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"Then you’ll help us, Uncle," says Kalliarkos, his words more command than request

"You can’t free them" Thynos stares Kalliarkos down "No one can"

This tiive way "Yes, I can Jes and I can And we are going to So your choice is either to aid us or get out of our way"

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At the speed to which Kalliarkos whips the horses we quickly return to the city Inarsis directs us to a barracks cos we need The gate-wardens at Eternity Gate allow Kalliarkos and Thynos to enter the City of the Dead without a single question, even though it is thela over my shoulder and a covered tray that the priests believe is an offering, but which really contains clothing

The lower paths that lead through the co Garden are quiet A fewtrays to set before the bones of their ancestors Path-wardens boalk past Partway up the hill Lord Thynos veers off, leaving us

Out of the darkness Lord Ottonor’s tole oil la flath of aoracle ceases to speak, offerings will no longer be laid at his door, because his clan has been exiled Its seal of bricks will be broken, his bones interred in a vase, and the tomb cleaned and anointed for a new inhabitant, one whose fortune er than Ottonor’s fortune and fa

We proceed around to the oracle’s alcove at the back of the tomb The alcove is a narrow cleft built into the here supplicants can kneel and hear the oracle’s voice through a tiny opening no bigger than ht burns within What if Lord Gargaron had them smothered the way tomb servants were back in the old empire?

My pulse roars in my ears I dare not whisper to see if anyone is alive inside because the oracle is not our ally andsure no path-wardens are in sight I pull off le into a clis as they learn more advanced skills Kalliarkos hands ht I climb up on Inarsis’s shoulders My feet balanced on his hands, he hoists me so I can scraht I look around The City of the Dead is a low hill with the four kings’ toht, each s’ tombs lie the palace to the lesser lords’ tombs lower down

The air shaft has a short brick chiaps in it to catch the crosswinds Its rate A smell wafts up, thick with death and tainted with blood

What if they truly are dead?

Suddenly sparks spin aloft from the far side of the hill Distant shouts stir the sluress

The grate shifts easily A whisper of sound alerts me to movement inside the toht, Doiven birth before"

Mother is alive

Heart racing, I swing s over the shaft and feel out the courses of brick The opening is exceedingly se torounds himself as my anchor and lowers me into the to ht fit When ive a pair of tugs to show I am in

Invisible in the darkness, fabric flutters across s A carda my cheek

"What unwanted demon’s shadow troubles our holy rest?"

Its raspy voice makes me jump with a flare of such panic that for an instant I can’t think Then, fu, I unwrap one of the oiled linen twists, strike a spark on flint, and light the taper A wo her eyes She is not young, as newly entombed oracles are meant to be She is so old that her hair is as white as bone But she is highborn Patron through and through Her painted hands bear no calluses This wo life

"Get out, foul shadow! Be banished! Return to your flesh and disturb us not"

Her burning stare unsettles my fixed determination Oracles are sacred We honor their connection to the gods But she looks nation She’s in ods’ voice