MAYA

Death slammed at the walls of the city, and the land wept. Maya stood in the Temple courtyard, wrapped in her prayer shawl, her hands aglow with the grace of Luminosity.

"Come forth, children." She raised both hands. "Come forth and be healed."

The wounded and ill spread before her. Lepers hobbled forth, robed and veiled. Wounded soldiers limped or crawled forth, bandaged, some missing limbs. Mothers carried feverish babes. The consecrated sisters, holy whores who worshipped Eloh with their bodies, approached gingerly, ravaged with disease, their lips and genitals inflamed, their minds gone to madness. The word spread quickly through the city, and soon hundreds were flowing through the streets toward the Mount of Cedars and the Temple on its crest.

"So many hurt," Maya whispered, gazing upon them.

Abishag stood at her side—so young yet with eyes so hurt, so hopeful. "You will heal them." Tears shone on her cheeks. "You will heal this city of tears."

Two soldiers stepped forward, bearded, gaunt. Between them they carried a comrade, an arrow in his chest, blood in his mouth. The wounded man's face was ashen, almost gray, and—

The man with the furrowed gray skin walked through a field of corpses. Every man he touched, a heart bloomed from him like a rose. Above in the clouds, the messengers wept, and a cold dawn broke over—

"Our savior." The wounded man reached out to her, hand shaking. "Heal me, savior."

Maya blinked, the vision gone. The wounded man knelt before her, still bleeding, and she placed her glowing hands upon him. The light flowed through the Temple, through Maya, through the wounded man. Here, this hill, was the world's greatest reservoir of lume. For thousands of years, this grace, this magic, this holiness had drawn pilgrims and conquerors, healers and soldiers, lumers and priests. It was not wispy lume like that in Suna in the east. The lume here in Beth Eloh was rich, almost tangible, flowing from the ancient bricks of the city, from the desert, from the mount, from the history of this place, the countless lives, desert tribes and dancers, travelers rising from the desert, the song of nations, the song of life.

When she pulled back her hands, letting the light fade, she saw that the warrior was healed. The arrow fell to the ground, and the wound closed, and the pallor of death pulled back. The man knelt before her, weeping, and kissed the ground before her.

"Thank you, savior. Thank you, Maya Elior."

Elior? Maya had always gone by her father's name, Sela, the family that guarded the coast. But yes, perhaps here, to these people, she was an Elior—the family of her mother, a family descended from Elshalom, the ancient royal dynasty of Zohar. The family that, perhaps, could bring some hope to this city of despair. For even as Maya stood here, hands glowing with luminescence, that despair tightened like a noose. Even standing here at the Temple, Maya could hear them in the distance: the drums, catapults, screams of war, the enemy that vowed to destroy all that Maya's ancestors had built here, all that she healed.

The people parted, whispering in fear, as a leper limped toward Maya. The leper removed his robes, revealing the frail, naked body of a boy, ravaged with disease. The skin was all but gone, consumed with white sores, the face rotten. She could hardly believe that the boy still lived. He looked like a mummified corpse. Maya thought back to the burnt king in Sekadia, his face and hands gone. She had been unable to heal him fully, easing his pain but failing to restore what the fire had claimed. Fear filled Maya that she could not heal this boy, yet as he knelt before her, she placed her hands upon him. The crowd prayed and sang as Maya's light flowed into the leper, as the disease left the skin, shedding, falling like the snow, until the boy's skin was pure. Kneeling before her, he kissed her feet, and he wept.

"Thank you, Maya Elior, Lady of Light."

One by one, they approached her. Wounded soldiers. Refugees from the ravaged countryside, burnt, maimed. Starving beggars. The ill and the dying. Maya had never used so much light, had never allowed so much luminescence to flow through her. A year ago, the light of this city had nearly seared her. Now, a lumer, she stood here as a conduit of light, passing the healing and beauty of Luminosity into all who came before her.

You taught me this grace, Namtar, she thought, remembering her mistress from the east. And you taught me courage and goodness, my parents. And still you teach me every day, light of Zohar.

As the shadow loomed, she cast her light. As death fell upon the city, she healed the dying.

For hours she stood here, through night and new dawn, shining her light. Finally the people parted with hushed whispers, and a man came walking between them. Standing by the old altar of the Temple, the dawn in her eyes, Maya squinted to see him. A tall man, broad of shoulders, clad in scale armor, a sword at his side. All bowed before him, and though she saw great weariness and fear in him, the man walked straight and tall, his shoulders squared despite his heavy burden. He came to stand before her, and Maya wept.

"Epher," she whispered.

"Maya." His eyes too dampened, and he pulled her into a crushing embrace. "Maya."

For long moments, she could only hold him, weeping, unable to speak. Epher—her oldest brother. Epher—the man she had always admired, second in strength and wisdom only to their father. Epher—now the king of Zohar.

"So you're a lumer now," he finally said.

She blinked away her tears, reaching up to touch his beard. He had aged. By Eloh, he had aged. She had been away for only half a year, but he seemed to have aged a decade. He was only twenty-four, but a few white hairs now grew in his beard, and lines appeared on his brow.

"Where are the others?" she asked him. "Do you have any word of Koren and Atalia and Ofeer? And what of Mother? Where is she? Why did she not come here?"

His face darkened, and he lowered his head, and something seemed to shatter inside Maya, and she did not need the Sight to know. She saw it in Epher's eyes.

"Epher, is Mother . . . did she . . ."

He nodded, still holding her. "Here at this very place. She fell where we stand."

No.

No, it could not be true. He had to be lying. It was impossible. Mother could not be dead, could not! Shiloh was too strong, too wise, too eternal. Shiloh was the beacon Maya had forever followed, her anchor to this world, her comfort, her guiding light. It was impossible that she could have died—so soon. So soon.

"I'm not ready," Maya whispered, tears on her lashes. "I . . . I'm not ready for this. To lose her. She . . . It's too soon, Epher." She trembled. "It's too soon."

She buried her face against his chest, and he held her as she cried.

"Maya," he said, placing a finger under her chin and raising her face toward his. "How did you enter this city? This is a place of death. I don't know how much longer I can hold back the legions. Do you . . ." His voice dropped. "Do you see the future in the luminescence? Will this city stand?"

Maya had never used Foresight outside the house of Luminosity across the desert. More than any other pillar, she feared Foresight, feared the dreams it could show. She did not mean to peer into the Foresight now, not here, not with so many more to heal. And yet so much lume flowed in this place. At the mere suggestion of Foresight, the light streamed through her, and the paths opened up before her—paths of light and shadow, of possibility and fate.

Waves flowed around her. The paths branched out, a great network of seeking roots. Along each path the images coalesced, flowed before her, vanished. She saw . . .

Maya grimaced and nearly fell, was only vaguely aware of Epher holding her up.

Before her, she saw the city fall, saw the walls crumble, the Temple itself collapse, saw the people in this land perish. Refugees roamed the world, homeless, hunted, hated, as their land lay in ruin and sand covered all their ancient works. The waves of possibility flowed, and she saw a Zohar surrendering, taking on the yoke of Aelar, until all her culture faded and was lost from history, and only the Empire remained until it too crumbled, fell, washed away into the sea. The paths grew dimmer, more convoluted, taking her through wars, through darkness, through smoke, through genocide and rebirth, through fire—anguish, eternal torture. Cursed. The curse of darkness.

"We are cursed," she whispered, tears in her eyes, for she could find no path of victory, no path of eternal grace, and every strand led her to ruin, to slavery and death. "All is darkness under the light."

And above it all, the shadow spread. Watching. She felt him, his eyes boring into her, his presence always taunting her. A figure always in the shadows, scuttling. The man who had hidden under her bed and in her closet when she'd been but a child. The man who had raised the dragons in the desert, sending their wrath against her. The man in the shadows. The man with the furrowed gray skin. The adversary. Above all future paths of Zohar, he loomed, a vulture, a veil of dark clouds and white eyes, mocking, taunting, evil itself, a living entity.

The adversary.

"Maya . . ." he whispered, and serpents fled his mouth, and cities burned and souls cried out in anguish. "I have your mother, Maya. She screams for me. She screams in Ashael."

"No," Maya whispered, trying to banish him, to claw him away, to hide from him, but he was everywhere, as mighty as Eloh, the darkness equal to the light.

I have to fight him. I have to stop him. This is my battle. This is the great battle of Zohar, greater even than the war with Aelar. I have to. I have to grow stronger. I have to stop him.

She trembled. Soon she was convulsing. He reached out to her, gray hands tipped with red, tearing out her innards, tearing out strands of smoke, demons of tar, and the creatures fled from her, slithering toward him, making him larger, stronger.

"Your whore of a mother screams for me," the adversary said, face hooded, veiled in shadows. "Your father begs me for mercy. Do you know who I am, Maya? Do you know my face?"

She wept. She screamed. He was ripping out her soul, tearing her apart, strand by strand, and the light fled her. She tried to cast that light against him, to fight him with Luminosity, but she seemed only to feed the beast, and he filled the paths, filled all futures, engulfed every possible fate of her family, of her nation, and she had to fight him, she—

"Maya!" The hands shook her. "Maya, damn it!"

"I have to fight!" she cried. "I have to fight you. I don't know who you are. I don't know. I don't know. I don't . . ."

"Maya!" The hands shook her again. "Look at me. Release your magic. Look at me!"

Epher. It was Epher speaking. She blinked, struggling to release the luminescence, to let it flow away, to let the lume die to embers, then douse the light. Once more she stood in the Temple's courtyard high above Beth Eloh. Once more the thousands crowded around her, and the hosts of Aelar slammed at the distant walls.

Epher stood before her, her brother, her king.

"What did you see?" he asked her.

"Questions." She dared not reveal the paths of doom, dared not rob him of hope. Yes, questions. Questions of a dark figure who lurked on every path, weaving the strands, directing them all to shadow.

"Lumer Maya!" rose a cry from behind. "Lumer Maya, we need you at the Gate of Mercy!"

Maya turned and narrowed her eyes. A soldier was running through the crowd, panting, awash with sweat. Bandages encircled his arms, and his scale armor hung in tatters.

"Lumer Maya!" He could barely breathe, let alone speak. Maya marched toward him through the crowd, and when he reached her, the soldier fell to his knees, breathing heavily.

Maya's eyes widened. She knew him!

"Joren!" She knelt before him and placed her hands on his shoulders. He had been one of their bodyguards back in Gefen, a man who had often stood guard outside the villa on Pine Hill. The last time she had seen him, Jerael had sent him to seek Ofeer after she had fled to join Seneca. "Joren, what is it?"

He took a ragged breath and struggled to his feet. "An illness spreads through the barracks at the gates. As the legions pound at us, disease ravages our men, and they . . ." He swallowed. "They speak of a shadow that walks through the camp, a hooded man, infecting all those he passes."

Maya sucked in breath, the visions flashing across her—gray skin, sharp teeth, a serpent tongue. She began to run.

They ran across the courtyard that spread before the towering Temple and the Holy of Holies. Walls surrounded the Temple complex. They were topped with golden pediments and engraved with lions, but their splendor belied their strength. They were thick and cast a deep shadow as Maya raced under the archway.

The Mount of Cedars sloped down before her, the center of the city and its most ancient quarter. She ran down a cobbled path between cedars and olive trees. The kingdom's palace rose to one side, smaller than the Temple but still a massive building topped with battlements, columns, and gold. To the other side sloped an ancient cemetery, some of its tombs thousands of years old, containing the bones of Zohar's old kings, queens, priests, and prophets.

At the bottom of the Mount, they reached a second set of walls—more ancient than those that surrounded the city. These walls had existed even before Elshalom had named this city his capital. These walls for millennia had defended the inner sanctum, the heart of the kingdom. No soldiers stood at the gates; every person who could wield a weapon now guarded the city's outer walls. Maya ran through another archway, and with her ran Abishag, Epher, and Joren.

The warren of Beth Eloh spread before them, a great painting of limestone, copper, fabric, and humanity. Between domes, silos, brick homes and shops, countless people crowded together. On normal days, a hundred thousand people lived in Beth Eloh—among the largest cities in the world. Now, with the countryside burning, with legionaries sweeping over the land, this number had grown tenfold. From all across Zohar, they had come here—from Gefen in the west, from Ma'oz in the north, from the southern deserts, from farmlands and villages. Every family now welcomed refugees into their homes. Many lived on the streets, huddling under balconies and awnings. Epher and his guards walked at the lead, carving a way through the crowd, but it was slow progress. Often Maya had to move step by slow step, unable to run. They passed through a marketplace, awnings hiding the sky, as people huddled at their sides in nooks, wrapped in robes.

Finally they raced down a boulevard lined with palm and cypress trees. Camels and donkeys fled before them, and there, past a courtyard, rose the Gate of Mercy—one of the city's two western gates, smaller and older than the Gate of Lions, which rose a few streets away. Maya remembered this place well. Half a year ago, she had entered the city through this gate with her mother.

The memory of Shiloh stabbed her with new grief, but Maya raised her chin, sucked in air, and dried her tears. There would be time to mourn later. There would be time for tears in future days. Right now, all of Zohar was threatened. Right now, if she could not stop this evil, all in this city would perish. She would keep her grief a hard stone, buried inside her, and not let it emerge and claim her. Not yet. Not here.

This gateway, normally a quiet, dusty place where camels lazily flicked their tails and boys sold holy artifacts to pilgrims, now bustled with death like a corpse bustling with flies. Hundreds of warriors stood above the doorway at the gatehouse battlements, in archer's nests, and along the walls that stretched north and south. Every man and woman was firing arrows, tossing sling stones, dropping boulders, or spilling cauldrons of bubbling water—the oil had run dry, and the water would soon follow, water this city desperately needed to support so many. The song of the legions rose from behind the doors: chanting voices, stomping feet, booming drums, and a ram that pounded at the gates.

A military camp had sprouted across the courtyard. Hastily constructed barracks rose along the walls. Hundreds of soldiers stood, walked, and lay across the courtyard and side streets. More moved within the nearby houses, their families evicted. Awnings rose along on street, shading the wounded, the dying, and the dead. A priest stood in a corner, praying, and ever that din rose, the chant of the enemy. "We come! We see! We kill!" Over and over, a prayer of death.

And death moved through the camp.

Maya saw the illness everywhere. Soldiers leaning against walls, ashen, gray sores bubbling on their arms. Corpses on litters, consumed with the disease. Evil slammed outside the walls, and a greater evil lurked within.

Screams rose as a boulder slammed into the battlements on the wall. A merlon cracked. Two Zoharites tumbled down and slammed onto a vaulted walkway. Cheers rose from beyond the wall.

"Joren, with me!" said Epher, rushing toward the wall. The men raced into the walkway, emerged onto a staircase, and rose to man the battlements.

Maya turned toward Abishag. The girl stared at her steadily even as war raged around them.

She's barely more than a child, Maya thought. Abishag looked like any farmer or shepherd's daughter from across Zohar—slender, her face round, her skin tanned brown, her black hair long and smooth. And yet Abishag had lived through horrors Maya could barely imagine, had risen from despair to find the mythical Gate of Tears.

"You don't have to be here with me," Maya said softly. "You may return to the Temple, seek shelter there, and pray."

Abishag would not look away. "There is no one to pray to at the Temple. I was in the Holy of Holies, and I saw nothing but an empty room, an empty ark, empty prayers from empty men. But you are holy." She clasped Maya's hand. "You are blessed with Eloh's light. I will follow you into any darkness."

Both were young girls from Zohar, yet they could not have been more different. Maya had been raised in wealth and power, daughter of Zohar's two mightiest families, her parents pillars of the nation. Abishag had been raised in the dregs, an orphan and prostitute, diseased and dying. Yet standing here together, Maya felt a kinship with Abishag, and though the Foresight told her little of her path ahead, she knew that they would walk that path together.

They walked across the courtyard, and Maya inhaled deeply, letting the lume flow through her, rise to her fingertips, and she wove it into luminescence. The soldiers of the city turned toward her light, whispering in awe, praying, weeping. Maya entered the pavilion where lay the dying—torn apart by enemy stones and steel and ravaged by illness. She approached one soldier consumed with disease. Gray boils covered him, hiding his eyes, yet still he wept.

Maya knelt before him, hands glowing. "I'm here, son of Zohar."

He clutched her hands. "A shadow," he whispered. "A robed man in the camp. A demon. I see him. He taunts me. He—"

He sucked in breath as the light flowed across him. Maya gritted her teeth, her chest twisting, for this was illness greater than any she had healed in the Temple. She could barely cast her light through the darkness engulfing this soldier. There was a stench here, a shadow blocking her light, a curse of darkness.

"Can't you heal him?" Abishag asked, her voice muffled, coming from parsa'ot away.

The light thrummed, suffusing Maya. She gripped the diseased soldier. He was slipping away, falling into darkness. The light burned her. She screamed.

"Maya!" cried a voice in the distance—Abishag's voice, distorted, fading.

As Maya gripped the diseased soldier, casting her light into him, the layers of boils, scabs, and rot peeled off, revealing gray skin draped over bones, a furrowed face, sharpened teeth, black pools of eyes. He laughed in her grip, reaching out withered arms like roots, grabbing her.

"He is mine," the rotted creature hissed.

But Maya would not relent. She had faced the legions of Aelar. She had traveled through fire and sand and war and found light. She was a lumer, and she sent all the light inside her into the creature, shattering it, revealing the man within. Finally she let the light flow out and panted, weary, racked with pain. A soldier lay before her, thin, sleeping, healed.

"Maya!" Abishag wrapped her arms around her. "Are you all right? You're trembling." She touched her cheek. "You're ashen."

Maya took a shuddering breath. She looked over Abishag's shoulder at the rest of the pavilion. The soldiers lay on the cobbled ground, covered in rough blankets, each one covered in the gray warts, bleeding, dying. And there, at the back, past guards and priests, he walked. Wrapped in black, hooded. He raised his head, stared at her, face now bloated and white, but there was no mistaking those black eyes—eyes fully black, no white around the irises. He turned his head away. He walked on, disappearing from view.

Maya took a shuddering breath.

"There is much work to do," she said. "There are many to heal. Come with me, Abishag. Pull me back if I go too deep."

Soldiers entered the pavilion, dragging ten more diseased, dying men. Maya had healed only one soldier here, and already she felt so weary she could barely walk. And yet she moved to the next soldier. She kindled the lume, for as the great war between Aelar and Zohar flared, a greater war was fought here, in light and in shadows, a war of Luminosity, of grace and of evil. She fought on.