As I brushed my hair and put on a fresh blindfold—red that perfectly matched my dress—I wondered if I looked beautiful. There was a certain appeal to leaving behind a pretty corpse.
Whatever the Sightmother was able to sense of my appearance, she must have been pleased, because her smile was one of genuine pleasure when I joined her in the dining room. She wore her gown as well, teal blue, just as ornate as mine. The room was large, the ceilings high and made of glass, revealing the red dusk of the sky above. But the table at its center was small, designed to sit no more than five people. Today, it was only set for two.
She gestured to the place setting across from her, and I sat down.
The food smelled incredible. I didn’t realize until now exactly how long it had been since I’d eaten fresh cooking.
The Sightmother sipped her wine glass. “Eat,” she said. She’d already started on her own meal, her steak half-gone. “You’ll need your energy tonight.”
I had no appetite. I daintily cut the meat and took a bite anyway. It was perfectly made, but tasted like ash.
“Thank you,” I said. “It’s very good.”
A waste of words. I had so many questions to ask. Some, I might be able to. Others were far too dangerous.
“It’s alright,” the Sightmother said softly.
My knife stopped moving.
“What, Sightmother?”
“I sense your fear, Sylina. There’s no shame in fear. I was terrified the first time I met Acaeja.”
I felt no lie in her words. Nothing but kind compassion.
I had still been partly convinced that she was going to kill me. But perhaps I could chance the questions I most desperately wanted answers to, if I asked them carefully.
I set down my silverware.
“I do have a question,” I said.
The Sightmother’s brow twitched over the ebony silk of her blindfold. “I’m sure you have many.”
“Why are you allowing me to do this when I disobeyed your orders?”
Her smile faded.
“Many people asked me, years ago, why I allowed you to stay at the Salt Keep,” she said. “Considering your age.”
Normally, every time someone mentioned the way I came to be here, I’d bristle with shame, like it was a terrible flaw being pointed out. Something unpleasant and bitter lingered on my tongue now, but it wasn’t shame. It was a different kind of anger, directed not at myself but at the Sightmother.
“The truth was that I saw such potential in you,” she said. “I saw... parts of myself, perhaps, in you. Even all those years ago. There can be beauty in what makes us unique. I sensed that what made you unique could be a great benefit to the Arachessen.”
My hands shook slightly around my knife. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
It was what I had wanted to hear my entire life. That validation.
“It was always made very clear to me that my ten years before the Arachessen were a detriment to my position here,” I said, keeping my voice carefully level.
“In some ways. Yes.”
“But you never believed that.”
Another calm smile. “It isn’t so simple, Sylina. Something can be both a detriment and a strength. Suffering makes us strong. You, Sylina, have suffered so greatly. And you have grown so, so strong because of it—and because you had so much to prove. Complacency does not make anyone strong.”
I had to focus on keeping my breathing level. Needed to speak past the painful lump at the base of my throat.
Puzzle pieces, slowly, were clicking together, even though I hated the picture they revealed.
“Then you’ve done me a great service,” I said. “Just as you’ve done Glaea a great service.”
For a moment I thought I’d pushed too hard, mentioning Glaea, my implication clear. But I kept my presence still, all those feelings of love and loyalty and gratefulness at the front of my mind. And at last, the Sightmother inclined her chin.
“Complacency does not create strength,” she said again. “Not in you. Not in Glaea, either. You have fire, Sylina. Think of a version of yourself who was not forged in those flames. Think of how soft you would be.” She shook her head. “That is not what’s Right for this country.”
Right. As if this is what Acaeja wanted for us.
I put my hands under the table, folded over my lap, terrified they would betray me. I could control my presence, but damn if I could control those shaking hands.
“It’s... a shock,” I said. “The truth of the king.”
“I know. It will take time to come to terms with it.”
“How long…?”
The rest of the question faded into too many others: How long has the Pythora King been dead? How long have you been ruling over a never-ending war? How many deaths are on your hands?
My sister’s? My mother’s?
“Does it matter?” she asked.
Yes, I wanted to say. It matters more than anything. But instead I lowered my chin, as if to concede. “No. I suppose it doesn’t.”
“A long time,” she said. She took another sip of her wine. The smell of it was too pungent—it was a ceremonial drink, I was sure, likely loosening her lips and her inhibitions in preparation for the ceremony she’d soon have to perform.
“Who else knows?”
I dreaded the answer to this question. Because despite everything, they were my Sisters.
“The Sightmother who came before me,” she said. “Two of my highest advisors. And now, you. It’s... a truth most aren’t ready to understand. I’ve gone through great lengths to protect it.”
I thought of the various Sisters who had been shunned from the Arachessen, punished with death and dismemberment for crimes never disclosed to us. I wondered whether any of them had simply been removed for knowing too much.
“Yet you’re letting me live,” I said.
“I told you, child, that we would need your fire for what’s ahead.” The smile she gave me was so warm, so loving—so sickeningly genuine. I could even feel her pride and affection in her presence. “Do you know what your name means, Sylina? It means bringer of rebirth, in the tongue of the gods. I saw your greatness when I meditated on you, that day I brought you here and found that name for you. Fate is ever-changing. I wasn’t sure if you would come to fulfill those expectations. But now, I believe that you can. The offering you’ve brought us has convinced me of that. That’s why I want you here to meet Acaeja with me. Because you are the future of the Arachessen. The flame in which we forge the next version of ourselves. I saw that fifteen years ago, and I see it even more clearly today.”
My eyes stung. The lump in my throat had grown unbearable. If I opened my mouth, I’d sob.
The Sightmother held out her hand, and I laid mine in hers. Her thumb rubbed comforting circles over my skin.
“You have won, Sylina,” she murmured, her voice cracking. “Now come with me, and help me forge this new world.”
She swallowed the last of her wine in a single gulp, then rose.
When she held out her hand for me again, I took it.
45