“Did… it just speak to me?” I whispered.
“She,” Rhiannon prompted. “She just spoke to you.”
“Hello,” I murmured, unable to find my full voice, or more words. The creature was so large. So large and magnificent.
“Do we have to leave?” I asked.
“Yes,” Rhiannon said, her eyes darkening. “Pull your hand off the plinth, Ares. It’s time.”
I wasn’t sure how to do that.
“Think hard,” she said, an edge in her voice I didn’t like. “Remember the library.”
I tried, but could not.And wouldn’t it be easier to stay here?“Ares,” Rhiannon hissed. “Ember needs you. Pull your hand off the plinth.”
CHAPTER 24
EMBER
Callingthe island had been a mistake. I’d known it the moment I dialed, and yet, I let the phone ring and ring. Maybe it was the homesickness that would never abate, or the feeling that I needed someone on my side, someone to tell me definitively what to do in this situation.
Myrine had not been happy to hear my voice. That much was clear with her sharp hello, and the way she’d launched into the middle of our situation, rather than asking what I was calling for. I’d curled in on myself like a small child, hiding in Amarante’s temple, rather than the grown woman I was.
“She brought the Necroline boy here,” the ancient voice on the other end of a very secure line said.
Why didn’t that surprise me? Rhiannon had always done as she pleased, consequences for me be damned. Did she eventhinkabout how I might be affected by such a choice? I let out my held breath as quietly as I could so it wouldn’t sound like petulance. “Of course she did.”
Apparently, my attempt at stifling my irritation had been useless. It slipped out in my words instead. I went ahead and sighed. Why not, at this point?
My superior took a long pause, the years and historybetween us spiraling out into a web of potential responses… All of which I already resented. This was simply what was asked of those devoted to the Temple, and I had pledged my immortality to the Maere. There was no use in saying it wasn’t fair, but it wasn’t.
Finally, Myrine spoke, her voice calm as ever. Never was she outwardly bothered or disappointed in me, and yet, I knew I worried her. “You cannot blame her, Ember. She is trying to help you. She has only ever been trying to help.”
I fiddled with the sequins on a gown I’d worn to a ball seventy years ago, resting my head against the wall of my closet. There was no use in arguing with Myrine. “I am fucking all of this up.”
“My child.” Myrine’s voice was smooth and comforting. This was the true reason I called. I’d wanted to hear her voice. To talk to the one person in the world who knew the whole of me, who’d known me all my lives, and who loved me still. Myrine was more than a friend, more than a parent. She was my lifeline and mentor. The blueprint for all I wanted to be. So, when she spoke, I tried to let her words sink into me. “That is part of things. Amarante gave you different gifts than she did Rhiannon. Do not fight your nature.”
I understood full well that the goddess had given us all different gifts. It was so hard to trust myself and mine, when it felt like everything I tried backfired on me. I closed my eyes, throwing my head a little too hard against the closet wall. Everything felt too small, too constrained. I knew better than to ask to come home. But I needed help.
“The swords, though…” I faltered. “How am I supposed to fix things without them?”
Myrine hummed a little, as though thinking about her next words carefully. Slow, steady Myrine. This was helpful, even if not directly so. “The swords are important, but they are not all. Balance, child. Balance.”
Her expectation was that I would figure these things out onmy own. That we would figure them out as a team. The trouble was that my sistren had left me high and dry. They lied, they went behind my back, they were disloyal. And according to Myrine, I was capable of handling all that on my own.
“Stop grinding your teeth, beloved. Get to work.” The Admiral’s trust in me was comforting, and utterly unhelpful at the same time.
“How am I supposed to do that without all of them?” I growled. “Without more help?”
Myrine was silent for a long time. “Ember, we sent you to Orphium for a reason. We sent your sistren with you for a reason. Are you questioning the Temple’s vision?”
I swallowed hard. In all my long life, since I ascended and remembered the truth about where I came from and what my purpose was, I had not questioned it. I’d believed, as all Maere did, that it was our calling to be here. To protect the gods’ children. To find a way forward for the last splinters of magic in this dangerous world.
But more and more, it felt like a losing battle. That humanity would never accept us. But then, that was not the mission. The mission was to protect. To help mitigate the harm that the Consulate might do as an entity that had very little choice but to corrupt itself, to make unsavory deals to inch progress forward, little by little.
“No,” I answered. “But I am worried about the way things are coming together here. I could use some guidance.”
I’d already explained, in painful detail, about the swords, all that had happened with Lara and Rhi, the situation with Briony, Fairchild’s actions, and the Ceti. She’d been remarkably quiet throughout the whole thing. Her mentorship had always been based on her mentees thinking for themselves. She’d rarely had patience for too many questions, preferring that we find things out on our own.
