For a moment I puzzled over this, wondering how on earth the Lord of Night and the Bright Father had managed to have a child together. Or was he speaking figuratively, counting all godlings as his children regardless of their specific parentage? Then I dismissed it. They were gods; I didn’t need to understand.
We fell silent for a while, listening to the dew fall. Shiny ate the rest of the bread, then sat back against a wall of the crate. I lay where I was and wondered how long it would be ’til dawn and whether there was any point in living long enough to see it.
“I know who we can go to for help,” I said at length. “I don’t dare call another godling; I won’t be responsible for more of their deaths. But there are some mortals, I think, who are strong enough to take on the Lights. If you help me.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Take me back to Gateway Park. The Promenade.” The last place I had been happy. “Where they found Role. Do you remember it?”
“Yes. There are often New Lights in that area.”
Yes. This time of year, with the Tree about to bloom, all the heretic groups would have people at the Promenade, hoping to convert some of the Lady’s pilgrims to their own faiths. Easier to start with people who had already turned their backs on Bright Itempas.
“Help me get there unseen,” I said. “To the White Hall.”
He said nothing. All at once, tears sprang to my eyes, inexplicable. Drunkenness. I fought them back.
“I have to see this through, Shiny. I have to make sure the New Lights are destroyed. They still have my blood—they can make more of those arrow things. Madding isn’t like Enefa. He won’t come back to life.”
I could still see him in my head. I always knew you were special, he’d said, and my specialness had killed him. His death had to be the last.
Shiny got up, climbed out of the crate, and walked away.
I could not help it. I gave in to the tears, because there was nothing else I could do. I didn’t have the strength to make it to the Promenade on my own, or elude the Lights for much longer. My only hope was the Order. But without Shiny—
I heard his heavy footfalls and caught my breath, pushing myself up and wiping the tears off my face.
Something heavy and loose landed in front of me. I touched it, puzzled it out. A cloak. It reeked of someone’s unwashed filth and stale urine, but I caught my breath as I realized what he meant for us to do.
“Put that on,” Shiny said. “Let’s go.”
The Promenade.
Dawn had not yet come, but the Promenade was far from still. People stood in knots on streets and corners, murmuring, some weeping, and for the first time I noticed the tension that filled the city, as it must have since the sun had turned black the day before. The city was never quiet at night, but by the sounds that I could hear on the wind, many of its denizens had not slept the night before. A good number must have risen to wait for the sunrise, perhaps in hopes of seeing a change in the sun’s condition. There were none of the usual vendors about—and no one at Art Row, though it was still too early for that—but I could hear the pilgrims. Many more than usual seemed to have gathered, kneeling on the bricks and murmuring prayers to the Gray Lady in her dawn guise. Hoping she would save them.
Shiny and I made our way along quietly, keeping close to buildings rather than crossing the Promenade. That would’ve been faster—the White Hall was directly across from us—but also more conspicuous, even amid the milling crowd. Most Villagers knew better than to enter those parts of the city frequented by visitors; doing so was a good way to get rousted by Order-Keepers. They would be tense today, and a good many of them were young hotheads who would just as soon take Shiny and me into an empty storehouse to deal with themselves. We needed to reach the White Hall itself, where they were more likely to do the proper thing and take us in.
I had discarded my makeshift stick, as it was too much of a giveaway. I barely had the strength to hold it, anyhow; a fever had sapped what little energy I’d gained from resting in the Village, forcing us to stop frequently. I walked close behind Shiny, holding on to the back of his cloak so that I could feel it when he stepped over an obstacle or skirted around milling folk. This forced me to keep low and shuffle a bit, which added to the disguise, though I could feel that Shiny hadn’t done the same, walking with his usual stiff-backed, upright pride. Hopefully no one would notice.
We had to pause at one point while a line of chained people came down the street with push brooms, sweeping the bricks clean for the day’s business. Debtors, most likely, only a step away from life in the Ancestors’ Village themselves. Working despite the tension in the city. Of course the Order of Itempas would not disrupt the city’s daily functions, even under a god’s death sentence.