I question because I see the truth within you,” she said. “But I know why doubt lingers within your heart. Your brother’s actions, they have awakened questions, but instead of answering them, you deny them. You bury them deep. Why, Dario? If you were unafraid of the answers, why pretend them unworthy of your time? If you were so confident in Lucavi’s truth, why not pit it against the lies spoken to you… unless you fear Arn spoke no lies. Unless you believe the campaigns you have waged, the bodies you have walked over, and the cities you have laid low were not worth the final reward.”

  She squeezed harder, with strength no one of that size should possess. It felt like his broken bones were grinding together.

  “What if there is wisdom there, to be unearthed like buried gold?” she continued. “I would have it, paragon, and I would share it with you if you are so brave. Are you brave enough? Strong enough?”

  These were not the words of an Anointed. No daughter of the God-Incarnate should speak so poorly of her father’s campaigns of conquest and valor. He pushed his damn brother out of his thoughts and finally turned his full attention to her. What game was Sinshei playing at?

  “What is it you wish of me?” he asked.

  “Walk about Vallessau. See the fruits of my father’s labor. When you have taken its full measure, come to me and give me your honest answer.”

  Some strange game was afoot, and he did not yet know the rules or the players. Best to play along until he knew, and truth be told, a walk outside the castle was alluring after twelve hours of prayer locked in his room. He dipped his head to her.

  “So be it.”

  Dario walked some nameless street of Vallessau. He’d briefly checked the market nearest to the castle, found its crowd tame and its wares unappealing. There were no clothes sewn with the clasped hands of the God-Incarnate. No strangers hummed hymns familiar to him since he was a babe. His next walk took him past the docks and their many boats. No painted hands on their prows, no names based on the famous paragons of the first age.

  Ringing bells distracted him. To the nearest church, then. Dario followed the foot traffic that grew as families emerged from homes. Children looked dour, and their parents not much better. Though he wore no armor, his size alone revealed him as a paragon. Fearful eyes glanced his way. At the church, a squat little square building with smashed windows, a red-robed priest greeted arrivals. Dario waited at the edge, and when the sermon began, he leaned against the outside wall of the church, listening through one of those broken windows.

  It started with a song brought from Gadir, one of simple praise to the God-Incarnate for his blessing and mercy. The voices that sang along were so weak and quiet they could not overcome the clapping and stomping of feet meant to accompany it.

  “Ashraleon be praised,” the priest said when the song finished, exuberant and excited as he invoked the name of the very first God-Incarnate. His energy was the antithesis of those gathered. Dario didn’t even have to look inside to confirm it. The lack of faith billowed out the window like smoke.

  His next destination was near the docks. His hours of praying had left his stomach empty, and he ate a gifted pie (not purchased—no merchant or baker would ever be foolish enough to demand coin from a paragon). It was filled with freshly caught fish, chopped onions, and a leafy green he didn’t quite recognize but appreciated the sweetness of. He went back for a second helping, pretended not to notice the baker’s annoyance, and then continued on.

  From there he walked the outer road along the northern edge of the city, steadily climbing higher into the portions of the city carved into the surrounding Emberfall Mountains. On a whim, he began greeting the men and women he passed.

  “Lucavi watch over you both,” he told one couple. Forced smiles were his only reward.

  “Yeah, same to you,” said a young man with holes in both knees of his trousers.

  Paragons were the pinnacle of faith in the God-Incarnate, yet these people held no admiration, only fear. Yes, they were conquered people, true, but Everlorn’s priests were made for hard work. Five years should have been enough time to plant seeds and see the first sprouting. Yet if he closed his eyes, Dario could almost see the aura of faith settled over the city of Vallessau. It was weak and pale. Not shining and gold, like that which had enveloped his skin as he preached his faith to his wayward brother, Arn.

  Pale and missing. Not unlike when he prayed that morning.

  He opened his eyes. The street had emptied of everyone but an older woman, her hair tied under a bonnet. Her limping gait was far too slow to avoid his approach.

  “You,” he said, grabbing her. “Do you attend the church’s sermons?”

  “I attend every time the bells ring,” she said. Her gaze was wary; her hands, trembling.

  “Every time the bells ring,” he repeated. “Then list a single scripture from the Heathen’s Coda. One scripture. That’s all.”

  Her eyes widened, started to water.

  “I… forgive me, my memory, it isn’t, it is…”

  He grabbed her shoulder. Her bones were thin. She felt like paper within his strong grasp.

  “Something easier, then,” he said. “Much easier. Every child on Gadir can answer true. What is the name of our first God-Incarnate, he to whom all our sermons open with in prayer?”

  The woman had no answer, and they both knew it.

  “Please,” she said. “My leg, it hurts on these walks. I wish to go home, that is all.”

  “You wish to go? Then, go!”

  He shoved the woman away. Her arms flailed, and she landed hard on the street. Dario stood there fuming. Awkward, unwelcome guilt bubbled in his chest. Why should he care if she was injured? Why care at all about these people’s hollow, fake faith? They would soon all be dead, sacrificed to herald the arrival of the seventh age.

  But then again, if death awaited, then wouldn’t their faith be all that mattered? The preparation of the eternal soul, surely its purpose ranked above all. That was why preachers shouted from the corners. That was why they forced the people into churches. This faith, given to them in their final years, had to mean something. A place in the afterlife on the side of the righteous. The war that would follow in the heavens, conquest after conquest, as the heretical gods fell, their faithful were freed, and the eternal was finally united.

  And yet, for the very first time, the idea of that warfare awaiting him did not excite Dario’s imagination. It exhausted him. He endured the blood and the bodies on the promise of something more. But if that something more was endless blood and bodies…

  There are true miracles that go far beyond destruction, fire, and the strength to win on the battlefield.

  Arn had made that insistence when refusing to take Dario’s life despite emerging victorious in their clash.

  What would you offer me instead? Dario wondered. What did you see that I did not?

  “Strange to hear a paragon so invested in the faith of the people,” a woman said behind him. He turned about, a cutting remark on his tongue, yet he did not speak it. The beauty of the interloper shocked him. Though she wore a plain gray wrap, the cosmetics upon her face surely cost a small fortune here on this distant island. Her lips were painted red. The coppery color of her skin was highlighted with black along her cheeks and jawline. The orange powder upon her eyelids complemented the earthy brown of her eyes. Her hair was tied in interlaced knots, so intricate and numerous it would take multiple hours to finish. It was a style he hadn’t seen since… well, since his homeland of Vashlee.

  “While we may be the sword wielded in the God-Incarnate’s hand, we of the Legion serve the same goal as the other Pillars,” Dario said. “The salvation of all Gadir.”

  “Yet we are not upon Gadir, are we?”

  Her voice was like a fine wine, deep and sultry. Though he towered over her, she showed not the slightest hint of fear. She looked like no Thanese woman he’d seen on this island. The plain garb she wore looked comical on one so beautiful and wealthy, for Dario knew that to link the many dozens and dozens of braids together on hair as long as hers was the work of at least two servants.

  The woman walked past him as if he were no longer there. She knelt beside the elderly woman, who still wept in fear from Dario’s outburst. The tears slowed as this stranger embraced her. She whispered something too soft for him to hear, but its calming effect was undeniable.

  “What is your name?” he asked her. Might she be some noblewoman he had not learned of? Perhaps a wealthy trader who was beloved by the commoners? She spared him a moment to answer. A smile was on her face, but it did not reach her eyes.

  “I have none. What is yours, paragon?”

  He grunted. So it’d be that type of game, would it?

  “Dario Bastell, Paragon of Fists,” he said. “Champion of Vashlee, and most dutiful servant of the God-Incarnate of Everlorn.”

  The woman did not seem impressed.

  “Titles, roles, and power,” she said. “You have it all. A fine use of it, I must say, to badger an old woman on her way to the market.”

  She kissed the elderly woman on the temple, then together they stood. The older woman whispered a thanks, shot a fearful glance toward Dario, and then began shuffling away. He let her. His attention was now reserved solely for this interloper. They were alone now, the road somehow vacant despite the midday traffic.

  “You mock my interest in Thanet’s faith,” he said. “But it is of paramount importance. We hold no higher quest, and so I ask, what of you? Have you accepted the God-Incarnate’s blessing into your heart and repented of your sinful ways prior to his arrival upon Thanet?”

  Her shoulders pulled back and she held her head high.

  “Your God-Incarnate held my devotion once. He has only himself to blame for its loss.”

  Dario clenched his fists. Something about her defiance unnerved him, yes, but it also angered him. This tiny woman, whom he could break in an instant, showed him not the slightest fear or respect. She disrespected his God-Incarnate. She made a mockery of his inner turmoil. No others were around to witness it, for which he was thankful. This matter could be resolved quickly and without anyone’s notice.

  “Then come with me to the God-Incarnate’s Haven,” he said, and made a great show of offering his hand. “Confess what cost you your faith to our priests, and find balm within the church for your soul.”

  “Did it soothe your own turmoil, paragon? Did your confessions heal your wounds, or only open them further?”

  This woman’s insistence at his own doubts unnerved him and angered him in equal measure. He examined her face, his mind racing for a name, but none came to him. Surely he had never met this woman before. He could not imagine forgetting one so striking.

  “You speak as one with knowledge, but you are wrong,” he said. “I am a paragon of Everlorn. I am our empire’s inspiration for this far-flung island. You allude to turmoil and wounds that are not real. They are your imaginings, woman, and nothing more.”

  Still that calm hint of a smile. The orange powder about her eyes seemed to have deepened somehow, turning red, or perhaps that was a trick of the light.

  “Imaginings? No, Dario Bastell, they are not imaginings. I see you. I see the truth in your heart and the cruelty of your mind. You are honor twisted; you are pride fed fat. Who you are, who you truly are, cannot inspire me, for it is a fate I would never desire.”

  He grinned at her, all his frustration and confusion coming together into one single, ugly expression.

  “Tell me, then, stranger whom I have just met, who am I truly?”

  The placid expression faded from her face, and it revealed a weight behind it that could crush mountains. Her gaze held him prisoner. Her words were condemnations he was powerless to stop.

  “Before me I see a man aflame, and though he smiles, he is burning.”

  The exact words Arn had spoken to him while imprisoned. Rage lit anew inside Dario’s breast, and he reached for this strange woman’s throat. He would strangle the answers out of her if he must.

  “How?” he asked. “How do you—”

  He grabbed air. She was gone. He spun in a circle, searching, but he saw no sign of her. It was as if she had never been.

  “Will you plague me with illusions now?” he asked the emptiness of this cursed island. His gruffness was a show put on for no one. Her words wormed through his mind, unnerving him.

  Dario jammed his hands into his pockets and walked back to the castle, a plan steadily forming in his head. His brother had previously contacted him through a letter delivered by some street urchin, the words written in the ancient dialect of their homeland of Vashlee. Dario suspected he could send a similar message in kind.

  “Fine, then,” he said. “I’ll do exactly as you said, Sinshei. I’ll find out the answers to my questions. I’ll take the full measure of my brother’s heretical truths. But if I find Lucavi wanting or the empire of Everlorn built on shifting sands…”

  He thought of the strange woman and the fierce chill of her gaze.

  No.

  He couldn’t finish that thought. Not now.

  Perhaps not ever.

  if you enjoyed

  THE SAPPHIRE ALTAR

  look out for

  THE BLIGHTED STARS

  The Devoured Worlds: Book One

  by

  Megan E. O’Keefe

  She’s a revolutionary. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they’re found, and Naira Sharp thinks she knows the reason why. The all-powerful Mercator family has been controlling the exploration of the universe for decades, and exploiting any materials they find along the way, under the guise of helping humanity’s expansion. But Naira knows the truth, and she plans to bring the whole family down from the inside.

  He’s the heir to the dynasty. Tarquin Mercator never wanted to run a galaxy-spanning business empire. He just wanted to study geology and read books. But Tarquin’s father has tasked him with monitoring the settlement of a new planet, and he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.

  Disguised as Tarquin’s new bodyguard, Naira plans to destroy the settlement ship before they make land. But neither of them expects to end up stranded on a dead planet. To survive and keep her secret, Naira will have to join forces with the man she’s sworn to hate. And together they will uncover a plot that’s bigger than both of them.

  ONE

  Tarquin

  The Amaranth

  Tarquin Mercator stood on the command bridge of the finest spaceship his father had ever built and hoped he wasn’t about to make a fool of himself. Serious people crewed the console podiums all around him, wrist-deep in holos that managed systems Tarquin was reasonably certain he could name, but there ended the extent of his knowledge. The intricate inner workings of a state-of-the-art spaceship were hardly topics covered during his geology studies.

  Despite Tarquin’s lack of expertise, being Acaelus Mercator’s son placed him as second-in-command. Below Acaelus, and above the remarkably more qualified mission captain, a stern woman named Paison.

  That captain was looking at him now—expectant, deferential. Thin, golden pathways resembling circuitry glittered on her skin, printed into her current body to aid her as a pilot. Sweat beaded between Tarquin’s shoulder blades.

  “My liege,” Captain Paison said, all practiced obeisance, and while he desperately wished that she was addressing his father, her light grey eyes didn’t move from Tarquin. “We are approximately an hour’s flight from the prearranged landing site. Would you like to release the orbital survey drone network?”

  Tarquin hoped his relief didn’t show. Scouting the planet for deposits of relkatite was the one job for which he felt firmly footed.

  “Yes, Captain. Do we have visual on the planet?”

  “Not yet, my liege.” She expanded a vast holographic display from her console, revealing the cloud-draped world below. “The weather is against us, but the drone network should be able to punch through it in the next few hours.”

  “Hold off on landing until I can confirm our preliminary survey data. We wouldn’t want to put the ship down too far from a viable mining site.”

  Polite chuckles all around. Tarquin forced a smile at their faux camaraderie and pulled up a holo from his own console, reviewing the data the survey drones had retrieved before the mining ships Amaranth and Einkorn had taken flight for the tedious eight-month voyage to Sixth Cradle.