away from you. Open your heart, Ilvani, and it will show you the truth. I will always be here when you need me.”
The ladder moved beneath her. Ilvani looked up, wild with hope that her brother had come up to embrace her, to make everything all right again.
There was no one there.
Sobbing, Ilvani crawled back to the window. She took up the evidence against Ashok and held the sheets over the candle. The parchment darkened and curled. Orange flame licked up the sides, consuming ink and surface so fast Ilvani had to drop and stamp them out with a cup she’d left by the window. The ashes flew up into her face.
She gathered them and the unintelligible scraps that remained and put them in one of the empty boxes in her satchel. When she closed the lid, the lock slid into place without her touching it.
“Ashok box,” she said. “Has all the ashes. Are you happy, brother?”
She flung out a hand. The window glass shattered, and the shards dug into her hand. She bent over the box, sobbing anew.
Too late. She’d done it-given her brother’s murderer his freedom. What a worthless, worthless sister, an ugly failure.
“I won’t forgive you,” she cried, and wiped her hand across her face, streaking tears and blood. “Won’t … won’t.”
The box snapped open.
Ilvani stared at it. The locks were magical. They only answered to her. She reached for the lid, but it wouldn’t move. She tried with both hands, but it wouldn’t shut. Grunting, she put her full weight against the hinges. Nothing.
She looked inside the box. The ashes were gone. Instead, she saw something that shouldn’t have been there.
Within the box, she saw Tempus’s chapel. Two tiny figures moved around in the scene like dolls. She recognized Natan sitting on the steps, and she thought it was Ashok next to him, but when she looked closer she realized it was Vedoran.
The tiny dolls were speaking, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Natan looked upset, not at all as he’d appeared in her room. Ilvani wondered what the cause was, and hoped it wasn’t herself.
What she saw next nearly made her throw the box out the broken window.
Vedoran leaned toward Natan and put his hands around her brother’s throat. He squeezed, and Natan’s eyes widened in panic.
“No!” she cried. She clutched the box, shook it, as if she could make the tiny Vedoran doll let her brother go. But the figures kept on and ignored her shouts and pleas and thrashing. She watched her brother die-at Vedoran’s hands.
Natan’s body fell across the steps. Vedoran looked as stunned as Ilvani felt. He staggered away from the body, and the scene blurred. When it came back into focus, there were other dolls present, though she didn’t know them. They removed Natan’s body, and when one turned to speak to Vedoran she saw the symbol of Beshaba at their breasts.
“All the misfortunes in the world belong to me,” Ilvani said. She thought it might have been the words to a song she’d once heard, but there were so few songs in Ikemmu that weren’t battle hymns, she couldn’t be sure.
She closed the box lid and listened to the wind whistle through the broken glass shards. She knew who had sent the vision. “Thank you, Tempus,” she said, “for putting the truth in the boxes.” She added, “But stay out of them now. I can do it myself.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Ashok awoke to the guards chaining his hands behind him. He was blind again, and weak as a newborn, but the searing pain in his chest and neck was gone.
“Ilvani?” he said. He could barely hear his own voice.
“He’s fading,” one of the guards murmured, as if Ashok wasn’t present. “Good thing we’re moving him now, or there’d be nothing left for the trial.”
The guards each grabbed one of his shoulders and led Ashok forward. It took him a few steps to be sure of his footing. His feet felt large and numb inside his boots.
“Ilvani,” he repeated. “Where is she?”
“She’s been gone a while,” one of the guards said. “Left you in pretty bad shape. She called a healer for you.”
“Mad witch,” the other guard said under his breath.
“Where are we going?” Ashok asked. They were leading him out of the tunnels. The air grew warmer; Ashok could smell the forge smoke. Back to the world of the living, if only for a little while.
“We’re to take you to the top of Tower Makthar for judgment,” the guard said. “It looks like the whole city has turned out to see what will become of you.”
Ashok could tell when they reached the mouth of the tunnel. Crowd noise swelled and filled his ears with a mixture of cheers, jeers, and speculative murmuring. On the issue of his guilt, Ikemmu seemed equally divided.
“Part the way!” the guards shouted. “By order of Uwan, stand back!”
Their pace slowed almost to a halt. Ashok felt the heat of bodies pressing close. The voices grew louder and louder, and Ashok found himself thinking of the nightmare being paraded through Ikemmu in a cage.
Something hard hit Ashok in the shoulder. Numb pain shot up his arm, and one of the guards shouted, “The next one to throw a punch or a stone will be on his knees before Lord Uwan! Do you all hear?”
The other guard kept Ashok moving forward. More hands touched Ashok, but with gentleness.
“Tempus bless you!”
“We believe.”
“Free the emissary!”
Ashok tried to pull away, but he couldn’t escape the hands. He stumbled, fell, and was dragged up again to the march that would never end.
Finally, the guards stopped. A fist pounded on a door, which opened on creaking hinges.
“Inside,” a familiar voice said. “Give him a rest before you take him to the stairs.”
“Weak as a babe,” another voice said, and Ashok’s heart lifted. “Did I not teach you anything?”
“Cree,” Ashok said. “Skagi.”
The hood came off, and Ashok found himself being guided to a bench against the wall by the brothers.
“Uwan ordered he be hooded at all times,” Ashok’s guard said. “I won’t take responsibility.”
Cree snorted. “We’ll take it, if it comforts you, but look at him. He’s not got the strength to walk on his own, much less teleport out of here.”
“Your heads,” the guard said, and they left the tower.
When they were alone, Skagi sat down next to Ashok and leaned against the wall. “Well, you know how to attract the most attention, I’ll give you that,” he said.
Cree put a waterskin in front of Ashok’s mouth. He tipped it up and let him drink deeply. Ashok had never tasted anything so sweet and cold. He started to feel stronger, and his head was beginning to clear.
“How long has it been?” he said.
“Since they put you in the dark? Three days,” Skagi said. “We thought you’d be in better shape than you are. Uwan thought so too. He was pretty upset when he saw you.”
“Uwan was in my cell?” Ashok said. He had no memory of the leader being with him since he’d made his confession. “What happened to Ilvani?”
“She’s waiting for us at the top,” Cree said.
On hearing that, Ashok stood. “Let’s go,” he said.
