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“No,” I said, still not daring to believe him. It was impossible. Unthinkable. I was Asherah. I was the Goddess reborn.
Mercurial rolled his eyes. “A goddess, a guardian, the fire at the center of the Valalumir, and the war, the drowning of the Lumerian Empire. Did you really think that Asherah could just die and her part in this was done? No. She’s only getting started.You’reonly getting started. Now, let’s finish the paperwork, shall we?”
He held up his opened palm, and the sparkling Valalumir he’d taunted me with for months spun and glittered. He blew at the star, and it burst into flames, flying straight for me, bypassing Asherah’s armor, burning straight into my heart.
It was like the nahashim entering my body. Burning hot, invasive, burning me up from inside.
I screamed, as my insides turned to flames once more. My eyes closed, as I sank to the ground. The weight of it inside me almost too much to hold, to carry. And then, I was gone.
I woke beside the fortress pools. I was alone and shivering as a fresh bout of snow began to fall. Mercurial was gone, and I guessed if no one had come to find me, including Rhyan, I couldn’t have been unconscious for more than a few minutes. I stared down at my armor, pulling it back to see my chest. The faintest outline of a golden Valalumir had been branded between my breasts. The mark of the star’s entrance. The star that would bind me to Mercurial until I paid my debt for his silence.
I touched the stars again. Asherah’s armor. My armor.
I felt dizzy.
Taking a deep breath, I picked up my skirts and started to run. I couldn’t think about Mercurial’s words yet. I needed to get back inside for the announcement, for the moment Meera abdicated to Arianna. But as I turned a corner, I spotted silver armor and immediately retreated.
Ka Kormac. Armed and inside our fortress? I flattened my body against the wall and peered back around the corner. Half a dozen of the Imperator’s soturi marched forward. In the distance, two women appeared.
Arianna and Naria.
“Help me with this,” Arianna said. Then she froze, noticing the soturi who surrounded her. “At ease,” she said with disdain. “I don’t require protection. I am quite safe.”
“We’re under the Imperator’s orders,” said one soturion.
Arianna scoffed and returned her attention to Naria. She presented her arm to her daughter—my horrible cousin. “It’s chafing, but I need it in place. I must look perfect for your cousin’s announcement.”
“Yes, Mother,” Naria said, her voice small and filled with more obedience than I’d ever heard her exhibit. She reached for the golden cuff around Arianna’s bicep, the one in the shape of seraphim wings she’d been wearing for months.
“Pull,” Arianna commanded. “Harder. Then I can adjust it properly.”
Naria grunted, and with both hands, slid the cuff free from my aunt’s arm.
“Thank you, my dear,” Arianna said, massaging her arm and moaning in relief. With a sigh, she dropped her arm beside her, revealing the flash of skin that had been concealed under the cuff she’d worn for months.
Aunt Arianna had acquired a tattoo. One I’d seen before. The sigil of Ka Batavia. Seraphim wings under a full moon.
Black seraphim wings.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Theblackseraphim.
My heart pounded. My vision went in and out of focus.
The Emartis hadn’t just gotten their way. Arianna had. She’d been their leader. This entire time….
I saw Meera’s mural in my mind. A girl with red hair who looked like me, exactly like me, turning into a black seraphim.
When Aunt Arianna was younger, she had been my spitting image. I looked more like her than my mother at my age.
The Emartis. The black seraphim. The vision. It had always been Arianna.
I didn’t think. I couldn’t think. It was too much.
I reached down the length of my leg, hiking up the hem of my black dress, revealing the hilt of my dagger—the dagger I’d earned when Arianna had snapped my stave in half and expelled me from my own Ka’s academy. I closed my fingers around the smooth hilt and unsheathed the blade from my thigh.
My arm raised, my skirts flowed down to my heels, and I started forward.
