MAYA

She stood on the wall that surrounded the Mount of Cedars, watching the legions pound at the defenses and spread through the city, yet Maya could only think of him. The adversary. The man in the shadows. The man who had risen from her miracle, who had sent the enemy into Beth Eloh. His words still rang in her ears.

Do you know me, Maya?

She turned away from the battlements. A stone ramp ran along the inner side of the wall, and Maya walked down to the courtyard below. Abishag hurried to follow. All the warriors of the uprising still stood on the wall, desperate to halt the assault on the Mount; some had no more arrows and were reduced to throwing stones. Before Maya rose the mountaintop, the highest and holiest place in Zohar. There on its crest rose two buildings, the two pillars of Zohar, its right hand and left hand: the palace and the Temple.

Maya began to climb the hill.

"Where do we go?" Abishag asked, hurrying to follow.

"To seek answers," said Maya. "From the wisest woman in this city."

They climbed the pathway up the slope, passing through a cemetery with many ancient tombstones, some of them a thousand years old. Here were buried the kings, queens, priests, and prophets of Zohar through the ages. It was a crowded cemetery, no room for trees or grass. The tombstones were as cluttered as the city houses, no two alike, many of them worn down by eras of rain and snow and wind, their epitaphs long gone. Higher up, the cemetery gave way to groves of olive, cedar, pine, cypress, and carob trees. Dry pine needles and fallen carobs covered the ground. Cyclamens grew here by stones, their leaves veined, their petals pale lavender and pink. Maya thought back to the cyclamens that grew in her mother's garden. Shiloh had loved those flowers, and Maya had always marveled at how they grew only in the shade of stones, as if seeking shelter. Perhaps cyclamens were like her, like her people—fragile, seeking shelter from sand and storm.

The Temple rose ahead, among the largest buildings in the world, said to rival even the great monuments of Aelar. But it was not toward that ancient marvel of marble and porphyry that Maya now walked. She headed toward the smaller—yet still grand—building that rose at its side: the palace of Zohar.

For a thousand years now, Maya's family had reigned in this palace. Her ancestor, Elshalom Elior, had built the palace when naming Beth Eloh his capital, uniting the tribes of Zohar into a kingdom. Maya's grandfather, Rahamyah, had reigned here before Maya had been born, and then her aunt, Queen Sifora, then Shefael, then Epheriah—generation after generation of the dynasty of Elior. And through the ages, every king and queen had kept a lumer as an adviser. The same lumer had advised Epher, Shefael, Sifora, Rahamyah, and even the king before them. The same lumer now languished in the palace, stricken with too many years, near death. The same lumer now could, perhaps, offer wisdom one last time.

Maya entered the palace freely. Nobody was guarding the throne room today; every able man had gone to fight. Maya crossed the grand hall, stepping over the mosaic of many animals. Abishag walked at her side. Their sandals clanked, too loud in this vaulted, empty chamber. A sunbeam fell through a window, illuminating the throne. It was hard to believe that this chamber had ever held life, laughter, love. It was as barren now as ruins, as a memory of a long-fallen kingdom.

In a thousand years, will anyone reign here? Maya wondered. Or will future travelers to this mountain find only shattered gates, barren walls, and halls of shadow?

They walked upstairs, navigating through the palace, getting lost several times. Her siblings knew this place better than Maya did. Her family used to visit Beth Eloh every year, sometimes twice a year, but Maya had been forbidden to join them after a disastrous trip that had suffused her with luminescence. Maya would always stay behind in the villa on Pine Hill, Ofeer remaining to watch over her. Of course, Ofeer had always spent her time at the port, leaving Maya alone with her scrolls and thoughts.

Finally Maya and Abishag found their way to a hallway high in a palace. A handmaiden greeted them, demure and clad in white.

"We've come to see Avinasi," said Maya.

The handmaiden lowered her head, and when she looked up again, fear filled her eyes. "They say the legions will break in by sundown," she whispered. "They say we are all doomed."

Maya touched the woman's shoulder. "Fear not, for light is eternal and no shadows can forever hide its splendor. How is Avinasi?"

The handmaiden looked toward a doorway in the hall, then back at Maya. "Not well. She lingers near death. She too might not survive till the morrow."

"Then I will speak to her at once," said Maya. She turned toward Abishag. "Wait for me here. This I must do alone."

Leaving the handmaiden and Abishag behind, Maya opened the door and stepped into a humble bedchamber. The brick walls were bare but for a silver pomegranate, life-sized, that hung from a peg. Prayer scrolls rested on a table, and the window afforded a view of the cemetery. In a bed by the window lay Avinasi, royal lumer of Zohar.

Maya paused, for a moment too overcome to speak or step closer. She had always known Avinasi to be old, of seemingly infinite age and wisdom, the lumer who had served her grandfather and his father before him. Yet there had always been vigor to Avinasi, thriving life in her shrewd eyes. The wizened figure, roaming the palace, all chinking with jewels and scented with spices, had seemed as eternal as the city itself. Yet now this city was dying, and so was its lumer.

It hadn't even been a year since Maya had last seen Avinasi, but she seemed to have aged decades. Avinasi wasn't just gaunt. She was skeletal, so small, so frail, shrunken to the size of a child. Her wrinkled skin clung to her skull. It was hard to believe that she still lived, that this wasn't an emaciated corpse. Yet the chest still rose and fell, and breath rattled through the lungs. Maya found her feet again, stepped forward, knelt at the bedside, and clasped Avinasi's hand. It felt like holding a talon.

"Avinasi," Maya whispered. "It's me. It's Maya."

The ancient lumer took a raspy breath, opened her eyes, and smiled wanly, gums toothless. "Mother," she whispered. "Mother, it . . ." She cringed. "It hurts, Mother. It hurts me. They hurt me."

Maya stroked the old woman's brittle cheek, like stroking papyrus. "It's all right. You're safe. Soon the pain will end." Maya lit a flicker of lume and let the light flow into the old woman. Avinasi's breathing calmed.

"Do the doves still fly in the garden?" Avinasi asked, raising glazed eyes toward the window. "I saw them fly. I saw them fly from winter. Do they still live in our tree?"

Maya squeezed Avinasi's hand. "Avinasi, it's Maya. Can you hear me?"

The lumer blinked, her eyes finally focusing on Maya's. She gave a small gasp. "Maya. Maya Sela." She struggled to rise, could not. "I sent you east. I sent you into the desert to find a house of Luminosity . . ."

Maya nodded. "I found the house. And I learned from Namtar. And I completed the Luminous Writ. I've come back."

Avinasi's fingers tightened around Maya's hand with surprising strength. Tears dampened the old lumer's eyes. "You've returned through the Gate of Tears, the hidden eighth gate of the city, all in white, all in light, bringing healing to the hurt, bringing hope to those who despair, as lumers foresaw in days of old."

"But . . ." Maya lowered her head. "I brought evil with me. A shadow followed me into the city. A shadow that I feared in my childhood, a shadow that hid under my bed or in my closet, yet which I never saw. A man in a black robe, with furrowed gray skin, with fingers tipped with red. He faced me in the desert. He brought illness to the soldiers of Zohar. He shattered the gates of the city, letting in the legions. Avinasi, who is he? What is his name?"

Sadness filled Avinasi's eyes. She turned her head away, looking at the wall.

"Avinasi, won't you tell me?" Maya stepped around the bed, facing her again.

The old lumer looked up at the ceiling. "Are the doves flying again, Mother? Are—"

"Please," Maya said. "I'm not afraid."

Avinasi grew still and silent. She took a deep breath, then turned her eyes back toward Maya. "Some truths are best left unknown. Some shadows are best not pierced by light."

"And yet I must know him," said Maya, "for he has ever been my greatest enemy, and he will set all this city to ruin unless I can fight him, cast him back. Who is he?"

Wincing, Avinasi struggled to reach for a cup of water. She gulped weakly, just a few drops, and placed the cup down. From outside rose the sounds of war—clashing iron, dying men, stones and steel.

"When the adversary tore down the gates of Beth Eloh," said Avinasi, "did he rise after great light?"

Maya frowned. "I had . . ." She swallowed, suddenly afraid to reveal this truth, this forbidden magic, but she would hold no secrets today. "I did what the Luminous Writ forbids. I resurrected a dead man."

"This had not been done in a thousand years," Avinasi said. "The blood of Elior flows through you. Your power is greater than any lumer who now lives. To resurrect the dead casts more light than any have shone here since the days of Elshalom. And every light, Maya, must cast a shadow."

"But Luminosity is not like a candle or torch," Maya said. "It's light that flows from Eloh's grace."

"It is different than other lights, yet the same. There cannot be light without darkness, Maya. Even the light of Luminosity casts shadows. Every time we sisters of Luminosity invoke the light, we cast shadows. Small and flitting, usually. We might heal the broken bone of a friend, only for another friend to later trip, to fall, to suffer a similar injury. We might gaze into the future, seeking whispers in the light, only to pollute that future with obstacles and hardships. Before illness fell in this city, before the Gray Death spread—did you use the light?"

Maya shuddered, icy fingers trailing through her. She nodded. "I healed many that day. Soldiers wounded in the war. It was only after I healed them that the Gray Death spread, that he emerged, that—"

Maya gasped. She stepped back so suddenly that she slammed into the side table, scattering scrolls. The cup of water fell and shattered against the floor.

Avinasi nodded. "When you resurrected the dead, your light—a brilliant pillar that rose to the sky—cast a great shadow from which he rose. Who is the adversary, Maya? He is you. He is your shadow, as Luminosity casts it. He bears the form you gave him, the form of a monster you feared as a child, a monster you imagined hid under your bed. He is the shadow of Maya Sela, and he will forever trail behind you whenever you cast your light."

Maya felt the blood drain from her face.

"No," she whispered. "No. It cannot be. You lie."

Avinasi's eyes closed.

Maya trembled. She thought back to all those times she had seen him, sensed him. Lurking in her closet. Flitting in and out of her memory like a dream. Rising before her in the desert. Moving through the crowd of Beth Eloh. Rising stronger, more powerful than ever in Beth Eloh. As her strength had grown—as she had traveled near the House of Luminosity, cast magic at the wall, resurrected her brother—his shadow had darkened.

My shadow, Maya thought. He is me.

"Avinasi," she whispered.

The lumer lay still.

Maya stepped closer. "Avinasi . . ."

She leaped back. He stared from the shadows, lurking over the corpse of the ancient lumer, claws clutching the flesh. He stared up from his hood, furrowed skin clinging to his skull. A phallic gray head, eyes yellow and serpentine.

Maya spun around and fled the chamber.

Abishag was waiting for her in the corridor.

"Maya!" the girl cried.

Maya paused for an instant, staring at the girl—her kind eyes, her gentle heart.

I put her in danger, Maya thought. I put everyone in danger. All those around me. All those who died here. Because of the shadows I cast.

She turned. She ran from Abishag, leaving the girl behind. She ran through the palace, lost, trapped in the labyrinth. The shadows danced around her.

Her mind reeled. She had healed a dog on a hill; not moments later, the shadow of Aelar had fallen across the land. She had traveled toward a great source of lume in the east; on the cusp of its light, the adversary had raised the desert against her. She had written the Luminous Writ, weaving her magic into the scroll; the Dagonites had appeared and shattered the House of Luminosity.

But how could this be? Why had Namtar never told her? Why had the Luminous Writ not described the danger? Why—

Maya paused. She leaned against the corridor wall, feeling sick.

Namtar never knew, Maya realized. Perhaps no other lumer in the world knows this truth.

She thought back to the words she had transcribed in the last chapter of the Luminous Writ.

"Every light must cast a shadow," she whispered.

She had not understood those words then, had thought them mere poetry, a single line among thousands of lines.

She turned toward a window. The last defenders of Zohar stood on the wall around the Mount, desperate to hold back the onslaught. Tens of thousands of Aelarians filled the streets of Beth Eloh, and farther in the distance, Maya could just make out the shattered gatehouse that led to the wilderness.

My fault. Tears streamed down her cheeks. My shadow. He is me. He was always me.

Maya fell to her knees. She trembled. All the world seemed to close in around her, wrapping her in light and in shadows.