The occasional bob of a watchman’s lantern came and went in the distance. No one living walked the streets. Even the best thieves had surrendered to the Grief and stayed indoors.
No one guarded the Garden wall. Raef called the shadowhand and scaled it quickly. Reaching the top, he turned his gaze beyond the city.
The press of the shades extended into the hills, making a second, misty sea. Beneath him, Versinae lay too still, too quiet, an island besieged in gray. He might save the world, but it might be too late for his home. His limbs felt heavy despite his newfound strength in darkness. He’d felt it when night had fallen, when he’d finally woke from the last of his stupor to eat his fill in the palace kitchen. He was stronger when Hyperion had set, stronger than he’d been before Eastlight and the box.
He took a breath, ready to test his limits, and to see if Sati had told him the truth.
Concentrating, Raef pulled forth the shadowmarks that she’d drawn into his skin. He pushed them further, let them unfurl around him into a pair of diaphanous wings. He could flex them. He could barely feel them. Like the shadowhand, they felt other, more like a boot or clothing than a part of him.
Raef stepped forward and let himself fall.
He could not fly, but he could glide, awkwardly. He needed practice.
His heart sank that he wouldn’t get the time.
Raef landed with a thud in the garden. Neither it nor the ruins had changed since he’d sheltered here with Kinos.
Thinking of him still brought the broken shard feeling to his chest. He inhaled the chill garden air. Perhaps there would be a moment when thinking of Kinos wouldn’t feel this way, but he knew he wouldn’t have time for that either.
He returned to the undercroft, to the domed ceiling and dusty floor. The splintered carving, the black door, showed his reflection as he approached it.
He rubbed the black hand over it, gingerly brushing away any soot and dust.
Sati slipped into his reflection. His mother, the demon, wore a sad smile.
Raef had thought he’d feel something stronger in this moment, having put it all together, but the resolution, knowing what he had to do, weighed him down.
“You solved the puzzle,” she said.
“Can you read my mind?”
“I do not have that power, but your expression is grim enough to tell me what you are thinking.”
She stepped forward and he could see her better, looking as she had when she’d marked him. She met his stare. “And it’s not hard to guess your thoughts.”
Raef examined her reflection. Translucent, as if painted onto a dingy window, she was thin, even in the shadowsight.
“You’re a spirit, aren’t you, a ghost?”
“Yes. Flesh is weak. I am an echo.” She examined her hand. Her nails were black, like her eyes, like his eyes. “As all our kind are.”
“The priests brought you here, where you could be with Cormac.”
“Yes.” Her smile seemed genuine. “Your father was a delight that evening.”
“Then what, I was born and they killed you?”
“No, little blackbird. They were trying to stop our extinction. They honored me as befitted a daughter of the Sunken Garden.”
“Why?” he asked. “Why did they do it?”
“Phoebe realized the sins of her kind. She wished to make peace in our ancient war, but I died for you, to bear you.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“It is I who owe you an apology. I sloughed my skin, got to linger and watch you grow, but without flesh I was forced to trade my fealty for survival.”
“To the higher demon. He who would return.”
“My clever son . . . Yes again. He knew the secret, how to remain, but I had to trade to gain it. All I’ve done to you, all of it.” She hung her head and he lost sight of her eyes in the veil of black hair. “I wormed my way into Logrum’s dreams, whispering that he had to become the Hierarch by any means, that he had to kill the moon. So earnest that one, so eager for murder when I gave voice to his ambition.”
It did not surprise Raef. Logrum seemed more than capable of assassinating his predecessor.
“You were his Oracle?”
“Yes.”
“But why kill Phoebe if she was trying to make peace with you?”
“Only she can descend and return through her door, but she guarded it too closely for my master to slip past her. Now Hyperion guards it, but tomorrow he will sleep. When you open it, she will return, and so will Rerek.”
“And Kinos?” Raef asked.
“Oh, Logrum’s darling, doting heir.” She met Raef’s stare again and smiled. It was not kind. “Even though he acted as my puppet, he had to pay for hurting you. I knew he would love you, and that Logrum would lose him forever when he realized what he’d done.”
“You almost sound like you care about me.”
“I do, in my own mad way, but to survive I needed you to break, to force you to see what you are, crack open your heart and grow your sacrifice. You will open the Moon’s Door and Phoebe will return. My debt to my master will be paid, and I will be free to walk the Sunken Garden again.”
“What does that mean?”
“That’s not what you really want to know, is it?” she asked. “You want to know what will happen to you.”
“I’ll die,” Raef said with a shrug. “That’s the sacrifice.”
“Yes, and if you do not offer it, the world will drown in Grief.”
“I have to die.” He’d known it, but saying it aloud, it still did not quite feel real, inevitable as it was. “You’ve made certain of that.”
“So I have.” She did look sad as she reached to press her hand to the glass. “It’s almost dawn, Hraefn. It’s time for you to go.”
He returned the gesture, pressed the shadowhand to the cracked obsidian. He could not feel her, did not know how to feel about her. She’d done this to him, known the price he would pay for her survival. All his life he’d wondered where he’d come from, imagined a parent somewhere, loving him, missing him. What parent could claim love for a child they’d willingly sacrifice?
“No, Mother,” he said. “It’s time for me to burn.”
That was the answer of course. Phoebe’s light was simply Hyperion’s reflected back. There could be no moon without the sun.
Raef had realized it in the Forge, where the gods made their weapons of war, where they’d sealed the vault by means of both light and darkness.
Opening the Moon’s Door would take Hyperion’s fire.
Retreating to the flooded room, he fetched one ledger. It was molded over, illegible, but it would serve for his plan.
He took his time climbing the wall, reveling in his strength and speed before Hyperion rose.
Telling himself he wanted to see the city a final time, he walked the streets, meandering between the towers, but he could admit that he did not know how to say goodbye to those he had to.
Then he could delay no longer. The sun had risen high when he went to the temple plaza.
Cormac and Seth waited for him, at the sprawling fountain with its marble tritons and fantastic sea dragon.
Around them, the city woke. The people gathered outside the doors, crowding together as noon approached.
His broken heart filled at the sight.
“Thank you, Lady,” he prayed.
He’d thought them fled or dead, but the people of Versinae proved themselves as resilient as always.
Cormac looked side to side, wary and worried.
“There has to be another way,” he said.
“There isn’t.” Raef surprised him with an embrace, knowing it would silence further arguments. He’d lose the will to do this if either of them protested too hard.
“You’re not anything like what I imagined,” Raef said. “But I am glad, Father, that we had the time.”
“Me too.” Cormac let Raef go and wiped his eyes.
Raef turned to Seth.
“I wish I had more time to make it all up to you.”
Then it was Raef’s turn to be surprised as Seth kissed him, quick, hard, and fiercely. Raef didn’t pull away. He never wanted to pull away from this earnest, golden-haired man who could understand him like no one else could, who looked at him like no one else ever had.
“Just come back to me,” Seth said. “That’s all the making up you need to do.”
“We both know that’s not going to happen.”
“Then I’ll find you on the other side.”
Raef found a smile.
“If anyone could, it’s you.”
They flanked him as he pushed his way through the crowd in the plaza and through the tall bronze doors of Hyperion’s temple.
“Why are there so many people here?”
“I might have sent runners to spread the rumor that people should come today,” Cormac said. “And Adrian might have put a little silver into it.”
“You know, I might decide to like Uncle Adrian,” Raef said before diving into the tide of bodies.
They jostled him, stepped on his toes, and Raef grinned through it.
The tide sheered Cormac and Seth away from him. That was better. Raef did not want them too close. If the gods showed mercy, they wouldn’t see what was about to happen.
He broke through the crowd and came to a halt, eyes wide. The Hierarch had changed since their encounter on Eastlight.
Deep circles ringed his eyes. His crimson robe and golden coat no longer hung tight on his hunched frame.
Voice trembling, no longer booming, he spoke the Rite of Transgression.
Raef knew the ritual. The priest spoke it to take the fates of the people onto himself, to appease the gods through self-sacrifice and privation. Logrum’s hand trembled as he lifted the wreath of bay and laurel from his head to lay it upon the altar.
Raef pushed forward, clearing the crowd and stepping into the light beneath the oculus.
“Logrum!” he shouted. “You lying fraud! Hyperion does not hear you!”
His blasphemy brought a collective gasp from the crowd. They shuffled back, distancing themselves from the heretic.
The Hierarch met Raef’s eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but could only gape.
“You profane his temple with your false prayers,” Raef continued.
“I am the voice of Hyperion in this world,” the Hierarch said, sounding labored.
“You are a hypocrite.”
Raef lifted the ruined book he’d fetched from the undercroft.
He had the crowd’s attention. Near silent, they listened. He found the Bishop’s stern, bronze eyes. She turned to the knights winding their way toward him and halted their advance with a nod.
Raef wondered if Seth had anything to do with that.
“Should I tell them the truths I dredged up from Drowned Gate? Where you threw me after you took my hand?”
The Hierarch pointed a trembling finger at the volume.
“That book is heresy.”
“It’s from the Inquisitors’ own library,” Raef called. “Proof that the Hounds of Hyperion were bred from demon stock, that you killed Phoebe for doing what Hyperion himself once commanded.”
“Is this true, your Holiness?” the prince asked.
Raef hadn’t seen Adrian among the nobility. The crowd began to murmur. Restless, they tried to pick a side.
The prince’s expression narrowed, like a predator scenting blood. He’d come to twist the knife, but it remained on Raef to drive it home.
“You killed the moon for a lie,” Raef accused. “You stole your crown and brought the Grief!”
“I killed Phoebe to protect us, to protect you all from the demons. Demons like him!” Shouting, the Hierarch pointed to Raef. The room warmed. “And it worked. This would be the Day of the Black Sun, but it did not come. She is dead. It can never come.”
“Do I look like a demon?” Raef stepped closer to the altar, leaving the crowd safely behind. He lifted his severed arm. “Were I a demon, I could have kept you from cutting off my hand.”
“Give me that book!” The Hierarch reached out. Despite his commanding tone, the grasping gesture was almost pleading.
“No,” Raef said. “I’m giving it to the people. I’m giving them the truth.”
“Knights!” the Hierarch bellowed.
“Hyperion is the light, Your Holiness,” the Bishop said, her voice carrying. “The light is truth, and the truth must be known.”
“Lest we all be lost in darkness,” the knights finished together.
At this, the crowd divided. Some called Raef mad. Some looked ready to rush him. All hesitated, watching to see what would unfold.
Guilt and anger warred in the Hierarch’s eyes. Sati had done her job well. The same mad terror Raef had spotted on Eastlight ran openly across the Hierarch’s face.
He only needed one more push.
“I know what you did,” he said, quiet enough that only Logrum would hear. “I know how you earned your robe and ring. I’m going to tell them. I’m going to tell everyone.”
The Hierarch snapped, faster than Raef had expected, just as Raef needed him to. Fire and light poured through the oculus. Raef caught a glance at its swirling column. Then the searing heat took him.
The crowd screamed and ran for the doors.
Agony washed through him. He drank it in, let the flames fill the cracks in his heart, the break Kinos had made for it.
The Moon’s Door was never a carving. The carving had been a mirror, showing only himself. He’d never held the key. The moon reflected the sun. Hyperion’s fire was the key.
Still, it hurt beyond anything Raef had imagined. His greatest fear, the death he’d always known would come for him, arrived.
The tears sizzled off his face.
The crack broke open. The place where he’d loved Kinos, where he might love Seth someday, where he loved Cormac and Phoebe exploded into a thousand suns.
The light and fire carried him away.