The Earth Archon left the Temple of Light first, with great fanfare. The drums were banged and symbols were clanged and hands were clapped, voices sang paens to an unseen deity, and dancers lead the Archon’s way with flowers strewn before the luxurious green and gold palanquin. Holy! People sang. Holy, holy, holy!

And ever did the eyes of the crowd turn to its center. The Archon of Earth sat, a fattened spider in a delicate web of reactive and fearful nerves. A dancer spun, is it enough? A flutist paused for breath, Am I wrong in tempo? Bannermen straightened spines as fear of flames ate at them all. This was no display of worship. It was all driven by fear.

The pavilion was left behind, to be broken down and given, she was told, to the Temple of Light as a thanks for hosting them.

Now it was time for Light to leave. And their two Fleet-hares walked down a small line of white-robes. One of whom was sobbing into her hands. The Archon had to stop the Hare and get down to reach for her. “What ails you, sister?” he said.

“I’m afraid. You’ll go out there one day and you won’t return, and then what will become of us? There’s never been an Archon like you before.”

“There’ve been twenty-seven of them in the good histories. I’m no different from any of them. I have left the Temple before and returned. Care for the people around you, and stand with each other. You will be fine in my absence.”

“But the Shadow—the Beast was sighted when it brought us the stranger. What do we do if Shadow assails us?”

“Offer him bread and wine, the same as you would anyone else. A rational being will respond rationally and you will be fine. An irrational one who intends violence would harm you anyway, so let your last acts be one of kindness. How else should you defy the dark? Come, Hawk. We must depart.”

And they did, with their soft-pawed beasts, the Fleet-Hares. Hawk’s moved with her like a breath of wind. It had a bit of a musty smell, just enough to remind her that this was an animal. The luxuriant silk of its fur was another matter entirely. She wanted to bury her face in the fluff along its neck.

“Is it disrespectful that we ride behind the palanquin?” Hawk said, when they reached the Temple’s main gates.

“Of course it is. It is disrespectful, too, to offer sacrifice in another God’s courtyard without an answering offering to the Light, which we did not want. Nor, I think, do you and I want to be at the heart of this procession. There will be song and incense offered, of course, and food offerings brought forth and a great deal of merriment, and we shall get the dregs of that. But we would also be in the Earth-Archon’s sight.”

And Hawk did not want that, not at all. And she wasn’t all that hungry, either. “I take it there were supplies we could have gotten other than hard tack and oranges?” She said.

“There were. There are also a great many young children in walking distance, who will come for plain bread and whatever cheeses we can spare, and whatever fruit we did not have to give Earth as provisions. We will be eating at her table twice before this journey is over, two suppers and two sleeps. You’ll have all the opulence you can stand this first night, for if we make it through without another sacrifice it will be a True Miracle.”

“I can’t watch that happen again,” She said.

“You can—”

“No.” Hawk said, firmly. “And if I can, then I will not.”

“I will do my best to keep her pleased. But she may be in a showman’s mood tonight. People die around the Archon of Earth.”

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“And I’m guessing they die a lot more around her God,” Hawk said. They rode on for a few paces, walking under the great, gaping walls of the Temple. They were out in the free wilds now, where all sorts of bad things could happen. Free wilds. Hawk felt free in a strange and dizzying sense. She’d never in her life allowed rage to fester like this, but there was nothing she could do. No wars she could rage and win, no throats she could grasp that would matter. All she could do was rage, and that was what her enemy was looking for.

“What does she hide under her mask?” Hawk asked.

The Archon glanced at her, sharply. “Misery. Do not ask that question again.” A pause, as they road. “Why did you ask it?”

“Because you said you were needling her. But the only thing I watched you do that seemed to irritate her was drink. You did that every time you seemed to want to push her buttons. After comments where Ale—” She stopped herself. Mentioning Alex now would be like gutting herself, ripping out a colon or something similarly vital. “One of the team I worked with would normally do something obnoxious.”

“I was being over indulgent, because she came here to pick a fight.”

“It’s Earth against the Temple of Light?” She said.

“Nay. They’re our only supporter. What largesse we have is because Nasheth wants to honor her husband, the Dead God. So she holds his portion of the First God intact, and so she tolerates the Shadow in His Name…” he began waving a hand. “It’s a most wretched catechism when you set your mind to studying it. But you will be questioned, likely by Earthmaster herself, and I will have two days to teach you.”

“Wait. A meeting with Earthmaster Herself?” Hawk said. “I am not ready to go face to face with a goddess.”

“And there is your first lesson: Never call either Illyris or Nasheth ‘goddess’. It infers that they are somehow lesser, and they are not. Nasheth is the mother God of us all, her fist is iron and her yoke is to be escaped at the first opening. Illyris is less military but more unpredictable. She would not have taken offense at the diminuitive if she were the only female God at the table. But Nasheth keeps her aware of what she is owed. That leaves Argos and Kali’Mar, who would force the issue if they had the will. They do not. For he cannot stand against the Shadow.”

Hawk nodded. Nasheth was nominally in charge, and the men were champing at the bit because of it. “And what is the Shadow? What can you tell me about that?”

But the Archon only pulled his water skin near, and said no more to her for the next several hours.

***

They built the pavilion again, after they’d traveled for nearly eight hours and her Fleet-Hare seemed to be growing tired. They chose a large, darkened meadow—everything was dark here, save for the dying light cast by the Temple, now a distant sun with no visible detail—and began lighting colorful fire pits around the cleared boundaries of land.

“All the plants here are pale,” Hawk said. This wasn’t entirely true. She spotted some lichen and deep green mosses. But most of the leafed plants were pale greens or whites.

“Aye. The green leaves rely on the Light for nourishment, and are seen as Our rightful tithe. But pale leaves belong to the Queen of Heaven and heart of the Earth. She made them, after all.” A pause. “It is said that they grow best in soils consecrated by blood. Fortunately such an act must only be done every hundred years.”

She’d suspected as much. The soil down here might as well belong to a cave; the only light was what came in through the hole, and that…it tangled in her thoughts. “The Nexus…it’s blocking the light you need, isn’t it?”

“Clever girl. Yes.” And he let the words stop there.

“So you would break it down if you could, right?”

“If we could guess the right one? If we could climb high enough to battle the winds that scrape across the bones of the sky? If we had a drill strong enough? And weapons vital enough to chase off the Shadow Beasts? And then, had we all that, we would need to face the Shadow Himself, for it is His seal on the God-world that diminished both the light and the power of the gods.”

And Hawk realized two things, one on top of the other: The first was that this Shadow-thing, whatever he was, was the one thing keeping Studdard in check. The second was that the Archon, who was mildly frightened of the woman who had just baked a human alive for irritating her, was scared absolutely shitlesss of the Shadow. And Hawk was inclined to trust his judgement.

“So…a good thing?” she said, very, very softly.

The Archon wheeled on her. “Never say that again. Not a word or breath or gesture like that should ever pass your lips. You will die worse than you can imagine, if such heresy should be heard by the wrong ears.” His ivory mask looked left and right, as if ensuring that no one could overhear. “A very good thing.”

Then he straightened up like a bolt of lightening, and she wasn’t able to get another word out of him for miles.