Chapter 47

Chapter 47

T he palace was quiet.

It was always quiet that late—or early. Mariah didn’t often make it a habit of roaming the halls during the deepest part of the night, during those early morning hours over which the stars and moons claimed ownership. Though she’d found herself out during this time more in recent days, whether due to sleeplessness wrought by nightmares or just too many wandering thoughts.

This night felt different. As she passed beneath an archway in the hallways leading into a courtyard, the open sky visible above, as she stepped through a pool of waxing silver-gold moonlight, something rubbed against her skin, tickling her senses with awareness and energy.

Mariah was positive it had nothing to do with what she’d just done. Her fingers twitched against the hem of her tunic as she quickened her steps, eager to vanish back into the comfort of her rooms.

She tried to keep her mind from wandering back down those hallways. Back to the man she’d just left.

To the words he’d said.

To the bitter fear she’d felt, but also the energy to squash it.

She knew, without a doubt, that she still loved him. Didn’t think it was possible for her to stop loving him despite everything that happened in Khento. A piece of him belonged to her, something that was made even more apparent by the shimmering bond bridging their souls.

Mariah shivered, hurrying down the smooth marble hall. At least tonight had dulled the sharp bite of that bond, if only a little. She felt a bit more like herself, not like she was about to burst through her own skin.

And as much as it had hurt, it felt good to confess the things she’d been forced to endure in Khento. Not the physical wounds, but the ones that cut deeper than her skin.

Her mind snapped away from her musings as she rounded the final corner, senses flickering to alertness.

A figure leaned against the wall beside her door. But when it moved, stepping into the light, she relaxed, releasing her grip on her dagger.

“Drystan,” she murmured, rubbing her face. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Drystan chuckled. “Sorry,” he said quietly. He stopped a few paces from her, a pensive look on his already-stoic face.

Mariah raised an eyebrow. “What?”

He shrugged. “Nothing. I was on guard duty tonight. Just doing my job.” His golden eyes glinted in the pale allume light. “Noticed you sneaking out of your rooms not long after you went to bed. Had to make sure you were okay.”

Blood rushed to her face. If he saw her sneaking out … “Did you … um … follow me?”

The slight twitch at the sides of his lips was all the answer she needed. She groaned, running another hand down her face.

“If it matters, I left and came back here once I realized you were … cared for.”

She peered at him from between her fingers, warmth blooming across her face. “Don’t tell Sebastian, okay?” she grumbled. “Let me talk to him first.”

Drystan’s lips pulled into a full grin. “Don’t worry, Mariah. As long as you’re safe, it’s not my business.” More amusement flashed in his eyes. “Besides, I like to think I was a facilitator here.”

Her hands dropped from her face as she eyed him. “What do you mean?”

He winked at her, and she couldn’t stop her mouth from popping open with shock. “Someone had to break him out of his little pity party. Wasn’t doing anyone any favors. I’m just glad he listened.”

What?

“What pity party?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, My Queen. But do tell him to send me a new bottle of whiskey as a thank you. It’ll piss him off, but he’ll do it.”

Bewildered, Mariah only blinked at Drystan, shocked at her usually serious Armature. He chuckled again, a soft, low sound, before turning back to her doors.

“It’s late, Mariah. Go get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

She nodded, a bit dazed, and brushed past him to her rooms. She swung open the heavy wood door, hinges silent as always.

“Oh, and Mariah?” She turned on her heel, meeting Drystan’s stare over her shoulder. He once again lounged against the wall beside Andrian’s door. His gaze was soft, understanding, compassionate.

“No one faults you, you know. You went through so much—more than any of us can ever understand. And he did, too. Do what makes you happy, whatever helps you heal. All of us will support you, no matter what. Even Sebastian. Especially Sebastian.”

She smiled at him, his words soaking through her skin, sitting within her chest. She still wasn’t sure what she’d done to deserve men like him. It was a very different love than what she felt for Andrian; it was the love of a brother, a warrior soul who would lay down his entire life, everything he had, while demanding nothing from her in return.

“Thank you, Drystan.”

“Goodnight, My Queen.”

She pushed through her doors, escaping into the comfort of her rooms and the soft bed waiting for her.

Mariah only slept for a few hours before something woke her.

A power brushing against her skin. The whisper of a night breeze through her room, despite the closed windows. A brightness glowing behind her closed eyelids, shimmering and pulsing.

But when she shot awake in bed, everything in her stilled. Even the eddies of her magic were banked.

Standing at the foot of her bed, hands folded peacefully, long, gilded hair sweeping across her full figure, stood Qhohena. She was ringed in golden light and a crown of snowdrop blossoms, so brilliant they made the crown of Onita look like a cheap mimicry, rested atop her brow. An easy, warm smile graced her lips, her eyes twin aureate pools.

“Hello, Mariah.”

Mariah gaped in response.

“Am I asleep? Is this a dream?”

An answering snort sounded from the other side of the room. Mariah whipped her attention to its source.

Now, she was certainly convinced she was dreaming.

Zadione leaned against the closed window, her silver light just as brilliant as her sister. She looked as she did when she first appeared to Mariah in her dream, and again in that cell in the bowels of Khento: dark, silver-dusted skin, waves and waves of silvery hair, a crown of animal bones woven into the thick tresses across her brow.

“No, you are not sleeping. You are very much awake. And we are very much here.” Zadione shot a quick glare at her sister. Qhohena only sighed, eyes closing for a moment before resting again on Mariah.

Who could still do nothing more than stare, slack-jawed.

“I told you the last time I visited, my child, that the more we connected, the more I could speak to you. The more corporeal I could become.” Qhohena unclasped her hands, spreading them before her. “You did what I asked. You are learning to trust again. To love again. And because of that, I can be here now.”

“And I am here because I have been speaking to you for your entire life, and you have always listened to me.” Zadione stepped closer to the bed, eyes narrowing. Mariah watched the goddess warily; she knew that predatory look filling Zadione’s expression.

She’d worn it far too many times herself.

“Except for now, of course. Now you decide to ignore the one warning I always gave you and listen to my older sister instead.”

Mariah swallowed. “I seem to recall you telling me that since I had fallen into weakness, I would need to learn to make it my retribution.”

Zadione stiffened. “Yes. I did say that, did I not?” She stalked even closer until she stood beside her sister at the foot of Mariah’s bed. The two of them were something out of a painting: silver and gold, light and dark, life and death. Sisters in every way, but opposites too, flipped sides of the same coin.

“So, dear little queen,” Zadione said, folding her own hands, mimicking her sister. “How do you intend to seek your retribution from your current situation?”

“That’s enough, sister,” Qhohena murmured. Her voice was so soft, so quiet, yet held so much power. A reminder that while Zadione was the goddess of wildness and strength, Qhohena was one of stability and might.

Zadione didn’t acknowledge her sister, but she closed her mouth, opting instead to lock Mariah with her sharp, silver glare.

Mariah swallowed down every ounce of apprehension she had and stared back.

Despite her shock, she felt no fear before these two beings. They were immortal, and wielded powers far beyond what her mind could comprehend, but she knew they cared for her in their own way.

“We did not come here to scold you, Mariah.” Another quick glance at her sister. “Despite my sister’s words, she agrees with me that you are doing well. Remarkably well. She will not admit it—not aloud—but she knows you need him. What he can offer you.”

Zadione held herself perfectly still, but Mariah couldn’t miss the way her eyes flashed. The way dark memories seemed to fill her gaze, reminders of a love that could’ve been great but was lost to control and selfishness.

Mariah straightened. “Andrian is … many things. And I know he keeps his secrets. But Zadione, he is not evil.”

“No. He is not.” Zadione sighed. Mariah wondered if it was an instinct, much like her human impulses. Whether she needed to breathe, even on this plane, in this body. “But he could be. It is in his blood. And with the wrong influences … I fear what he could become.”

Mariah went cold. “What do you mean?—”

“That’s enough, sister,” Qhohena interjected, her voice sterner than before. The golden goddess softened her gaze on Mariah. “If you stay by his side, then you need not worry about my sister’s warnings. Any darkness that might dwell in him will always be outdueled by your light. Trust in yourself, trust in him, and trust in your strength.”

Mariah tried desperately to read for more between the planes of Qhohena’s smooth golden skin. She nodded, just once, but couldn’t deny the way her stomach still turned, her mind and magic unsettled.

“Did you come just to warn me about him? Or is there more?”

“There is more.” Zadione’s words were clipped. She ran a hand through her long silver hair, brushing through the ends. They shimmered like whispered starlight. “You realize, I trust, that something occurred on the Winter Solstice.”

That got Mariah’s attention. She pushed out of bed, planting her feet on the ground as she glanced between the sister goddesses.

“I found an abandoned apartment in the market district. Destitute, uninhabitable. But there was a room coated in blood, and an altar of aberrant at its head.” Mariah had only learned of the substance yesterday, but Zadione hissed at the mention of the cursed stone. Mariah stifled her flinch and continued, “Something evil happened in that room. Something vile.”

“You felt it in the allume , didn’t you? After the Solstice?”

Mariah nodded. She could still feel it rubbing against her skin, an unwelcome toxic sludge. “I fixed it.”

The goddesses stilled before sharing a furtive glance. “You … fixed it?” Qhohena’s question was quiet.

Mariah’s jaw worked. “It was draining the allume . The lights went out. I did what I had to.”

Qhohena straightened, pushing back her shoulders. “Good. We felt the poison, too. In our realm. When the walls between the paradise of the gods and this world were down, another barrier was dropped. The barrier between this world … and Enfara. That is what the aberrant was used for.”

Shock rattled Mariah’s mind, replacing the revolting anger at the memory of the dark magic. She blinked as her light unspooled through her gut, whispering through her veins, oblivious to its former ladies.

“He defiled our night,” Zadione hissed. “That monster turned our sacred gift into something foul . He is using it for something. Something that will help him get to me.”

“Calm, sister. We do not yet know his intentions.” Qhohena turned back to Mariah. “But … we do know that he pulled something through that barrier. More than just planting the darkness in our allume . He is still trapped in Enfara, but … perhaps a tether. An anchor of some kind. It is hard to tell.” Qhohena frowned. “Everything about his power is blocked from me. When I try to look, I am met only by darkness.”

“Wait. Just to clarify. This ‘he’ you refer to …” Mariah glanced at the sisters. “It is Flétrir , right? The Scourge?”

“That is what you know him as, yes,” Zadione whispered, her eyes icy and glazed.

Mariah tilted her head, turning to the Goddess of Death. “Have you tried? Looking for him?”

Zadione’s light snapped around her. “No. If I did, it would reveal everything. He knows me, the feel of my power, too well. And if he reaches me…” The goddess’s silver eyes drifted down. To Mariah’s chest.

Where that essence of Zadione dwelled, hiding within Mariah’s soul. The source of the silver half of her magic, that gift she’d carried all her life without even realizing it.

“You have no idea the value of what you carry, Mariah. The weight of the world, the survival of everything, depends on you.”

“Do not trouble the girl, Zadione,” Qhohena intervened sharply, snapping the tension that had slowly been filling the space between Mariah and the silver goddess. Mariah blinked and leaned back, a little dazed but her mind whirling. Qhohena’s expression was still soft, but with an urgency in her gaze.

“You must discover what happened on the Solstice, Mariah. What they did. Who did it. And, most importantly … what they brought through.”

Qhohena’s voice grew fainter as she spoke, and when Mariah blinked, the golden goddess faded to a shimmering silhouette.

But Zadione still stood there, as strong as ever, silver gaze burning with the fires of unending death.

“When was the last you heard from your family, little queen?” Zadione’s words were biting and clipped, dark and foreboding. “What makes you think they are safe away from your palace and your Armature and your magic?”

Mariah’s heart dropped to her feet. Her skin pebbled, cool sweat coating her brow. “What do you mean?” she croaked, throat tight.

“Protect your blood—all of it. It is more valuable than you realize.” The goddess’s voice was fading along with her body, whispering away into nothing.

“Wait!” Mariah lurched forward, reaching out. “That’s not enough, I need to know more! I don’t even know where to begin!”

“Follow your instincts. They have never failed you before; they will not fail you now.”

Zadione’s shadowy words were the last thing Mariah heard before the goddess blinked out of existence, plunging her room back into the weak darkness of early morning.