Chosen of the Gods

him than be thwarted.

“Get out, then, you bitch!” he screamed, his throat burning. “Sathira!”

She burst from the emerald with such force that she knocked him back, sending him sliding across the marble floor. The shadows billowed like smoke from a holocaust, mushrooming up to the study’s vaulted ceiling, spreading down the walls in rolling waves to pool across the floor. Candles blew apart, sending gobbets of hot wax flying through the air. The wine-colored lamp on Kurnos’s desk burst into a storm of glass shards that tinkled onto the floor.

The Kingpriest lay still through it all, curled up in a ball, moaning as if someone had driven a spear through his stomach. He could only look up helplessly as the demon took on physical form-larger now than she had been, towering like an ogre, all sinuous, velvety blackness. Her baleful green eyes were as narrow as razor cuts as she glowered down at him, and for a moment he was sure she would seize him in her talons and tear him apart. She wanted to-he could sense it-but the magic that bound her held her back. For a long moment she seethed, the fires of the Abyss blazing in her eyes. Then, with such obvious loathing that Kurnos nearly laughed, she bowed to him.

“Master,” she snarled. “I failed you. The monk lives. Say the word, and I will destroy him.”

Unsteadily, Kurnos rose to his knees. The stink of bile was thick in his nostrils. He knew her words were a command, not an offer. If he denied her, she would return to the ring, and the pain would multiply until it killed him. There was only one way to end this. He had no choice. Did I ever have one? he wondered.

Wiping his mouth, he met the demon’s malevolent gaze. “Very well,” he said. “Go. Finish your task.”

Sathira’s eyes blazed with unholy joy. With a snarl, she streaked to the hearth set into the study’s wall, then vanished up the chimney, leaving the chamber in ruins in her wake.

Alone, Kurnos slumped, his shoulders hunching in defeat. Weakly, he fumbled at his throat, pulling out his medallion. It felt deathly cold as he clutched it between his shaking hands.

“Help me, Paladine,” he whispered. “I beg of you…”

No reply came. In all of Kurnos’s life, the god had never seemed farther away.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Three days passed, and still Beldyn did not wake.

The rumors began to spread. Some said the Lightbringer was dead, others that he had fled Govinna after Lady Ilista’s funeral. Tavarre tried his best to silence such gossip, but it would have been easier to dam the Edessa. Once the tales got out, they spread like the Longosai and just as dangerous, too. The sentries on the city’s walls began to talk, casting anxious glances back at the Pantheon. Their morale was flagging, and Tavarre could only watch it happen. Even the rumors that cut closest to the truth-that the monk had withdrawn to commune with the god-drained the hope out of Govinna’s defenders.

The desertions mounted.

Two young men posted by the city’s western gate snuck away from their posts in the predawn gloom. Their replacements found that stretch of the wall unguarded when they arrived to relieve the pair, and after a furious search the two turned up in a tavern, half-drunk on raw wine. Tavarre punished them severely, stripping them naked and forcing them to prostrate themselves before each of the city gatehouses. As the day wore on, though, more and more sentries quit their posts-more than thirty desertions by sunset. Tavarre couldn’t bring himself to blame his men. They were trapped, outmatched. They had lost Durinen and Ossirian both, and now, seemingly, the Lightbringer as well. It was a wonder anyone remained on the battlements by the following night’s end. Still, many did, the light of belief shining in their eyes. Their watchword became uso dolit-the god will provide-and they spoke it over and over, awaiting Beldyn’s return.

The rash of desertions continued through the third day, the ranks atop the wall dwindling every hour. That wasn’t the worst of it, though, for that morning, an hour after dawn, a party of outriders came thundering out of the mists, galloping up to the southern gates and shouting to be let in. Riddled with arrows-two, without Beldyn’s healing touch to aid them, died later that day from their wounds-they reported the news Tavarre dreaded hearing: the Scatas were breaking their camp and sharpening their blades, awaiting the command to march.

“It gets worse,” said the lead scout, wincing against the pain of a shaft he’d taken through one wrist. “They’ve built a ram. Cut down a big ironwood, they did, an’ put ‘er on wheels, with a mantlet to cover. ‘Twill sure move slow, but it looks strong enough.”

Govinna’s gates were mighty and had never fallen, not even in the worst of the Trosedil. But everything happened for the first time, sometime, Tavarre knew.

“Some of my officers are counseling surrender,” he told Cathan that evening, as the sky outside Beldyn’s bedchamber darkened to star-flecked black. It was a moonless night- Solinari would not rise for hours yet, and Lunitari had just set-and the fire that crackled in the room’s great hearth couldn’t fully stave off the chill. “Better to yield the city than see it burn, they say.”

Cathan sat at Beldyn’s bedside. He’d barely moved in days, sleeping in a chair in the room’s corner, his sword across his knees. His eyes narrowed as he studied the baron’s troubled face.

“You’re not seriously considering it, though. Right?”

Frowning, Tavarre looked away. “A few of us must flee, if we want to live.”

“Flee where?” Cathan pressed. “There’s nowhere left to run-except the wilds, and winter’s coining. One good blizzard, and the Scatas won’t have to look for us. The storm will do their work for them.”

Still, when Tavarre left again, returning to the wall with resignation-hardened eyes, Cathan found himself lingering over the idea of retreat. If the soldiers took the city-and they would-then he and the baron were both dead. If the Scatas didn’t kill them where they stood, they would find their doom at the executioner’s sword. He pictured his own head, dipped in tar and spiked above Govinna’s gates, and felt sick. He was sure, too, that a worse fate awaited Beldyn.

Not that he’d notice, he thought bitterly, looking at the bed.

The trance had left a haunted mark on the Lightbringer. He had always been slender, but three days’ starvation had left him gaunt, his cheekbones standing out sharply beneath his sunken eyes. Cathan hadn’t been able to get him to take any food, though he had wet the monk’s lips with a cloth soaked in watered wine. Still, despite his wasted state, he showed no sign of discomfort. His expression remained peaceful, as though he were enjoying some pleasant dream. At least he’ll die happy, Cathan thought with a grimace.

His gaze drifted across the room, to the Miceram on its pedestal. It gleamed in the hearthglow, its rubies glinting with reflected starlight. He’d looked at it enough, these past three days, so it seemed an old friend. When he closed his eyes, he could picture every engraving, every scratch, every little dent. He had counted the gems’ facets, noted their tiny flaws, learned which ones were wine-red and which leaned toward tawny. Looking at it, though, was all he ever did. Not once since he’d brought it here had he touched it.

Now he rose, knees popping, and walked to where it lay. Standing over it, he felt an ache inside him, like he hadn’t felt since the fane, when he’d fought off the urge to put on the crown. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to put the temptation out of his mind.

“You’ll lose without it, you know,” said a voice he recognized.

He gasped, opening his eyes as he whipped around. There, standing-or rather, floating-beside the hearth was Pradian. A knowing smile lit his face as he glided forward, the firelight, making him glow like a cloud at sunset. He made no shadow on the carpeted floor as he went to where the crown lay.

“You,” Cathan said. “Damn it, what did you do to him?”

The ghost shook his head. “That makes no difference now. You need the Miceram’s power to win the coming battle. Without it, you will die-along with everyone else who still stands against the Scatas. You don’t have the strength to hold the defense, and you know it.”

Cathan didn’t answer; he only stared at the crown, aglis-ten in the firelight. He reached out, brushing its surface with his fingertips. It was cold to the touch, but there was something else, too: a strange new sensation,