The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(80)

“He’s not a real priest,” I said. “At least, not one of Sekhemet’s. He’s one of the Sons of Dis. They both are. Were . . . Acheron has been working for Aquila all this time. I think he murdered Hestia.”

Cai shook his head in disgust. “Then I’m glad to be suspicious in this case,” he said. “Although, to be fair, Quint’s smelled something off about him for a few days now too. And when we saw him heading for the docks on Antirhodos—when Elka had already complained to Quint about you heading off into the city on your own with that priest as your guide—well, we got curious.”

“Are they here?” I asked.

Cai nodded. “The two of them are outside now, watching our backs. I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you. The doors were locked, and I had to find a high window that opened into a temple storeroom. It was a tight squeeze.”

He smiled at me, and I was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude for the friends I had somehow managed to be deserving of. Cai took my hand and turned to go, but I pulled him back.

“Cai,” I said, “Acheron intercepted letters I sent to you. He returned them all to me unopened. To torment us both. I wanted you to know. In case you thought . . .”

Cai’s smile vanished and his eyes flashed with anger. And something else. He had thought—as I had—that we’d stopped communicating for all those months. That I hadn’t wanted to see or hear from him . . . I could tell by the look in his eyes.

But all he said was, “After all your hard work learning Latin? For that alone, Acheron needed to die.”

I squeezed his arm and then let go, stepping over to the edge of the pool before we left the temple. For a long moment, I gazed down at Acheron. The scars on his chest and arms gleamed white in the water, and a faint, distant wash of pity brushed fleetingly over my heart. The Tartarus key was, in a way, his brother Ixion’s last act of brutality against him.

I knelt down and picked up the dagger with its bloodstained blade.

Caesar’s blood.

“Cleopatra might want this,” I said. Then I bowed my head to the statue of Sekhemet the lioness and walked with Cai out of the temple room. I never once looked back.





XXI


THE SKY IN the east was beginning to glow with sunfire, and the predawn shadows were shades of deep purple and blue between the pillars that led from the docks on Antirhodos to the palace of the queen of Aegypt. Sekhemet hadn’t sent me a cryptic vision after all. She’d sent me a singular message, simple and straightforward. It hadn’t come from Caesar—that had been my own dream, perhaps, something I’d carried into the temple with me. No, it had come from Acheron.

And that message was: Go home, Fallon. You’re needed.

But first, I had to speak to Sorcha.

I was almost running through the halls by the time I reached the wing where Sorcha had her rooms. The torches burning in the halls there guttered and smoked, untended, and the only slaves I encountered hid their faces from me as I passed. Usually the palace was buzzing like a hive in the hour before daybreak, but on that morning, there was an eerie quiet blanketing the place. I started to run.

Cai and Elka both called out my name, but I didn’t stop.

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong—I could feel it in my bones . . .

“Sorcha!” I called as I ran. “Sorcha!”

I turned the last corner, into the short hall that led to a door emblazoned with a life-size painting of Isis. Charon was there, standing in front of it. Waiting for me. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen him very much over the past week and then only at a distance. As I went to go past him into my sister’s chamber, he put out a hand and stopped me.

“Fallon—”

“Get out of my way, Charon.”

“No.” He didn’t move. “Fallon, you have to listen to me. She doesn’t want to see you right now.”

“Why not?”

His dark eyes locked on mine, and I almost couldn’t hold his gaze for all the soul-searing pain I saw there. “All right,” he said. “She doesn’t want you to see her right now. Not like this.”

“Like what, Charon?” I snapped. “Let me past—”

“No!” He took a step to block my way.

I shoved him back against the door, out of my way. It was a hard shove—I was angry—but it wasn’t hard enough to make him double over in agony. Or cough up blood. Both of which he did in that moment.

“Charon, what . . .”

I stared at him in horror as he reached up inside the embroidered sleeve of his robe and withdrew a cloth that was already stained red-brown in places. Many places. With an expression that was more irritation than concern, he dabbed at the corner of his mouth.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked quietly.

“Because you would have told her.”

How would that have made a difference? I wondered. How could Sorcha not have known just by looking at him that . . .

“You’re dying.” The words clawed at my throat. “Aren’t you? The wound never healed and you—”

“I’m happy,” he said. “For the first time in my life.”

He glared at me from under his brows, daring me to argue his assertion, as Cai and Elka caught up and joined us in our tense standoff. Elka made a small, distressed noise when she saw Charon’s condition. There was nothing I could do for him in that moment. I took another step toward the door.