“My Goddess Acaeja,” I cried out, my voice cracking. “I summon you in the name of my mother, your acolyte, Alana of Obitraes, in my greatest time of need. Hear me, Acaeja, I beg you.”
And perhaps I wasn’t insane after all.
Because when I called, a goddess answered.
75
ORAYA
Acaeja’s beauty was not the beauty of Nyaxia. Nyaxia was beautiful the way many women hoped to be, albeit a million times over, a force greater than a mortal mind could even comprehend.
Acaeja’s beauty, though, was terrifying.
When she landed before me, I started shaking.
She was tall, even taller than Nyaxia was, with a regal, strong face. But more imposing than her stature were the wings—six of them layered over each other, three to each side. Each one acted as a window to a different world, a different fate—a field of blossoms beneath a cloudless summer sky, a bustling human city beneath a lightning storm, a forest raging with fire. She wore long white robes that pooled around her bare feet. Strings of light—the threads of fate—dangled from her ten-fingered hands.
Her face tilted toward me, cloudy white eyes meeting mine.
I gasped and tore my gaze away.
A second of that stare, and I saw my past, my present, my future, blurring by too fast to comprehend. Fitting, that was what one would see, looking into the eyes of the Weaver of Fates.
“Do not be afraid, my daughter.”
Her voice was the amalgamation of so many different tones—child, maiden, elder.
Fear is just a collection of physical responses, I told myself, and I forced myself to meet Acaeja’s gaze again.
She knelt before me—observing Raihn, and then me, with detached interest.
“You called,” she said simply.
You answered, I almost replied, because I was still in shock that she actually had.
I groped for words and came up empty-handed. But she grabbed my chin, gently but firmly, and looked into my eyes like she was reading the pages of a book. Her gaze flicked back to Raihn.
“Ah,” she said. “I see.”
“A Coriatis bond,” I managed. “I ask you, Great Goddess, for a Coriatis bond. My mother devoted her life to you, and I—I’ll offer you anything if—”
Acaeja raised a single hand.
“Hush, child. I understand what you seek. Your mother was indeed a devoted follower of mine. I am quite protective of those who walk the unknown beside me.” She scanned the carnage that surrounded us, lips thinning with a brief wave of disapproval. “Even if they walk it, at times, to questionable ends, tampering with forces that should not be disturbed.”
I bit back a wave of shame on my mother’s behalf.
“Please,” I whispered. “If you grant us a Coriatis bond, if you help me save him, I swear to you—”
Again, Acaeja raised her palm.
“Do you understand the gravity of what you ask of me?”
This, I knew, was not a rhetorical question.
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
“Do you understand that you are asking me for something I have never once granted before?”
My eyes prickled. Another tear rolled down my cheek. “Yes.”
Only Nyaxia had ever granted a Coriatis bond. Never a single god of the White Pantheon.
But I was willing to try anything. Anything.
“Countless times, my followers have begged me to save their loved ones from death. Death is not the enemy. Death is a natural continuation of life. An intrinsic part of fate.” The visions in her wings shifted, as if to demonstrate—revealing glimpses of dark skies and bones and flowers growing from rotting flesh. “What makes you different?”
Nothing, I thought, at first. I was just another grieving lover, standing on the precipice of one more loss she couldn’t bear.
But I rasped out, “Because he could do such great things for this kingdom. We could, together. We could make things so much better for the people who live here. People—” My voice grew stronger. “People like my mother, who devoted her life to you, even when trying to survive so many hardships here.”
Acaeja tilted her head, as if she found this answer interesting. Compared to Nyaxia’s blatant emotionality, she was distant, calculated. I couldn’t read her.
I knew Nyaxia, despite her cruel dismissal, felt my pain. Acaeja, I feared, was only analyzing it.
“My cousin spoke the truth to you,” she said. “Granting a Coriatis bond between two Heirs would alter the course of the House of Night forever.”
“It would end millennia of warfare.”