They left the docks behind. Seth wore his armor with a cloak over it to fend away the looming winter. He didn’t think it would conceal him. Kinos had been right about Argos being a clear giveaway.
“We are not meant for skulking in the dark,” he told the hound as he bent to scratch the top of his head.
He’d talked a lot to Argos on the journey. He knew it was a habit born of loneliness, and that many would consider it a weakness. He let the habit form anyway.
Seth had no experience with money, but he’d found a ship to take them back toward Aegea. He hoped the price was fair.
There’d been room for him and Argos in the hold, and the captain believed that having them aboard would bring fortune from Hyperion. Seth did not feel like a good luck charm. He felt cursed.
At least he wasn’t alone. Argos’s ears twitched as he listened. Intent upon his master’s voice, he’d yip in agreement or cock his head in question. Seth would have sworn that the hound understood his words. Then Argos would lick some rude part of himself and Seth would doubt his own sanity.
There was no more music in the walled-off gardens, no more arguments or fights in the alleys. Versinae lay still beneath the Grief, and it had thickened in their absence.
It had been troubling, sailing into port. They’d moored in the fog, the ghost mist so thick that Seth couldn’t see more than a wagon’s length past the prow.
He almost wished he was back on the ship. Something had cured his stomach, and the rocking waves no longer troubled him. He’d been safer there, but he had to do this. Even if the Bishop hadn’t tasked him with the pilgrimage, he had to find Raef.
Seth remained a knight. He would always be a knight, and everything inside him said he had to right this wrong. Even if Raef could not forgive him for his part in things, Seth would do his best to wipe the stain from the order’s honor.
“Got anything yet?” he asked Argos.
He’d fed the hound his grisly meal before they’d left Eastlight.
Not knowing how much of Raef’s blood it would take, Seth had given Argos the entire hand. The hound had crunched it down, bones and all, working it between his teeth to the point where Seth had been forced to turn away.
Seth had no proof that what they said about the hounds was true, that once they’d tasted someone’s blood they could always track them, but he prayed it was. Anytime they’d gone on deck, Argos had walked to the prow to stare westward, but he’d only pawed at the ground since they’d landed.
Seth wished Lathan were there, or the Bishop—anyone who might make this all feel less impossible. He would’ve even welcomed Kinos’s help, distasteful as he found the man, but Seth had no idea where the young Inquisitor had gone. Hopefully he’d hinder some of his uncle’s efforts against Seth’s life.
“It’s just us now, boy,” Seth told Argos.
The Grief obscured the city’s spires. So few lights remained. Versinae had been filthy last time. Now the refuse was gone, no doubt burned to make what light and protection the people could.
Seth padded along. He’d be a fool to sleep at the temple or even tell the priests that he’d returned to the city. Most of the Bishop’s purse had paid for his passage. He didn’t want to risk the cost and exposure of an inn, but he might have no choice. He could not sleep in an alley, not with the Grief so heavy.
“Father, guide me,” Seth prayed quietly. “Keep us safe.”
Argos stopped with a long, low growl in his throat.
The Grief swirled over the dark streets, obscuring whatever came for them.
“I didn’t miss this place,” Seth declared.
He let the fire come, brought it near to the surface. It had lain quiet after Thiva, sated, but the urge to unleash it was rising now.
“Then you shouldn’t have come back,” a woman said.
Flanked by two others, far enough apart that Seth could not strike them all, she stepped out of the shadows. They wore gray cloaks, a means of blending into the Grief.
These weren’t knights. They weren’t Inquisitors. Rough-looking, they were closer to the gang he’d faced in Versinae’s slums, but carried themselves with confidence.
“We should thank you for making it so easy,” she said. “You’re worth a tidy sum, boy.”
He could take at least one, Argos, another, but they’d be pressed against these odds.
Seth did not want to use the fire that way, to hurt people.
“I can guess who sent you,” he said. “But there is no need for this. I’d prefer to let you live.”
He drew his sword and called the fire. It no longer burned him, though it still tested his control.
“I doubt you can pay us what we’re worth, let alone what he will.”
Seth shook his head.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, trying one last time. “Please walk away.”
The men drew long knives from beneath their robes. The woman lifted a crossbow, all were banned weapons by Versinae’s prince.
“Forgive me, Father,” Seth whispered. “Forgive them.”
The flame brightened. Something whispered through the dark, a sound like a darting bird. It moved too fast for Seth to see.
One of the assassins lifted his hand, brushed his cheek. His fingers came away red.
His eyes went wide with panic. He opened his mouth, but shades swarmed out of the mist, gray hands and teeth clasping and ripping. His scream was short.
The remaining man charged.
Seth swept out with his sword and a wave of fire arced toward the woman as she pulled the trigger. Argos leaped. Terror filled Seth but the hound landed, a bolt caught between his teeth.
The woman burned, then the Grief took her too.
Argos had already dropped the bolt and charged to meet the final assassin. The man lifted his hand, ready to catch Argos in the throat with his knife.
Another whisper in the dark and the man’s raised wrist stood lined in blood. The knife clattered against the cobbles as the shades took him in a swirl of red.
Breathing ragged, Seth panted as a new figure stepped forward. He tucked the dart gun back inside his cloak and reached to pet Argos’s eager head.
“It’s not safe for you here, my boy,” Geldar said by way of greeting.
Seth wanted to smile. He wanted to rush forward and embrace the old man.
“I had to come,” Seth said. “I have something I need to know.”
“He’ll kill you if he catches you.” The Inquisitor eyed the bloodless bodies. “And he won’t stop trying.”
Seth’s hands were trembling. He’d taken another life, but did not feel bad about it, at least not as bad as he had before. The woman had intended to kill him. He would pray for forgiveness, to not lose the regret that should come with killing anything, even if he’d done it to survive.
For now there was Geldar and the looming question. They were both sworn to obey the Hierarch, the voice of Hyperion in this world, and Seth was at the old man’s mercy.
“What will you do?” Seth asked, knowing he would not resist if Geldar chose to bring him to the Hierarch.
“I will choose my faith over my church.”
Stepping closer, Geldar wrapped Seth in his arms.
Seth sagged against his mentor, this old man who’d saved him again and again.
“Come,” he said, letting Seth go. “I can give you a place to rest. Then you can tell me what it is you need to know.”
“This way, Argos.”
The hound barked, sounding anxious, his nose pointed toward the temple. Perhaps he wished to rejoin his pack. Perhaps his family was there.
“This way,” Seth repeated.
Argos followed.
Geldar led them back down into the shallowed bay, into the slums.
The Grief had never been so thick. Faces and vague shapes flickered as it swirled around them. The ghosts brushed, cold and mostly shapeless, across Seth’s skin.
He lifted a hand to call a warding light, but Geldar took him by the wrist and shook his head.
“You’ve exposed yourself too much already.”
They walked on, the priest leading him by memory. None of the cookfires burned now.
“It’s getting worse.”
“Yes,” Geldar said. “The cycle of life is slowing. There are fewer and fewer babies, more and more ghosts.”
He brought them to a ship painted in garish colors. It was tagged with graffiti, most of it inscrutable, some of it foul, but the inside wasn’t ransacked. The old man lit a candle, light enough to keep the Grief at bay. He pulled a thick curtain over the sagging door cut into the ship’s hull.
Argos perked up. He circled, sniffing.
“The woman who lived here had a reputation,” Geldar said, settling into a chair. “It helps keep the locals away.”
Argos gave a little yip.
“Raef lived here, didn’t he?” Seth asked.
“Yes,” Geldar said. “When this business started. I tried to scare him off it, but he did not listen. Your sort always were stubborn and doggedly curious. Two traits of the breed it seems.”
“Why?” Seth asked. Argos gave up and nuzzled Seth’s knee until Seth scratched his head.
“Something in the way Phoebe hoarded books I think. She encouraged questions, learning, and her priests had a dangerous habit of forming their own opinions.” He looked sad. “I tried to warn them too, to talk Polus out of his plan.”
“Why did you want to scare Raef off?”
“For the same reason I’m protecting you,” Geldar said. “The Hierarch is misled in this business.”
“He’s the voice of Hyperion in this world,” Seth said automatically, though without any of his old conviction. The man had maimed Raef. He’d sent assassins. These were not acts Hyperion would condone.
“It doesn’t mean he’s infallible, and it doesn’t mean I will let him take you from me. You should run, Seth, get far away from here.”
“I need to find Raef. I have to find him.”
“Like draws like.” Geldar’s smile saddened. “Is that how it is then, between you?”
“No. He is—was—in love with Kinos. That was how they trapped him.”
“I know.” Geldar closed his eyes, pressed his back against the chair, and let out a long sigh. “That boy is too ambitious.”
“Who is he?”
Kinos had saved his life, but Seth could hardly think kindly toward him. He knew that he’d have to let it go someday, offer it to Hyperion and hope the light burned the resentment away, but today was not that day.
“The Hierarch’s nephew. He’s always been ruthless, but this business . . . when the Oracle named him to the task, he accepted with vigor, practically leaped at the chance. To lie, sure, we do that. But to seduce someone, to feign love? That is not Hyperion’s way.”
“I don’t think it worked out so well for him. I think he came to love Raef back. He sent me to find him. He wasn’t faking that.”
“It hardly matters now. We cannot have a Hierarch who would do what Logrum did or what he plans to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Logrum has always looked to the future. He plans for Kinos to succeed him.”
“But that’s not how it works. Hyperion chooses the Hierarch. It is not a dynasty!”
Geldar smiled. “Your faith runs deep, my boy, but Logrum has always had more interest in temporal matters. He wishes to be more king than priest.”
It was too large, too much for Seth to know where to start fixing it, or what part he could play. This issue was far larger than him or Raef. It was corruption in the temple itself. Politics were a game he could not understand or win. He already had two impossible tasks before him.
“I have to find Raef. Then I have to find Helios’s Forge. The Bishop set that as my pilgrimage. Can you help me with either, Father?”
Geldar laughed, bringing Seth’s head up. He blinked.
“Your Bishop is wise, my boy. Both are closer than you think.”
“But Raef is in Drowned Gate.”
“So is the Forge. I suspect she knew this,” Geldar said. “There were some among the knights who did not approve of the Hierarch’s actions, especially the murder of Phoebe, though they cannot say so openly.”
“But I don’t know where Drowned Gate is.”
Geldar’s smile turned sharp as he leaned forward.
“That’s all right. I do.”