sixteen

Grimy walls, low candlelight, the overpowering scent of mold and oil—I awaken to sickeningly familiar surroundings.

I can’t say I’ve missed the dungeon in the Temple of Rasus. Still groggy, I swing my legs off the bare metal bench someone thought would pass as a bed and pad over to the wall of bars in front of me. Grit crunches under my now bare feet. They’ve taken all my clothing except my sleeveless undershirt and the uncomfortable tweed pants from the Under House lost-and-found. Which, I suspect, they probably couldn’t peel off my body.

I have no idea how many hours have passed or what is going on in the outside world. Caldaras City may not have been a bastion of comfort and safety for me, but it is my home. And if there is a chance I can still save it, I will try.

Closing my eyes, I call on the power below me. It finds me even here, snaking up through the soles of my feet, filling my veins.

It’s my most impressive fireball to date. The stones on the far wall glow red. But the bars of my cell remain solid.

Damn.

“Hey!” I call into the dim space beyond the bars. “Anyone! I have information for the Empress! Hey!” I rattle the bars.

I keep shouting for a few minutes. Finally, a vertical shaft of light appears in the darkness beyond my cage. It widens, a door opening, and three figures step through.

“We don’t have time to waste,” I say. “I need to speak to the Empress. And the Commandant.”

“You will do no such thing.” One of the figures detaches and approaches the bars; two hooded guards flank the door.

“Zahi,” I say. “Listen to me. The cult of Bet-Nef is alive and well in this Temple. They mean to awaken—”

“I know what the Beautiful Ones mean to do,” he says. “Why do you think I watch them from within their own Temple? The Heart of Mol is precious and powerful. Many would use it for their own ends. That is why, after the War of the Burning Land, the Salt Throne created the first Black Thorn from the second child of the King. I guard the Heart as my predecessors have done for a thousand years. I guard it from the cult of Bet-Nef. And from creatures like you.”

“You don’t understand,” I say.

“Who is Jey Fairweather?” His voice cracks at the edges. “Is she even real?”

My chest burns. “She’s my sister,” I whisper. “She’s real. She’s as real as Sunny.”

“Sunny!” he exclaims. “I had to spoon-feed her the location of the tunnel just to find out what she was up to. I followed her around for an hour this evening before I realized she must have passed the information off.”

“Zahi, listen—”

“I’ve listened to enough of your lies,” he says bitterly.

This is too much. I grip the bars. “What would you have had me do? Don’t you see? Even you’ve locked me in a cage.”

The light from the doorway ripples across his face as he looks at me, searching. “We always think we will know evil when it comes,” he says quietly. “And we rarely do.”

“Stop,” I plead.

He raises a hand tentatively, but lowers it after a moment. “Evil does not always conquer with wings of flame.” He’s going to leave me here. “I’ve saved the Others, haven’t I?” His voice is low, dull. “An entire society. It’s the right thing to do. Isn’t it?”

I feel my face heating up. I do not answer him.

Now he flashes a crooked smile with no mirth behind it. “But you’ve won anyway. You’ve won because despite everything, all the secrecy, the killing … right now, this—” His voice breaks and he looks away. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“I thought you cared for me.” The heat in my face stings tears into the corners of my eyes. I look for understanding in his face, for resolve. For regret. But I find nothing but stillness.

“I do,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not your enemy.”

I lean my forehead against the grimy bars. “Please don’t do this.”

“I’m sorry, redwing.” He turns from me, curved by sadness, and I watch his silhouette move through the doorway, the inhuman shadow he casts on the walls of the stairwell growing as he ascends. The guards follow, phantoms in the torchlight, and I turn away.

A tingle starts in my chest and sparks outward—sharp heat that makes my heart race. At first, I cannot name it. But then I remember the alley—Corvin’s face, bloodied, a pistol at his throat—and I recognize the feeling for what it is. Anger.

Still, I will not let Zahi Zan die in a cascade of lava. The way forward is clear. Out.

There must be a weakness to this dungeon. I slide my palms across the rough surface of the wall behind me. I scrape my nails and drag my knuckles across the stone. I push threads of flame into the corners of the cell but find no hope of freedom. The penny pulp redwings sneer from my memory: eyes like embers, muscles like stone. The world looks at me and sees them. Yet I can’t picture a real redwing trapped in a pen like a baby stritch.

A real redwing. What does that even mean? I sit on the metal bench, letting my head fall into my hands.

“All right, enough. We’ve got work to do.” A voice bounces off the dank walls. I look up, startled. One of Zahi’s guards has stayed behind, and detaches himself from a black corner of the room.

I sigh. “Look, I have no secrets anymore, so before you torture me, why don’t you just try asking me what you want to know?”

The guard lowers his hood. “Very well. Do you intend on wearing those painful-looking old pants until they have completely shredded themselves off your body?”

“Corvin!” I run to the bars. “How—?”

He cocks his head. “You don’t think I can really be knocked out by anysleep, do you? Do you have any idea how much of that stuff I’ve inhaled over my lifetime? It was just a matter of finding the right opportunity to slip away.” He bends, and I hear a key clunking into the lock.

“Where’s Nara?”

“To his credit, your young man had her bandaged up and sent to the private hospital on Roet Island. Under heavy guard, of course.” He gives the key a shake, and the rusty mechanism thunks into place.

I step out of the cage. “He’s not my young man.”

“I told you not to trust him.” Corvin pulls a pair of shoes from his pocket. Ver knows where he found them; they are little more than leather wraps. Still, I am grateful to get something on my feet.

“He is not untrustworthy,” I say. “He is a good man, and who’s to say he’s wrong? I still don’t truly know what we ought to have done with the Heart when we had the chance. Do you?”

“No. But that’s not what I meant,” Corvin says with an expression I cannot read. “I just knew he would break your heart.”

I look away. “My heart is of no concern to you.” I finish tying the leather shoes.

He gives a sharp nod. “Very well. Let’s go. The Salt Throne’s procession has just left for Roet Island, and we still have to collect Fir.”

I groan. “Do we have to?”

*   *   *

Fir, it turns out, does not have the high tolerance for anysleep that Corvin does. She’s curled in a nest of dirty burlap at the bottom of the little boat we have commandeered to take us across Lake Azure Wave. The lake is not meant for boating, though the temple keeps one or two of these impractical craft for emergencies. Certainly the potential inferno-death of the city constitutes an emergency.

Corvin rows quickly as we try to reach the shore of Roet Island before the boat becomes too hot to sit in. Already his gloveless hands are slipping on the metal oars. Every once in a while, Fir raises her groggy head and I push her down again before an oar can smack her in the face. This is easily my favorite part of Crepuscule so far.

We approach the island out of sight of the Jade Bridge, skimming through the shining water and dark sky. Corvin wraps shreds of burlap around the oar handles, but still grimaces as he pulls. When we reach the island, I jump over the side and haul the boat on shore as quickly as I can, the scalding lake water lapping at my shins.

Once the boat is on land, Corvin rolls Fir over the side, where she lands in a heap on the fragrant earth. “Fir!” he hisses, swatting her cheek. “Hey!”

“Let me try,” I whisper, and give her a good smack.

“Ow!” she whines.

“Get up,” I say. “We’re on Roet Island, and the Onyx Staff is probably already here.”

She squints up at me. “Wha?”

Corvin puts a hand to his forehead. “All right. Leave her.” He bends down and speaks into her ear. “Don’t wander off! And don’t go into the lake!”

She spits—or perhaps drools—and takes a groggy swing at him, which he dodges. “Don’ tell me whatta do, you fedderless son of a … You’re not my…” And she falls back onto the dirt, eyes closed.

Corvin looks at her. “She’s fine.” I raise an eyebrow at him. “No, she’s fine,” he says. “Let’s go. Wait, I’m taking her saber.”

After much painful negotiating with a tree, Corvin and I perch on the wall that surrounds the Copper Palace. From here, we have a good view of the main lawn, where all the Empress’s guests are gathering to watch the ascendance of Bel, the Queen of the Stars.

FOOOOOOO! The unmistakable sound of an official olimu-horn is a clear, mellow disturbance in the night air. I turn my head toward the long note. At the edge of the lawn is a small raised tent hung with bright flags. After a moment, a cheer goes up as a woman waves from under the flags—the Empress, tall and distinguished even from this distance. The Commandant, all medals, stands to one side, and the Admirable Zahi Zan stands on the other next to a plain young man I take to be his older brother.

He’s not protecting the Heart now, is he? I think sourly. I watch the doors to the Empress’s private garden dome, but there is no sign of activity.

The Empress addresses the crowd. She is a model politician, speaking calmly—but with a commanding edge—about the value of coming together as a society to flourish in the Deep Dark. It is an eloquent and confident address, but my mind is focused on the monstrous sleeping mountain that looms over all of us, just out of sight beyond the black mist.

Corvin fidgets, tapping his fingers on the flat surface of the wall. But when the Salt Throne rises to speak, he becomes utterly still, tensed for action.

“Beloved,” the Salt Throne says. I have to strain my ears to hear him. “We embark now on a journey together. A journey into the darkness that Caldaras has not seen for a thousand years. But we do not go without Rasus.” Several people in the crowd make the open-palmed gesture of acknowledgment. “In the sky, our sun may give way to lovely Queen Bel for a time, but he lives on in the life he has made possible here. In the food that we have grown. In our very flesh.”

From my perch, I look up and down the length of the Copper Palace. All is still. I see Corvin’s eyes searching the crowd on the lawn, but nothing seems out of place.

Until the hedge maze explodes.

Screams shoot out from the throng of aristocrats; people scramble over and around each other in an attempt to escape the debris. Corvin is on his feet. I try to take in as much as possible—the Commandant and the Empress with their arms protectively around the Salt Throne, Zahi Zan with his long blades unsheathed, running toward the site of the explosion, the Onyx Staff … where?

I scan the grounds. Corvin looks, too. And at the same moment, we find him. Serene in shining white, he stands near the gaping hole where the hedge maze once was, his onyx staff raised high above his head. And from the hole, a star rises. But it is not Queen Bel in ascendence.

“The Heart,” I whisper.

“He didn’t have to find it,” Corvin murmurs. “He’s calling it.”

“Well, he’s going to stop calling it.” I jump down from the wall, my blood roiling.

Corvin and I run for the Onyx Staff, knocking through priests and temple guards that have detached from the swirling crowd to protect him. Corvin efficiently hacks and threatens his way forward with Fir’s saber—I’m surprised he really does know how to use it—and I lash out with blazing abandon, no weapons necessary. Zahi advances from the other side of the lawn, and we descend on the Onyx Staff at almost the same moment. But when we get close, the Onyx Staff strikes out and knocks us all backwards onto the grass.

Or does he?

I scramble to my feet and watch Zahi swing at him again. I’m not quite sure what I see; there is a strange duality to the Onyx Staff now. The man I remember stands placidly with the staff raised, calling forth Mol’s Heart from its nest in the earth. But when others advance on him—Zahi, Corvin, the palace guards—a bright, different version of himself lashes out, as though the Onyx Staff is two beings at once.

And the second being begins to grow. The bigger it gets, the more fiercely it defends itself, a shimmering, translucent man with broad shoulders and a sword whose every flourish leaves a trail of sparks in the air.

“What in wet hell are you doing here?” Zahi grabs my shoulder. I jerk away as a purple priest thumps a palace guard off his feet between us.

“What is going on?” I point to the giant defending the Onyx Staff. I have seen him before, but where? “What is the Onyx Staff doing?” I back up, my feet sliding on the grass. Zahi pulls me behind a stone flower bed.

“He’s meditating,” he says, out of breath.

I poke my head out. The huge, glowing warrior swings his translucent sword, lopping off the top of an ornamental tree and causing the heavy branches to fly at a knot of palace guards. “Huh,” I say. “I thought meditation was less … exciting.”

Zahi’s eyes meet mine for just a moment. “Sometimes,” he says.

Corvin rolls to a stop next to us. “Hello, kids,” he says as Zahi shoots him a venomous look. “So, Lord Zan, any thoughts about taking on an enormous, slightly invisible soldier from what looks to be roughly”—he cranes his neck over the top of the flower bed—“a thousand years ago?”

“I certainly have some thoughts about beefing up security in the Temple dungeon,” Zahi says sardonically.

A thousand years ago. I peer through the flowers at the giant soldier. And then I know him—he is the warrior from the fountain in High Ra Square. “That’s Dal Roet,” I say. “Why?”

“Advanced meditation can produce visions of the past, as you know,” Zahi says.

“That vision just tossed a man ten yards,” Corvin says.

“The Onyx Staff is a powerful priest.” Zahi risks a glance over the top of the flower bed and ducks as a piece of twisted metal zings by his head. “His vision is—well, it’s real. Sort of. I think this Dal Roet is fighting the War of the Burning Land, right here. He’s enormous, I’d guess, because he’s so legendary. Or something.” He stands. “Look, redwing, I need to stop this one way or another.” And he is off into the confusion of moonlit bodies.

I look at the towering warrior, then at Corvin. “But why? Why would the Onyx Staff summon—or meditate on, or whatever it is—why would he call forth Dal Roet?”

Corvin wipes Fir’s saber on the grass. “I don’t know. The Onyx Staff isn’t known for making logical decisions.”

I shake my head. “They’re logical to him. And he wouldn’t call forth Dal Roet.” My stomach lurches. “He would call forth Bet-Nef.”

And then it makes sense. But can it really be true? Is the striking warrior whose elegant marble face gazes dispassionately over the most powerful temple in Caldaras not the hero Dal Roet—but the monster Bet-Nef?

Suddenly, the warrior turns his massive head toward me and fixes me with a burning gaze. The adrenaline surging through my body numbed my awareness of everything else, but now I start to feel again. Not only the sparking at my center, but a terrible burning throughout the scars on my back. It’s all I can do not to curl up on the ground.

Corvin leans in. “No one can fight this thing. We should help get people to safety, figure out what to do next. Start to evacuate the city.”

“Go,” I say, craning my neck to make out the features of the now towering man. “I have to talk to him.”

“You have to talk to him?” Corvin’s eyes widen.

“Go!” I snap, and I start to run. Most of the guards have fled. I see Zahi—a prostrate shape, unmoving in a bed of trampled flowers.

My breath stops for a moment. But I can do nothing for him, so I keep running.

“Bet-Nef!” I shout to the enormous warrior. “Monster that you are! Over here!”

The Onyx Staff turns to me from inside Bet-Nef’s glowing boot. He clutches Mol’s Heart, which glows red between his fingers. He frowns at me. “I remember you. Did I not have you put down?”

“Not quite,” I say. Now his expression turns to one of horror, as a searing pain rips through my back and forces me to my knees.

“Sweet Rasus,” he murmurs. “A redwing.”

My vision is hazy with agony, but I manage to snort at him. “Yes. A goddamn redwing. The lies you told my sister? Turns out they were all true. Surprise, you bastard.” And all at once, the pain is gone. The Onyx Staff takes a step backwards, and Bet-Nef finally looks down at me.

“Surrender, Dal Roet.” His voice booms through the grounds, rattling windows and bending flower stalks.

I look up. “What? Me?”

“Surrender, Dal Roet. I shall not be merciful.”

“Get away,” the Onyx Staff barks. “I’ll give you one chance, you uncrushable flea. Run away before I bestow this heart upon Bet-Nef, and you may be granted a third life.”

“Give him Mol’s Heart?” I say. “He is only a memory!”

The Onyx Staff smiles. “For now. But when I give him the beating heart of a god, he will live again.” And he throws his hands into the air and releases the Heart, which starts to float upward.

I gape at him. Nara was wrong. The Beautiful Ones didn’t just want to bring back Bet-Nef’s ideals. They wanted to bring back Bet-Nef himself. And it’s happening.

The giant warrior has me in his gaze still, and for a moment, all I can do is stare. As Mol’s Heart rises, it glows more fiercely with each passing second.

“Lin!” A hand finds my shoulder. I turn. Corvin remains after all, and is staring at me with wide, shimmering eyes. “Look at you!”

I stare back at him. My chemise hangs from my body by threads, and I’m suddenly off balance. Corvin steadies me with his hand. I twist my neck, and freeze in shock. Behind me, I can just see a glimmering curve, a spiderweb of red that illuminates Corvin’s face and everything around me, shuddering in the light breeze.

“Lin,” Corvin says. “They’re—”

But I know what they are. Four of them, just like the redwing in High Ra Square. I know the pattern of those glowing red spiderwebs; I have known it my entire life. Not scars after all. Lying dormant. Just waiting to peel away from my back.

So redwings have wings after all.

Inhaling, I flex these new muscles. The night breeze lifts me, slides over my skin like silk, as the humans on the lawn watch in astonishment. I tilt and ride and ascend, the insect wings that reach into the sky from my raw back bathing the grounds of the Copper Palace in vivid red light.

Bet-Nef gives a roar and swings his fiery sword, but I dance away from it, propelling myself over his shoulder with little effort. I do not feel like the raptors, gliding with the air currents, negotiating. Nor am I reminded of the thick weightlessness of water. I ride the light, the red radiance from my own wings.

I am free.

“Redwing!” the Onyx Staff bellows from below, pointing. “See it there, you who did not heed my warnings!”

The crowd watches, rapt. But I keep my focus on the giant Bet-Nef, who lunges at me again, the rush of air from his translucent sword swirling my ragged clothes. He becomes more solid with each second.

I fix my gaze on the pulsing Heart within him. If only I had destroyed it when I had the chance … but my own heart wouldn’t let me.

I dive behind a copper tower, Bet-Nef’s blade nicking my arm with cold fire. I have no weapons, only the blaze at the center of my body that longs to lash out in lightning fury. But maybe that will be enough against a memory?

He coils his muscles again, ready to swing. I have to time it right. Too early and his first slice will connect. Too late, and his second will. I hover at the edge of his reach. He draws back his enormous blade, its white glimmer making the walls of the Copper Palace gleam against the night.

He swings and I dive, shooting straight for his chest. The ancient sword misses me by inches, singeing the cuff of my pant leg, and he draws it back for another go. But I am through him, arms outstretched. I am through his glowing armor, his translucent flesh. The cold memory of his blood surrounds me, suffocating, and I push through until I feel the small warmth of Mol’s Heart at my fingers. I grasp it and clutch it to my chest as my body keeps going, shattering through the massive, glistening spine and back out into the balmy air.

The warrior drops his sword, pressing his hands to his chest. With a force that makes Roet Island tremble, he falls. The Onyx Staff falls with him.

Bet-Nef follows my progress with great, luminous eyes, until I alight. I stare at my hands, now empty. Where is the Heart? Did I drop it? Destroy it?

And then I know. I feel. A tiny pulsing in my chest, a new glow to my skin.

Mol’s Heart is mine.

“I would speak with you,” the echoing voice of Bet-Nef calls to me across the grass.

“And I would speak with you,” I say. “This city is under my protection.”

“You fight well, Dal Roet.” Bet-Nef’s voice is becoming fainter.

“Why do you call me by that name?” I ask. Beyond the palace walls, the looming summit of Mol gleams soft orange in the darkness.

Bet-Nef regards me. “You do not know me, brother?”

Brother. I remain still, casting my red light onto the wide lawn. I sense the people around me watching, holding their breath. “I know you only as a monster,” I say.

The vision of Bet-Nef blinks slowly. “Humans are many things, brother. Monsters all. Angels all.” He surveys the grounds. I can’t tell if his gaze is with us or in the past. “You have the best of me this day. My army is in ruins. The city is yours. And yet…” He smiles.

“Out with it,” I say. Mol’s Heart thrums lightly in my chest, sending tingles through my veins.

Bet-Nef breathes deeply. “And yet, I will have the best of you. My name may be hated henceforth and yours will be glorified. But even now, my followers burrow into this city. They come not with swords, but words. Tales. Legends.” He closes his shining eyes. “In a century, no one will remember what you were, my brother. I have sown the seeds of history, and the harvest will bring nothing but misery for your kind.” He laughs. “Enjoy your victory, redwing.”

And then he is gone, the light of memory faded once again into the gray wash of time.