For hours, we talked. I was honest about all of it—the things I knew, and the things I didn’t. So many questions I still couldn’t answer, no matter how much I wished I could.
And when I felt their heartbreak, I experienced mine all over again.
For better or for worse, we had built something beautiful in our unshakable faith in each other. I grieved it as it shattered. I was here to create something new with them, but that didn’t change the tragedy of what had been destroyed.
Eventually, hours later, we had exhausted ourselves. Everything that could be said had been. We leaned over that unbroken chain of salt, simmering in each other’s grief.
Only then did I lift my head and turn to all of them, reaching my presence out to theirs.
“I know that what I have told you is difficult to hear, and even harder to understand,” I said. “I know that I’ll be spending much of my life trying to understand it, too. I wish I could give you all the answers you’re looking for. I—I wish I could find them for myself.” My voice cracked slightly—I cleared it, swallowing down the emotion. “But while we can’t control our reckoning with the past, we can control our future. The Pythora King, in whatever form he existed, is gone. Now we’re left with a broken kingdom that needs us, and a world of opportunity of what can be done with the pieces.” I drew in a breath and let it out. “How long, Sisters, has it been since Glaea belonged to its people?”
“The vampire is not one of Glaea’s people,” Naya pointed out.
“No,” I agreed. “And he’ll be the first to admit that, too. But I am, and I stand beside him. He isn’t Glaen, but he knows what it is to be lost and betrayed by those who were supposed to protect you. He knows this kingdom deserves more, just as we do. And our voices are just as powerful as his. I know this is a big question, and I’ve given you a lot to consider. But that’s all I’m asking of you. Consideration.”
The words hung in the air for a long moment. I found myself holding my breath along with them.
Little Yylene, Weaver bless her, was the first to stand.
“Yes,” she said, her small voice barely filling the room. “Yes. I’ll help.”
I couldn’t suppress my grin. Not only at my first ally, but that it was her—the young girl who, like me, had always so struggled with her emotions.
Soon after her, another Sister stood, and another. They didn’t say anything. There was nothing more to say. But I felt their solidarity all the same.
In the end, half the table stood that night, offering me their support—more than I ever thought I would get. The rest didn’t offer their allegiance outright, but didn’t deny it, either, saying they needed more time to think. That, I understood. I’d give them as much as they needed.
When the meeting ended and the Sisters filed from the room, only Asha remained, her hands still on her lap, her face stone. A wall surrounded her inner threads—a wall so rigid that I knew whatever wounds bled within were deep.
Erekkus cast me a glance as the rest of the Arachessen filed from the room, silently asking if I needed help, but I shook my head and waved him away.
Then I shifted to the seat next to Asha and touched her shoulder.
“Sister.”
She lurched away from me, the rage in her aura lashing out in a sudden wave.
“You’re not my Sister,” she spat. “You don’t deserve that title.”
“Asha—”
“You’re lying. You’re lying about all of it. Do you think I don’t see that?”
I said softly, “I am not lying.”
“You were never one of us. You hated the Sightmother because she saw that—”
“I loved the Sightmother,” I bit out. “She was everything I wanted to be.”
She whirled to me, mouth twisted and teeth bared. “I gave my life to her. My life. Longer than you’ve been alive. And you expect me to believe that she had lied to us that way and no one ever found out but who—you?”
She spat the word, spittle flying across the table.
I was silent.
I knew, in this moment, that nothing I could ever say would make her believe me. She would live the rest of her life believing I was a liar, because the alternative was too difficult to stomach.
So I didn’t try to argue with her. I didn’t stop her as she lurched to her feet, tipping over her chair with a violent clatter, and left the room, leaving me alone with a table covered in smeared salt.
I had half my Sisters. Maybe more, when all was said and done.