Now there were murmurs, rising, racing through the gathered throng. Lin thought she heard Chana speak and then Mariam’s frightened voice. She felt her throat ache. Don’t be afraid, Mari. This is for you. I’m doing this for you.
The Maharam sat forward. In the flickering light of the bonfire, his face was a mask. “You understand the consequences,” he said, in a dry small voice, “of lying in this situation.”
Lin wasn’t sure she did; as far as she knew it had never been attempted or considered before. “I am,” she said, “not lying.” She met his gaze with her own. “In the name of the Goddess, and of Aram, I tell you again: I am the Goddess Reborn. She is within me.”
The Maharam rose to his feet. He seemed to be struggling for words. The noise among the crowd had risen, a buzzing whine in Lin’s ears.
“If she says she is the Goddess, she must be treated as such; that is the Word,” said Chana, her voice unexpectedly firm.
More buzzing. Lin fixed her gaze on the clocktower. The hands had inched forward.
Three minutes.
Stroke of midnight. All the nobles will be gathered for that banquet. Roverge and his rotten son will be there. I need them to see my vengeance written in fire across the sky.
“She must be tested.” It was Oren Kandel, his voice shaking with suppressed rage. “The Sanhedrin must be called upon, Maharam.”
But the Maharam only stared at Lin, the lines beside his mouth harsh and pronounced. “Why this year, your last year at the Tevath? Five years you have had the chance to reveal yourself as the Goddess. Why have you—has she—been silent?”
“The Goddess comes when she comes.” It was Mariam. Her head held high, ignoring the stares of those around her. “She has waited for us to be ready—not for Lin to be so.”
Hoarsely, the Maharam said, “The Goddess would not come in the form of one who embraces blasphemy—”
The hands of the clock swept around. Less than a minute now.
“I will prove it to you.” Lin flung her arms wide. Silk and rattle of beads, the clamor of her gown, the wind in her ears. “The Goddess returns on the spear of the lightning,” she said. “With one sweep of her hand she illuminates the earth.”
Silence. Lin could hear the shortness of her own breath. Feel the weight of eyes upon her. Terror—the terror she had not allowed herself to feel until this moment—darkened the edges of her vision. What madness, to gamble on the plan of a stranger—anything could have happened since she had last overheard him in the house of the Ragpicker King.
She could be cast out, like the Maharam’s son. She could lose everything: her family, her people, her power to heal—
The light came first. A bloom of gold spreading across the sky, and then another, and another, a garland of fire-flowers. A moment later, the sound, muffled by water and distance. Black powder igniting, the tearing of metal and wood as ships blew apart.
Two long tons of pure black powder. The ships will burn to the waterline before any smaller craft can reach them.
A glow like sunrise rose over the walls of the Sault, outlining the Shomrim, black figures printed against a sky of deep gold.
Lin let her arms fall to her sides. The Maharam sank into his chair, staring at her in bewilderment.
The alarm bells in the city had begun to ring. The Vigilants would be rushing through the streets toward the dinghies in the harbor. On the Hill, the nobles would be watching the fiery ruin in the harbor. Kel would see it. The Prince would see it. He would not think of her; this had nothing to do with her, not out there in the great world.
Dimly, Lin could hear the voices of one of the Shomrim, who had clambered down from the walls: Six tallships of the Roverge fleet were husks, aflame on the surface of the sea. It had happened between one moment and the next, and there had been no attack; they had simply begun to burn.
For the first time since her announcement, Lin allowed herself to look around at those gathered in the square. At her people. She saw Mariam, her hand over her mouth. Natan, shaking his head. Mez, his expression worried. Chana, her back straight, her eyes bright. And Oren—Oren was gazing at her in utter horror and revulsion.
“Kneel,” said Chana Dorin, her voice hard as steel. “Sadī Eyzōn, kneel to the Goddess-elect. Kneel,” she said, and they did, dropping to their knees all around Lin—young and old, shocked and wondering, the firelight from the harbor playing across their faces. Even Oren, his face set in anger, sank to his knees.
Lin could hardly bear to look. Chana, Mariam, Mez: She had never wanted or imagined them kneeling to her. She felt sick, and even more so when she imagined what Mayesh would say when he returned and found out what she had done. She folded her hands across her stomach, swallowing back bile as the Maharam rose wearily to his feet.
“Come, then,” he said, and in his tone Lin heard his fury, his incredulity, and his powerlessness. If Davit Benezar, the Maharam of Castellane, had not been her enemy before tonight, he certainly was now. “Let me bring you, Goddess, to the Shulamat. We will speak there of what must happen next.”
Kel turned.
Standing behind him on the path that led through the North Gates and down into the city was Jolivet. Kel had rarely seen the head of the Arrow Squadron in disarray. From the first moment Jolivet had come to take him from the Orfelinat, even during training sessions in the Hayloft, he had seemed to Kel like a statue of a heroic soldier in a town square. Jaw set, eyes forever fixed on the middle distance, posture erect.
He was surprisingly composed now, given all that had happened, though the gold braid on his uniform jacket was torn and stained with blood. A cut along his neck had soaked blood into his stiff collar. He held an unsheathed sword in his left hand.
“Never mind,” Jolivet said, striding closer to Kel. The Castelguards at the gate looked pointedly away from the two of them: What Jolivet did was none of their business. “I know exactly what you’re doing.”
I doubt that. “I assume you think I’m off to the Caravel, or some other place where I can forget the events of this night—”
“No,” said Jolivet. “I think you’re going to the Black Mansion.”
It was as if wires were run through Kel’s bones and blood, and had been suddenly and viciously tightened. It took everything in him—all the training Jolivet himself had ever given him—to remain composed. He only looked around, wondering if any of the Castelguards were within earshot. None seemed to be; all were staring toward the Shining Gallery, the ruin of tonight’s banquet.
“Now, I know you will protest,” said Jolivet. “And you will tell me I am being ridiculous, to make such accusations and assumptions. But I do not want to waste that time. The Palace keeps its eyes on the Ragpicker King. We are not inside the Black Mansion, but we know enough. If you invent excuses now, you will only waste both our time.”
“So are you calling me a traitor, then?” The wires Kel imagined seemed to be pressing in on his heart. “Am I next for the Trick—and then the crocodiles, like Fausten?”
Jolivet smiled coldly. “I saw you there on the path that day,” he said. “I wondered if you glimpsed your own fate in the astronomer’s.”