EPHER

The Mount of Cedars burned as the gates fell and the legions stormed in.

"Epher!" Olive grabbed him, shouting over the din of drums, horns, and marching feet. "Epher, what we do?"

He stood on the defensive wall, staring down, for a moment frozen. The gatehouse had shattered. Line by line, the legions were flowing into the Mount, the last free bastion in Beth Eloh. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands.

Epher's eyes dampened.

It's over.

He had only several hundred warriors—wounded, ill, their swords chipped, their armor frail.

"Epher, what we do?" Olive shouted.

Epher sucked in air between clenched teeth. He raised his sword overhead.

"To the Temple!" he shouted, already racing down the wall. "Warriors of Zohar, to the Temple!"

They ran. As Aelar's wrath poured through the shattered gates, Beth Eloh's defenders raced up the hillside. The ancient cedars and olive trees, some of them two thousand years old, burned. This sacred place, this sanctuary, this home of Eloh. The Mount of Cedars—the holiest place in Zohar, the kingdom's fountain of lume. Around them it burned. Ancient trees dating back to Elshalom cracked, fell, and blazed. Smoke unfurled like demons of Ashael, red and black, covering the sky with dark wings. And behind Epher, marching uphill—Claudia and her legions.

"We come, we see, we kill!" they chanted.

And above their chants, laughter. Her laughter. The laughter Epher remembered, but mad now, mad with cruelty and grief.

He looked over his shoulder once, and he saw her there. Claudia rode on a white horse, cloaked in crimson and gold, resplendent even in the battle. At her sides, archers raised their bows and fired.

Epher turned back forward, running, sliding his shield across his back. Olive ran at his side. Around them, Zoharite defenders fell, pierced with arrows. The survivors kept running. Arrows slammed into Epher's shield, nearly knocking him down. An arrow pierced his calf, and he screamed but kept running. Blood trailed behind him. They passed the trees and ran through the necropolis. The arrows clattered against the craggy tombstones. More men fell between the graves.

"Epher, hurry!" Olive held his hand, pulling him onward. He limped but kept running. Flames roared behind them. Smoke rose ahead. From the inferno soared the Temple—all in white and gold, tall as the sky, a last beacon of hope, a final dawn before eternal night.

A single candle in a world of darkness, Epher thought.

More defenders fell before they had crossed the cemetery. The last warriors of Zohar, only several hundred, ran up the cobble road toward the Temple complex. A third layer of walls rose here, as thick as the walls around the city and those around the Mount. No guards stood here. The gates were open. Epher limped through, leaning on Olive as they ran. Their warriors raced around them, streaming from the flaming hill into a paved courtyard. It was here that a statue of Porcia had once risen, here that Remus Marcellus had murdered Shiloh, here that Maya had entered the city. Walls and columned arcades surrounded the Temple complex, topped with gilded parapets. Ahead, past a massive stone altar, rose the Holy of Holies—a towering structure, lined with marble columns with gilded capitals, soaring toward a golden crown. The tallest building in Zohar.

"Ramael, help me close the doors!" Epher said. "Yoram, Joren! Help us close them."

Ignoring his bleeding calf, Epher turned back toward the gateway they had entered through. The doors were gilded, but under the gold was iron and wood. This was not only a place of grandeur. It was a fortress draped in splendor. For the briefest of moments, Epher stared through the archway, back toward the Mount and city beyond. From the fire and smoke, she rode forth. Claudia Valerius, daughter of an emperor. His Claudia, his lover. Behind her rode her soldiers, armor bright, crests proud, weapons in their hands—the imperial legions, unstoppable in battle, the conquerors of the world.

Across the distance, their eyes met. Claudia smiled.

The Zoharites slammed themselves against the heavy doors, shoving them shut. They locked them, then dropped a beam into their brackets, but Epher knew these doors wouldn't hold for long. Not against the battering rams, the catapults, the vengeance of Claudia.

For a few moments, shielded in the Temple courtyard, the defenders tended to their wounds. Many had suffered burns and the bites of arrows. Epher grimaced as he bandaged his own wound; the arrow had sunken deep but not pierced the bone. Blood and ash coated the courtyard's polished flagstones. Olive grimaced as she touched a wound on her cheek. Epher winced to see it; an arrow had scraped across her from lips to ear.

"All those with healing kits—tend to the wounds that need stitching," Epher said. "Everyone else—into phalanxes. Go."

A few glanced at him questioningly, then looked toward the walls.

"There's no use manning the walls," Epher said. "We have no more arrows, and no wood to make more. Form phalanxes. Now!"

The defenders—haggard, bleeding, some who had gone for days without sleep or food—organized into units. Epher counted six hundred and twelve warriors. His heart sank.

Six hundred left from an army that once numbered in the tens of thousands.

"It's not going to be enough," he said. "We can't defend the Temple."

A boom shook the courtyard. Behind him, the doors rattled. The legions were chanting. The doors jostled at another blow from a ram.

"Come out here, Epher!" Claudia shouted, laughing. "Come die like your sister! She squealed like a dog when I nailed her onto the cross. Come join her!"

The doors shook again. A great clank sounded, and a boulder sailed over the walls. Men raced aside, and the boulder slammed into the courtyard, shattering flagstones.

Olive stepped closer to him. She clutched his hand. She stared into his eyes, somber. "We fight. We fight until last life. Here in Eloh's home."

Epher shook his head. No. Not even with ten thousand warriors could he hope to resist the Empire. Maya's words returned to him.

In the Holy of Holies, inside the Temple, a place forbidden to all but the High Priest, there stands the Gate of Tears.

"We have to leave the city," Epher said.

Olive frowned. "Epher, how we—"

She grimaced as another boulder flew over the walls. Men leaped aside as it slammed down, shattering and scattering stones.

"A secret exit," Epher said. "A tunnel. The way Maya entered and left." He pointed toward the Temple, and as other warriors gathered around him, Epher's voice rose louder. "The priests dug it centuries ago. We can make our way out of the city, then travel south, hard and fast into the desert. We'll make for the fortress of Tarath El. It rises atop a great mountain, taller and steeper than the mountain of Beth Eloh, and it has never fallen. There we'll find more warriors of Zohar. There we'll find hope."

A few of the warriors nodded, a flicker of hope springing in their eyes.

"Tarath El!" said a man, nodding. "The Fist of Zohar."

"Tarath El has never fallen," said a woman holding two spears. "There Zohar will remain free."

As the warriors spoke of the desert fortress, Olive grabbed Epher's wrist. She pulled him closer and spoke into his ear, voice harsh.

"We just leave Beth Eloh?" she said. "Leave city people here?"

Epher found a flicker of anger inside him. "How would we help them by dying?"

Her eyes flashed. "We would die with our people. Our people that we defend." Before he could speak again, she growled and tugged his arm. "Come with me. Now! Come."

She pulled him toward the wall that surrounded the Temple courtyard, then up a staircase and onto a gilded parapet. Olive shoved him forward.

"Look." She pointed. "Look at your city."

Epher looked. Below, the legions covered the smoldering Mount of Cedars like ants covering a hive. Claudia stood near the gates, and her men were busy at the ram, chipping the doors. Any moment now, they would break into the Temple grounds.

Epher raised his eyes and gazed farther. All around the Mount of Cedars spread the hive of Beth Eloh. It was a small city compared to a massive metropolis like Aelar, perhaps a tenth the size. And yet hundreds of thousands, maybe a million Zoharites had entered this city, seeking refuge behind thick walls, leaving the countryside barren. They covered the streets, the balconies, the gardens, the rooftops. The nation of Zohar, here within these walls. From this distance, it seemed to Epher that the city gates were still closed, that the legions kept the people enclosed within Beth Eloh. Even the northern shattered gate was guarded.

Like sheep in a pen, he thought.

"You leave them to die?" Olive said. "And we run to safety?"

"Safety?" Epher shook his head. "We would not flee to safety, no. We would flee down a hard, barren road, the legions at our back. We would draw them away from this city, Olive. Most of them, at least. I would rather the legions chased us than remained here with our people. There's no more we can do in Beth Eloh. Within moments Claudia will break into the Temple, and she would butcher us all. We must flee today even if we leave our people behind. We must draw Claudia in pursuit. We must live to fight another day, to keep Zohar's flame burning."

"For how long?" Her eyes dampened. "How long can we hole up in Tarath El? Even if we hold away legions from that castle, soon—we have no food, no water. We starve even if we survive war."

Epher thought back to the snippets Avinasi had spoken in her lucid moments. Gael attacking the walls of Aelar. Seneca rebelling in the south with the hosts of Nur. Lumers rising up around the Encircled Sea. The princess Valentina fighting to restore the Republic.

"We just need to last longer than Aelar," he said softly. He pulled Olive into his arms. "Empires always fall. Kalintia. Phedia. Leer. Denegar. Berenia. A hundred others. All mighty civilizations that had collapsed, washed away like castles of sand in the waves of the Encircled Sea. Darkness will not endure. Aelar too will fall. We just must keep our light burning long enough to see another dawn."

She blinked tears out from her eyes and caressed his bearded cheek. His beard used to be cropped close, but now was shaggy and stained with ash and blood.

"All empires fall," she whispered. "What about little kingdoms with stupid kings I love?"

"Do you love the kingdoms or the kings?" Epher asked.

"Kingdoms only," she said, smiling through her tears. "The kings always stupid."

As he kissed her, arrows flew from below. They retreated from the wall back to the courtyard.

As the gates shook behind them, they ran across the courtyard. Stairs led toward the glittering entrance to the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Temple. Even as king, Epher had never entered this place; it was forbidden to all but the High Priest. Yet the priests had fallen, and Zohar was falling, and Epher and his warriors entered the shadows.

He wasn't sure what he had expected—a palatial hall, perhaps streams of luminescence coiling in the air, perhaps even the ghostly spirit of God himself. He found only a simple brick chamber, as plain as any old house in the city. All the gold and marble, it seemed, had been used on the outside of the building. If there was any sign of Eloh's grace here, Epher did not see it. He felt no reverence, no awe, only icy guilt. Guilt—that demon clawed at him. He had justified his decision to Olive, yet doubt filled him.

Hundreds of thousands of Zoharites came to this city, he thought. They came for my protection. And I leave them with the eagles.

He paused for a moment, overwhelmed.

"Claudia will not kill them," he whispered. He spoke to Olive, but mostly also spoke to himself. "She wants to kill us. The warriors. Me. She will turn Beth Eloh into a city of the Empire, but she will not kill our people. We have to believe that. That she will chase us into the desert. That this city will stand. No longer a city of Zohar maybe—but a city of life, not ruin."

Olive nodded. He saw the doubt in her eyes. Too many cities lay in ruins around the Encircled Sea, but Epher had to believe—that this could become a place like Gefen, converted into an Aelarian city, most of its people—those who joined the Empire—spared.

My people will lose their freedom, their culture, their identity—but not their lives.

"A gateway," said a warrior, pointing to the shadows.

A man fell to his knees, eyes damp. "The Gate of Tears!"

Epher stepped into the shadows, and he saw it rise there. A crumbly archway, teardrops engraved onto its stones. It led to shadows.

From outside sounded a shattering boom. Sandals thumped and metal chinked, and Claudia's laughter rose.

Epher looked at Olive. She looked back, and he saw her love, her loyalty, her courage in her eyes. Hand in hand, they stepped through the Gate of Tears into a tunnel.

Forgive me. As Epher walked in shadows, he let his own tears fall—tears he would dare not show his warriors. Forgive me, my people. Forgive me, God. I'm sorry.