Anton woke up alone. He was used to waking alone—what he wasn’t used to was the fact that he had gone to sleep curled against Jude in the tiny barracks bed. It was a tight fit, but Anton had slept in far worse places in his life. He had hoped being near Jude might mean a reprieve from his nightmares.
But instead, Anton’s sleep had been plagued by dreams of Jude dying. Dreams where he drowned in the lake behind Anton’s old home in Novogardia, dreams where the Witnesses gutted Jude in the Archon’s villa in Pallas Athos, dreams where Jude was trapped beneath the rubble of Behezda. And the worst ones, where Jude sacrificed himself to kill the god, and no amount of pleading from Anton would make him change his mind. They left Anton raw and hollow, because he could never shake the feeling that they weren’t just dreams.
He rolled off the narrow bed and managed to calm his shaking hands enough to pull on his clothes before emerging into the misty morning. He knew it was irrational, but he wouldn’t feel right until he saw Jude.
He could feel Jude’s esha like a low rolling thunderhead, and he set out to follow it, winding his way through the fort, over the many footbridges that crisscrossed the river. Finally, he climbed up the hill and through the trees until he heard the rushing sound of a waterfall joined by the ring of swords clashing.
As he rounded the bend, he was struck with the sight of the morning sun glinting off the falls, illuminating everything in fractal colors. He had been here before, he realized. Only, not really. Jude had dreamed of this place, and Anton had walked into that dream. This place meant something to Jude.
At the foot of the falls, bathed in mist, Jude and Hector fought on a rocky outcropping, swords flashing between them. Anton had seen Jude fight countless times, but always in situations where one or both of them were in grave danger. He’d never really gotten a chance to simply watch, to appreciate how beautiful Jude looked in motion. Every strike controlled, every feint and dodge fluid, instinctual.
Jude leapt gracefully, effortlessly, from perch to perch, until Hector had him hemmed in against the water. Jude’s counterattack was so quick, Anton almost couldn’t track him with his eyes, and a moment later Hector was disarmed, Jude’s blade tip pointing to his heart.
“All right, I get it!” Hector said, laughing. “You’re a better swordsman than me now! A fistfight, though, I’d’ve won.”
“If you say so,” Jude said, sheathing his sword.
“I say so,” Hector replied. “C’mon, let’s test it right now. No swords.”
Jude laughed, turning away like he was going to decline. Anton abruptly realized that he’d never seen Jude laugh with anyone besides him.
Jude whirled back to Hector, waving a hand through the water behind him, splashing it onto Hector. Hector let out an undignified yelp, clearly not expecting it, and leapt at Jude. Before Anton knew what was happening, they were grappling on the rock.
“I fought in the sandpits you know,” Hector was saying as he ducked under a blow from Jude. “They called me the Sandstorm. I was undefeated.”
“Your opponents must not have been very good,” Jude teased. He spun away from a punch and then suddenly stopped, his eyes finally landing on Anton. Hector, who hadn’t yet spotted him, aimed another blow at Jude from behind, and Jude’s hand shot out to catch Hector’s fist without looking.
“Anton?”
Anton shifted, feeling uncomfortably like he was intruding. “I wasn’t sure where you’d gone.”
Jude leapt down onto the riverbank, leaving Hector on the rock. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” Anton said too quickly. “I just … we should probably go talk to Penrose again, right?”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Jude asked as he reached him. “I know you didn’t sleep well last night. When I woke up in the middle of the night, you looked like you were having a nightmare. I tried to wake you…”
“Yeah,” Anton agreed. The image of Jude’s lifeless body flashed behind Anton’s eyes, and he suppressed a shudder. “Just the usual nightmares.” He smiled up at Jude. “But there were some nice dreams, too.”
“Like what?” Jude asked.
“Well,” Anton replied. “I seem to recall one about a handsome boy standing beside a waterfall who very dearly wanted to kiss me.”
Jude’s smile was slow and heated. Despite the cool mist of the morning, Anton felt warm, all the worry and dread of the night bleeding out of him. A knot of guilt remained lodged in his gut. But as long as he didn’t think too hard about what he was hiding from Jude, he could ignore it.
“You know,” Anton went on, “I am a Prophet. My dreams predict the future.”
“Is that right?” Jude asked with feigned curiosity.
He seemed committed to not taking the bait, but before Anton could push the gambit any further, a heavy arm landed over his shoulders.
“Morning, Prophet,” Hector said, his arm dripping water onto Anton’s shirt. “I was hoping I might get a word with you.”
Jude eyed them hesitantly.
“It’s fine, Jude,” Anton said. “You should try to find Penrose. I’ll catch up with you.”
Jude gave them one last inquisitive look before he made his way down the hill.
As soon as he was out of sight, Anton shrugged off Hector’s arm. “Hurry up and tell me what you want. I have a lot to do today.”
Hector tilted his head at Anton curiously. “You have nothing to be jealous of, you know.”
Anton stared at him, incredulous. “You think I’m jealous?”
“I mean—aren’t you?”
Anton probed the uncomfortable feeling that had been sitting in his chest. Jealous? He was just worried. He still didn’t trust Hector, not where Jude was concerned anyway.
Hector shook his head ruefully. “I still can’t quite wrap my head around it. You and him. But I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised—he does tend to pick the absolute worst people to fall for.”
“I’m not—” Anton stopped, taking in what Hector had said. “Wait. You knew he was in love with you?”
Hector shrugged, looking a little embarrassed now. “Jude’s … well, you know what he’s like. He’s not exactly great at deceiving people. Other than himself. So, yes. We never talked about it, but I knew. But whatever it is you’re worried about, don’t be. Me and Jude … we were never going to be anything other than what we are now. Friends. Brothers-in-arms.”
“Why would I be worried?” Anton asked petulantly.
“All the dirty looks and silent treatment might’ve tipped me off,” Hector said. “Not to mention how quickly you marched up here after us.”
Anton rolled his eyes. “Has anyone ever told you that you come off a little arrogant?”
“Many people,” Hector replied, as if this was a point of pride.
Anton crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not threatened by you. I’m worried you’re going to hurt him again.”
“Oh.” Hector looked a little stunned by this, like he hadn’t considered it.
“He would have done anything for you,” Anton went on, anger climbing up his throat. “Followed you to the ends of the earth. And you threw that away like it was nothing.”
Hector stared at him for a moment, blank. Slowly, he asked, “You really think that, don’t you?”
“I was there,” Anton replied, clipped. “I saw him wager the Pinnacle Blade and the torc of the Keeper just to chase after you.”
Hector shook his head, looking around at the trees, the hillside, everywhere except at Anton. He was almost smiling, a bitten-off, rueful thing, and Anton felt defensive, like he was being made fun of.
“What do you want me to say?” Hector asked at last. “That I regret leaving? That I shouldn’t have done it? I might regret how it happened, but I had to leave. I never asked Jude to do any of that, and I meant what I said that day—I never should have accepted a place in the Paladin Guard. It was cruel, to both of us. He loved me, and I knew that he loved me, and I also knew that nothing would ever come of it.”
“Because you didn’t want it?”
“Because Jude didn’t.”
Anton stared at him, shocked. How could he even think that?
“He was never going to leave the Order for me.” The certainty in Hector’s voice was enough to keep Anton silent. “He would have kept me close, by his side, for as long as he could, and made us both miserable in the process. That was the only way it could end. You think Jude would have done anything for me, but you’re wrong. He would have returned to the Order—maybe in a week, a month, or a year, but he would have gone back. Chasing after me was just an excuse, a way to test, once and for all, his devotion to his duty. And I’m not saying it wasn’t sorely tested but—if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Jude could never walk away from his destiny. Not for me, not for anything.”
Anton’s mouth went dry as Hector’s dark eyes bored into his. His thoughts returned to the secret he was keeping from Jude, the true destiny that Jude didn’t even know of. Jude may have left the Order for Anton, but this, his destiny, well—Hector had said it, plain and simple. Jude wouldn’t walk away from it. Not for Hector. Not for Anton.
“Honestly, it kind of figures that the only person who could make Jude leave the Order was the Last Prophet himself,” Hector said. “You know, it scared me at first, how he feels about you. After Behezda, he would barely talk about it, but I could see it, bleeding out of him. He has so much faith in you. And I thought how dangerous that is. Here’s this person Jude’s been raised since birth to worship—to serve. ‘Above our lives, above our hearts’ and all that. But now, what? He loves you? It’s all tangled up for him. You see that, right?”
“What are you trying to say?” Anton asked, swallowing down his protests, his justification. Because when Hector put it like that, it was hard to dismiss.
“I’m saying you’re scared of what I might do to him, but you’re the one who can really hurt him, Anton.”
I would never hurt him, Anton thought fiercely, but he didn’t say it aloud. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t true, either. He could hurt Jude. He already had, when he’d disappeared and left Jude to think he was dead.
And keeping this secret—this huge, terrible, ruinous secret—could hurt him, too.
“I don’t want to,” he said at last, and this at least he knew he meant with everything in him. “I would rather die than see him hurt because of me. Before I met him, I didn’t see the point in all this. In being the Prophet. In trying to stop the Age of Darkness. All I knew was just—survival. Getting by, however I could. But now…”
Now he had someone for whom he would save the world. And it was the exact person he was supposed to sacrifice to do it.
“I get it,” Hector said. “When I met Jude, I’d just lost everything. I thought there was no way forward. But he … he gave me something I thought I’d never have again. Family. And when I left him behind, when I hurt him the way I did, I hated myself for it. But we found our way back to each other, and Jude, he—he has so much heart. He gave me his trust, and I’m not going to break it again.”
Anton bit the inside of his cheek and nodded. He wondered, briefly, what would happen if he told Hector everything. Hector might be the only other person in the world who wanted to protect Jude as much as Anton did. The thought of it almost loosened his tongue.
“Hector,” he said. But there wasn’t any reason, he realized, to share this burden with him. He just didn’t want to bear it alone. Instead, he said, “I’m glad he has you.”
Hector smiled wryly. “I’ve loved him a long time. And I know he deserves better than me. I hope that’s you.”
When Hector and Anton returned to the fort, it was a flurry of activity. Paladin and stewards rushed past them in the courtyard, barely sparing Anton a glance. Ahead, in the shade of a slender tree, Anton spotted Jude and Penrose deep in conversation. Jude looked agitated, his brow creased as he spoke to Penrose in short, clipped bursts.
Anton hurried over, Hector at his heels.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
It was Penrose who answered. “We’re evacuating all the stewards and anyone else who can’t fight.”
“And those who can fight?” Hector asked.
“Are preparing to do just that.”
“What?” Anton asked. “Why? I told you, the minute we scry in the Circle of Stones—”
“You’ll rain Pallas’s forces down on us,” Penrose said. “I know. That’s why we’re going to fight.”
“The Witnesses have Grace now. They’re not going to be defeated so easily,” Hector said. “And the Paladin who’ve joined him know the secrets of this fort.”
“I know,” Penrose said. “I know all of that.”
“Then why—”
“To buy us time,” Jude said, before Penrose could. “That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t even expect to defeat Pallas’s forces. You just want to delay them as long as you can to give us a head start.”
Penrose nodded.
“People will die,” Anton said.
“Then they’ll die for their cause,” Penrose said. “For their Prophet.”
“I don’t like this,” Anton said.
“You don’t have to,” Penrose replied. “This is what the Order of the Last Light was created for. This is why we swear our oaths.”
Anton knew that better than Penrose. The Order was just the Prophets’ cannon fodder if their mistakes ever came back to bite them. And the Keeper was supposed to lead the charge.
“Penrose…” Jude began, sounding pained. But then all he said was, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” Penrose replied. “Just do what you came here to do. Stop the Age of Darkness. Whatever it takes.”
Anton’s stomach dropped. This—all of this—was only happening because Anton already knew he couldn’t do whatever it took.
“We’ll need to give everyone time to prepare,” Penrose said. “Can you scry tonight?”
Anton nodded, the weight of his guilt clenching his gut.
“Then we’ll do it at sundown,” Penrose said. “And we’ll get everyone who’s leaving out before then.”
Anton nodded.
Another Paladin approached, drawing Penrose into conversation about logistics. Her gaze flicked back to Anton and Jude, and she gave a nod, dismissing them.
“We should go tell the others,” Jude said, a grim set to his mouth.
Already, Anton missed the more relaxed and lighthearted Jude from this morning. He longed to comfort him but knew the guilt weighing down his chest would make anything he had to offer ring hollow.
“I’ll go with you,” Hector volunteered.
“I should find the Wanderer,” Anton said.
Jude nodded, but his lingering gaze told Anton he would’ve preferred they stay together. He had to force himself to walk off toward the distant chime of the Wanderer’s esha.
He found her outside the Tribunal Chambers, gazing up at the statue of Temara that guarded its entrance. Anton’s heart broke a little at the far-off expression on her face.
“You know, they really couldn’t capture her face quite right,” she said lightly, without turning to look at him.
Anton considered the statue. It looked similar enough to the Temara he had seen when he’d scried into the Wanderer’s past. A strong jaw and sharp cheekbones, framed by a sweep of cropped hair. Perhaps, then, it was the expression that the Wanderer objected to. Steadfast and sure, her face as cold as the stone it was carved from, lips pursed and eyes gazing off into the distance. This was the Temara that the Order would have known.
“I assume we were granted permission, then?” the Wanderer asked, turning to Anton at last.
He nodded. “Tonight at sundown. We’ll scry for the other Prophets.”
Anton could imagine the mix of emotions the Wanderer was feeling. The other Prophets had played a role in what had happened to Temara. They were the reason the Wanderer was the Wanderer, and no longer Ananke the Brave.
But Anton needed them. The world needed them.
“If this works,” the Wanderer said. “I can’t come with you to find the other Prophets.”
Anton caught her eye. “When this works,” he insisted, “I wouldn’t ask that of you.”
She laid a hand on his shoulder. The touch was surprisingly tender, and Anton felt himself lean into it. He still hadn’t quite shrugged off the fact that she had knowingly put Jude in danger by sending him to Pallas Athos. But at the same time, she had put her faith in Anton.
“Thank you,” he said seriously.
“For what?” she asked, sounding genuinely nonplussed.
“For not giving up on me, I guess,” Anton replied. “For being there when I needed you, even if I didn’t know it at the time.”
She smiled. Not her usual secretive, sly smile, but one that lit up her whole face and made her look like a young woman again.
“Come,” she said, gently leading Anton away. “It won’t do to scry on an empty stomach.”
The sun sank below the western mountain ridge of the river valley as Jude, Anton, and the Wanderer climbed up to the Circle of Stones. The low buzz of the Circle’s resonance grew louder and steadier as they ascended the stone stairs and approached the heelstone that marked the entrance.
“I’ll wait for you here,” Jude said, coming to a halt beside the heelstone. He squeezed Anton’s hand once and then let go.
He had come this far, but this part was reserved for Anton and the Wanderer. A strange wave of familiarity washed over Anton as he stepped into the circle of great monoliths with the Wanderer. Each of the Seven Prophets towered above them, the Stones burnished rose and gold in the evening sunlight. It was strange to see Pallas staring down at them, his stone face soft and benevolent. Stranger still to see the Wanderer, without a face.
“Another poor likeness.” Her lips tilted into a smile as she looked up at the stone meant to represent her.
Anton squinted one eye shut, pretending to compare her face to that of the monolith. “They could have done a better job,” he agreed. “For one thing, statue-you doesn’t have a drink in her hand.”
He smiled up at her look of mock scorn.
“All right,” she said when they reached the exact center of the Circle. “Just like I taught you.”
They separated, each walking toward opposite edges of the Circle. It felt like the resonance of the Stones was guiding them, rebounding off the Wanderer’s esha and Anton’s until they were each situated at the foci of the Circle.
A calm stillness settled in his chest as they turned and faced each other. Stars were beginning to glow in the dimming sky above as Anton breathed in, focusing on the resonance of the Stones. He had felt their presence once before, his first time at Kerameikos. Up here it was so much stronger, ringing in his head and through his bones. He let himself sink into their ebb and flow, until he could almost feel it lining up with his pulse, with the vibration of his own esha. He could feel the Wanderer doing the same thing, the clear, bell chime of her esha collapsing into the susurration of the Circle of Stones, reverberating, amplifying.
There was no separating the sounds now—his esha, the Wanderer’s, the ringing of Stones all came together as one wave of sound, cresting over them and breaking outward. It felt like what he had done in the cistern of Nazirah, calling out to Jude with his Grace, and again in Behezda, using it to try to mend the Four-Petal Seal on the Red Gate of Mercy, but more. Like his esha now echoed with that of seven others—the Prophets. And he knew, somehow, that he and the Wanderer were not the only ones who could feel this sudden surge of power. Knew that even someone without Grace could feel it, as sure as if he were standing here and making a declaration.
I am the Last Prophet.
It was as if the words were echoing out from him, woven into the call of the monoliths.
He opened his eyes, his neck craning up toward the sky which was now alight with shivering color. Pinks and golds and deep purples streaked across deep blue. They swam and furled like waves across the ocean.
And then, from outside the Circle of Stones, Anton felt an echo of his and the Wanderer’s esha. The energy they had sent out rippled back to them, changed. It was the esha of the other Prophets, answering their call.
The echo contracted around them, like a breath being sucked in, and then the connection broke. Anton fell to his hands and knees, overwhelmed and almost nauseated. He heard footsteps pounding across the soft earth toward him, and a moment later Jude dropped to his knees beside him.
“I’m fine,” Anton said, his voice scraped raw. He held up a hand before Jude could touch him and climbed to his feet. He looked back up at the sky, where the strange light was now fading.
He glanced back at Jude and found that the swordsman had not yet risen. He remained kneeling at Anton’s feet, staring up at him with a soft, awed expression.
“I saw the sky,” Jude said, a tremor in his voice. “The way it looked the day you were born. It was just like this.”
Anton’s chest lurched. He hadn’t seen that expression on Jude’s face since that day he had found Anton in the cistern of Nazirah. Since he’d realized who—what Anton was. Hector’s warning came back to him, and as much as it pained Anton to admit it, he knew Hector had been right. Jude’s destiny had always been Anton. The Prophet. It wasn’t the reason he loved Anton, but it was bound up in everything they’d gone through together. It was there in the way Jude followed him. It was there in the way he kissed him, the way he touched him. Faith, devotion, love, desire—there was no untangling it.
“I knew then,” Jude said reverently, chest hitching. “I knew what I was meant for.”
The certainty in his voice made Anton want to hide. To run.
“Anton,” the Wanderer’s voice sounded from behind them. “It worked. You can feel them, can’t you?”
There was a note of trepidation in her voice, and it took Anton a moment to understand why. Beneath the buzzing power of their combined scrying, Anton felt the tug of esha, like two magnets gently pulling at him. One to the south—that must be Pallas. And the other, somewhere northwest. The other Prophets.
They were all in the same place, he realized. A place that the Wanderer knew well. A place at the edge of the world, where she had once hidden with the one she loved. He could see the question in her eyes, the same one he wanted to ask.
What were the Prophets doing there?
“We need to get back to the ship,” the Wanderer said. “Pallas will know exactly where we are now, and we need to put as much distance between us as we can.”
Anton nodded and let Jude pull him to his feet. He kept hold of his hand as they descended the same stone stairs. By the time they reached the fort again, it was fully dark. Soft lanterns lit the walkways, where what seemed like a hundred Paladin knelt, staring at him with expressions of awe not unlike the one Jude had worn. Some of them, Anton saw, were crying.
“Prophet,” one of the Paladin murmured. “It really is you.”
There was no denying it now. No hiding. No running.
I will fail these people. The thought came, unbidden and certain, like it had already happened.
They all believed in him. Anton could see it in their eyes, the way he’d seen it in Jude’s.
This was what he had been running from his whole life. Not his brother, not his vision, but this moment, when he became something other than himself, when he stopped being Anton, the boy who survived, the boy who Jude loved, and became the Last Prophet. He wanted to turn and run now, and for the first time not even Jude at his side felt like enough to stop him.
These people wanted him to be a savior who could single-handedly stop the Age of Darkness and restore peace to the world. Anton knew he could do neither, but he could do what he had always done—he could play along. He could let them believe what they wanted.
It was easy, then, to melt into the role beneath the weight of the Paladins’ gazes. It was just like bluffing a mediocre hand in a game of canbarra.
The others were all waiting for them back on the Wanderer’s ship. The Guard had come to see them off, the four of them lined up on the dock as Anton approached.
Osei, Annuka, and Petrossian sank to their knees as they caught sight of Anton. Penrose followed suit a moment later.
The other Paladin didn’t know him, but the Guard did. Even if he hadn’t necessarily had many long talks with them, they still knew him. This might be the last time they would ever see one another. No matter what else the Guard and Anton disagreed on, they were laying down their lives for him. For their mission.
“Whatever it takes,” Penrose said.
And Anton let her believe what she wanted. “Whatever it takes.”