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Gabriel.
Despite the danger that lay ahead, Abdiel’s face lightened several degrees just from hearing the sound of the Time Sage’s voice. A display of their bond, I figured. The King had felt his Yield’s presence, and Abdiel couldn’t help his response to the acknowledgment. Or maybe it was more? Like how in any room I could easily find Kalen, the only magic tying me to him being a deep love for my best friend, for the person who held all of my heart. Owen had called the pair “heart-matched”, but that was the way of Yielding. Though the blush on Abdiel’s face made it seem more profound.
Abdiel answered The King immediately, entering into the throne room. The rest of us followed the Astralite, stepping from the dungeon’s corridors into what felt like a completely different world.
The throne room was magnificent. Shimmering black obsidian stretched up the walls, a long table of stone for dining, archwaysof stained glass with magnificent scenes of artwork stretching out around the entire room. I let my gaze follow its natural course, seeing the whole thing as a story. A girl grown from a rose, a man who loved her thorns and then cursed them to imprison her. I shivered, pulling my eyes away from the final panel. I’d seen too much blood in these short few days.
At the far end of the hall, I found the Sages; Ione, Dario, and Gabriel. They all stood in their finery, the brothers looking pale and solemn. Ione looked wary but indignant. A long table of stone stood between us, set for dining with a fine rug pinned underneath it, extending from a set of iron doors to the steps of the dais.
High on the throne of Shadow was the queen of Sythe.
My heart stopped pounding, stopped beating completely at the sight of her, rigid underneath flowing black velvet. Her thin, taut legs were crossed pertly, her hands gripping the black stone sides of her throne. Silver splices were worn into armrests and though her nails were perfectly shaped and painted, they fit soundly into those deep gashes. I tried not to imagine them nestled even more comfortably into the flesh of my neck.
At the sight of us, she sat casually upright, uncrossing her legs and folding her hands across her lap. The Shadow seemed to live in her, draining her of a normal flush. She was pale under the veil that sat atop her face, draped down under her chin and around the sharp edge of her collar. The only color to be seen anywhere was on her lips, glistening through an opening in her veil. They were a garnet rosebud, the stain like fresh, wet blood.
I expected it to feel different–seeing her. A moment that should have been so filled with pressure and tension that the pain of our confrontation would be short and quick. Tumultuous, chaotic, and loud. Yet when the moment finally came, everything was quiet.
The Shadow Sage paused, her chin tilted up slightly in interest,her focus clearly on me. Too many were waiting for me to stake my claim. She was holding court, I realized. Like I had brought a complaint to the bottom of her steps and not a dagger to put into her heart.
I held my breath, terrified to let even the sound of my lungs whisper out onto the cold stone that surrounded us. The Sage looked to her left at Ione, a new tension between the two of them threatening to burst the room. And then she faced me once more, decided.
“Brave Gwynore,” she said. Her voice was light but sharp, assertive. “Welcome to Sythe.”
Welcome to my funeral, I thought.
There was a moment when we both looked at each other. Well, I thought she was looking at me...I couldn’t tell. And in the next moment, I thought I should say something, but say what? Thank you for having me. But the empty seconds were fleeting. The Shadow Sage twisted suddenly, her attention solely focused on the person beside me.
“And you,” she said, her chin moving slowly downward, seeming to appreciate his form, her shoulders relaxing with something like familiarity. “What a sight for sore eyes you’ve turned into. How’s that scar healing, Preserver?”
Before he could respond, the Sage stood, descending the dozen steps above us to meet him. The dark glittering panels of her dress lashed around her legs as she advanced. From underneath her veil, raven-colored wisps of hair blew out around her face.
I do not see her, the one who Yielded me.
The room around me blurred a little. Like I’d been spinning in circles since we’d arrived, so quickly that I thought I’d surely be sick. So, I waited for the feeling I had felt only once before when Kalen told me the story of how he was made immortal. A queasiness that would bubble near my ribs and flutter up my throat. Maybe even a punch to my gut of jealousy for whatshe’d said to him, the way I was just now realizing they’d been entangled in a past life.
No such feelings came.
I felt nothing at all. My head pounded and my mouth was dry, but mostly I just stared at her, and then the seven of us in this room and wondered how everything that I’d gone through could amount to this.
“It’s been seventy-three years, Your Highness,” he replied, passive. “Pretending to care just makes you look desperate.”
The Sage grew a few inches taller, emboldened. She seemed pleased he had chosen to push back, even just a little. Smiling brightly, breathtakingly, she said, “And pretending to be a god makes you look…” one of her silver nails swept the fleshy place under his chin, along the lines of his hidden scar, “Well it makes you look rather delicious actually.”
My body flew forward, on instinct, I would have sworn. Ione tensed in the corner, but the Shadow Sage grew more excited, loving every bit of emotion I had shown. She was watching for it, anticipating it.
“Gwyn,” Kalen warned, his voice low.
“Don’t mind her. Brave Gwynore is only upset because she never looked that good when she was...”
“Melany,” The voice once more belonged to Gabriel, finally letting that facade of miserable disinterest decompose from his hard features. The Shadow Sage shrugged back at her brother.
Melany.
It was such a simple name. Pure, almost, with the pretty way it floated in the air of the room.
“Oh!” she yelped dramatically. “I forgot! We all have secrets today. You know, to keep your fractured little mind from cracking into any more pieces.” She turned over her shoulder, nodding to Gabriel. “I will be careful from now on, brother, or may Erudia fall upon my head.”
Melany touched her fingers in a cross over her face and shoulders, her mouth grave with fake atonement. Once the aping was done at Gabriel’s expense, she refocused her good humor back to me. “So, what has the society of Good Gods told you about their big bad sister?” she asked.
