and Gissa had had—he’d looked up to see her sliding something back into her robes. He wondered now if it had been a knife. I have been so very trusting.
I have been so very sheltered.
“Shush, not a word more. I will do what I can to save you, but you must trust me.”
He did, of course. She was his oldest friend.
And it wasn’t as if High Augur Etar had given either of them much choice. At least if he was able to talk with Gissa alone, he’d be able to explain all he knew. She could then speak to High Augur Etar and convince him that the augurs had made a terrible mistake in arresting Dar.
She clamped a hand on his arm and pulled him after her. She didn’t speak again until they were deep within the interior of the temple. He heard the sound of jackals baying and wondered where she was leading him. He wasn’t familiar with this part of the temple. Here, the stone walls were old, pockmarked with the passage of time, and the floor was smooth from centuries of sandaled feet.
“Keep your hand on my shoulder,” Gissa said. She placed his hand on her shoulder and stepped forward toward a simple stone archway. Beyond the archway was darkness, and on either side were chained jackals. “And do not touch the walls.”
He’d heard the stories about the High Augurs’ Chamber, the poisoned walls, the jackal guards, but he’d never thought he would visit the place himself. He felt himself begin to sweat beneath his robes.
Perhaps following Gissa hadn’t been wise.
But she was still his best chance of helping Dar and stopping the violence. If he could make sense of it all and work with Gissa to find a solution . . . It would be worth it.
He thought of Tamra and Shalla.
This was bigger than all of them now, if the augurs had imprisoned the emperor-to-be.
Deeper into the maze, the silence pressed on him. It felt as if it were a living creature, filling his ears with nothingness. He strained to hear anything beyond their footsteps and their breathing. His eyes tried to form shapes out of the blackness.
At last, they stepped into a chamber lit by torches. Eight massive chairs, ancient and decorated with carvings, dominated the room. “Do not touch, and do not sit,” Gissa told him. “We are here because it is the one place in the temple, perhaps in all of Becar, where we can speak freely.” She crossed to a throne that was devoid of carvings or markings of any kind, and she sat.
It became harder to see her as his friend Gissa. Here, she was more than that. She was a high augur. The holy assassin. Without even deciding to do so, Yorbel knelt. “Dar is innocent of the crime he’s accused of. His soul is uncorrupted, and I will vouch for that in front of any and all.”
If he could just make them understand that Dar wasn’t a murderer, then he could fix everything. They’d see the truth, release Dar, and crown him, solving all of Becar’s problems. That was worth any cost.
Even my life, Yorbel thought.
Gissa drummed her fingers on the armrest of her noble chair. “Mmm. You can’t do that, Yorbel. The people must believe in his guilt. He must be executed. And a new empress must be crowned tonight, before the Raniran army reaches the Heart of Becar.”
He didn’t understand. “Gissa, he’s innocent.”
“We act for the good of Becar. Innocence is irrelevant.”
He rose to his feet, unable to believe what he was hearing. “You don’t mean that. We are the custodians of the light, the keepers of virtue, the protectors of goodness. Innocence is the most relevant metric of all!”
“So stunningly naive,” Gissa said. “And I wish I could leave you this way, but you had to go and . . . Yorbel. Oh, Yorbel, did you lie to me? You read the kehok, didn’t you? You knew all along what he was!”
He opened his mouth to confess that yes, he knew, when the realization struck him: She knows too. She, and perhaps the other high augurs, knew that the black lion was the vessel for the late emperor. “How long have you known?”
“I am impressed.” She flopped back against her throne, not answering his question. “There may be hope for you yet. If you know the late Emperor Zarin is the kehok, then you understand why Prince Dar must die.” She sounded almost pleading, as