Page 51

A hush fell over the room, and Kai flicked the bowstring in his hands. “Maybe we do what Geovani did. We keep spreading hope,” he said.

“You’re right, Adassah’s cousin.” Faro nodded. “Every burn division was taken out, except Burn Division Twelve. We lived. It wasn’t Adassah who did that. She was adamant that it was the Adriel God.”

Dolem nodded and added, “It was Adassah’s hope that saved us. She knew that without the God Original, Per-Siana would fall. She wanted to go to war, not against the B’rei Mira units or their giants, but against their spirits, their gods, their demons. Adassah wanted people to know and understand the God Original more than anything else.”

Kai noticed Heva’s hand slide down to her injured side. She swallowed and crossed her arms. “Ryn always thought she was dirt, unworthy, but she gave what little of herself she had to El Tsebaoth, and that’s when everything changed.” A shudder of warmth trickled through the room, and Kristin closed her eyes, her lips moving softly as if she was praying. “This is how we go to war. This is what Geovani was preparing us for,” Heva added. “It doesn’t matter if we have a King or the Gold Maiden. It’s up to the people to take their kingdom back.”

The room grew blurry, and Kai raised a hand to his eyes when he felt moisture there. He touched his lashes, staring at the droplets on his fingers. He was sure it was leftover rainwater, except that it was hot instead of cold. When he looked up, all three priestesses were standing, praying in quiet whispers. The small woman in Heva’s blanket hummed a tune along with them, a song Kai didn’t know, and Kai got to his feet when a warm current flittered into his stomach like a cry calling him out of a deep sleep.

“I… I have to go.” He rasped an apology and dropped the bow from his fingers as he sailed to the door and popped it open. He didn’t grab a cloak. He didn’t say goodbye or explain where he was going. He heard that old woman’s voice in his head, scolding him for being too stubborn to hear what was really going on as he moved up the slope, hopped the wall, and came onto the street.

He found himself in an abandoned Priesthood temple minutes later. Scattered window glass and beads from the fallen chandelier covered the floor, tables were turned on their sides, and the fireplace was cold. It was so quiet, it was almost impossible to imagine this place had once been filled with priests milling about, studying and debating, learning swordplay in the night hours, having heated discussions about raising a resistance in the streets. He’d joined the Priesthood at thirteen years old; the same time as Theo and Matthias. Down the hall was a room with three cots where they’d slept, sometimes talking late into the night. There were dozens more rooms with cots once filled with men, young and old, with visions and hearts for a God Kai wasn’t sure he actually knew all that well.

“Who are you?” Kai whispered as a cold breeze blew dust against the fireplace. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually asked.”

He whirled and eyed the space behind him when a voice actually answered.

“I’m the God of your ancestors. The Alpha and Omega. The First and Last.”

The great room was empty, and nothing moved in the halls. Kai had read scriptures of ancient Adriels speaking with the God Original. But to hear the voice of the Adriel God himself… Kai wiped his damp palms down the sides of his pants.

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

“Will you follow me, Mordekai?”

The blur returned to Kai’s eyes, and his face tightened as a cry tried to break loose. “I should have been already. But I think I knew I wasn’t, even back then.” He placed a fist over his mouth as a flood of tears escaped, a sob slipping through his fingers while he looked around the great room of his Priesthood. He sniffed and steeled himself, then he nodded. “Forgive me. I convinced myself I was running toward you when I was really running away. I’ll follow you if it’s not too late.”

A soft breeze split through the cold air, brushing along the back of Kai’s shoulders and down his arms, ruffling his sleeves and driving away the chill of the storm. Suddenly, the wind picked up in the Priesthood Temple, rattling the glass across the floor and shaking what was left of the curtains, the warmth raining down like a holy fire.

“Then brace yourself for the mention of my names.”

19

RYN

Heva’s murderer was a corpse in his bed.

The sky above Pyriwell had twisted its colours together; a sharp burgundy rippled over the capital now, laced with clouds changing from gray to white. The powdery fragrance of the ivy flowers on Ryn’s balcony filled her senses as she took in a deep breath. So much had happened in the last night and day, she could hardly keep it all straight. But her mind drifted to plans, ideas, and possibilities, energized by the thought of Prince Mansour now in the afterlife facing his evils. She fiddled with her gold flute hanging at her neck by the thin chain that was much duller than the golds in this palace.

A soft smirk found her face when El’s warmth touched her back. He said nothing, neither did she. But her smile faded almost as soon as it came, and she hugged her arms to herself. The sky toiled, a beam of sunlight slipping through a crack in the cloud cover.

“You’re not who I expected to see here,” she said.

A pale hand came over the rail of her balcony followed by a shallow grunt. Another hand followed, and a second later, a flushed face with a head of light blond hair appeared. “Yes, well, all those guards who usually watch me are watching him now.” The young man inched over and tipped himself onto her balcony, then flung an arm over his face and laid on his back for a moment while he caught his breath. Ryn eyed his deep crimson robe, same as Xerxes’s. He smelled like Xerxes, too. “Anyway,” he said, flinging the arm off his face and revealing light blue eyes when he sat up. “I think I’ve figured out what’s going on here. And the problem is that the person you’re keeping out of the loop is the person who was keeping me in the loop.”

Ryn didn’t know whether to nudge him back over the railing or laugh. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She recognized him from the platforms where King Alecsander kept his Museum pieces. In fact, she was pretty sure he took up the spot beside Xerxes.

“You must not be a firstborn,” Ryn remarked.

He nodded and climbed to his feet, showing off shiny sandals. “I had two brothers. Three sisters.”

“Had?” Ryn asked too quickly—she closed her mouth, cursing her own lips before another question could come out of them.

The blond boy had dimples when he smirked. “Were you about to ask what happened to them?” He did a series of intentional blinks, light lashes fluttering. “It’s not a secret. King Alecsander conquered my kingdom. He only needed one Messa royal for his Museum, and both my older brothers died in battle trying to defend the kingdom after he killed my father, so—” he shrugged “—lucky me.”

Ryn swallowed and dug her toe into the balcony floor. She didn’t dare ask what happened to his sisters. “What’s—”

“Norkin.”