“Sorry Calo shot you.” He cleared his throat. “I’m Commander Teheda. Var Teneb—Elyas—was a friend of mine. Did he show you how to find us?”
Ysira nodded shortly.
“How did you become valak?”
Ysira said nothing. Best to wait until she’d said her piece to the Gatekeeper before broaching any uncomfortable subjects. Teheda leaned back with a sigh.
Neri fell asleep quickly, and Ysira settled in to wait. Though her nerves made it difficult to sit still, a sense of irritating familiarity also nagged at her. Strange, to think so little time had passed since she’d been stuck in that cell in Zivora.
She kept vigil over Neri, ignoring the way Teheda stared, until curiosity got the better of him. “Is he all right?”
They both watched Neri as he twitched and muttered to himself, dreaming of things Ysira scarcely dared imagine.
“He will be,” she said at last, and told herself she believed it.
“The Gatekeeper has agreed to meet with you.”
Several hours went by before Ysira finally heard the words. Three people in red robes, their faces obscured by veils of obsidian and copper beads, arrived to greet them.
“You will follow us to your audience,” the first person continued, “and the Gatekeeper will pass judgment. Should you fail to provide satisfactory answers, you will be returned to the desert, and your memories of this place will be erased.”
Ysira shook Neri gently by the shoulder. He blinked up at her through bleary red eyes. At the sight of them, clear for the first time, Commander Teheda gasped.
“It’s time,” Ysira said. “Are you ready?” Neri rubbed his face. “Who are they?”
“Disciples of the Gate. Their order serves the valak and studies the Source.”
She helped Neri to his feet. They followed the Disciples through the dark passageways to where they opened up along the deepriver. On the black-sand beach sat a honeycomb of squat, interconnected buildings, lit by diamond-shaped lanterns glowing red-gold. The winding streets slanted upward, bustling with activity.
Ysira had never heard such a diversity of languages in one location. Zal was spoken freely, as were Standard, Telu, Dalish, and others still, from the very fringes of the Black Sun’s dominion. The streets were crowded with dark-clothed, tattooed Zal, Telu with pierced faces and intricate braids, nomads in brightly patterned shawls and beads from the habitable edges of the Glass Sea. Pale, freckled Dalish painted in whorls of green, hawking seeds and hammered metal jewelry. Even a pair of highlanders from the Burning Hills, guiding along their winged, hoofed mounts with snapping beaks and golden feathers.
All turned and stared, falling silent as the veiled Disciples passed. Some watched their group with suspicion, others fear. Some pointed, others whispered, and Ysira understood only fragments. Beneath the curiosity rose a buzzing undercurrent of something else, something she could not quite identify, like the distant rumbling before a sandstorm. Neri stayed close, hunched in her shadow, making himself as small as possible.
Ysira asked Teheda, “Are these people all part of your . . .” She trailed off, unsure of what to call them.
“This place was founded by the Disciples of the Gate,” said Teheda. “Everyone here is a refugee. Most share our faith, and those who don’t still share our cause.”
There had to be thousands of them. It was so much more than Ysira had dared hope.
She had been wary of these people in the past. She had thought their religion quaint, their fight hopeless, and she had sworn to herself she would never join them and become a martyr like Elyas. But today, she came to them with leverage. She would be no one’s martyr, and neither would Neri.
The murmuring around them grew as they crested a hill, and Ysira felt that intoxicating thrill—the same as she’d felt aboard the Firstborn station when she realized her true strength. A shudder ran down her spine.
They reached a building hewn into a rock façade atop the hill, removed from the rest of the city. It overlooked the beach and a river inlet that led to another, smaller, steaming lake, where fishermen hauled up pale crustaceans. Past the columned portico of the entryway lay a red sandstone interior, then a broad, age-worn stair to a set of double doors. Teheda pounded on the graven surface once, and two guards hauled the doors open from within.
The hall beyond had a low ceiling, at a triangular slant. Torches burned in sconces, casting the floor in pools of orange light between long shadows. Opposite the doors, on a dais, sat three thrones. The centermost, elevated above the other two, was vacant. On the right sat a grey-haired man in dark armor; on the left, a woman robed in red. Two dozen others, all in red, some armored, some masked or veiled, gathered to either side of the dais.
As Ysira, Neri, and Teheda entered, an argument petered out. They’d interrupted something. Ysira assumed these were the Shrouded City’s leaders. She squeezed Neri’s arm in an attempt at reassurance, but he was so tense, his muscles felt like rock. She was suddenly aware of how filthy they were, still in their tattered clothes from the crash. But she squared her shoulders, shaking off the discomfort. Whether she came to these people in rags or the finest spidersilk, her message was the same.
As they approached the thrones, the armored man shifted in his seat. Ysira met his narrowed eyes, and, to her astonishment, beheld their strange amber hue. The mark of a telepath integrated with a demon. She had seen them only once before, in Elyas.
The robed woman stood. Her irises were as white as any Church telepath’s, but her red tattoos, more rigid and symmetrical than Ysira’s, stretched up her neck and over her shaved head. A jagged scar spidered out from the corner of her left eye.
Her voice echoed throughout the hall. “Kneel, and be judged.”
Neri started to obey. Ysira caught him by the armpit, pulling him upright. She drew herself up to her full height and said, “I am Ysira Var Naktis. I have?—”
“Var Naktis?” the woman cut her off, incredulous. “How dare you claim that title?”
