Chapter 16: What the Light Takes

The church knew the light was eating me alive, and they let me burn anyway.

Idris carried the proof in, still folded, still sealed in wax.

Noah held the cup to the fevered man's mouth. His hand shook on the rim.

Adrian caught his wrist before the water spilled.

Noah let the grip stand. He did not pull away.

Two attendants watched the prince's fingers close on the priest's skin and waited for the light.

Nothing burned. Adrian's hand stayed where it was.

'I came to help,' Adrian said, low.

He took the other side of the cot and pressed the man's shoulder down.

An attendant handed him a cloth without being told. Then a bowl of water.

Adrian wrung the cloth out and laid it on the man's chest.

The ward stopped watching him as a threat.

Idris came through the door with his stick and a folded page in his free hand.

He put the page into Noah's fingers.

'It was walled behind the old shelf,' Idris said. 'In the scriptorium. I broke the plaster myself.'

Noah looked at the wax. Grey, unbroken, the sun-wheel pressed in it.

He broke it.

He read the first line aloud.

'The bearer's flares consume the bearer's own life.'

A bowl hit the floor. Nobody picked it up.

Noah read on. 'Each burst shortens the years allotted to him.'

One attendant set down her cloth and stared at Noah's hands.

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