Lethia turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “You think I didn’t learn everything there was to know about the man who called himself the Hierophant before I agreed to help him? I sought out his darkest secrets, so that if I ever needed to, I could use them against him. Of course, it seems that was taken care of for me.”

“Lucky you.”

“It didn’t surprise me to learn he had killed the other Prophets,” Lethia said. “I only had to speak to him once before I knew that he was a man who didn’t like to share power. I was careful never to seem like I was undermining him the way the Prophets tried to.”

“You mean because they wanted to stop him from taking the god’s esha,” Hassan said.

“He certainly didn’t like that,” Lethia said. “But that isn’t why he killed them.”

“Then why?” Hassan asked, and immediately regretted it. Lethia looked almost amused. She had drawn him in. Teased information that he wanted to have. Was she stalling? Bargaining? Or simply toying with him, as she was so fond of doing?

She lifted her feet from the water and let her kaftan fall back to her ankles, stepping toward Hassan, leaving a wet puddle in her wake.

“Do you really want to know?”

He hesitated.

“I’ll tell you,” she said. “The other Prophets had figured out something that Pallas didn’t want them to know. A plan that Pallas found so detestable, he killed them before they could succeed.”

Her words scratched at Hassan’s memory. Of Pallas, right before his death, saying, The other Prophets feared my plan, but theirs was destined to fail.

“They were trying to create more Prophets,” Lethia said, watching Hassan’s face carefully as the impact of her words landed.

“What?” Hassan asked, his voice barely a whisper. “You’re lying.”

“Why would I?” she asked. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? Nothing would threaten Pallas’s power more than the possibility that there would be others to take his place. It was the ultimate betrayal to him. So they had to die.”

Hassan’s mind reeled. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Consider it my parting gift.”

And before Hassan knew what was happening, she drew the sword from his belt.

Hassan took a wavering step back, arms up. “What are you doing?”

“I won’t let them make me a prisoner,” she said.

Hassan stood frozen.

“Goodbye, Hassan.”

She plunged the sword through her chest. Hassan watched in horror as her kaftan turned dark with blood and she swayed back one, two steps before she collapsed into the pool of water.

“No!” Hassan cried, diving toward her.

But it was too late. Blood dribbled from her mouth and poured from her chest, clouding the water pink. She gasped, choking on blood as Hassan took hold of her bony body, trying futilely to staunch the wound.