Keles’s heart ached. What she would give to have been there. Young as she was now, she had been younger still when the empire arrived. She’d been given so few moments to be with Lycaena when the goddess graced the island with her presence. For years now she’d thought that hope gone completely, but then came rumors of Eshiel’s camp, and the goddess reborn…

  “She hovered just beyond my wrapping,” Eshiel continued, “and she placed a hand against the side. You may believe Lycaena is light, but in the moment of my birth, I remember fire. Its heat bathed over me, cleansed me, perfected me. And then she spoke, not in prayer, not to a crowd. To me, and me alone. Her orders. Her command for my life. ‘Become who you were born to be, tear free, and fly.’”

  Eshiel paused to gather himself from the emotions of such a memory.

  “And so I flew,” he said with a crack in his voice. “I put my hands right into that fire, ripped open the cloth, and fell to the water below. It was cold, Keles, so cold, after being enveloped in such warmth. I swam to the shore, and there awaited my friends, my family, and with new clothes for me to wear. Twin tables piled together with food for the feast that followed. Songs. Dancing. Yet all of it paled when Lycaena graced me with one last gift.”

  He put his hands to his forehead, his fingers brushing the tattooed wings.

  “She touched me here, right across the brow. ‘Twice-born, I name you, Eshiel Dymling.’ And then she took to the heavens. I still remember the notes she played on her harp. I remember the rainbow of light that lingered in her wake. It gave me succor in the years to come. It gave me hope when the Uplifted Church cut at my flesh and seared me with their hot irons.”

  Eshiel’s face hardened as he withdrew from memory and returned to the present.

  “All twice-born rituals are now condemned by the Joining Laws,” he said. “To even dress crossed is to invite the church’s wrath. Some have attempted the rituals without Lycaena’s presence, and they lead only to heartbreak. Her statue at the Solemn Sands was smashed. The hope, the joy, the freedom I felt, is stifled and dying. I weep for every man and woman denied. I rage for the shackles brought on boats flying gray flags and bearing bloody hands in prayer.”

  He stood from the table and clutched the table’s edge with a white-knuckle grip. His arms trembled.

  “What future awaits us if Lycaena falls into the past? What happens to we who were given a new life when her power and faith fade away? It is a horror I deny with my every heartbeat, Keles. I will not allow it. Whatever the cost, I shall pay it. Whatever the blood required, I shall spill it. Lycaena must return. Thanet must be saved. And if the Lycaena we summon is changed, then so be it, for our island has changed. We are not free, and we are not at peace. Bring fire, instead of light. We already see the horror. We need only to burn it away.”

  Keles felt pinned to her seat. This man, and his belief, went beyond a torch. It was a blazing sun, and she wondered what it would be like to believe so fully. Before him she felt hollow and meager. Yet to have that faith? To know the path and walk it true? She needed it. Craved it. The empire had stolen her purpose when they hacked the wings from her goddess and bled her out before a horrified crowd. And yet Eshiel promised miracles. Promised, and by the being that birthed each and every night before him, he was so close to delivering.

  “Then let us burn it away,” she said. “Forgive me my doubts.”

  Eshiel’s hand settled on her shoulder. Her breath caught in her lungs.

  “Doubts need never be forgiven, for they are no crime, no sin. Now come. We have a sacrifice to perform, and tonight, I would have you hold the dagger.”

  CHAPTER 8

  ARN

  It was easy enough to find some orphan boy, his face lean with hunger, to deliver a message. All it took was a bit of coin to go along with the folded scrap of paper. Arn had written it, not in Thanese or the imperial tongue of Eldrid, but in the language of his homeland. Old Vash, as it was known, long since abandoned. Dario could read it, though. The brothers had been taught it at a young age so they might learn from the old texts and histories of their castle.

  Arn’s message had contained only a location, a boathouse near the docks. Another hefty bribe, and the old man who owned it had ordered the two young lads working with him to take the day off. Arn paced between the door and the current boat in progress as time crawled along. Dario would come, he knew that. That his note was written in Old Vash would be enough to convince him. The question was, how would he react?

  Arn shook his head, and he laughed. He was fooling himself. His brother’s reaction was not in question. So why in the God-Incarnate’s hell was he doing this?

  The door creaked open behind him. His heart leaped. There would be no going back now. He took a breath, steeled his reserve, and turned.

  And there before him stood his brother, looking not a hint older despite their time separated. Though Arn was several years younger, family friends often insisted the two could be twins. They had the same square jaws, same wide, prominent noses, and the same green eyes. “My sweet emeralds,” his mother described them.

  There was nothing sweet in Dario’s gaze.

  “Where’s the fox mask?” he asked. The first words he’d heard his brother speak in years, and they stripped away any pretense or deception between them. They had exchanged brief blows during Rihim’s earlier ambush. Dario now knew, not everything, but enough. That Arn lived, and was fighting the empire on the side of insurrectionists. The question was, how might he react to that knowledge?

  “No need for masks here,” Arn said. “Masks are for when I’m bringing my gauntlets to a fight.”

  Which means we aren’t fighting, he implied. He didn’t want a fight, not with Dario, not here, not now, not ever. What he wanted was his older brother gone from Thanet, but Arn feared there was zero chance of that happening.

  Dario crossed his arms, and he fell silent. His jaw hardened. His fists shook with a steadily growing rage, like a volcano preparing for an eruption.

  “So you’re here,” he exclaimed. “Here. Unbelievable. Damned unbelievable!”

  Arn recognized that tone, that anger. He had lived it nearly every day of his childhood. The brothers had been known as the two princes of Vashlee. Dario was born to be Regent-King but became a paragon instead. The honor was considered even greater, and when the responsibility to rule fell to Arn, he quickly enlisted as well. He pushed himself to near delirium every day of his training to make himself a prime candidate to become a paragon just like his older brother. He’d succeeded, he’d undergone the ritual, and oh, how proud his brother had been.

  That pride was now rotten and turned into a weapon. Nothing could surpass the disappointment radiating from that withering glare.

  “I could say the same,” Arn countered weakly. “What are you doing arriving on a caravel with the Heir-Incarnate?”

  “My work in Onleda earned me the privilege of being the Heir-Incarnate’s loyal escort,” Dario said. “Something you’d have known if you didn’t desert us afterward. At least, I thought it desertion. Now I discover it is something more. Active insurrection against the Everlorn Empire? You’ve never been the smartest, Arn, but I still thought better of you. It pains me to imagine the shame that would befall our family should you be discovered.”

  Oh, the shame would be tremendous. His little sister, Sophie, hardly ten years old last he saw her, would bear the brunt of it. She’d be fifteen now, and looking to secure a betrothal. Rumors about his betrayal would ruin any chance she had. As much as he told himself he donned his mask to hide his paragon past, it had been Sophie he first thought of when he tied it to his face.

  Dario mistook his silence for guilt, and he took a step closer and offered a hand.

  “It’s not too late,” he said. “Whatever lies you’ve swallowed, we can purge them. Whatever deeds you’ve committed, you can atone for them. Come back with me. Turn yourself in, and become a penitent.”

  Arn’s blood chilled at the thought. Paragon penitents, as they were known, were paragons who had lost their way amid their service to the God-Incarnate. Through ritual, prayer, and sacrifice, they underwent a lifelong process to redeem themselves in the eyes of the Uplifted Church. Given how long a paragon’s life could last, this meant sometimes decades of daily lashes, sunrise prayers, and midnight confessions. It also meant they were thrown into the very thickest of battles and were the first to engage in combat with heretical gods. The unspoken expectation was that the only way penitents truly atoned was to give their lives for the God-Incarnate. The lone variance was how long it took.

  “Me,” Arn said. “A penitent. You want to talk about family shame? Imagine the shame having a penitent son would be.”

  “Better than a traitor!” Dario shook his head. Though they were the same height, it felt like his older brother was still taller, still able to look down on him. “You had such promise. Do you know why I abandoned the throne to join the Legion? With you next in line to become regent, I thought that responsibility would finally get through to you. For once in your pampered little life, you’d take things seriously. Instead, you surrendered it up in an instant.”

  Oh, but how serious Arn had taken service in the Legion. He’d surpassed all his peers. He’d showcased faith in the church to go alongside his physical excellence, and when magistrates came calling for more paragons, they were all too pleased by the thought of having both Bastell brothers fighting side by side in the name of Everlorn.

  “I gave everything to my duty as a paragon,” Arn argued. “It was not my dedication that wavered. It was me seeing Everlorn for what it truly is.”

  Dario’s contempt could not be any greater.

  “What it truly is? Is that your justification for leaving?”

  “I left because of the carnage when we invaded Onleda.” Arn wished his heart wasn’t hammering. He wished he wasn’t so desperate to hear approval from his older brother. It wouldn’t be coming. He knew that. He knew. But he wanted it nonetheless. “All my training, I was told of the glorious wars I would fight, and of the joy the citizens of heathen nations would show once freed from the yoke of their cruel gods. When we marched on Vulnae, I marched at the vanguard, eager to save the city’s people and bring them into the God-Incarnate’s loving arms.”

  Arn stepped closer to his brother, and he lost whatever restraint he’d shown. His frustration and regret came pouring forth from the memory of those horrific days.

  “We treated the people of Onleda like cattle. Worse than cattle. Like they were an infestation to be burned out. You were there. You saw the piles of bodies, same as I did. We both heard the weeping of children. We both choked on the ash of those we claimed to save. After such a horror, how could I possibly remain a paragon?”

  So far Dario hadn’t argued back. Maybe that… maybe that meant he was listening? Maybe things weren’t so dire as Arn believed. He pressed on, daring to feel a glimmer of hope.

  “You know exactly what I speak of. You’ve seen the slaughter demanded of us! Whatever wisdom we’ve been given by the church, it doesn’t hold water in the real world. It’s a deceit. It’s a mask to hide their real face, and it’s a hateful one of blood and bone. Now that I’ve spoken with others, and traveled across nations, I’ve gained newfound wisdom the Uplifted Church would never reach on its own. We help no one, Dario! We hurt, and we kill, all to replace one god for another! It must be stopped if we’re to have peace instead of war.”

  “And so you murder us,” Dario said softly. “You coat your hands with the blood of your former countrymen. That is the path you now walk? The path you would have me walk? The killing done in the name of the God-Incarnate was unjust, but the killing of the God-Incarnate’s chosen is righteous?”

  Arn tried to find the right words. It… it wasn’t that simple, was it? That shallow?

  “The empire crafted me into a killer,” he said. “I can’t do much, but I can use these skills for something better. I can do what is just, and right. I defend instead of conquer. I save instead of slaughter.”

  Dario shoved Arn back. It was a quick, callous movement, and the intent of it was a jagged spike into Arn’s heart. His words were even worse.

  “‘It’s not right,’ whines the child. ‘It’s not just. It’s not kind.’ Nameless Whore take you, have you not matured after all these years? You are a paragon, and yet you still bear the wisdom of a spoiled little princeling, caring only for the drink in your cup and the next skirt you could chase.”

  Arn wished he could pretend otherwise, but it hurt to hear his brother dismiss his deeply personal choice as nothing more than the same selfish, juvenile wants he’d partaken in when younger. He had learned. He had grown stronger, and wiser. Why couldn’t Dario see that?

  “I killed a god,” Arn said. Memories flashed through his mind, of a fox, of blood on his gauntlets, of bones broken, but no time for that. He gritted his teeth, forced himself to focus. “And you would act as if that meant nothing? That it wouldn’t change me?”

  Dario crossed his arms and frowned.

  “Oh, I’m sure it changed you. No one exits a battlefield unchanged. But that doesn’t mean the change is for the better.”

  “The only better change would be the death of the God-Incarnate.”

  He blurted it out, that ultimate blasphemy. Arn stood before his brother, feeling fully exposed. Damn all these words and debates. He was shit at them, mostly because it made no sense. How could a truth so clear, so plain and obvious, be impossible for someone as smart as Dario to understand?

  His brother uncrossed his arms and laughed. It was worse than condemnation.

  “Is that what this is all about? You think the ills of the world all lie on the head of one single entity, be it a god or man? How quaint. Let me guess, Arn, you believe that by slaying almighty Lucavi the war will be won, the whole continent of Gadir will be freed, and good shall finally triumph over evil?”

  Heat built in Arn’s neck and curled up to his ears. Gods help him, how did Dario do this to him? How did he tear him down so easily, as if everything Arn thought and believed was as sturdy as a house of straw? Dario did not relent. He gestured wildly, an orator before an audience of one.

  “Think, little brother. Think on what you would accomplish. Pretend it isn’t a fool’s dream, and that you succeed. Hells, let us embrace it fully, this heretical wish. Say your rebellions win, one after the other. The Everlorn Empire topples, the Uplifted Church fractures, and somehow you execute the God-Incarnate himself. Tell me, in your newfound wisdom, what would happen next?”

  Arn didn’t like to think on that. Killing the God-Incarnate had always seemed an impossible goal, so why expend the effort? But such an answer would never work with Dario. Worse, his reluctance to answer showed he had not put much thought beyond that immediate goal.

  “I won’t pretend I see the future,” Arn said. “I only know that after Onleda, I couldn’t go on. The Everlorn Empire’s conquest was unjust and had to be stopped. I know no better way to stop it than to cut off the head of the snake.”

  It was exactly the answer Dario expected. Expected, yet still unwanted. His disappointment was large enough to crush mountains.

  “You were hurt, you were scared, and you gave yourself a noble goal to mindlessly chase. You didn’t think. You felt. So I will think for you, Arn. If the God-Incarnate died tomorrow, we would not have peace. We would have war after war, at an incalculable cost. Each and every regent would find themselves ruling an individual state. If capturing the city of Vulnae was too brutal for you, imagine what frantic, scared, and adrift regents would do to maintain power over their lands. Instead of the single God-Incarnate, we would have a hundred would-be emperors slaughtering one another. But it wouldn’t stop there.”

  Closer. Louder. His every word stomping on Arn’s chest.

  “The priests of the Uplifted Church would find their authority questioned with their god slain, but you’ve seen what other nations do when their gods are killed. You’ve fought alongside them. The priests would not relinquish the power they hold over Gadir. And the church has paragons at its disposal, equal to any army. So now the regents and priests are fighting, each scrambling to secure their place in the sudden upheaval of the power structure. And that is just the empire!”

  Dario waved his arms, gesturing to both Thanet and the world beyond it.

  “How many nations, their populaces currently subdued, would rise up like the opportunistic vermin that they are? How many old gods will return seeking vengeance, or new ones rise from the people’s fractured, vengeful faith? Imagine the church, responding to the return of these forgotten faiths. Think, Arn, of the warfare as rebellions spark anew, and regents attempt to stamp them out. Think of the absolute chaos, the loss of life. Think, little brother, think.”

  Dario’s exasperation was painfully familiar. In Arn’s childhood, it had been brought against him after long nights of drinking. Back then, Arn had accepted the received aggravation and insult as justified. He’d been a spoiled brat. He knew it, even as he drank and frequented brothels eager to entertain such a wealthy and connected noble. But this?

  “It’s wrong,” Arn said. “I’ve seen far too many horrors to believe otherwise.”

  His brother’s face softened. His arms lowered. Arn didn’t trust it for a moment. This was a practiced vulnerability. It was the helping hand Dario would offer him after beating him bloody in a sparring match.

  “The empire is not perfect. Not even the Uplifted Church preaches as such, nor would they condemn me as a heretic for saying so. We are an imperfect people. But listen to me, little brother, listen well and take it to heart. This unity we have within the Everlorn Empire, it is the closest to peace humanity will ever achieve. Yes, people die. Yes, people suffer. But viewed in totality, it is less than if we let the world return to the old ways, full of spiteful warring gods and shifting territories ruled by kings, sultans, conclaves, and tribunals. One kingdom. One god. One people. How could you ever argue against such blessed simplicity?”