Think, Sylina. Focus.
“You were never supposed to know,” the Sightmother said. “If you had obeyed, you still wouldn’t.”
Her face hardened. I felt the shift in her presence, something deadly, like a sword being drawn—except the magic of the Sightmother was more deadly than any piece of steel.
“And why didn’t you obey, Sylina?”
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.”