Lin found herself moving to join the others, a slow river of blue snaking toward the dais as, above them, prayers were recited. Mariam wiggled through the crowd to stand beside her; there was a flush on her cheeks—rouge or nature, Lin could not be sure. She gave her friend a reassuring smile. Easy, easy, her mother had told her, long ago; a formality, a ritual, that is all. When the Goddess returns, do you think she will wait until the Tevath to reveal it? No, she will come to us in a pillar of fire, on the spear of the lightning. One sweep of her hand will illuminate all the earth.
It was not a swift thing, gathering so many people into an orderly line, and it was ten minutes to midnight by the time the Maharam had begun the questioning. Lin could hear his voice as the narit passed before him, one by one, lingering on the platform. They answered the old question, their voices shy or sharp, confident or questioning.
Are you the Goddess Returned?
No, I am not she.
Very well, depart.
Six minutes to midnight. What if the Maharam did not call her name in time? She touched the stone in her pocket again, lightly, just to reassure herself with the feel of it. Someone added a load of wood to the bonfire. Red-gold embers flew upward as Mariam moved to take her place before the dais. The Maharam regarded her with kindness, mixed with pity: We allow you to be here, but only as a formality. Surely one so ill, so weak, could not be she. He said, “Are you the Goddess Reborn?”
Mariam raised her chin. Her gaze was firm and clear. “I am not.”
She turned then, her back very straight, and went to join the other girls who had already given their answer to the Maharam. Lin felt a stab of pride that Mariam had not waited to be dismissed. The Maharam had noticed it, too; as Lin came to stand before him, she saw that his eyes were thoughtful. That thoughtfulness turned to something else when he saw Lin. His pale gaze raked her from her blue slippers to the flowers in her curled hair.
She kept her face blank, her hands clasped loosely before her. She could still feel her own heartbeat in every part of her body. In her fingers, her toes. In the pit of her stomach.
It was five minutes to midnight.
“Lin Caster,” the Maharam said, “this is the last year you will stand before me at the Tevath.”
It was not a question, so Lin said nothing. She could sense the gaze of the Sault on her. There was little suspense in it. No one really expected an outcome different from every other Tevath they had lived to see. But Lin—Lin could feel her hands shaking like leaves at her sides. Only the long practice of patience that being a healer had taught her enabled her to cling to the semblance of calm.
“They say all wisdom comes from the Goddess,” said the Maharam. Lin heard someone behind her whisper; it was unusual for the Maharam to say more than the required words of the ritual. “Do you believe that, Linnet, daughter of Sorah?”
Reminding me that he knew my mother. Lin gritted her teeth. Her knees were trembling, her palms wet with sweat. She said, “Yes.”
The Maharam seemed to relax minutely. “My dear,” he said. “Are you the Goddess Reborn?”
Long ago, when she and Mariam were young, they had swum together in the stone pools of the washing room in the Women’s House. Diving underwater, they would call to each other, seeing if the other could understand their words through the rippling distortion of the water. She heard the Maharam like that now, as if his voice came down to her through echoes, as if she stood not at the bottom of a shallow pool but on the floor of the ocean.
Are you the Goddess Reborn?
She clenched her fists at her sides, so hard her fingernails bit into her palms, breaking the skin.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. I am.”
They poured through the broken doors of the Shining Gallery, assailants dressed in ragged scraps of old military uniforms, red and black, their faces blank, featureless. In the jagged light of the swinging lamps, they had the look of creatures out of nightmare: They wore close-fitting caps, their faces painted in white and black greasepaint to resemble skulls. They carried a motley assortment of weapons: old axes, maces, and swords. One swung a banner above his head: the image of a golden lion, pouncing on an eagle.
And suddenly Kel was in the square, watching as the Castelguard dragged the group of vociferous protestors away. Their banners, stitched with the victorious lion, the bleeding eagle. Their shouts—repeated later at the Roverge house, when the Charter Families had listened from the terrace and laughed: Death to Sarthe! Blood before union with Sarthe!
They had not had their faces painted then, nor had they had weapons; they had seemed a little ridiculous, even. No longer.
Kel turned, grabbed Conor by the shoulders. Shoved him behind the arras. He yanked the dagger out of his boot. It wasn’t much. Not enough to protect Conor, if it came to it. He glanced back, saw Conor with his back against the wall, eyes wide.
“Stay here,” Kel snarled. “Stay back.”
He dropped the dagger, kicked it across the floor to Conor. Turned back to the Gallery. It had been seconds, and the place was a melee. The silk screen behind Jolivet had come down, and the room was full of Castelguards. Half of them dashed toward the high table, moving to encircle the Queen and Counselor. Vienne had pushed Luisa behind her. She was screaming at the Castelguard, words Kel could not hear but could guess: demanding they protect the Princess, demanding they give Vienne a weapon, too.
The dancers had scattered. Some of them were hiding among the clustered trees of the false forest. Kel could see their bright clothes, like fireflies in the dark. The half of the Castelguard who were not protecting the high table had flooded into the center of the room, swords flashing. A second false forest, this one of steel.
They met the intruders with a clash, and Kel could smell blood in the air now, sharp and coppery.
The Castelguard whom Kel had seen stabbed in the belly lay nearby, on his back, eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. A silver-and-black scarf was caught in the branch of a tree overhead, flickering in the wind from the open door. Kel ducked and rolled, sending himself skidding across the floor as he’d done with the dagger. He fetched up beside the dead guard. He knew his face—one of the Castelguards who’d let him into the Trick to see Fausten. May he pass through the door unhindered, Kel thought, gripping the hilt of the blade embedded in the guard’s belly. It came free with the sound of steel scraping against rib bones.
Kel rolled to his feet. Now he was armed. And—
“Fuck,” he whispered. Because Conor had not stayed put, or stayed back, as Kel had told him. He had come out from behind the arras, dagger in hand, and as Kel watched, he flung himself onto one of the skull-faced assailants knocking him to the ground. He stabbed down, plunging the dagger between the Skull’s shoulder blades. When he jerked the blade back, blood gushed, a scarlet spray across gold brocade.
Kel reversed course, and began to cut his way toward Conor. The floor of the Shining Gallery was a boiling whirlpool of white, black, and red. The red of Castelguards, the darker red of blood, slicking the floor. A Skull—it was hard to think of them as anything else—lunged at Kel, who parried and thrust, savagely burying his sword between the man’s ribs. He crumpled, blood running from the corners of his mouth, mixing with the white greasepaint on his face.