His voice cracked. Bathed in such intense light, no one else could see the single tear slide down his cheek. No one but me.
He choked out, “My pact to you has been fulfilled.”
Yes, it was difficult to get the attention of a god.
But this? This was enough.
In fact, it was enough to get the attention of two.
47
I had thought my vision of Nyaxia had been debilitating. I had been wrong. It was nothing compared to what she was in person—a force so great that you had no choice but to bow, a beauty so intense you had no choice but to avert your gaze, a presence so strong that the threads themselves couldn’t define her.
All at once, she was here, and all at once, the world rearranged to suit her.
She was as she had appeared in the vision—the tendrils of long black hair, floating like freestanding night, the pale skin, the blood-drenched mouth, the eyes of nebulas and galaxies. And yet, she still was so much more.
The terror that fell over me had me on my hands and knees against the stone.
And yet, through that fear, my attention fell to Atrius—Atrius, who now hacked off the Sightmother’s head, presenting it to his goddess.
He didn’t show it, but I could feel his fear, too. He was drowning in it.
He bowed to Nyaxia and held out the head to her.
“My lady,” he said. “A gift for you.”
Nyaxia chuckled. The sound felt like a fingernail up my spine—a promise of something either very pleasurable or very dangerous.
She reached down and took the head, examining it.
“My,” she purred, “and what a gift it is.”
“I promised you a kingdom of the White Pantheon conquered in your name,” Atrius said. “I do not make promises I don’t keep.”
“And yet I didn’t expect the head of my cousin’s devoted acolyte.” A slow smile widened over Nyaxia’s mouth, another drop of blood trickling down her ice-pale skin. “A kingdom is one thing. But this… what a delightful surprise. For too long my cousins have thought my children are free for them to hunt. How nice to see the roles reversed.”
The earth itself shivered with her pleasure. I’d never been in the presence of such wicked delight. I knew that gods, petty as they were, loved to be offered sacrifices that spat in the face of their rivals. But this… Nyaxia seemed to love the spite of it more than the gift of the kingdom she had sent Atrius on an impossible mission for.
She lowered the head and ran one blood-soaked hand over Atrius’s cheek, a mother’s caress. He stiffened beneath her touch.
“You,” she purred, “have exceeded my expectations, Atrius of the House of Blood.”
Just then, the air shifted again. All the air ripped from my body, leaving me heaving on the ground.
It wasn’t enough to say the threads shifted. They changed. suddenly they were more alive than they ever had been, every one of them bound to a new source—their only true master.
Only the Weaver herself could shift the threads of life itself like that.
“You always were far too quick to make your decisions, cousin,” a low, melodic voice said—a voice that sounded like every age layered on top of the other, child and elder and everything in between, ever-moving, like the unknown itself.
I forced myself to lift my head. Forced my senses to reach out for her—my goddess, my Weaver, Acaeja.
The entire world bent to her. No, flowed through her—like every sense and element and tiny speck of time was held in the palm of her hand. While Nyaxia emanated breathtaking, dangerous beauty, Acaeja’s was constant, stable, like the powerful grace of the horizon where the stone met the sea. She had rich, deep skin, her features strong as stone, her large eyes pure white and clouded with mist that shifted and changed with every passing second. She had six wings, three on each side, each one offering a glimpse into another cryptic version of the future or past or present—snowy skies or churning seas or flames of a fallen kingdom. She wore a long, simple white gown that trailed over her feet, fluttering in the breeze. Her hands, which had ten fingers each, were fanned out in front of her. Each finger was tattooed with symbols that indicated a different fate—and from those fingers spilled threads of light. Threads of fate itself, surrounding her like the moon circling the earth.
A slow smile spread over Nyaxia’s face—a wicked smile. “Acaeja. It’s been so long.”
“A shame for us to meet with my acolyte’s head in your hands.”
Nyaxia’s smile withered. “I seem to recall once we met with my husband’s head in yours.”