Chapter One: The Survivor

Hope is a waking dream.
— Aristotle

ANOTHER ZEALOT FELL to their death. 

From high in the earthen Column, the fall left room to dwell, to wonder. And they fell silent. Always…silent. 

Zosime winced at the impact, knowing mangled bodies had broken the priest’s fall. Clasping hands, she prayed to Resheph that his rouah—his soul found its way to the Carthaginian underworld.

Before tending to more zealots, she leaned against the railed balcony, a monolithic column buttressing the titular edifice. So high did it vault that she craned her neck to see it stab a cor-gilded ceiling. There, torches lit the pantheon, beyond which Carthage rotted.

Looking upon Punic gods, jet hair should have teased Zo’s olive skin, brushed past blue eyes, and a sharp jawline, but like all the women in the Column—save for nobility—her hair was cropped close. 

Gaze descending, she observed the surviving zealots, then settled upon the mound of corpses hundreds of feet below, where a fleshen pyramid steeped to its macabre summit. 

Post-birth pangs stabbing her womb, Zo bent, picked up soiled bandages she rinsed in a bowl of gray water. 

And the zealots…Like her, they stank of desperation. Soldiers, smiths, slaves, beggars, and politicians alike; Carthaginians and people of every stripe: Hailing from Hellas and the Italian Peninsula, to Sicilia, Gaul, Iberia, Numidia—they waited in wounded masses, or solitude for salvation—a hope Rome had destroyed.

Passing Zo with orders she tend to a mother and child, Donis, leather-skinned and hunched, grunted down stairs spiraling the Column. Cane clacking with each step, the old architect must have been checking the caved-in entrance for weaknesses. Again. 

But none realized they were entombed beneath Carthage. Even two years before the siege, precious few knew of the Column. And had Donis not gathered zealots before what they were calling the “Fall,” Zo and Dido would have been the tomb’s sole occupants.

And a question reemerged. One contemplated since her husband hid her here months prior, belly swollen with child: 

“What are you?” Zo asked the load-bearing column, large enough a heavily worshiped arkon could hug it. “And what is this place?” Her whisper found no purchase on earth packed like concrete, amplifying the echoes of weeping, dire prayers hurled at silent gods.

And where are you, my love?

Grabbing a few “clean” bandages, Zo headed downstairs, past the maddened whispers and howls of devastated zealots.

A memory as she reached the woman holding her mewling babe: Hamilcar Barca—her husband—holding their son, Himilco. Zo’s robe still wet with birth blood, he’d helped her stand, said they were fleeing the Column, even as Hamilcar’s twin brother, Ajax, piloted Tanit, his battle with Ares a forgone conclusion. 

And, gods, how Himilco had wailed. So new to the terror they fled, he’d cried for a peace beyond his parents' rabid assurances. And they ran past the zealots Donis had brought to the Column, many afraid to leave the sanctuary. Just as many, eager to flee the stale sepulcher.

Kneeling, Zo patted the mother's blood-caked brow with a bandage, spared her babe a smile that didn't reach the eyes. “Just a few more days,” she assured. But a few more days until what? Death? 

Scipio had ensured as much. 

Massaging her temple, Zo stood as a headache’s birth pangs pulsed. “Pardon me.” She smiled at the zealot's babe, then descended spiraling stairs.

Stairs Dido had helped Zo ascend as masonry crashed around them. With her friend’s help, Hamilcar holding Himilco, they’d fled as Zo’s mangy dog nipped at her heels; Carthage cracking like ribs beneath a boot.

Summiting the Column, they’d reached the entrance secreted beneath Resheph’s temple all these years. Up more stairs—Hamilcar cast open the door, helped Zo. Then a titanic blow and Tanit’s dirge.

Impact. Chaos. Separation. Himilco’s cries inaudible as Terra Firma convulsed. 

Dark brown curls and beard dust-grayed, Hamilcar reached for Zo. Another cataclysm. A triumphal roar as the god of violence took his pleasure. Debris fell, separating mother from son from husband. Then—

“You should be resting.”

Zo inhaled, turned to see her friend these last few months descend the stairwell. Dido was Zo’s senior by three years. At thirty, her sun-kissed Mediterranean skin defied the Column, even after months belowground. 

Cropped short, her hair was a brown fuzz the former slave endured, and if Zo’s eyes asked questions, Dido’s demanded answers; her role as governess to a high-ranking carnifex’ estate seemed fitting.

Extending a hand for the bandages, she slung them over a red-dyed chiton similar to Zo’s blue. Both wore simple caligae laced to the shins. And where Zo was lean, Dido imposed by persona alone. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Pressed against a railing, Zo looked down…at the bodies below. “I don’t like what I see in dreams.” A throbbing temple forced bloodshot eyes closed as Dido sidled alongside her.

“At least you dream.” Both looked down steps that widened into a platform. “I don’t think she’s slept since Donis brought them here.”

“She” was a zealot formerly sworn to Tanit.

In her middling years, the noblewoman rocked back and forth, purple robes sullied. Oblivious, her head tapped, smacked the wall she sat against. Nails jagged, the woman scratched her right arm where a signum should have been; that should have designated her primus—her sworn god, but was just as absent as Carthage’s patron goddess.

And how many of the hundreds in the Column were just as mad? Judging by a lamentation's chorus, too many.

Spittle drooled past chapped lips as the noblewoman muttered, head tap-tap-tapping cruel code. Zo didn’t need to hear to know hissed words: “War comes. She falls. She falls, as do we. War comes. She falls…”

The fractura animi had claimed her mind, eviscerated the zealot’s concept. It was the fate of all sworn to a banished god: severe confusion, depression, violent outbursts, losing time, days, even one’s self. 

How long she remained in such a state was anyone’s guess. A few more hours, weeks…years? Some zealots never returned from that place. You just made them comfortable, prayed they found peace in the fugue.

Zo joined Dido, navigating jagged stairs and rubble till they reached the noblewoman: “She falls, as do we. War comes…”

"She's saying it, too." Dido failed to wrap a bandage around the zealot's head. Zo's compassion stillled the noblewoman long enough for Dido to finish her work. “Thanks.”

Zo made to reply, but this place…this woman's fractura reminded her that Hamilcar had been one of Tanit’s demigods. As her arbiter, he’d controlled the faith fueling the goddess’ arkon. Of all those who suffered the fracture, he and Ajax would have suffered it most.

Assuming they're alive. 

Zo’s headache worsened. “If we had some panacea…” she trailed off. Dido didn’t bother responding as they stood.

Derived from cor, the essence animating the mighty arkons, a single drop of panacea would restore mind and body. They might find some of Tanit's aboveground, but the Romans had likely picked the rare material clean. 

And that was assuming they broke free of the Column before starvation suffocated all life here. Already, zealots had succumbed to festering wounds, disease, and hope’s vacuum. 

Zo took a steadying breath. Looked up and down the Column, at survivors afflicted with the fractura, souls stagnant from spiritual withdrawal. 

She studied her right forearm, signum detailing a stylized lion interwoven with red Punic script. Zo’s faith in Resheph, the charioteer of the sun goddess Shapash, hadn’t faltered. It was a mark of pride, a symbol dedicated to a mother long since past. 

But, so too did it recognize Zo’s privilege as, during the siege, carnifices forced all to swear to Tanit, to funnel all their fidem—faith into her arkon. Forced primism, they called it. 

Sworn to Shapash, Dido mimicked the gesture, looking at her sunshone signum, within which Punic iconography radiated. Favored by Carthage's Chief Carnifex, she too had enjoyed divine allowances.

Further down the stairs, a man cradled a mummified body, begging she come back to him. Eyes sunken, the zealot’s robes clung to an emaciated frame. 

Dido sighed. “Some of these people poured every ounce of fidem they had into Tanit. And then—”

“My husband husked them.” Zo sought those they could help.

Walking beside her, Dido didn’t respond. Hamilcar had controlled the fidem and, by proxy, the zealots’ life force. When Tanit's faith ran dry, he must have gathered the tethers connecting them and drank deep. 

Upon reaching the Column, the look in his eyes was a ghost haunting his wife even now.

“How long?” Zo said, stopped to stare at the cor-gilded ceiling. “How long do you think we’ve been down here?”

“Donis said we had eight days' worth of food and water. Nearly out of both.” As though she’d read Zo’s mind, Dido looked up, up to the Column’s entrance. Every attempt to pry the debris loose had been in vain. Not to mention portions of which appeared to be the purple-veined armor of Tanit’s arkon. 

Hamilcar had spoken of how, in their teenage years, his brother strained to pilot the monolithic goddess. And if Ajax Barca had struggled, how would a mere mortal breach her remains? 

A silent priest’s death answered back.

Despite this, there remained rubble small enough to dislodge. Some zealots had torn at it until their fingers bled, and a cruelty stared back—a pinprick of light teasing hope Zo clung to. A demigod would have easily moved the debris, but starved and battered zealots?

Zo leaned against a cold wall. No. No, she would find a way out. Her husband and son were out there. One devastated by his primus’ death, the other without mother's milk. “There has to be a way out.” But throbbing temples undermined resolve.

Dido pressed a hand to Zo’s forehead. “You've done enough. Time to rest,” she said with a mother’s quiet command. “Spat a boy between your legs only a few days ago; a demigod, no less. Shouldn’t be up to begin with.” She led Zo down the stairs, past a maddened noblewoman, past a mother and babe. 

Led to the room she and Dido had shared for months, both hiding swollen bellies society would punish: One, a celibate servant to Resheph, the other, a slave hidden from a wife's wrath.

Zo winced with each step, Dido taking her weight, but the ache between her legs persisted. “Do you think—” she hissed as motherhood stabbed her womb. Gods, what Zo wouldn’t give for a soak at the public bath or cool water from the aqueducts that had slaked Carthage’s thirst. 

She breathed the pain into a dull thud. “Do you think your child survived?” Dido didn’t respond as they headed down spiraled stairs, but stopped, stared at a boy and girl pressed against one another. 

The sister held a crust of tabouna, ovoid bread blackened. Tearing off a large chunk, she insisted her brother eat. Tears told the war between love and hunger, but Dido’s encouragement put bread in his belly.

“If my son lives,” she looked at Zo, “I’ll found a home so great it will be his horizon.” But her steps were unsure. Dido was one of the few the Column had yet to oppress, but even she was bowing beneath the weight of Carthage’s corpse.

Of iron, the closed door to their room was lit by torches. Featuring a robust lock on the outside, its purpose was a mystery to both women. What it had imprisoned, something they’d discussed while waiting; Zo, waiting for her husband. But for the man who visited Dido, her anticipations had been cruelty posing as fatherhood. 

What was this room meant to contain? And the Column itself? Had pregnancy not prevented it, Zo would have descended the construct’s many steps. There, double doors glared at the bodies. 

And the question persisted: What is this place?

Dido pushing, the portal groaned open, a clay lamp on an austere table. A dog panted their way, eager for scratching behind one misshapen ear. “Oaf.” Dido pressed her palm down. Lean and keen, the mutt sat on his haunches and looked between both women for his next order, tongue lolling.

The dog had served Chief Carnifex Mago, the father of Dido’s child. With time, however, Oaf had grown old, and the carnifex—an officer enforcing the zealots’ faith—was not one to suffer weakness. 

After mentioning on one of his trips to see Dido that he’d have the dog put down, Zo rebuked Mago. Hamilcar had arrived later that night with an earful about how his “uppity wife” didn’t know her place.

The next day, Mago deposited Oaf in the Column. Despite his eagerness to serve, Hamilcar kept the war dog outside the modest room, fearing the animal's savage thirst would never be quenched. It had taken weeks of training, but eventually, Oaf bounded up and down the Column in search of fabricated threats.

His original name had been characteristic of the executioners, in that it was all persecution and fervor. Zo knew it foolish, but insisted they change the dog’s name. So Hamilcar had. 

Days later, lying with her husband’s head pressed ‘gainst a child-swollen stomach, she’d teased his dark brown locks and asked, “Why ‘Oaf’?”

Hamilcar had smiled. “Because he reminds me of someone.”

Now Oaf stamped eager paws; Zo patted her thigh with permission. Running his lupine length across her legs, she pet mangy fur. “I’m here.”

“And she’s off to bed.” Reaching a brazier between their sleeping pallets, Dido tossed a codex onto the meager coals and dipped a short-wicked candle in them, finding its way into the lamp. 

With help, soft steps carried Zo across the room, light scarce in its revelations: Tunic fit for an infant, painted wooden toys…little things.

Zo picked up crumpled sheaves of bound papyri: Months spent in hiding, she had studied the Mediterranean’s pantheons, how their divine spheres of influence created channels where gods met in values or became derivatives of one another. The text considered the effects of man’s politicking on the Etherium—and vice versa. 

She straightened the codex, finger tracing rasped ruminations.

“Hamilcar’s?”

“Yes,” Zo lied. In truth, she'd asked her husband to procure a copy. Hoped Hamilcar could negotiate peace with the Roman general, Scipio Aemilianus. But if there’d been a divine olive branch in the treatise, Zo had missed it. And Scipio had proven peace wasn’t his pleasure.

Only sheer fatigue checked Zo's ire. If the gods were good—and she had to believe they were—Scipio would reap what he had sown in Carthage.

They reached the bedrolls atop their pallets. Next to Zo’s lay her simple bow as Dido whipped the cover, rust-brown stains stating a child had been born here. She ran a hand across the bow as her friend tidied things.

Once it became clear Rome desired total war with Carthage, slaves, zealots, anyone without an excuse had trained with weapons or gone to the refitted temples to forge swords, spears, bows, arrows, whatever was needed. They’d gone so far as to don sacred armor kept in the temples, something bald priests had cursed them for, despite the existential threat battering Carthage’s gates.

And it was while Hamilcar inspected Resheph’s temple that he and Zo met. Their union had been tender, far more patient than the baying of Roman wolves defiling African soil. 

Even before servant and demigod consummated, Hamilcar had been training Zo with the bow. The Barca had thrown targets to mimic the living, but that was a far cry from contubernales that the arbiter, pilot, and Sacred Band had repelled.

But his tutoring had tapered; Hamilcar stated she knew the weapon’s nuances. Though Zo possessed an orphan’s pragmatic eyes—her mother dying giving birth, father drowning in a drunken stupor—she still had much to learn. 

“Why did he do it?” Dido mused while smoothing Zo’s bedroll. 

Why did Scipio renege on the peace he and Hamilcar negotiated? Dido helped Zo sit on her bedroll. Why betray my husband?

“Why do trees grow?” came her reply, trying to forget that night’s nascent hope. Hope, when Hamilcar led the co-consul into the Column. The gods as witness, they’d negotiated peace between nations.

The next day, Rome breached Carthage’s walls. 

Seven rampaging days of street fighting ensued, during which Zo had barely seen her husband, let alone her brother-in-law. But knowing Ajax, the wily Barca had bathed in Roman blood the entire time.

Oaf was poised at the foot of her pallet. Zo ran a hand through fuzzy hair, her forehead hot. 

Without Rome’s permission after the Second War, Carthage possessed few weapons, armor, or siege cannons. Like so many women, she’d shaved her head to provide a kind of rope for the torsion engines: It was in emancipated slaves and women’s hair that Carthage had sought salvation.

Dido placed the lamp on an end table. Both women sitting, she faced Zo. “You won’t jump.”

“Never.” 

Because hope endured. Hamilcar, Himilco…They lived, needed Zo. Donis had spied Carthage’s royalty being rounded up rather than slaughtered. And his testimony of the fighting was heart-rending: Days of slaughter; the Romans pillaging then destroying temples; raping their women, girls, and boys; enslaving all that survived the horror. 

And demis wore fine uniforms, declarations of their enervated social status. So there was hope Hamilcar lived, even if, for no other reason than because the divine made for fine prizes. As for Himilco…? 

“I’m going to find them,” Zo swore.

“When we get out of here, yes.” Dido managed a smile. “But we need rest if we’re to do so.”

Zo’s head throbbed as she pressed it to a wan pillow. With a pat, Oaf panted into the cavity of her womb, around which she hunched, teasing the war dog’s collar. There, dangled a Trojan Horse Hamilcar had whittled. 

Lying down, Dido gazed at the ceiling and sighed. Then puffed dark the lamp.

Exhaustion closed Zo’s eyes.

***

In an ashen wasteland, Zo found her family.

The fall of Tanit’s city-straddling arkon had mangled them. Pale, she followed her husband’s vacant gaze on high, to the Etherium. 

In that eternal dark, Death’s jaws yawned cosmic—swallowed Carthaginian souls in their thousands. Night contrasted a rictus grin as Mot, the sightless lord of the dead, saw Zo. She knew this. Knew his infinite hunger.

A roar, a pride of lions roaming the barren mindscape Zo staggered through. Red mane whipped by etheric winds, an alpha hunted her, gaze predatory. 

Lunged. 

Zo screamed to waking, Oaf growling as cold sweat soaked her chiton. Voice quavering, she groped in the dark, “Oaf?” Warmth nuzzled Zo, licked shaking hand as she thumbed the Trojan Horse’s uneven legs. Inhaled, coughed sorrow as her companion tried to decipher human fear.

Zo rocked back and forth, apologizing. “I should be with you,” she whimpered, head pressed to Oaf’s. Zo wept despite the pain in her womb, afraid she might wake Dido, but even in the dark, knew solitude. Only able to sleep a few hours at a time, her friend likely tended to the zealots. 

A lance jammed in her temple, Zo gasped; Oaf whimpered as she doubled over. It should have passed by now, but exhaling the fever dream, Zo knew it to be just that. 

Her sweat chilled, skin burned. Looking at the door’s barred window, rapid blinks didn’t stop its spinning. Fever shadowed. Death, the hunter.

“We’re leaving,” Zo mumbled, voice drizzled lethargic. “They need us, Oaf.” Her companion whined as damp covers sloughed free, Zo crawling on aching joints toward the portal. Oaf huffed, didn’t leave her side. 

And Zo crawled through her mind’s fire. Have to find them.

The door approached. Fever spun Terra Firma on its axis.

Closer…Closer now. 

Cold iron brushed fingertips. Zo didn’t remember crawling this far. She pulled at the latch. Stolid. Taking it in both hands, she leaned back. Sliding iron hissed as Zo collapsed, looked upon the Column and wan torchlight.

She needed to find Dido. Dido would help. How didn’t matter. Her family needed her. 

Find. Dido.

Zo crawled out of her room, toward the balcony. Oaf whimpered now. “We’re okay. Everything's going to be okay.” How she’d find her friend didn’t matter. Just reach the balcony. Zo would pull herself up using the railing, then head for the exit. She refused this place beyond family and the sun’s promise—refused defeat.

Sweat-soaked, Zo slumped against the railed balcony. Breath in gasps. Oaf nudged her.

Get. Up.

She pushed onto one knee, then the next. Stopped—sweat-beaded forehead pressed. “Resheph…give me strength,” Zo prayed. As if in response, her signum flared crimson; a function of fever.

Push. Up. 

Earth scored her palms, breasts, stomach as Zo slouched onto the railing. Head thundering, she vomited; gelid warmth slid down a feverish cheek. Oaf whimpered, nipped at her heels. 

“Will find…” The pain between her legs redoubled.

Collapse.

Zo was back on her pallet, legs splayed as Hamilcar and Dido encouraged deified birth—that killed more mothers than it blessed. 

The former held her hand; as a demigod, he could have crushed hers with a flex, but Zo hadn’t fallen in love with a brute. Because she’d looked into those brown eyes, a sadness always peeking between lanky curls, seen the love Hamilcar craved. 

Zo had seen it the day he asked how she and her temple servants fared, and she’d known it as their beautiful son came screaming into a world besieged by Roman peace.

And Zo would be damned before she let fever separate them.

“I’m coming,” she wheezed, reached the railing’s lower rung. Cold earth in a pitiful grip. Both hands now. Teeth gritted, she pulled herself up.

Then Zo was standing, arms draped over the railing as heavy breaths lifted and sank her. Oaf barked as she gained bearings—turned just as the maddened noblewoman lunged.

“She falls!” Palsied hands throttled Zo’s throat. “She falls, as do we!” The zealot pressed her against the railing. Infantile, Zo could do little more than swat. Eyes bulging, spittle flecked the woman’s derangement: “She falls!”

Zo’s back arched, the railing accommodating her spine as the madwoman pushed, pushed, pushed—

A wail as Oaf sank his teeth into the zealot’s thigh. Zo collapsed against the railing as he savaged the woman’s leg. Beyond herself, she tore him and flesh free. Teeth bared, Oaf lunged for her throat.

Madness mangled, strangled as the zealot struggled. Oaf buried teeth to the gums in meat, blood slaking his nature as the noblewoman reeled. 

Horrified, Zo watched as he and the thrashing zealot tilted over the railing. “No!” 

Eyes rabid, Oaf looked into Zo’s, death’s specter failing to cease his violence. 

And they fell, left room to dwell, to wonder. Then…silence.

Hyperventilating. Zo was hyperventilating. Her world spun, became a blur trimmed with red tracers. Became concepts:

The Column

Death’s grin

Her family

Fearing she might be flung from Terra Firma, Zo clung to the railing, world whirling. “Help,” she whispered. “Help me.” Reached for Oaf, so far down, so still; a mangled crown atop death’s brow. 

Her eyes lost focus, body slumped. Slumped over the railing, gravity, that inevitable foe.

What would Dido think? She’d think Zo a liar—had lost hope, that one thing her true mother had counseled above all else to preserve. 

Her weight eased over the balcony, heels leaving the ground, toes lifting…

“Damned fool girl!” Zo’s chin clipped the railing as someone hauled her from the edge, then she slunk onto her backside. “Melqart’s cock!” Leather-gloved fingers examined Zo’s throat. “What were you about, child?”

She opened her eyes. Donis: Carthage’s Chief Architect; as ancient as the city’s monolithic walls and twice as stubborn. He’d arrested Zo’s fall despite being no larger than a teenage boy. 

Cane forgotten, Donis patted her cheek, ivory-white crown of hair swaying. “Zosime, do you hear me?”

“What happened?” came a strident voice. Dido. Through blurred vision, Zo’s friend knelt beside her. “Sister?” She pressed a hand to Zo's forehead. “We need to get her back to bed.” 

“They need me,” Zo slurred, her saviors prattling nonsense; for truth loomed above. She reached for the Column’s cor-gilded ceiling. Reached for the Carthaginian pantheon:

Rider on the Clouds, Ba’al Hammon stood beside his consort, Tanit, goddess of the moon. Hunched in his labors, Kothar-wa-Hasis hammered divine artifice, while Melqart hovered above eyeless Mot, who threatened to drag Zo into Sheol—into the filth of his inheritance. 

But her gaze wandered to Shapash, to the sun’s herald in a chariot drawn by…

Zo blinked, ignored Dido as she called for help, focused on a singular god—one glowing red. Youthful and vibrant, delirium animated Resheph, lionesque mane flowing. 

“He is alight,” she sighed as, leaden and rapture-bound, Donis and Dido tried to move her. 

Gaze piercing, the war god's words struck bone: “Seek him.”

Wonder replaced alarm as, reaching toward the ceiling, Zo’s signum flared, red of affiliation thrumming: Punic devotions to Resheph articulated, iconography radiating to a fresco; from that of a zealot, pride inscribed Zo’s forearm. 

Donis gasped, dispelling any possibility of hallucination. Looking at Zo’s signum, Dido said, “What’s happening to her?” 

“Gods below,” the architect breathed.

Delirious, Zo’s voice seemed a stranger, “What’s happening to me?”

Bushy eyebrows arching, Donis said, “You are chosen to serve, child. To become a demigod. Can you see your partner-demi’s filum?” But throughout the Column’s many tiers, no signum repelled its gloom.

“It was Resheph.” Sitting up, the throbbing in Zo’s head nearly toppled her. She tried to recall the god’s words. “He told me to ‘Seek him.’”

“Then that is what you must do, child!”

“And how’s she supposed to do that?” Dido said. “Zo can barely stand.”

“You need to see into the Etherium, Demigod. Can you do that?” 

Zo swallowed, everything Hamilcar had told her about the godly realm, as fascinating as terrifying. “I’ll try.” 

She flexed her hand, signum bright enough it squint the eyes. Whether Zo did anything, a vibrant red strand that had to be her partner’s filum snaked from her signum. Zo followed that thread up, up into— 

Infinity. 

The Etherium: The pantheons where gods dwelt—unraveled their incomprehension before the mortal mind. Zo's ecstasy became infinitesimal as whorling constellations sang, divine realms unfolding as—

“Zo?” Dido’s word wrenched her from the eternal vista, an afterimage of bold filum persisting as divine and terrestrial bled together. 

Looking up, a red thread of filum seeped beyond the Column’s ceiling. Despair as Zo said, “He’s aboveground.”

“Bah!” Picked up, Donis’ cane clacked his irritation. “I spent my life moving walls, and I’ll kiss Ares on the lips before I let a pile of rubble stop me now.” He extended a hand. “I do not know if you are Resheph’s pilot or arbiter, but none of that matters. It’s time we broke free of this damnable prison. Will you lead us to salvation, Demi?”

Zo took his hand, her weight on Dido. Standing, she looked over the balcony. To the bodies. To Oaf’s sacrifice. “I'll do whatever it takes.”

They ascended the Column floor by floor. Past maddened zealots, the wounded and weeping, whose spirits lifted as Zo approached. Those able to rise did. And they gave praise, rallied as Zosime sought the eye of the world.

And beyond it, hope.