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Ellie had learned a lot about our childhoods since she’d come to live at the palace. The three of us had been together for over five hundred years, and we’d been friends since infancy. It had only been right when we’d started working together as adults—Dex as general in Ren’s army, and me as the high priestess of Jasfin. Ren as king, of course.
“I didn’t realize you were that close to Dex. Does he know?”
I shook my head. “I’ve never told him in so many words. Whether heknowsis a different story. We’ve always been close…” My voice broke when a lump rose in my throat and tears stung my eyes.
Ellie shook her head. “It must have been awful to find out that you and Dex would be together, only to lose him.” Her voice was soft. “Is that what you’ve been battling?”
I nodded. “It’s not just the fact that I’ll lose him. I mean, there’s nothing between us except that we’re really close, and if I keep it that way, I guess I could be okay. What bothers me the most right now is that Terra is doing this to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s punishing me for something.” I took a shuddering breath, and tears rolled over my cheeks.
“I don’t know if you should see it like that,” Ellie said carefully. “Terra is everything that is good. Why would she do something to hurt you?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve just…I’ve given everything to her. My whole life has been in service of Terra. I never ask for anything—being with Dex wasn’t my heart’s desire to begin with, but now she’s done this. I don’t know how to figure it out, and the more I think about it, the more it hurts. It’s like a knife stabbing into my heart over and over again, and no matter what I do, I can’t make it stop.”
Ellie leaned forward and hugged me. I shuddered in her arms.
“It’s going to be okay, Nylah,” she said. “It’s always okay in the end.”
I nodded against her shoulder and held on tightly, but the problem was, I didn’t believe her that everything would be okay.
How could it be?
2
DEX
In the breakfast room, it was just me, Ellie, and Ren. I frowned and looked at Nylah’s seat.
“Where is she?”
Ellie and Ren glanced at each other.
“I think she’s eating breakfast in the cathedral today,” Ellie said.
I pulled out my chair and sat down. “Why?”
Nylah had been eating breakfast in her cathedral away from everyone else all week. She rarely missed breakfast with us—to her, it was family time.
“She’s working through a couple of things.”
“Like what?”
Ren cleared his throat and reached for a slice of bread, already buttered by servants. He loaded a heap of jam on it so large, Ellie gave him a warning look. He smiled and then piled grated cheese on top of it.
“It’s a reflection thing, I think. You know how Nylah can get when she’s working through something big with Terra.”
I wanted to say something. It didn’t sound right—Nylah usually joined us, no matter what. Sure, she took a day or two off if she was really in a battle with the Goddess, but she often screened against us. How many times had she said that talking to us about whatever bugged her was an escape, and sometimes, she even got her answers?
I didn’t know how to say it. Words weren’t my strong suit.
Something was wrong.
I reached for the cold cuts of meat and loaded eggs and meat onto my plate. I had a rough training program with the warriors later—I was training a bunch of new recruits—and since Nylah was absent there, too, we focused on strength and fitness a lot more than on magic.
Fighting with magic, especially when we were at war, was Nylah’s specialty, and during the war against Palgia, and the civil war against Baut before that, she’d been particularly involved.
