A Conjuring of Light Page 51
Only stillness, and the voice—voices?—beyond the building urging her to Come out, come out, or let me in.
Lila shivered, unnerved, and began to sing beneath her breath as she made her way up the stairs.
“How do you know that the Sarows is coming….”
At the top, the main hall, with its vaulting ceilings and stone pillars, all of it carved from the same flecked stone. Between the columns sat large basins carved from smooth white wood, each brimming with water, flowers, or fine sand. Lila ran her fingers through the water as she walked by, an instinctive benediction, a buried memory from a childhood a world away.
Her steps echoed in the cavernous space, and she cringed, shifting her stride back into that of a thief, soundless even on the stone. The hair bristled on the back of her neck as she crossed the hall and—
A thud, like stone against wood. It came once, and then again, and again.
Someone was knocking on the Sanctuary door.
Lila stood there, uncertain what to do.
“Alos mas en,” cried a voice. Let me in. Through the heavy wood, she couldn’t tell if it belonged to a man or a woman, but either way, they were making too much noise. She’d seen the riots in the streets, the mobs of shadow-eyed men and women attacking those who hadn’t fallen, those who tried to fight, drawn to their struggle like cats to mice. And she didn’t need them coming here.
“Dammit,” she growled, storming toward the doors.
They were locked, and she had to lean half her weight on the iron to make it move, knife between her teeth. When the bolt finally slid free and the Sanctuary doors fell open, a man scrambled in, falling to his knees on the stone floor.
“Rensa tav, rensa tav,” he stammered breathlessly as Lila forced the doors shut again behind him and spit the blade back into her palm. She turned, bracing for a fight, but he was still kneeling there, head bowed, and apologizing to the floor.
“I shouldn’t have come,” he said.
“Probably not,” said Lila, “but you’re here now.”
At the sound of her voice, the intruder’s head jerked up, his hood tumbling back to reveal a narrow face with wide eyes unspelled.
Her knife fell back to her side. “Lenos?”
The Spire’s second mate stared up at her. “Bard?”
Lila half expected Lenos to scramble away in fear—he’d always treated her like an open flame, something that might burn him at any moment if he got too close—but his face was merely a mask of shock. Shock, and gratitude. He let out a sob of relief, and didn’t even recoil when she hauled him to his feet, though he stared at the place where their hands met even as he said, “Tas ira …”
Your eye.
“It’s been a long night….” Lila glanced at the light streaming in through the windows. “Day. How did you know I was here?”
“I didn’t,” he said, head ticking side to side in his nervous way. “But when the bells rang, I thought that maybe one of the priests …”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Is the captain safe?”
Lila hesitated. She hadn’t seen Alucard, not since marking his forehead, but before she could say as much, the knocking came again at the door. Lila and Lenos spun.
“Let me in,” said a new voice.
“Were you alone?” she whispered.
Lenos nodded.
“Let me in,” it continued, strangely steady.
Lila and Lenos took a step away from the doors. They were solid, the bolts strong, the Sanctuary supposedly warded against dark magic, but she didn’t know how long any of that would hold without the priests.
“Let’s go,” she said. Lila had a thief’s memory, and Tieren’s map unfolded in her mind in full detail, revealing the halls, the cells, the study. Lenos followed close at her heels, his lips moving soundlessly in some kind of prayer.
He’d always been the religious one aboard the ship, praying at the first sign of bad weather, the start and end of every journey. She had no idea what or who he was praying to. The rest of the crew indulged him, but none of them seemed to put much stock in it, either. Lila assumed that magic was to people here what God was to Christians, and she’d never believed in God, but even if she had, she thought it pretty foolish to think He had time to lend a hand to every rocking ship. And yet …
“Lenos,” she said slowly, “how are you all right?”
He looked down at himself, as if he wasn’t entirely sure. Then he drew a talisman from beneath his shirt. Lila stiffened at the sight of it—the symbol on the front was badly worn, but it had the same curling edges as the sigil on the black stone, and looking at it gave her the same hot-and-cold feeling. In the very center of the talisman, trapped in a bead of glass, hung a single drop of blood.
“My grandmother,” he explained, “Helina. She was—”
“Antari,” cut in Lila.
He nodded. “Magic doesn’t get passed on,” he said, “so her power’s never done me much good.” He looked down at the necklace. “Until now.” The knocking continued, growing softer as they walked. “The pendant was supposed to go to my older brother, Tanik, but he didn’t want it, said it was just a useless trinket, so it went to me.”
“Perhaps the gods of magic favor you after all,” she said, scanning the halls to either side.
“Perhaps,” said Lenos, half to himself.
Lila took the second left and found herself at the doors to the library. They were closed.