She stepped closer, and that little movement was enough to make Atrius’s thread of self-control, already tenuous, snap.
He pushed past me, his still-bloodied sword out. “Get away from her,” he ground out, and the four words were all command; a way I had never once heard another person speak to the Sightmother. But what struck me more was the protectiveness that permeated his presence with those words, primal and unguarded in a way that Atrius rarely was.
I cringed, because if I felt it, the Sightmother certainly did too.
Her brows rose.
And with a flick of her hand and a powerful burst of magic through the threads, Atrius was on his knees, straining against a body that would no longer cooperate with him, his threads bound by the Sightmother’s spell.
Her head tilted to me. “Perhaps now I’m starting to understand some things.”
I did not give myself time to question the words that flew from my lips next. Didn’t allow myself to think about their consequences.
“You told me to gain his trust, Sightmother,” I said. “I have. All you’re seeing is evidence of my commitment.”
Weaver, how my chest ached, when I felt the shock in Atrius’s soul. The hint of betrayal, still now just a suspicion of something he didn’t yet want to believe.
“I see evidence of your disobedience,” the Sightmother snapped.
“I tried to consult you,” I said. “I couldn’t reach the Keep. I did this for the will of the Weaver—”
“The Weaver commanded you to kill him.”
The Sightmother’s voice boomed through the ancient halls, obliterating the silence along with my secret.
It took every shred of discipline not to show that I’d stopped breathing.
Atrius’s presence went cold. He could no longer avoid the realization.
I had been expecting his anger. I could have been prepared for that. Instead, what I got was his hurt. Pure, raw hurt—the hurt of that vulnerable version of him I saw when we were alone every night, soft and unguarded in sleep. A child’s hurt.
When I was only ten years old, the Arachessen tested my ability to withstand pain. I had hardened myself to it, told myself that if I could endure disfigured eyes or broken bones or missing fingers, I could endure anything.
And yet now, even as I bit down hard on my tongue, right over that ridge of scar tissue, I thought this pain might break me.
But I wouldn’t let it break him.
“Now,” she said, “Where is that dagger?”
I didn’t even have time to refuse it before she held out her hand—and suddenly, the knife was in it, weight missing from my hip.
I had only seen the Sightmother fight a handful of times. It was never a fight so much as a slaughter.
I didn’t even sense her moving until the blade was hurtling toward Atrius’s heart.
I screamed, “He is god-touched!”
The blade stopped, hovering in mid-air. The Sightmother’s head tilted, cocked like a bird’s. It was rare that I felt anything at all from her presence, given how skilled she was at hiding her emotions—but at this, I sensed a little glimmer of interest.
“Forgive me, “I choked out. “I was... just taken aback. I should have explained sooner. I tried to reach the Keep. No one answered me.”
“God-touched.”
She pulled the weapon back to her hand. A harsh command in those two words: go on.
“He was touched by the goddess Nyaxia herself,” I said. “Nyaxia, Sightmother. Imagine what an offering that would be to Acaeja.”
There were few things most of the gods of the White Pantheon valued more than a sacrifice of another’s acolyte in their name—especially an acolyte of a rival god, and most of all one hated as much as Nyaxia. Yes, Acaeja was the most tolerant god of Nyaxia, but tolerance was not alliance. A gift this great would hold significant weight.
The Sightmother went still, the dagger still raised. I couldn’t read either her face or her presence. Then she reached out with her free hand and grabbed Atrius’s chin, roughly forcing his face up to hers as he strained against her binding.
She withdrew her hand just as abruptly.
“Cursed,” she said. “Cursed by Nyaxia.”
“But she made a bargain with him, too. He acts on her behalf. Taking land from Acaeja in the name of his heretic goddess. Surely, the Weaver would appreciate that gift.”
The Sightmother considered this.
I bowed my head, hands open before me in a show of piety and obedience.
“Forgive me, Sightmother. I—I acted too rashly. As you’ve warned me against many times. And if the punishment for that is death, I—”
“Enough.”
In two long steps, she crossed the dais, and then her hands were on my face. My body’s reaction to her touch was visceral—part of me wanting so desperately to lean into it, as I had for the last fifteen years, and another part wanting just as fiercely to pull away.
“I have raised you, Sylina,” she murmured, a slight crack in her voice. “I am well aware of your flaws. I spent two decades trying to protect you from them. You always had such potential—” She cut herself off, her palm sliding to my cheek, and for a long moment she stood there, unmoving.
It was hard for me to gather my own courage enough, stifle my own anger, to peer through the gap in the door that had opened before me.
“I want to give Acaeja this,” I murmured. And because I knew that the Sightmother could feel my threads, I made sure the words were as close to the truth as possible. How sickeningly easy it was—to let her see how much I still loved my goddess and my Sisterhood, even as I reeled from their betrayal. “Let me redeem myself, Sightmother. Please.”
The plea rolled so convincingly from my lips. Maybe that made me every bit the hypocrite I accused the Sightmother of being.
I could feel Atrius’s eyes burning into my back like the heat of the sun. I could not let myself feel it. Could not acknowledge his presence.
The Sightmother regarded me for a long, long time. I could have sworn I felt something so foreign in her presence—uncertainty. Conflict. Until this moment, it had never occurred to me that the Sightmother could experience such things. I’d always thought that once you reached a certain level of power, a certain level of faith, it was like Acaeja wiped all those thoughts away. Why would an acolyte of the unknown feel any uncertainty? Doubt any decision?
Funny, the clarity that comes in the most terrible moments. I never realized before that this was why I had chosen Acaeja as my fixation, out of all the gods of the White Pantheon.
She was the only one who promised comfort in the unknown.
But even that had been a lie, because now I saw that the Sightmother felt just as uncertain in this moment as any other fallible human.
She leaned her head close to me, our foreheads nearly touching.
“Fine. You have earned your second chance, Sylina,” she said, each word weighted, like a heavy gift.
My relief flooded me. I smiled with a shaky breath. “Thank you—”
I didn’t even feel her magic—her sedation—until it was too late, and the ground was rising up to meet me.
The last thing I sensed wasn’t her loving stare, grateful as I was for it.