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No, Nyxara said, a mourning undercurrent winding through the word. They all diminished too quickly, when They left.
And Lore wanted to ask about that, too, but there was a sparking in her head, a twinge of pain. She gritted her teeth against it, and knew that Nyxara was butting up against her bonds, that she wouldn’t be able to say anything more.
So she relaxed, or tried to, settling back on her heels, softening the muscles around her tight-closed eyes, her jaw. How do I do this?
Just don’t fight, Nyxara said, and then the goddess surged forward.
It was, terrifyingly, not an unpleasant sensation. It felt like falling asleep after a long day, like allowing your body to melt into a mattress. Lore’s thoughts went fuzzy and blunted, and though she could still see the room—the stone walls, the broken glass, the prophecy in her hands and Gabe behind it, looking at her like he knew something was wrong but couldn’t place what—everything was blurry and left trails when it moved, streaking paint or comet burn. It felt a little like channeling Mortem, the flow of her blood slowing, congealing; her skin going cold.
With marked effort, she managed to focus on the parchment before her, the curving lines around the bottom, though her eyes had become the secondary pair in this body. Her vision bifurcated, splitting before coming back together again.
And the symbols on the page resolved.
They weren’t words, at least not in any language Lore could read—Nyxara said it was ancient, and Lore was woefully only able to read Auverrani, Caldienan in a pinch. But though the symbols weren’t words, she knew what they meant anyway, Nyxara’s understanding becoming her own.
Lore is the key, the catalyst, the seed. The one who was needed; the rest were placeholders. The echo of divinity begins in her, then takes root.
The seed of the apocalypse, her mother had called her. The ground from which chaos grew, called by name. And placeholders: That had to mean the Night Witch. The others the Buried Watch sent into the obsidian tomb, who came out with something missing. Lesser vessels, not meant for this like she was.
There was more. Should the other gods come into Their power, the one who desires to live forever must kill Them all again, for true immortality comes only to the one who holds the whole of the Fount. Power is made and unmade in the same way, and those who live lives parallel will be hollowed out.
A choice must be made among the three who care most. Help will come from the place that was fled. Someone must mend what has been broken.
This coded last part of the prophecy read differently from the first, as if it had been imparted by a different entity. Anton had communed with Apollius; what if something else had slipped through, too? Something that didn’t want the Bleeding God’s dominion? A remnant of some other consciousness, something that Anton didn’t understand as he scribbled these symbols.
Nyxara surged back as quickly as she’d come forward, a tide receding to the sea. Lore gasped as she did, hitting her knees on the hard stone, pulling in lungfuls of cold, stale air.
None of you are safe. Nyxara’s voice was afraid, and a fearful god was terrifying. He wants it all, this time.
“What do you mean?” Lore asked, defaulting to speaking aloud in her fragile state, but Nyxara didn’t answer. It was impossible to tell time down here, but they must be creeping close to dawn, numbing her sense of Nyxara, quieting Her voice.
“Are you talking to Her?” Gabe said the pronoun like a curse. Unfair of him, really. He had a god living in his brain, too.
Lore chose not to comment on his rudeness, wiping at her mouth as she nodded. Now wasn’t the time.
“Anything helpful?” he prompted.
“I’m not sure, to be honest.” A choice must be made among the three that care most. Help will come from the place that was fled.
Someone to fix the broken, but there was so much broken.
The parchment was on the floor where Lore had dropped it; Gabe picked it up, gave it a cursory examination, and put it back on the pedestal. It didn’t look any worse for wear.
Still, Lore peered at it morosely. “Malcolm will kill us if he finds out we touched that without gloves.”
“I think Malcolm is a bit too preoccupied to care.” Gabe turned toward the door to the chamber. “Come on. It should be morning soon.”
Lore sealed up the chamber again, leaving the mess of the glass dome scattered across the floor. She and Gabe made their way back up the stairs and into the cloisters in silence, moving as quickly as they had before. Weak morning light filtered through the stained-glass windows of the Church proper.
She didn’t realize how much she’d wanted some kind of absolution from the prophecy until she didn’t get it—Lore had known in abstract that her own ascension had caused everyone else’s, that her living had been the gateway that allowed the powers of the gods to find new hosts in her and the people she cared about. The people she kept close, then and now. Lives lived parallel.
Selfish, selfish, selfish.
And who has taught you that is a bad thing? Nyxara sounded almost angry.
Of course it’s a bad thing. Lore ground her teeth in her jaw. Of course it’s bad, when it means everyone is going down instead of just me. I’m no great loss.
Every single person is a great loss, Nyxara snarled in her head. No one is lesser. Changes on these scales always take more than one person to tip them, even if that person is a god. Don’t let Him make His own selfishness someone else’s burden to bear.
