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The wild bull thundered into the Great Court, then pawed the stones and swung its head, debating which human to attack first.

Hylas and Kreon stood frozen with shock. Then at the same moment they lunged for the spear on the ground. Hylas got it, but this caught the bull’s attention and it charged.

Gripping the spear, Hylas ran. He saw Kreon step smartly out of the way. He heard the bull panting, and caught a jolting glimpse of one huge horn. It flashed across his mind that he couldn’t outrun it and wasn’t strong enough to fight it, not even with the spear. Mustering every shred of courage, he turned and ran toward it.

For an instant he met its white-rimmed eye, then he jammed the butt of the spear on the stones and vaulted over its back. At least he tried to, but his wobbly leap fell short, and he landed smack on its bony rump and slithered off in a heap.

With an outraged roar, the bull veered around and came at him again. Hylas scrambled to his feet. The bull guessed which way he’d go; its horn just missed his thigh. The spear had gone flying when Hylas fell, and as he raced across the Great Court, he saw Kreon grab it. Caught between an angry bull and a murderous warrior: He wasn’t going to last much longer.

An echoing boom split the air—and the startled bull jolted to a halt. Kreon froze with the spear in his fist. It sounded like a ram’s horn, only deeper, surging and receding like the Sea; and when the booming ceased, the echoes rang in Hylas’ ears. He’d heard that sound before, two summers ago. Pirra had blown the alabaster conch shell to summon the gods.

The bull seemed to have mistaken it for the bellows of a rival bull, and was casting about with angry snorts. Kreon wasn’t so easily distracted: He was circling the beast to get at Hylas.

Hylas staggered backward, trying to keep the bull between them. Suddenly the familiar pain stabbed his temple—no no no, not now—but this time instead of seeing ghosts, his senses turned preternaturally sharp. He heard lice sucking the blood inside the bull’s ears, and a spider spinning a web in the sacred tree. He caught the hiss of Echo’s wings as she soared far out of sight.

He saw Pirra.

She stood high above him on the West Balcony, and with a clutch of terror, he knew that she was utterly changed. She wore the purple open-breasted garb of the High Priestess, and living snakes entwined her naked arms. Gold glinted at her throat and in the black coils of her hair, and she moved in a dreadful shimmering brightness. Her face was alight with a terrible radiance, and as she lifted her arms, her shadow on the wall grew vast, and burned with the fury of a thousand fires. In the deathless voice of an immortal, she cried out to the sky—and although Hylas couldn’t understand, he knew that the Shining One was calling back the Sun.

All this took less than a heartbeat, then everything happened at once. Hylas saw the silver knife in her fist and understood what she meant to do. “No Pirra no!” he yelled.

The knife faltered.

From high above he heard a sound like tearing silk, and Echo came hurtling out of the sky, swung her talons, and struck the knife from Pirra’s hand.

At the same moment, Hylas heard the spear hissing toward him, and threw himself sideways. Again Kreon lunged, but this time the spear faltered and Kreon screamed, a horrible gurgling cry as the bull’s horn pierced his back and burst through his breastplate. The great beast tossed him high. Still screaming and spraying blood, Kreon flew over its back in grisly imitation of a bull-leaper, and hit the stones with a crack. The bull swung around and gored him again, stabbing and trampling until all that remained was a bloody horror, and the son of Koronos had been obliterated by the savage guardian of the land he had dared to invade.

Shielding his eyes from the glare, Hylas watched the brightness leave the girl on the balcony. She was Pirra again, blinking and looking about as if she’d just woken up.

He saw the bull swing around with a snort and trot off, leaving the trampled remains in a spreading pool of blood.

Then, from the corner of his eye, Hylas glimpsed shadowy forms emerging from doorways in a seething black cloud of Plague. Silently, the ghosts converged on Kreon’s corpse and dipped in their fingers and tasted his blood. Then a wind came whistling across the Great Court and blew away the Plague. Hylas sensed that the ghosts were no longer angry and lost, and with a sigh they too blew away, up to their long rest on the Ridge of the Dead.

Hylas thought of the ghostly children on the coast. Maybe they were no longer lost, and had found their dead parents; and maybe the other ghosts he’d seen on his wanderings were also finding peace in the tombs of their ancestors—for although the Sun hadn’t returned and the Great Cloud hung as heavy as ever, the gods had blown away the Plague.

But now as he stood swaying on the stones, he sensed one last ghost moving toward him. She felt different from the others: a tall woman with long hair, who wasn’t Keftian, but Akean—and she hadn’t died of Plague. There was something incredibly familiar about her, something that pierced his heart with longing.

As she drew closer, Hylas shut his eyes and felt her palm against his cheek, cool and light as a moth’s wing. He heard her misty whisper in his ear. Hylas . . . Your sister lives . . . Find her . . . Forgive me . . . Forgive your father . . . Forgive . . .

With a cry, Hylas reached out to clutch his mother’s hand, but his fingers grasped empty air. He ran after her, and she smiled at him over her shoulder; then a breeze came moaning over the stones and she faded to nothing before his eyes.

There was a lump in his chest. It hurt so much that he gasped and sank to his knees, fighting tears.

It took him a while to notice that the bull was trotting toward him. He saw its scarlet horns and the threatening tilt of its head; but he felt no fear, only a vast weariness.

The bull halted ten paces from him and pawed the stones.

“I c-can’t fight you anymore,” stammered Hylas.

As he knelt before the great beast, a golden blur darted between them—and there was Havoc, snarling at the bull.

Almost gratefully, the bull decided it had had enough, and swung around and plodded off, down the ramp and into the peaceful gloom of the understory. Then Havoc shook herself and bounded over to Hylas and gave his face a rasping lick.

He couldn’t hold it back any longer. Flinging his arms around the lion cub’s neck, he burst into painful, wrenching sobs for the mother he had never known, but who he now knew was dead and gone forever, and for the dream that he’d clung to all his life: That someday, he and Issi and their mother would all be together.

Pirra felt the wind in her face and saw the snakes drop from her arms and slither off to explore Kunisu.

She found that she was standing on the West Balcony, high above the Great Court. She felt empty and weak, with a pounding pain in her head. The sky was still ashen; the Sun had not returned. Dimly, Pirra remembered Echo striking the knife from her hand. The Goddess had sent Her creature to avert the sacrifice. But why? All Pirra knew was that Echo was perched on her shoulder, and she was alive, and so was Hylas.

He sat with his back against the sacred tree, with Havoc beside him and the double axe at his feet. His leather kilt was dusty, his bare chest scraped and bloodied. As she watched, the wind blew back his yellow hair, and for a moment he reminded her of the god of the hunt in the Hall of Whispers. Then it passed, and he was a boy again, staring fixedly ahead.

Some time later, Pirra found her way down to the Great Court. The smell of blood hung in the air, and she tried not to look at the horror on the stones.

Havoc watched Echo swoop down to perch in the sacred tree, but Hylas stared unseeingly ahead. As Pirra drew closer, she was startled to see that his cheeks were wet with tears.

Havoc came and rubbed against her thigh. The cub’s furry warmth made Pirra feel more and more herself. She had failed to complete the Mystery, but she had tried. Sadly, she wondered if her mother knew.

Hylas became aware of her, and sniffed and wiped his face on the back of his hand. His eyelashes were spiky, his tawny eyes glassy with tears.

Pushing Havoc gently away, Pirra knelt and put her hand on his shoulder and said his name.