It’s a tricky business to get the attention of a god—a matter of luck and fate. Some gods were busybodies, often meddling in the affairs of their human followers, likely to notice even minor slights. Others were aloof, disinterested in the land of mortals altogether. Most varied between the two, depending on your favor and their moods. Some humans were gifted summoners, able to draw upon the gods at will, but that was a rare, rare power. For most of us, summoning a god demanded complicated rituals and powerful magic, and even then, you might not manage it.
If you did, you’d better have something interesting enough to show them. Gods did not like having their time wasted.
The Sightmother did not plan on wasting Acaeja’s time.
She led me to the roof of the Salt Keep, over the west wing, an area that I had never been allowed. I had only seen this platform once before, and only from a distance. It was carved directly into the obsidian stone of the Keep—a large, circular base, two steps around it.
It was a calm night, the sky clear, revealing the full moon. The sound of the distant waves crashing against the rocks, far below us, was a constant, steady heartbeat.
I could recognize all those things. And yet, the old image of the scraps of color floating in the winds came to me now, and I so desperately wished I could see it all from up here. A sight that my ten-year-old self no doubt would have found incredible.
It would have been a nice final thing to see.
I had time to think this only for a moment, because then my attention turned to the presences on the platform—one above them all, too strong to ignore.
Atrius.
Erekkus was there too, bound and restrained, as well as five other vampire warriors—had they been captured from the battlefield? I didn’t let myself wonder, or else risked feeling things I wasn’t supposed to feel. Two shrouded, elderly Arachessen stood along the outskirts of the circle, presumably the advisors that the Sightmother mentioned at dinner. The vampires were all heavily sedated. Still, I sensed their anger thrashing wildly—unsuccessfully—against the haze of their half-consciousness.
None of them fought as hard as Atrius, though.
They had to have used more powerful magic on him than the others, I could tell immediately, and even then, it had barely been enough. His aura held none of the frantic, directionless fight. Instead, his fury was steady and constant.
He was in the middle, shirtless, his body sagging against a stone pillar. His hair was unbound and messy over his shoulders and chest, which was covered with still-bleeding wounds from our battle. His lashes fluttered as he strained to keep them open.
When I stepped onto the platform, his head struggled to lift. I sensed, agonizingly clearly, the sudden burst of emotions that ran through him at the sight of me—all of them contradictory. Affection. Protectiveness. Hurt. Anger.
All of them there and gone in an instant, hidden behind that steel wall.
Weaver, I envied him, because it was so much harder for me to choke down everything I felt. I couldn’t even let myself acknowledge it, because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to shove any of it back into its box.
In the presence of the Sightmother, I had to feel nothing but gratefulness. Loyalty.
I forced those things to the front of my mind, forced them to drown out everything else. I was an Arachessen. I was a daughter of the Lady of Fate. I was an acolyte of Acaeja. That was all I ever had been. All I ever would be. All I ever wanted to be.
The Sightmother led me across the narrow, silver-railed pathway to the altar, her lush, cerulean-blue skirts rustling with each movement. Her steps had grown a little shaky, her hands clutching the silver rail. I was sure that if her eyes had been visible, her pupils would have been massive. The cocktail of herbs and drugs in her wine, designed to open the passage between her and the world of the gods, worked quickly.
By the time she made it to the altar, she was barely standing up straight. I had to offer her my arm so she could make it up the steps.
The Sightmother sagged over the altar, her palms pressed to the stone, head bowed, catching her breath.
“I can already sense it,” she said. “The path to the gods.”
Even her voice sounded distant.
“All of my strength will be needed to call the attention of Acaeja,” she went on. “To keep the way open. It will be up to you to make the offering.”
With a shaky hand, she reached into her silk robes. Then she withdrew a dagger, the fine blade gleaming silver in the moonlight.
The dagger. My dagger.
“You’ll know when,” she said. “You’ll feel it. Give her his head first. And then the blood of the others.” She laughed a little, a weak exhale. “The head of a vampire touched by Nyaxia. What an offering. We’ll have earned quite a favor tonight, Sylina.”
“Yes,” I agreed. My hand closed around the hilt of the blade, so cold it almost made me flinch. My voice sounded like it belonged to a stranger.
Atrius’s stare, steady and hard despite his near-unconsciousness, pierced my back inch-by-inch, his attention dripping down my spine like blood.
Anticipation hung thick in the air.
At last, the Sightmother lifted her head. Straightened her back. Every muscle moved with such uncanny grace, an unnerving shift from her drug-hindered movements seconds ago. She lifted her chin, face tilted to the sky, palms open at her sides, as if to offer as much of herself to the heavens as possible.
“It’s time,” she murmured. “Light the fire. Let’s begin.”
46
If there was any doubt that magic was thick in the night here, the way the blaze went up—like it was ready to consume the entire world—put it to rest. I had to leap away from the fire pit, my hands shielding my face, the moment I dropped the match. My Threadwalking ritual fires were laughable compared to this. This was a spire of light that pierced all the way through the sky, like the flames were trying to reach for the gods themselves.
And the gods, in turn, reached back.
A powerful crack of magic split the sky, the earth. There was no sound, no movement, and yet we all reacted to it like the force of an earthquake. The hairs on my arms stood upright. Every inhale burned, like the air itself had turned into something not meant for human lungs.
The Sightmother’s head snapped backwards, her face lifted to the night, light pouring from her palms, her mouth, the eyes beneath her blindfold. That light pooled in the sky like cream poured into black tea, swirling slowly, cracks of lightning collecting in its center.
To open a passage to the gods required incredibly powerful magic. Only a handful of people in the world were capable of it. A part of me expected the process to be long, drawn out, like one of our many archaic rituals.