1
EXCISION
JACEN
When the sun went dark, the people of Zivora knew it was time for a Harvest.
The eclipse was like nothing natural, because the shadow that blotted out the light, casting the desert into perpetual dusk, was not a moon. Its totality lasted forty days, each night following the sun along its arc until it dipped below the rim of the world.
The eclipse’s umbra sprawled over the canyon called the Scar, where at other times of year, the midday heat killed more swiftly than the monsters lurking in the depths. When the shadow came, even they kept still, waiting for it to pass. On the eve of the Harvest, Brother Jacen Kheris had no such luxury. Tis was the year’s holiest season, and it was his duty as a Priest of the Black Sun to counsel, pray over, and minister to the people in their disquiet.
He needed a drink.
He often felt that way, but especially during the eclipse, andespeciallywhen Mother Akkani deigned to visit him at such anunholy hour of the morning. He’d had every intention of going directly from his bed to his liquor cabinet—why not, when the sun was about to vanish for a full cycle? But instead, Akkani sat across from him, pale hands folded, awaiting his reply with the patience of a stone.
She had given him no warning at all. She was too clean for his chapel, and Jacen could not stop thinking about that. Calling this place achapel,in fact, seemed a disservice to their order. Floors that hadn’t been swept in months, wax and charred spots from supplicants’ abandoned votives, a patch of bristly grass struggling to grow through a broken window . . . sand everywhere, though Jacen thought he deserved leniency on that count. In the desert, certain battles were not worth fighting.
He cleared his throat. “I can’t take a new novitiate.”
The novitiate in question stood by the door. She was a slight girl of fourteen, with dense white curls and skin so dark, it was almost blue. She stared at the floor and tugged at her overlarge grey robes as if they itched.
“You don’t have a choice.” Akkani pursed her lips, the expression nigh-imperceptible on her spare features. Not a scrap of excess on this woman. Her hesitation bordered on subliminal, but Jacen had a talent for noticing that. It was perhaps the only sense in which he remained a good priest.
“Mistakes were made,” Akkani went on, “with your last novitiate’s training. Not all of them were yours. There is no reason for me, or the Council, to believe they will be repeated.”
“I can serve in other ways,” said Jacen, in a tone he dearly hoped did not convey his rising panic.
“We’ve been more than patient with you, and for an exorcist of your caliber to do so little with his talents is a travesty.” The words were structured as a compliment, but Akkani’s jaw clenched like it pained her to say it. Maybe it had been for the novitiate’s benefit—though the girl regarded Jacen with a levelof doubt he would have found offensive, once. “You will serve in whatever capacity I decide,” said Akkani. “And you will teach your new pupil with all the diligence she deserves. You’ll both assist Sister Jinaan this morning.”
She handed him a scrap of parchment, scribbled with an address.
Her voice carried a note of finality that Jacen did not dare contest.
He bowed his head. “Yes, Your Holiness.”
Akkani rose, barely disturbing her wooden stool. Jacen did the same. At thirty-two years old, he remained as uncomfortable as he’d been as an acolyte to sit while she stood. The Church assigned its priests numerical ranks based on power and seniority, and the Holy Mother was First.
Akkani motioned the girl forward. “Her designation is Ninety-Nine.” A pause, and the faintest of smiles. “Wasn’t that yours, too, when you started with Brother Marez?”
Jacen forced a nod.Nines,he’d been called throughout his apprenticeship.
“You’ll get on well.” Akkani smoothed her robes, black and immaculate as her hair. Jacen was suddenly conscious of the way his were stained pale with dust. Akkani glided away—and stumbled on a clay pot that had somehow ended up on the floor. They all pretended not to notice.
Once she was gone, he waited a moment before he dared unclench his fists. Bloody crescents marked his palms. It hadn’t been enough to quell the shaking, nor to distract from the pounding in his skull. How long had it been since he’d had a proper drink? Eight hours? Probably less.
It seemed, however, that he would have to cope.
He motioned his new novitiate out the door. They exited the chapel to the Knots, the labyrinthine settlement of sun-baked clay that sprawled beyond Zivora’s pale gates. The streets laydeserted at this hour but for the occasional rogue tumbleweed rolling through the dust. Low in the sky, the sun rose. Its red-orange hue grew muted as totality approached. The shadows had begun to sharpen, scattering tiny crescents across the russet dirt, and a chill festered in the air.
Novitiate Ninety-Nine appeared to agree with Jacen that it was far too early for this. Though she did her best to conceal it, he caught her yawning and rubbing sleep from her eyes. Old Brother Marez would have backhanded Jacen for that, and judging by the girl’s skittishness, she expected the same from him. She hovered close as a burr in his shoe and said little besides the wordsorry.
As they trudged through the Knots’ crooked streets and decrepit buildings, Jacen asked her, “Have you ever assisted with an exorcism?”
He tried to sound friendly, approachable. But she stared at him, shoulders hunched like a startled stray cat before answering, “I’ve only studied the theory. I’m sorry.”
“Just follow my lead,” said Jacen. “You’ll do fine.”
She bobbed her head and fixed her gaze on the street. Conversation over. Gods, but he was out of practice. Talking to his first novitiate had been easier than this, hadn’t it? Jacen tried to remember Elyas, but his skull felt full of sand. It pounded with every step.
