She leaned over and met Saad’s eyes, the shock there slowly fading toward death. “There is no emperor,” he said. At last he understood everything.
She stared at him with calm eyes. “No, there is an emperor, Saad. You are looking at her right now,” she said, but Saad gave no reply. He did not breathe. He was gone. Arko was gone. The throne room was quiet.
She had won.
Alone, Sarra looked for her son. “Ott?” she called, but the boy didn’t answer.
59
Ren stepped over bodies, tripped through fallen beams and burnt planks, stumbling down the corridor that led to the Prior Master’s chambers. He had come here alone, leaving the other ransoms behind. I can’t risk their lives, but I can risk my own. I have to find Tye.
Up three flights of steps he climbed, the smoke now thinner, and came upon a bronze door, which he forced open, slipping inside and letting it shut behind him. Inside a roof hatch was open—someone had vented the smoke, leaving the air inside clear. Bright light poured through a window, and he pressed his mouth to it and sucked in fresh air, let it fill his lungs again and again. He stood back to gauge the size of the fire, which stretched from the Shroud Wall out to the Priory, and farther still. Everywhere he looked, there was smoke and flame. The sight left an ill feeling in his stomach. There was something unnatural about the fire, something unwholesome, but he could not place it.
Three doors lined the corridor, the first two open, the rooms empty, littered with old tunics and books, the beds larger and more comfortable than the ones the boys had been used to. This had to be the prior’s quarters, the place where Oren and the others had slept. It had to be.
The third door was just slightly ajar, and through the crack he spied a man rifling through an old trunk, as if looking desperately for something. Ren pushed the door open with his toe, both hands gripping his blade.
The trunk was still open, but the man was gone—until the next moment, when Oren put one gauntleted hand to Ren’s throat and the other on his blade, his black iron-encased fingers closing around Ren’s neck. Oren squeezed the dagger, twisting it from Ren’s grip, the blade clattering to the floor.
For years he had imagined this moment; he had dreamed of taking his revenge on the Prior Master. But now, when the moment had come, when he had approached Oren as a free man, everything had gone wrong. Ren was helpless. No friends at his back. No weapon. Fear wiped his mind clean. He was all adrenaline, kicking at Oren with one foot, driving his knee into the man’s groin, punching with bare fists.
Oren squeezed his neck and knocked his skull against the stone. “Calm down, Hark-Wadi. Stop your fussing, or I’ll crush your bones before your next breath.”
Ren would not yield—better to die now, choked against a wall, than let Oren have time to devise something else. He knocked the Prior Master on the jaw. Another fist to his temple, a knee to his chest. Oren was strong, but still older and slower than Ren, and he had none of his fierceness, his desperation. Ren would claw Oren’s eyes out if the man came close enough.
Oren released his grip, and Ren hit the floor. He slid toward his father’s dagger, twisting his body to grasp the blade. He gripped the knife and leapt to his feet.
“Stop!” cried a new voice—not Oren’s, higher and sweeter, but still familiar. It was Tye. She was bound with manacles, lips swollen, shirt torn, eyes pleading. Oren had a knife at her temple, a line of blood dribbling down her forehead. Oren held the blade by the pommel, as if he were about to drive it into Tye’s skull as a logger drives a stake into a tree.
“Ren!” Tye cried.
“Your knife,” Oren growled. “Put it down. Or I’ll kill the bitch.”
Ren let the dagger fall and Oren pushed it aside with a kick.
In one swift motion the Prior Master grasped Ren by the tunic, slammed him into the wall, and forced his hand into a manacle. Oren shackled the other hand, then raised the black-iron gauntlet and pressed it to Ren’s stomach, the serrated edges piercing his skin. Pain—sharp and hot. Ren kicked, trying to curl himself up to avoid Oren’s touch.
“Don’t move, boy. Stay still and you’ll save yourself some pain.” Oren eyed the fallen dagger. He appeared to think on it for a moment. “You’re not yet king. Are you? No king’s escort, no Harkan soldiers. You’ve come alone, haven’t you?” Oren kicked the door closed. “Why? Why have you returned? Not just for Tye. She’s a pretty little packet, but hardly worth the effort,” he said, a wicked look in his eye.
“Are you okay?” he asked Tye. “Did he hurt you?” Ren felt his blood boil at the thought.
Tye shook her head. “Is that really you, Ren?” she asked, peering through the hair that hung almost to her nose. “I thought I would never see you again.”
Oren slapped Ren. “Answer the question, boy! Was it your father who called you?”
Ren gave no response; the question made no sense.
Oren asked again, “Was it your father who called you, boy? Did he call you before he met with the Protector?” Ren stared blank-faced at the man. What does my dead father have to do with any of this?
“You don’t know, do you?” Oren asked. “You don’t know your father’s dead.”
“You ass.” Ren kicked wildly, but his old master twisted the gauntlet and Ren froze in a web of pain. He cried out, head slumping. “Of course my father’s dead. He died when he met Tolemy.”
Oren shook his head. “You stupid boy, he died today. Didn’t you know that your father was made Ray of the Sun?”
“No,” Ren said. “You lie.” He spoke the words, but already he knew Oren was telling the truth. Ren remembered the talk among the refugees at the gates of Solus, something about the new Ray and the unrest he was causing. If Oren was telling the truth …
“It’s no lie,” said Oren, confirming what Ren knew. “I wish it was one. Arko’s term was short, but real nonetheless. The fire you see”—he gestured to the windows, to the blaze that raged from the Antechamber to the Priory and beyond—“was lit by the Protector in judgment of the Ray.”
If only I’d made some small inquiry, I might have learned that my father had been made Ray.
Ren understood now why the sight of the smoke had sickened him. He was looking at his father’s death. Angry, he swung at the Prior Master, but the older man’s reach far exceeded his own and Ren’s fist met only the air. He kicked with both feet, but Oren’s grip held, the black gauntlet tearing Ren’s skin. Ribbons of flesh pulled from his chest, and he quit struggling. Not now. Not like this. I won’t die at Oren’s hand.
Oren grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head back. “I want to tell you something before you die.”
“There’s nothing you can tell me.” Ren spat in his face.
“Didn’t you wonder why I singled you out? Why I sent you to the sun? Why I let you take Tye’s place? No boy was ever sent there for a minor infraction—except you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes. you do. Again and again it was you who suffered, but it wasn’t your fault. It was your mother’s.”
“What?”