Tace steeled herself for what was to come. They had been promised information if they passed the tests. Well, she and Ademar had done it. Brax, the poor human, had died in his effort. While Tace was relieved Ademar had survived, she couldn’t help but feel guilt over Brax’s death.
Whatever information the Fifth Sanctum had to offer, she would do her best to use it.
She followed Frensia into the dining hall where they’d met the boy when they’d first arrived at the Fifth Sanctum. The long table was gone, and its place was a glowing orb, twice Tace’s height and quadruple her girth. She walked around it, curious as to its origin. She reached out, but her hand was quickly slapped away by Frensia.
“I wouldn’t touch that, if I were you,” Frensia said, shaking their head.
Tace took a step back. She would be more cautious. After what she’d seen in her test, she knew the Fifth Sanctum had power far beyond anything she could imagine. To make something false feel so real…
She could still sense her mother’s presence. Part of her even wished the illusion had been true—that outside the front door she would find her mother waiting for her. They could run away, leaving behind everything she’d experienced since that fateful night in Hugh’s apartment.
Ademar stood off to one side, strong and stoic as always. She had to admire the man. He’d been thrust into the same chaos as she had, but it had to be worse for him. He’d lost his mentor. He was among a race of beings he’d barely begun to understand. And yet, here he was. By her side, still.
Tace had to fix all of this madness. For the orcs. For Ademar. Even for Brax, who’d failed the test.
Brax’s death was on her.
The lives of the orcs of Agitar were on her.
Everything was on her—and on the knowledge she could glean from the Fifth Sanctum.
“Hello,” a childlike voice said.
Tace spun around. The small boy had returned. He stood with his hands clasped in front of his chest, as if in prayer.
“Two of the three survived the tests,” he said. “I assume you want to know why Brax failed?”
Tace did want to know, but at the same time, she didn’t. Instead of answering, she waited for the boy to continue.
“Brax proved disloyal. He would never have followed you the way that is required.” The boy turned to Ademar. “But you. You made a difficult choice, and because of that, you are here.”
Ademar’s face remained neutral. Too neutral, as if he was trying to hide something. The choices she’d been forced to make in her test had been horrible. Ademar’s had to have been just as bad. But if Brax had failed because he’d refused to follow her… what sort of choice had Ademar been forced to make? What had he sacrificed for her? Even if it was a test, had he given up a part of himself to succeed?
It was yet one more burden upon her. Another weight to carry along with all the others she’d collected.
“Tell us what we came here for,” Tace demanded. She was tired of the games. “We’ve done as you asked. Ademar and I passed your tests. Tell us about these runes. Tell us how we can help the infected orcs. If this disease has spread to uncontainable levels while we were here, prancing around this damn castle at the mercy of your whims, then all of this will have been for naught.”
The boy smiled. “I’m happy to see you are taking this seriously, Tace. The information you seek is here, in this room, waiting for you to take it. You need only act.”
Frustrated, Tace looked around the room. There was nothing in it other than them and the orb. No books, no scrolls, nothing that would tell her what she needed to know. Her eyes took in the stone walls and the cold marble floor before her gaze settled once again on the orb.
Her first instinct upon seeing it had been to touch it. Frensia had stopped her. But what if the answers she needed were within the orb?
Steeling herself, Tace strode toward the orb. She expected Ademar to call out to her, but he was just as silent as Frensia and the boy. Only Raseri got in her way.
The dragon flew between her and the orb, blocking her path.
“Let me go, girl. Please,” Tace said.
Raseri hesitated, then flew over Tace’s head to the other side of the room.
Tace continued forward. Somehow she sensed that she needed to do more than just touch the orb. She had to step inside it. So she did.
Warm, pulsing fibers swallowed her whole, seeping into her skin and filling her lungs. She could no longer breathe, but breath was not necessary here. Her eyes did not see. Her hands did not feel. Her nose did not smell. Her senses were blanketed in something she couldn’t describe. There was warmth, but most of all, there was knowledge.
Sinking into the orb’s embrace, Tace surrendered, letting it consume her. Fill her. Become one with her.
“You have proven yourself worthy,” a voice said. It was the little girl who’d taken Tace to her trial. “I am glad you survived. I wanted to tell you there was nothing to worry about, but that is not our way. Though I knew what your choices would be, I still had to let you make them. Now you will learn the truth. You can choose how to use it.”
Tace gave no response. She simply listened. Waited. Knowing the information would come to her unbidden.
“The orcs of Agitar are infected with a virus no force on Doros can cure. You must unite the two sides: the living and the dead. Bring them together to cleanse the infected. Only you have access to this power. Only you can open the gates to the Nether and free the beings there who can save your orcs. But to do this, you must also give evil direct access to your world. You will save the orcs, but you will doom everything you know to a war with evil. Drothu will rise. He will come to claim all lives for himself.”
“I can’t fight him on my own,” Tace said without moving her lips. Perhaps she thought it. Within the orb, all things were one. It was confusing as hell.
“You won’t have to. Go to the Nether. Free your allies, for Drothu holds them captive.”
Before Tace could ask any questions, the orb dissipated around her. She fell to the marble floor in a crumpled heap.
She wasn’t surprised to see Ademar rushing to her side. She’d told herself over and over since she’d first met him that she didn’t need him—but in a silent rebuke to that pride, she allowed him to help her to her feet. Raseri flew over and wrapped herself around Tace’s neck.
“What did you learn?” Ademar asked.
“I have to go to the Nether and free allies who will help us cleanse the infected.” Tace realized how ridiculous the words sounded. She had no idea how to even get to the Nether, an afterlife rooted in religion, nor what sort of ally she should expect to find once she arrived there.
Ademar looked to Frensia, who shrugged their shoulders. “I know much,” said the umgar, “but as for a way to get to the Nether… the only proven way we know is death. And even that is based on religious teachings, not on anything concrete. It’s not as if anyone has ever died and come back to life to tell us how it works.”
Tace looked at the tattoo on her arm, pink and swollen. The two curved half moons were separated by a straight line. Life over death. She knew now what it represented. Not the coming together of human and orc, as Brax had suggested—with a bawdy implication—but life over death. Their unending relationship.
Unsheathing the daggers at her hips, Tace backed away from Ademar.
“What are you doing?” he asked, but his tone told her he knew what she was contemplating.
“This is what needs to be done. We came here for knowledge. We survived the tests. But that wasn’t the end. This is what I must do.”
“Tace…” Ademar’s voice trailed off. He knew nothing he said would dissuade her. He understood her. He respected her. It was possible he even loved her.
“If what they said is true, I’ll be back,” Tace said. “If not… find a way to help the orcs.”
Before Ademar or Frensia could argue, Tace stabbed the artery on the neck that brought death fastest. The cool steel sliced through her skin, and Tace experienced the agony she’d bestowed upon so many others as an assassin. The blood quickly began draining from her body.
She stumbled back into a wall and slid down it, her breath catching in her throat. Ademar rushed to her side once more, cradling her, his lips upon hers. Raseri let out a sonorous keening as Tace lost consciousness.