And then Ysira had no choice—the second telepath, another inquisitor, was on her.
She had to kill him quickly, keep him away from Ilusha as Ged, Saraida, and Goran engaged the knight and Guardsmen. So, Ysira gave ground, let her defenses slip as if from exhaustion. She drew her opponent back—toward the Gate.
The inquisitor sidestepped her thrust and stabbed her in the stomach. Ysira clenched her teeth through the pain. She seized him by the shoulder. Metal sliced deeper into her guts as she pulled him closer, close enough to wrench his dagger from its sheath and plunge it into his back.
With a cry, the inquisitor let go of his sword. It slipped out of Ysira with a slick, wet sound. She dragged the inquisitor around and forced him back, a hairsbreadth from the shimmering, pulsating fracture of the Gate. Through blood loss and pain, he fought her. He coughed up a red splatter. Ysira twisted the knife and shoved him into the open maw of the Source.
Behind her, someone screamed. Ysira whirled to see Solai on her knees, clutching her temples. Her ashek, already clumsy in her untrained grip, sputtered out on the ground. Jarak drove his blade up, an expert thrust through a gap in her armor. Ysira sprinted toward them, but it was too late. Solai was dead before she hit the floor.
It was sostupidlypredictable. For a moment, Ysira had had hope, and in the end, it was just as she’d feared. She’d sent this woman to her death.
Jarak met Ysira at a run. They exchanged a series of hard, fast crashes. He was swifter than any opponent she’d faced, save Rakalem. Jarak trapped her glaive between his swords and twisted, wrenching it from her grasp. He kicked it out of herreach. He spun one sword in his grip and rammed the pommel into Ysira’s diaphragm. She fell, gasping. He slammed an elbow into her jaw. Drops of blood splattered the floor. Her head swam.
He slit her throat, right below her old scar, and shoved her away as he ran toward Ilusha.
On her knees, Ysira hacked up blood from her mangled airway. It cost her several precious seconds to suck down oxygen and recover. She stood and hurled a knife—badly. The blade grazed Jarak’s leg, made him stumble. Ysira closed the distance and tackled him from behind. As he shook her loose, she wrenched out another knife.
They faced each other, both breathing hard. Jarak was doubled over, clutching his leg. He narrowed his eyes, head tilted ever so slightly, as though recognizing what waswrongabout Ysira’s consciousness. His weathered features hardened with new resolve.
Ysira lunged—not fast enough. Jarak caught her by the arm before she could bury her blade in his shoulder. He flipped her over his back. Slammed her to the floor. He snaked his arms around her throat from behind, choking her out. Ysira bridged her hips in an attempt to throw him off. Didn’t work. She tucked in her chin, shoved his right elbow up, and seized his wrists. She wrenched his arms straight, freeing a hand, and drove her fist into his mouth. Jarak slipped, only a little. He straddled her. She got hold of his ear with her teeth. She bit down, brutal enough to make even a telepath second-guess her intent, andripped.Jarak rolled off her, howling. He barely recovered in time to dodge Ged’s descending sword. Then Goran’s. Then Saraida’s. Behind them, the Guardsmen and the knight lay dead on the floor.
Shaking two teeth loose from her knuckles, spitting blood and cartilage, Ysira joined the fray. The Chief inquisitor’s twin blades spun and slashed with impossible precision. But he wasalone against five now, and he was human, and his strength had begun to fail.
With a shout of enraged desperation, he spun and hurled one sword at Ilusha.
“Traitor!” he shouted. His psychic presence surged. They all felt it. But as he tried to burrow into Ysira’s mind, Iyelekirin squirmed in warning. Rage splintered through her head, forcing Jarak’s presenceout,making him freeze for an instant. It was enough. Saraida drove her blade through his stomach.
Brother Jarak lay gasping on the floor, hands flailing like he meant to patch the hole in his torso. As Ged loomed over him, the Chief Inquisitor choked, presumably out of habit, “Lord Semira.”
“You pathetic lapdog,” said Ged. “You gave these parasites your life, and you’re nothing to them.”
Jarak coughed. “Your father was right about you.” Ged’s face twisted. In one blow, he cut off Jarak’s head.
Ilusha had caught the priest’s blade in her flank. She grasped it by the hilt.
“Don’t—” Ysira started. Too late. Ilusha ripped the blade out. She pressed her hands to the wound with a groan, blood soaking her robes.
“Did the inquisitors warn anyone?” Ged demanded of Ilusha.
“No.” She winced as though it hurt to speak. “I stopped them. But we should hurry.”
Ged returned to the pyramid and pressed his ring into its base. Projections of light, not unlike those on Tharanoth’s map of stars, flared to life between the mirrored domes. Numbers, letters, shifting diagrams . . . Ysira could not deduce what Ged was doing. She suspected he didn’t understand much either.
She busied herself by dragging the bodies aside, lining them up so they couldn’t be seen from where the white door opened. There would be no hiding all this blood or the grisly mess thathad been Knight Taraven. But Ysira couldn’t bring herself to leave her allies where they’d fallen. She lingered beside Solai’s body and gently closed the demon priest’s eyes.
“Did you know her well?” Saraida asked from behind her. With a shake of her head, Ysira stood. “No.”
“She died bravely for a noble cause,” said Saraida. “It’s the most any of us can hope for.”
It was the sort of thing Ysira would have said at sixteen, dreaming of knighthood and glory. But where was the glory in a battle none of them had any choice but to fight? What was the point of bravery, in the face of a higher power? And what was nobility but a trammel, in a fight for one’s very existence?
It seemed so unfair that they should have to pay in blood, to sacrifice so much, for what was already theirs by rights. Perhaps Ysira ought to be grateful she never achieved those girlhood dreams, because she could not look at these deaths and see anything but a waste. Nor could she feel anything but rage. She didn’t want to.
She considered what else she might say to Saraida—this woman who had not quite been her sister and would never again be her friend. Nothing came to mind.
“I think I’ve locked the door,” Ged was saying.
“This is taking too long,” said Ilusha. “It might be time to just destroy the blasted thing.”
