“The light of a thousand candles is nothing

compared to the Light of the World.”

from the journal of Scanlin Ross, First Sword in Tyrian, Believer

Beneath the sanctuary, cool air soothed raw nerves and carried away the sweat on Aralt’s neck. Lian, however, seemed none the better for it, and his concern for the boy grew with every passing minute. Instinct told him that Tycho was correct insofar as moving Lian was perilous. Their options, however, were limited. Two more earth tremors shook the ground as they descended; at every turn, he expected to find the displaced remains of Alwynn ancestors. Tombs. He hated tombs.

“’Tis like enough to the Old City at Kyrrimar,” Scanlin noted, running his hand along a carved lintel. “This place isn’t merely a crypt.”

Close enough.

“Are we home n-now?” Lian stumbled between them, teeth chattering. “C-can I sleep? I n-need to sleep…”

“Not much further.” He gritted his teeth when the boy clamped both hands on his arm to keep from falling on steps worn concave with the passage of time and untold footsteps. Lightning might as well have run through his body.

Scanlin put a hand against Lian’s brow. “He’s burnin’ a fever, Wolf.”

He suspected Lian wasn’t the only one.

“No one is following us,” Alira noted. She had been carrying one child or another most of the way. At present, she had someone’s pet dog tucked under one arm. It looked as miserable as she did.

“Shirahnyn won’t.” Naharasii, on the other hand…

“How many could there be?” Alira asked him. “The Naharasii, I mean.”

“Oh, I don’t know. How many is a hoard? Sorry.”

“I see why you inspire such loyalty in those who serve you. Are you always so reassuring? Our signals will have reached Morvoren by now, even if one of the ships didn’t. You know Dozer—he’ll have troops on the march before breakfast…”

Aralt thought they were unlikely to survive long enough to greet the dawn if the Naharasii got to them, let alone until breakfast.

“Breakfast?” Lian murmured.

“Forty flavors of marmalade, Kynsei-boy. Keep up.”

“We need to get word to Harlyk,” Alira said, trudging along behind them. “He has more ships than we do. A lot more, if the rumors are true. He keeps them in the sky, so no one really knows. It must be costing a fortune.”

“Harlyk is a conceited little piece of shite,” he told her, casting a sidelong glance at Scanlin. His First Sword did not disagree. “And his privateers are glorified pirates, according to Elon. We’re to believe he’s sailing into the sun, crossing Devil Canyon? Key matter for the Grand Meeting, and one he’ll be avoiding like a jeravik-infested swamp.”

“You’re going to need one of those pirate ships to get to Askierran if we can’t get you aboard an honest one here.”

“As if he’ll be willing to do anything to help us.”

“He will if he wants our aid against a land invasion,” Alira said, petting the squirming pup until it settled, drooping like a mop in her arms.

“You could always accept that marriage proposal,” he jibed.

“And you could always hang a wedding garland on someone else’s door. Duck!”

He did, just in time. If he didn’t pay better attention, he was going to crack his skull open on the next low lintel. The tunnels had not been constructed for someone his height. “This isn’t an invasion. It’s a terror strike.” And they were doing a damned good job of it. “He’d like nothing more than to set the Northern Alliance against itself, starting with a war between your father and Harlyk.”

“Well, let’s hope our rangers scare the—the piss out of him when they reach Ardorryn,” Alira fumed.

Aralt lifted an eyebrow as he glanced back at her. She was angrier than he had ever seen her. He found it oddly attractive. “Scare the piss out of him?”

She tossed her head in response, her hair falling in waves around her shoulders. “And if they don’t, Verin takes him by the…” When Lian turned to look at her, she stopped and cleared her throat. “Forgive me, kavsa.”

“Aralt was th-thinking the s-same thing,” Lian stuttered, his voice sounding very small.

“Not quite.” His method involved more blood. He looked over the boy’s head at Scanlin. His First Sword was tense. “We’ll stop as soon as we can. I’ll carry him if I have to.”

“No need,” Alira told him, pointing. “We’re here. Look. They haven’t sealed the doors yet. The junction is on the other side of the vault. We still have time to get to my father.”

* * *

With the mayor still missing, the vault had fallen under the jurisdiction of Alira’s kinsman, Timerynt Penafull, a high-ranking official with whom Aralt had scant experience. An apparent thorn in Veryl Alwynn’s side, and judging by their interaction shortly upon arrival, there was little love lost between the man and Alira, either. Egotistical and scheming, the old man had called him, though to what ends he could only guess. Alira was slightly more gracious in her assessment, labeling him a self-important man with aspirations as well as connections in neighboring domains, including Mesil of Draemonna, the governor who had passed the honor of the Grand Meeting on to Harlyk of Ardorryn. Family ties and money. Frequently a bad combination. Veryl Alwynn had outlived his usefulness for a vocal minority, of which their current host was a prominent member. That he was related to Veryl’s late wife seemed only to increase the heat on the bed of coals they now trod. Even as reunited families embraced around them and news spread of Lian’s arrival, Councilman Penafull looked down on Alira with evident disdain and took only perfunctory interest in the boy-that-would-be-kavistra, being more concerned about keeping to the timetable that had them sealing the chamber in short order.

“Once we close these doors, we don’t dare open them until we can be sure the threat has passed.”

“I’m quite well versed in protocol,” Alira assured him, availing herself of the luxury of running water. She urged Aralt to do the same. A diplomatic way, he thought, of telling him he stank.

“Your father was warned about doing trade with shathamarrs and arakeths,” Penafull told her, louder than was polite. He rolled well-manicured hands one over the other.

To her credit, Alira only splashed her face again, running her fingers through her tangled hair. “I don’t suppose anyone has a comb?” she asked faintly. Several of the women produced combs from about their persons, and Alira tugged at her auburn locks for a few moments before giving up. “Maybe scissors?”

“Nothing good ever comes of the Shirahnyn,” her kinsman insisted, hiking his crimson tailcoat into place, and giving a gaudy cravat—imported from the south, surely—a twist. Aralt thought it odd that the man appeared so well dressed in the midst of tragedy and chaos. Most of the crowd was shivering in their nightclothes as they waited for blankets to be distributed.

“You insult our friends within the royal Houses, kinsman. This has nothing to do with trade agreements,” Alira replied, her gaze flicking to Aralt. He shook his head, unwilling to be drawn into local politics. They needed to depart, and quickly.

“Tell that to the people here who watched their homes burning. To those that can’t find their families. Many of us scarcely made it into the tunnels,” he said, making a show of ushering several children past them that they might fill their cups with water.

“And we are thankful so many are here. I trust someone is recording names, and supplies are being organized. Many are still without blankets, and there are stores of clothing over there that haven’t even been opened yet. Is there a ranking Sword among you with a key to the armory? Good. Now, if you will, we need access to the fountain junction before the tunnels are flooded.” She lifted her head to scan the crowd, lips moving silently, reciting the names of those she recognized. “How many of my engineers are here?”

Penafull cast a suspicious look in Aralt’s direction, then frowned. “The fountain junction? Out of the question. I can’t allow that. The hatches have been sealed.”

“Is it dawn already?” Aralt asked. He checked his pocket watch.

“Who’s to say for sure? You only just made it in along the route you took. We’ve been monitoring those passages and caught chatter coming from the direction of the kirke. The Creator have mercy on anyone else still out there.”

“But if you closed off the other routes prematurely, you might have prevented dozens, even hundreds of people from getting to safety,” Alira said, worry creasing her brow. “If it isn’t dawn yet—”

“We didn’t have any choice! Do you know what people are saying? What they saw topside? Naharasii devils in their death masks. As if Shirahnyn pirates weren’t bad enough.” Penafull shuddered as if he’d tasted something repulsive. “And all for your father’s desire to open Faerkirke to one of the seablood who all but denied his Calling in front of the city council and has made it clear that he has no desire to remain here. One that puts so little trust in us, after the dedication we’ve shown down the passing years, hardly seems destined to be kavistra.”

Alira’s mouth fell open. “That’s a terrible thing to say. This is Faerkirke, one of the cities of faith.”

Penafull held out his hands and shrugged. “I attended the meeting. I know what I heard.”

“Whatever you think you heard, I wouldn’t take it personally,” Aralt told him, stepping in to save Alira from having to respond to such nonsense. He was beginning to wonder if he could like the man any less. “Lian Kynsei has no desire to bring misfortune to this city or any other.” He chose not to say that half the time Lian didn’t know what he wanted.

“If he had such reservations, why did he come here to begin with? Or do we have you to blame for that, syr Tremayne? Using your influence on the old man to achieve your own ends—that’s what it looks like. Don’t think we haven’t discussed it. Recognize the boy as one of the soul-touched and take the title of ksathra yourself, we gather.”

“He’s done nothing of the sort,” Alira objected.

“I have never once said that I wanted that!” No, he decided. There was no liking Penafull any less than he currently did.

“Well, I’ve heard—”

“I’m beginning to think you only hear out of one ear,” Alira snapped.

“Peace, my friends.” Shepherd Alinn stepped between them as the altercation grew. Penafull’s guards, his own private army by the looks of it, were already at a standoff with those who had thrown in their lot with Aralt. “This isn’t a time for slander. Or heresy.”

“I’ll not be lectured by you.” Penafull sniffed. “I know where you stand on this, Alinn, and what the clergy of the region have to gain. This would set you up nicely as part of the new klesia kaeli. But you have a battle ahead of you against those who are not convinced that this…boy… will be high priest of Askierran. Mark my words. No one will want to shelter him if destruction nips at his heels. Let Kyrrimar sort it out, I say.”

As if he had heard that declaration and Alira’s gasp of shock through the ambient noise, Lian looked up from where he had been sitting on the floor, hunched under a blanket, face like ash. He seemed to take in his surroundings for the first time, slowly turning his head until he was looking directly at Aralt. When he attempted to stand, Aralt knew that the ill-conceived plan to leave him there in the vault while they pressed forward had run aground on unkind shores. Clutching the blanket to his chest, Lian managed two steps before his legs began to buckle; Telta and Scanlin rushed to his side. He stayed their approach with the wave of a six-fingered hand, swinging the blanket from his shoulders and bundling it around two small children whose parents had yet to be located. He took another two steps, but when the little ones reached up to him, he folded himself down to sit with them, entertaining them with some sleight-of-hand trick that soon drew other children. The kaio toy, Aralt realized, passing from one six-fingered hand to the next. He supposed he should not be so surprised that the boy had it with him. After all, Lian had managed to keep it the three years he was missing.

Two women came forward then, one to shepherd the orphan children into her own family, the other with a man’s cloak clutched in her arms as if it were the man who had once worn it. Without a word, she draped it around Lian’s shoulders with the same care one might have used with a priestly garment before taking a brooch from her scarf to pin it at the boy’s throat. He caught her hands in his, kissed them, as he had done with Tycho. Still more came, one bearing a cup, another bread and cheese, yet another, weeping. He extended his arms, drawing her down beside him as she wept. Aralt thought it best to intervene before the boy was mobbed, but Shepherd Alinn stopped him.

“He really is quite extraordinary,” the shepherd observed, sparing a sidelong glance at Penafull. “Beyond being one of the soul-touched. They recognize it, even if you don’t, Timerynt Penafull. They see the divine in him without trying to make him into something he’s not.”

“Divine?” Penafull sneered. “And you call yourself a shepherd of the faith? You’ll be venerating the Riahi next, Alinn. Like those bloody Glynns of Kitheria. Mesil of Draemonna told us that—”

“I said the divine in him, not that he himself is divine! And since when do you listen to Mesil the Weasel? Open your eyes, man. Look at him. How can you not see what everyone else sees?”

“They see what they want to see because people like you tell them they should,” Penafull said. “Wanting it so doesn’t make it so.”

The khiyerey looked Aralt squarely in the eyes. “It comes down to faith. For all of us.” The words fell between them, softly, like moonlight.

Aralt thought a fist in Penafull’s face just then would solve a great many woes for them all, but he inclined his upper body toward the cleric. “Agreed. This isn’t going to be settled now. You have far more pressing concerns.”

“Indeed,” Alira told Penafull, green eyes flashing like a storm. “I refuse to hear another word of it unless you care so little for your position, not to mention your reputation in this city, that you’d like to be removed from office this instant.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“By now you ought to know I would. Now, unless you have reason to believe the Naharasii have already entered the tunnels, you will open the hatches and allow us passage. When the city is restored to order, you can debate politics—and religion—with my father. I’m sure you will both find it very stimulating.”

Penafull’s prodigious lips drew back, his bare face growing more congested by the moment. “By all accounts, Lady, your father is dead. That leaves you as talyn. I suggest you consider your obligations carefully, Alira of Alwynn-Muir.”

Beside Aralt, Alira’s breath came in small hitches as she fought the panic her kinsman had seeded with his careless words about her father. She did nothing to give the man the satisfaction of knowing how much it unnerved her, but Aralt sensed it. He caught her hand, squeezed it. She returned the gesture, then lifted her chin in defiance of her fear and her obvious disdain for the man before them.

“We are leaving. Will you allow us passage?” she asked one final time.

Penafull shook his sloppy jowls. “I will not. I will grant you refuge, my talyn, and for these with you—including kavsa Lian—but I will no longer stand by and ignore Alwynn foolishness. Your father was a good man, but he should have stepped down before he no longer possessed his wits.”

Aralt caught the flash of anger in Alira’s eyes. He did not envy Penafull the wrath he would eventually face. He did not have time to consider that Alira and her brother might soon be thrust into a civil war.

“Deep peace to you, then. The talynt’e Tyrian and I will find another way.” With characteristic grace, Alira curtsied smoothly. Her eyes, however, were marathis daggers.

If he had not already loved her, Aralt knew he would have fallen for her at that very moment.