Thaena appeared in the center of the street, but the Goddess of Death was not alone. With her was a third woman, whose appearance almost made me cry out—because I didn’t expect to recognize her. Yet I did.
The third goddess had chestnut-red skin and hair the color of flame, full lips, and high cheekbones: one of the most perfect faces I had ever seen. She wasn’t Joratese—she had the wrong kind of hair and no horse markings—but she still resembled the Jorat girl that Xaltorath had once shown me. The resemblance was too strong to be a coincidence. She wore a shifting shawl around her shoulders woven of red, green, and violet light.
So, this was Tya, Goddess of Magic.
All the morgage who weren’t busy putting out their kin fell prostrate to the ground. I suspected their reverence was saved for Thaena, but who knows? Maybe being a god, any god, was enough, as one could argue it should be. And these weren’t just any gods, after all: the appearance of the Three Sisters was the sort of omen capable of dooming emperors and cursing whole countries. It had happened before.
“All of you? Perhaps.” Relos Var shook his head. “But all of you are not here. Whereas all nine of us are.”
The three women exchanged looks.
“You’re bluffing,” Taja said.
“Maybe. Possibly. But even if I am, what are the odds that a fight with the four of us—here, in this place—wouldn’t wake him?” Relos Var sighed, long and suffering. “I made all of you. Do you think I cannot destroy you if I wish it?”
Thaena scoffed. “You’ve been trying for millennia. If we’re so easy to dispense with, what’s stopping you?”
Which, I noticed right away, was not a denial. Relos Var had made the gods? That was a ridiculous notion. How could that be possible? How would that even work?
My eyes fell back to one of the bas-reliefs covering the walls. Eight figures. Eight symbols. Thaena’s symbol was a skull. Taja’s symbol was a coin. Tya’s symbol was her rainbow veil … I knew I’d match each symbol to one of the Eight Immortals, the true gods who only tolerated all others. And that ninth figure …
I looked back at Relos Var.
Tya nodded in my direction. I knew, even without speaking, that the spell constricting my voice had been lifted as well. The pain in my leg faded.
“You’re not taking him,” Taja said. “We will not allow it.”
“You shouldn’t have brought him back,” Relos Var said. “It was cruel.”
“Far less so than what you did,” Thaena said.
“I’m not your enemy,” Relos Var replied.
“But you are,” said the Goddess of Magic, “and our sin is how long it took all of us to realize.”
They locked stares then, Tya and Relos Var, and something passed between them. Tya looked at him the way one might look at a person once loved, someone who had hurt them deeply: with regret and sadness and no small measure of hate. They were not friends, but maybe they had been once. Maybe even more than that.
So, because I’ve always been a bit of a fool, I interrupted. “All I want to know is who you’re keeping prisoner in the center of the city.”
Taja walked over to me, put her hand on my shoulder. “That’s not important. Let’s get you out of here.”
“I think it is important,” I said. “He opened his eyes.”
Everything stopped.
Everyone stopped. Even Relos Var stared, blank faced. Some of the morgage warriors didn’t seem to speak Guarem, and they were too busy prostrating themselves before the divine to listen. But Relos Var, Tya, Taja, and Thaena all looked at me with the same expression.
Dread.
“He speaks true,” the morgage priestess said, rising to her feet. “The hungry one stirs, restless. It will not be long before he wakes once more.”
“The hungry one? Is that what you call it? What is that thing?” I repeated.
Relos Var tilted his head and regarded me. “They haven’t told you?”
“Haven’t told me what?”
He smirked. “I bet she thinks you don’t need to know.” He straightened his misha and tilted his head toward the three women in a way that was akin to a salute, before turning back to me. “When you grow tired of their evasions and their cleverly twisting truths that counterfeit better than lies, come find me. I will not deceive you.”
Taja snorted.
He glanced at her, his look both scolding and condescending.
I almost stabbed him then. I had the knife in my hand, the weight of the hilt resting lightly against my palm. In that moment of distraction, I almost went for him. I’d learned, you see, that talismans alone didn’t protect a sorcerer from steel. Catch a wizard in the right moment and he’s as vulnerable as anyone else.
But I didn’t. His words had been baited well; I couldn’t help but nibble. And I wasn’t so stupid that I couldn’t see the Three Sisters weren’t telling me even a fraction of the whole story.
I stayed my hand.
He turned back to me, and his eyes flickered down to the steel in my hand. “Until next time,” he said.
Without any further fanfare, Relos Var vanished.
Thaena turned to the morgage, speaking to them in their native tongue. Orders, from the sound of things, which they were quick to follow. Tya pulled the veil over her face and started walking slowly through the street, holding out her hands. The silvery strands outlining the memory of walls strengthened as she crossed over them.
“Who are you, Scamp?”
I turned back to Tyentso. “Come on, Ty. You know who I am.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. And I don’t think you know either.” She waved a hand around her. “This shit doesn’t happen to the runaway children of fourth-ranked Houses.”
Taja cleared her throat, and we both startled as we realized we had been standing there ignoring a goddess. “I think it would be best if I take you both out of here. It’s not safe.”
She glanced toward the center of the city, and I myself wondered just who exactly it wasn’t safe for.
“Taja, how did Relos Var find me? How did he know I was here? Why did he call me his little brother? And what did Relos Var mean about making you? He was going to fight you … how could he think he could fight a goddess—”
She set a finger against my lips. “Now is not the time.”
“Oh, you might want to make the time. Real soon.” Tyentso held out her hands as the goddess gave her a dirty look. “What are you going to do to me? I’m already dead.”
“No. You’re just catching your breath,” Taja replied as she moved her hand to my shoulder, and rested her other hand on one of Tyentso’s phantom arms. Despite her incorporeal nature, the Goddess of Luck touched her without difficulty.
The universe shifted.
62: THE GRYPHON RING
(Talon’s story)