The Crown of Embers

A great hollow has opened in my chest where my heart and lungs ought to be, and oh, it hurts. It’s like the breath-stealing pain beneath my breastbone that comes of days walking the desert without enough to drink. It’s like a dagger to the gut. It’s like dying.

I rest my forehead on his knuckles. Please, God, help him get better. Don’t let him die. My Godstone throbs, but I know it’s not enough. How many times have I prayed for a life, only for God to turn away?

I will do anything. I’d give him my own life and health if I could. He’s a good man, the best man. He deserves to live. Please.

I imagine pouring my own life force out of my body, through our clasped hands, filling Hector, knitting his wound.

The Godstone becomes a fire. I cry out as white-hot pain zings up my spine.

After a moment the pain lessens. Something else takes its place, something like water or light or desert wind, leaching up from the ground, pouring into my Godstone. My body shivers with it until I feel like I will burst.

Hope dares to spark inside me, for I have felt this once before—when I killed the animagi with my Godstone amulet.

I don’t know where the power came from or how I’ve managed to channel it again, but my body hums with possibility, with potential, as if the power building inside me is a huge boulder about to tumble off a cliff.

God, what do I do?

Hector’s fingers twitch. I grip tighter, press my lips to the back of his hand, concentrating on the power inside me.

Live. Please live.

Nothing happens.

Think, Elisa! Last time, I quoted God’s own words from holy scripture. It became a conduit for the power of my Godstone, focusing it where I needed.

Aloud, I say, “The gate that leads to life is narrow and small so that few find it.” My Godstone lurches, and the force inside me begins a slow spin. Encouraged, I add, “For the righteous right hand of God is a healing hand; blessed is he who seeks renewal, for he shall be restored.”

Power trickles out of me, from my hand into Hector’s. My heart pounds with excitement, with hope. I wrack my mind for more.

The “Prayer of Service”! “Take my life, O God, as a consecrated offering, holy and pleasing. Make me your vessel of service . . .” The power begins to fade. “No! God, please no.”

I gaze at Hector’s face, memorizing every detail—his pale lips, the line of his jaw, the crisscross of scars on one cheek. And suddenly I have it. The perfect verse.

My heart swells with knowledge as certain as the tides. I whisper, “For love is more beautiful than rubies, sweeter than honey, finer than the king’s wine. And no one has greater love than he who gives his own life for a friend. My love is like perfume poured out—”

The floodgates open. Power rushes out of me, into Hector. He arches his back, and his eyes fly open, showing nothing but bloodshot white. Then he crashes back to the bed.

I have just enough time to notice that his breathing is easier, that color returns to his face, before my vision blurs with exhaustion and dizziness. My heart slows to a single thunderous beat every few seconds. Too slow. Am I dying? Have I given my own life for Hector’s?

A good trade, I think, as I collapse against the bed, my cheek thudding against his forearm.

I wake to a hand on my head, fingers tangling in my unraveling braid. A man’s fingers, rough and thick. They trail down my cheek, stroke my jawline, brush my lips.

I raise my head and blink to clear my eyes. Hector is awake, staring at me with a strange expression. He does not move his hand from my face but lets it linger, his thumb gently tracing my chin.

My relief is so huge it feels like I can breathe again.

“You stayed,” he says, and his voice is hoarse.

“And I’m not dead!” I say wonderingly. At the confusion on his face, I hastily add, “How do you feel?”

“Like I got punched in the back with Captain Lucio’s gauntlet. Which is odd. I should feel worse.”

“It worked!” His hand has still not left my face, and I have the urge to lean into it, kiss his fingers, maybe.

“What do you mean?”

“My Godstone. I knew it had healing properties, but I didn’t know if it would work on someone else.”

His hand drops, and he sits straight up, wincing. “You thought you were giving your life to me.”

I open my mouth to deny it, but then I decide it’s best to say nothing.

He swings his legs over to the side so that he faces me. “There’s dried blood all over you,” he whispers. “My blood, isn’t it?”

I’m about to tell him that it’s nothing that won’t wash away, but speech leaves me when he cups my face with his hands. “Please, Elisa,” he says, “don’t ever, ever give your life for mine.”

“I couldn’t let you die. I’d rather—”

A knock sounds at the door, and we spring away from each other.

“Come in!” Hector calls, though he continues to hammer me with that unreadable stare.

Doctor Enzo bustles in, but he stops short, his mouth agape. “This is most unexpected.”

After an awkward silence, I say, “Perhaps your skills are even more considerable than you realized?”

He looks back and forth between Hector and me, frowning. “I admit to a certain well-earned reputation,” he says thoughtfully. “But this is not the result of my ministrations.”

“A miracle?” I say weakly.

His gaze drifts to the general direction of my navel. “You healed him,” he accuses. “Somehow.”

I shrug, not wanting to talk about it. I do need to tell someone what happened. Father Alentín or Ximena. But not Enzo. “I fell asleep. Something happened before I woke up.” Hector’s eyes flash with understanding; he knows I’m not telling the whole truth. Before I can be pressed on the matter, I say, “I need to get back to my suite. I’m scheduled to be in preparations for the gala in the morning. Enzo, please make sure your patient rests. I’ll find guards to escort me.”

At my back, I hear Enzo say, “May I record this incident? The Journal of Medical Anomalies would be fascinated—”

As I close the door behind me, God’s holy scripture echoes in my head. My love is like perfume poured out . . .

I bend over, hugging myself with relief, with unshed tears, with exhaustion, and with an understanding as bone-wrenching as it is pure: I am wholly and irreversibly in love with the commander of my Royal Guard.

Thank you, God. Thank you for saving him.

I straighten to find several guards staring at me. One is Fernando, who regards me with the helpless gaze of a frightened pup. “Lord Hector . . . ?” he says in a wavering voice.

“Will be fine,” I say. “I require an escort to my rooms.”

Fernando orders the others to accompany me, then takes up watch, his arms crossed, his face determined. I am not the only one who loves their commander.

Night has fallen, and I consider going to bed, but I know I won’t manage any kind of sleep. “To the monastery,” I say, and they fall into formation around me.

The corridors are empty and silent. Light from sconced torches shimmers against the glazed-tile pattern in the wall, but it also casts shadows over our cobbled path. I imagine assassins hiding in patches of darkness, behind corners. Every scuff of sound, every whisper, is an arrow flying through the air, a dagger whipped from its sheath.

I think of Hector, wishing he were here. And then I’m glad he isn’t, for I have much to think about before I see him next.

We round a bend and enter the monastery, a place that never quite sleeps. Scattered petitioners kneel on prayer benches, and an acolyte in a gray robe quietly tends the candles on the altar. I breathe in the perfume of sacrament roses as comfort. Surely I am safe here, in this place of worship.

I open the door to the archive and find Ximena, Alentín, and Nicandro sitting on stools at the scribing table, bent over a piece of vellum so old that its edges are curled and black.

I thank the guards and ask them to watch the entrance, then I close the door behind me.

They look up, startled, and Ximena’s face freezes with shock. “Elisa? Is that blood all over you?”

I had forgotten. “Yes. Hector’s. We were attacked in the hallway outside my office. Hired mercenaries. Tristán came to our aid. But everyone is fine now.” I came to tell her all about it, about healing him, but suddenly I don’t want to. I need to think about something else for a bit, before I think on that.

“And the mercenaries?” she demands. “Do you know who hired them? Were they captured or killed? There may be more—”

I hold up a hand. “Later. Please distract me with moldy vellum and impenetrable wisdom. Please.”

The three of them exchange a glance, then Nicandro says, “I’ll show you what we’ve found.” He pats the stool next to him, then moves an oil lamp to the side to make a space for me at the table.

I hop up onto the stool, uneasy with the memory pricking at my thoughts. The last time I sat here late into the night with Father Nicandro, he revealed that I had been kept in ignorance of bearer lore, that a prophecy destined me to encounter the gate of my enemy.

And I thought I had encountered it, when I was captured by Inviernos and nearly tortured by an animagus. But maybe not. Maybe the worst is yet to come.

“This here,” he says, pounding the vellum with a forefinger, “is the Blasphemy of Lucero.”

I gasp. “Lucero is my name.”

He nods. “This document was presented for canonization as official scripture almost a century ago, but it was rejected by a council of priests.”

“Not just rejected,” Father Alentín cuts in. “It was banned.”

“Wait. A century? That means . . .”

“He was your predecessor,” Alentín confirms.

Lucero. The bearer before me. Though he lived a hundred years ago, I suddenly feel closer to him than anyone. My voice is shaky as I ask, “So why was this document banned?”

Ximena says, “The structure is atrocious, for one. It was penned by an uneducated hand; the original is rife with spelling and grammar errors. The council believed God would never allow his holy words to be anything less than pristine.”

I stare down at the vellum. The script is faded with age, but the lines are even and precise, perfectly scribed. “So this is a copy.”

Nicandro nods, “Of a copy of a copy, no doubt. The original is lost to us forever. No one felt it important to preserve it.”

“And now you think the priests were wrong? Maybe it isn’t blasphemy, but actual scripture?”

“No,” Ximena says, even as Alentín says, “Definitely.”

They exchange a friendly glare. Then Ximena sighs and says, “Adding to the cannon is no light matter. It could alter centuries of traditions. Of beliefs. I would have to be absolutely certain before I accepted it as God’s own words.”

Alentín says, “But you concede the possibility. We have compelling evidence.”

“I concede the possibility.”

“Aha!” he says, as if he’s won a great victory, and then I’m shocked when Ximena rolls her eyes at him. I’ve never seen her resort to such impropriety.

“Tell me, then,” I say. “Why you think it ought to be considered scripture? What does it say?”

Nicandro clears his throat. “Master Lucero was a poor village boy. He could neither read nor write. According to the introduction, he dictated his vision to a friend, who scribed it hastily on a sheep’s hide. The friend, as it turned out, was also not very good at reading and writing. The manuscript, if you can call it that, was delivered to the nearest monastery, but the story was never verified. The boy disappeared. The monastery searched for him for years, to no avail.”

“So the priests declared it blasphemy.” I can see why. They would think it odd that God would speak through someone so poor and backward as to be totally illiterate. But I warm to the idea. It’s nice to consider that God may not count imperfection as an obstacle to working out his will in the world.

“Seems a little convenient that he would disappear,” Ximena grumbles. “Not available to answer questions or have his Godstone verified by the monastery.”

Alentín leans forward, eyes bright. “But it’s not unusual for a bearer to disappear. Three hundred years ago, for example. Another boy evaporated right out of the Monastery-at-Altapalma, his service undone. No one knows what happened.”

I imagine that they fled—from expectations, from terror, from the constant barrage of others deciding the best way to accomplish God’s will. Or maybe they died young, suddenly and unexpectedly, as most bearers seem to do. It’s something I came to terms with when I lived in the desert—that I would likely die young in service to God.

I say, “Why do you think we should take the boy’s message seriously?”

“Lucero knew things,” Nicandro says. “Things an illiterate boy from a remote village could never know. I won’t go into detail, but it was enough to give me pause. Enough to keep me reading eagerly. And then I reached this right here.” He scrolls down with his finger until he finds the pertinent passage. “Go ahead, Your Majesty. Read it.”

I lean forward, tingling with anticipation, with the possibility of discovery. “‘The gate that leads to life is narrow and small so that few find it.’” I look up, puzzled. “Nothing new here. It says the same in the Scriptura Sancta.”

“Keep reading,” Ximena says.

“‘The champion alone shall traverse it and find the zafira, for this wellspring of his power shall beckon him. And all the power of this world shall come into him and he shall have life eternal in accordance with God’s will. None shall stand against him, and his enemies shall crumble, verily a thousand shall fall before his might.’”