MAYA

She hung from the chains, only her toes grazing the floor. Beams of dusty light fell through the window, illuminating a stone floor, empty alcoves in the walls, and a dead cat in the corner. Somebody's home, perhaps. Or maybe the workshop of a scribe. Whoever had once lived or worked here had been cast out, and now chains hung from the ceiling, tugging at Maya's arms, nearly pulling bones from sockets. Her joints creaked as she hung.

I walked across the desert.

The wounds the legionaries had given her blazed on her back. Welts rose there, bleeding. Her skin hung in tatters. She could heal herself, she knew. She could end this pain. Yet she dared not summon the light.

I found a house of Luminosity.

The sun set, and darkness filled the chamber, and screams rose in the distance, and still Maya hung here, toes on the floor, arms twisted.

In the beginning there was light. And in the end there is darkness.

The sun rose, and the dust danced in the sunbeams, and Maya hung here, her dried blood on the floor, until the door opened and she entered the chamber.

Claudia Valerius wore the armor of a commander in the legions. A breastplate engraved with a golden eagle. Pteruges that hung down to her knees and a crimson cloak. Vambraces on her forearms and greaves over the straps of her sandals. A gladius hung at her side, and she held a spear. Maya knew Claudia well, had grown up with her, remembered a young woman in silks and gold, her hair perfectly coiffed, her lips always smiling. Before her stood a killer of the Empire, her hands stained with blood.

Claudia stepped closer, tilted her head, and her eyes softened.

"Maya Sela." She caressed Maya's cheek. "Look what they've done to you."

Maya said nothing.

"They say you're a lumer now," said Claudia. "They say you can heal the wounded, even resurrect the dead. And yet the whip has stripped the skin off your back, and you are powerless to heal it." She snickered. "Funny how the rats lie."

"We welcomed you," Maya whispered, finally looking into Claudia's eyes. "Into our home. Into our nation. You were born in Gefen. We played together as children. You broke bread at our table. We loved you. We—"

Claudia backhanded her, sneering, eyes wild. Blood splattered.

"Liar! I was never one of you." She grabbed Maya's cheeks. "You never let me forget that. When Seneca sailed into your port, when you should have kissed his feet in gratitude for letting you join our civilization, you spat on him. On us. On me. I was never one of you rats. I've always been an eagle."

"Then we failed," Maya whispered. "We failed to show you kindness. To show you light. I'm sorry."

Claudia laughed. "You'll be sorrier once I cut out your entrails. Did you not think, when coming into this city, that I wouldn't recognize you? You—the pampered little girl Shiloh expelled from her cunt, the girl who always scorned me, who read her little scrolls and scribbled her little words while her brother fucked me? Oh yes, Maya. I remember it all. I remember you all very well. We're going to see your brother now, Maya. You and I. And you're going to use your little magic tricks, and you're going to topple the walls around the Mount of Cedars. And maybe, just maybe, I will let you live out the rest of your miserable life."

Maya shook her head. "I will no longer use my Luminosity. I . . ." She lowered her head, and tears flowed into the cut on her cheek. "I once sought to be a lumer, but I became too strong. I used too much. The light burned me, cast too many shadows. I will not do what you ask. I will not betray my brother."

Claudia screamed. She hit Maya again. Again. She rattled the teeth in her jaw and splattered her blood against the floor.

"Use your light!" she shouted. "Heal yourself! Summon that fucking demon of yours to tear open the Mount's walls!"

Yet Maya would not, not even as her blood dripped, as she gasped for ragged breaths. She had summoned a life back from death. She had opened her portal to grace. Should she summon more lume, she did not think she could control it, tame it. Too many shadows. Too many dead.

"I cannot," Maya whispered.

Claudia sneered and grabbed her hair. "Then we will find other ways to open the gates to the Mount. Ways that you will find far less pleasant." She unchained Maya. "Come with me."

Maya fell to her knees, bloodying them on the floor. Her arms screamed in protest, and her hands blazed as blood flowed back into them. But Claudia would give her no rest. She dragged Maya through the door, out into a courtyard between brick walls. Several legionaries awaited there in the shade of a palm tree. A cross leaned against the wall, carved of cedar.

"This is your burden to bear," Claudia said. She stroked Maya's hair. "Bear it well."

I sought light by the sea.

Maya walked down the street, cross on her whipped back, legs twisting, bleeding, as Claudia laughed and rode her horse.

I entered a gate of myth and tears.

Maya fell, and the whip lashed her, and they pulled her to her feet. She walked on, and all the while the legionaries jeered, laughed, mocked her, pelted her with stones.

"Princess of Rats!"

"Rebel to Aelar!"

"Demon fucker!"

I brought healing to the hurt.

Maya fell on a pebbly path. She shivered as Claudia wiped off the blood, poured water into her mouth, soothed her, kissed her bloody brow, and pulled her to her feet again.

I loved. I was wrapped in warmth.

Bearing her cross, rasping for air, she walked toward the Valley of Ashes in the shadow of the Mount. But in her mind, Maya was walking again on the hills outside her home. The sea whispered in the distance, and the carob and almond trees bloomed around her, and the turtledoves sang. Her family was with her. Smiling. Loving her.

"I love you," she whispered. "I love you always."

The legions took her to the center of the valley. A thousand years ago, in this place, idolaters would sacrifice their children in a bronze bull. Many people of the city gathered around the valley, watching her, silent, scared. Above rose the fortified wall of the Mount of Cedars, and in the distance shone the Temple.

Gold and rust, Maya thought. Marble and sand. Soon the pain will end.

Claudia sat on her horse, drew her sword, and pointed the blade skyward.

"We've captured a rebel to the Empire!" she cried. "We've captured Maya, Princess of Rats! She who fucks demons! She whose own brother defies us!" She turned toward the Mount. "Do you hear me, Epher? Look! Look upon us from your tower! See what your pride has done!"

Maya thought that she saw him—there on the distant wall. Thought that she heard him cry out to her.

"Maya! Maya!"

But the gates to the Mount did not open.

"Will you hide as a coward, Epher?" Claudia shouted. "Will you hide as I nail your sister onto the cross?"

The Mount's defenders lined its battlements. Silent. From this distance, it seemed to Maya that they looked away, and she could no longer see her brother.

"Keep them safe, Epher," Maya whispered, blood in her shattered mouth. "Remember what I told you."

Claudia spun her horse back toward her. She dismounted and approached Maya, lips peeled back, eyes wild.

"I never got to see your father crucified," Claudia said. "I'm going to savor every moment of this."

The legionaries pulled down the cross, and they laid Maya upon it.

She looked up into the sky, and she smiled tremulously, because they had not all fled. A single dove flew above her, a single remnant of hope, of peace. She watched the bird as the legionaries grabbed her arms, twisted, and dislocated her shoulders. She watched the bird as the nails drove into her hands, then into her feet. She heard its distant warble as the cross rose, as she hung upon it in the valley.

She thought she could hear a distant cry. Somebody calling her name. All around they watched her, the thousands, the millions, the people of Beth Eloh of past and present, ancient prophets and pilgrims and kings, and her mother smiled, and Maya ran along the beach by her home, and she laughed with her siblings, and she ran into her father's arms.

I could have run, she knew, hanging from the cross, her blood flowing down to the soil. I could have crossed the desert. I could have sought hope in the wilderness.

All around her, the raw lume became visible to her eyes for the first time, rising, falling like sheets of rain, a painting woven of grace.

But I remained. She watched the beauty before her. Because I'm a daughter of Luminosity. And I'm a daughter of Zohar. And I'm like a cyclamen that grows only by stones. In the open, far from my home, I would wither, and I would be a shell of myself, until the hunger and want for the lume would carve me up, leave me hollow. But here I am with Eloh. Here I am at home. Here I am who I was meant to be. Here the shadows I cast will fade, and I will be only light.

"Maya!" A figure ran across the valley, her dress fluttering, her hair long and dark. "Maya!"

Abishag ran up to her. The girl fell to her knees by the cross, weeping.

"Look away, Abishag," Maya whispered, able to speak no louder. "Don't remember me like this. But remember this, Abishag: Whatever dark paths you tread, I'll be with you. I love you."

The curtains of light fell all around, and the world faded into a haze. The stars emerged, and the sun rose, and the sun set, and all the land breathed, and all in the world was as it should be. All kingdoms, all empires, all dynasties—all were like flowers rising from the desert, blooming for a day, then washing away in the rain. And the world carried on. And the world was good.

And on the third day, hanging from her cross, Maya heard a voice in the light, and she felt love envelope her, a sad love, a love that wept for the pain upon the earth.

"Are you him?" Maya whispered. "Are you Eloh?"

But that was a word men had given the light. That word had no meaning to this grace.

You may rest now, Maya, rose the voice. Your pain has ended. Your path has led you to me.

"I cannot rest," she said. "I cannot join you. Not before you answer my prayer."

I know what you would ask, said the light. That path is one of many hardships, of much pain.

Maya nodded. "All paths are laden with hardship. And yet we walk them. When I gazed into the light, I saw many paths, many kingdoms rise and fall and fade to sand. Do not let that be Zohar's fate. Let Zohar stand eternal. Let this kingdom remain forever a light unto the world."

Every light must cast a shadow. The voice sounded sad. And Zohar is a nation of light, risen around the Mount where the lume flows. Every child of Zohar carries a piece of light within them. Every light must cast a shadow. Should Zohar live, forever would her path be paved with darkness. Wherever the children of Zohar go, this demon will follow. Every light must cast a shadow. Would it not be better to let Zohar fade into the sand?

"No," said Maya. "Because a life of light and shadows is better than the darkness of death. Shadows are not darkness; they can only exist because we shine a light. Let Zohar keep walking this path, and let her keep casting her light. Her pain, her grief, the demons that haunt her—they will forever plague the people whom I love. But Zohar's light will forever bless this world. Let us suffer so that other nations bask in light."

It seemed to Maya that Eloh wept. There was no form to gaze upon. No body to hold, no eyes to cry. And yet there was grief. There was eternal sadness, but thus there was also joy, for both were sides of one coin. And Maya knew that this prayer would be answered, that in her death—her death here in the heart of luminescence, not of old age in some distant land—she had saved her nation. She had doomed them to endless toils, to long and coiling paths, but given them life. She had given them love.

The light fell all around Maya like rain, fading to a haze, then a glow like a distant dawn after a storm. And then there was nothing. And the world carried on. And the world was good.