Chapter 13 #2
“My mother wouldn’t…”
“But the Nameless would. Now that the sword has returned, the seal that keeps her in place is cracking. She will grasp onto power by any means necessary and use it to bring about her dark reign of terror. Unless you can stop it.” His voice rang with such assurance and certainty that Liane could almost see his dire vision in her mind.
“What do I need to do?” she asked.
“Follow me, trust me, implicitly.”
Liane felt his gaze boring into her. Once again, she had that strange sensation that he could see through her, into her very soul, and was ready to bring forth all her sins for examination.
“I do,” she said.
He did not reply but walked to the far end of the room and picked up a piece of cloth. Beneath it was a cage and a small, round bird.
“Time is running short; the last crack in the seal will break the night of the winter solstice. Before that happens, we must draw the sword from your back at the fall equinox in order to prepare you. Your mother robbed you by not giving you a temple education, but there are things I can teach you to make this process easier.” He set the bird and the cage between them.
The bird was fluttering inside the cage, beating its tiny wings against the bars of its prison.
The Avatheos reached into the cage and grasped hold of the bird, cupping it gently in his hands.
Liane thought for a moment he would let it fly free, out of an open window.
Then he clenched his fist, and the bird stopped moving.
“Hold out your hand,” he said.
“Why did you kill it?”
“Your divinity, you trust me, don’t you?”
Liane swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Yes.” She held her cupped, shaking hands open. The Avatheos placed the lifeless bird into them. It weighed nothing at all, and its little wings were bent at an odd angle.
“Heal the bird.”
“I can’t heal it. The bird is dead.”
“The vessel is damaged, but the bird is not dead—not yet,” he said. “Pull upon the threads of life and mend its broken body.”
Liane looked down at the bird, feeling helpless. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. But she desperately wanted to help. When she looked closer, she could see the very shallow breaths it was taking. Its tiny black eye seemed to be pleading with her to save it. Please. Let me save it.
Then her hands started to glow faintly, a shimmering golden light that surrounded the bird, wrapping it in a sphere of luminescence, growing brighter and brighter by the second.
Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped.
The bird sat up on her palm, unharmed. It tilted its head side to side, examining, as if it were thanking her.
Then it fluttered up and took flight out of the open window.
Liane stared after it in a daze. She’d healed the bird with her own two hands.
Could this power be harnessed to save Erich as well?
Liane sat up straighter. “Could this power heal corrupted? Is that what I’m meant to do?”
The Avatheos narrowed his eyes. Did he suspect?
Had rumors of Erich reached him? “Did you know before the Nameless Goddess betrayed the light, there were cults in her honor, and they were the first who turned corrupted when the rivers of magic turned?” He motioned to the map on the table.
“Our magic comes from these veins of the goddess. Her blood and tears filled them, and those who drank from those magic springs were granted her power. Similarly, those the Nameless Goddess birthed, like elves and dragons, were born corrupted, and the black ichor in their veins cannot be reversed, because they are the antithesis of the light.”
“But chimeras are born from the corruption. How do we know that dragons and elves can’t be saved?”
“You have a generous heart, but you cannot save the damned.”
Her stomach twisted into knots. She wanted to save Erich, and she wanted to believe there was a way to do it. “What about the sword? Surely that gives me some power. Maybe it can reverse the darkness.”
“The sword in your back is a weapon of light. If it were to be drawn against those sworn to the shadows, it would turn them to dust. That is why we must draw it out, to use it in the coming battle. Forget these dreams of salvation. They will not be as kind to you when they come to destroy your kin.”
“And what about my mother? Can’t we stop this corruption from happening?” she asked.
“Fate cannot be undone.” He sighed. “Perhaps it is best if I show you.” He motioned for Liane to follow him out the door. They went down the spiraling staircase, down the steps, and into the hall. Those they passed along the way moved aside.
He took her to the inner sanctum, which was emptied of worshippers.
And he walked toward the statue of Cyra.
She looked much as she did the night of the rite.
But the moon was filling and illuminated her face.
The Avatheos approached and pressed a button near her sandaled feet.
Something clicked, and then a grinding sound rattled through the room as the statue moved aside, revealing the stairwell she’d used to get into the inner chamber below.
The Avatheos went first, and Liane followed close behind.
The room where they’d performed the rite felt cold and creepy without the oracles to fill it.
She feared he’d perform another strange ritual on her, but instead, he walked toward the back of the room to a door that she hadn’t noticed before now.
He swung it open and revealed yet another set of stairs.
They descended into the dark, led only by the torch the Avatheos carried.
As they approached, she heard a sound like rushing water, and then her skin started to glow, followed by a rhythmic throbbing in her back.
“Do you feel it calling to you?” the Avatheos asked. There was a strange rapture to his voice.
“What is it?”
“The source of light, the origin of light magic,” the Avatheos replied.
The stairs ended at a door covered in markings she’d never seen before.
The Avatheos pressed the markings in an order that she couldn’t follow, and then the door swung open.
It revealed a vaulted room with smooth walls that glimmered faintly in the golden light emanating from the river that ran from the room.
It was nothing like she’d seen before. It made her scar throb and her stomach churn.
“What is a source?”
“When Cyra wept for her sister who betrayed her, it was here that her tears gathered, and from here, all light magic flows. All those who serve the light as her priests and priestesses enter the water and are purified of what darkness might linger in them. And, as a result, they are given her visions, her healing, her strength. During the fall equinox, you shall enter the water and awaken the sealed power within you, becoming a holy warrior, her divine justice.” He stared at the vein with a sort of rapt awe.
Liane nodded, half in a trance. It seemed to be calling out to her in the way the dark pool in the ruins had. The sword in her back was throbbing, aching to be freed from her flesh.
She took a half step toward it, but the Avatheos caught her wrist and held her back.
“Do not give in to its pull. Though I know the temptation is great. Entering it now might cause irrevocable damage to you. The ceremony must be completed at a time when darkness and light are in balance. In the same way it fused the sword with your back, a premature entry could kill you or, worse, allow the Nameless Goddess to use you as her wicked vessel. She will continue to tempt you until the ceremony is complete.”
Liane took a step back, and she saw at the fringes of the pool black spiderweb tendrils, nearly absorbed by the light but spreading like cracks over the glittering surface.
He reached out as if to touch her face, and Liane fought the urge to recoil. When he touched her, she felt a wave of revulsion come over her. Every instinct was telling her to run.
“You’ve experienced too many worldly indulgences. And I fear it has made your destiny harder. But I can fix you, if necessary. Because I know it is you who will save us.”
“I’ll do my best,” Liane croaked, and that seemed to snap him out of whatever trance he’d been caught in.
He stepped back from her, and his shoulders bunched. “That’s enough for today. Return to your room and meditate on what we’ve spoken about. Tomorrow you will meet more of your supplicants, whose support is vital to our future endeavors.”
She felt her mind swirling with everything the Avatheos had told her.
She couldn’t save Erich; her mother would lead the realm’s destruction.
How could any of it be true? She wanted desperately to believe the Avatheos that she was the goddess’ chosen.
But what if he’d gotten it wrong and she was the destruction he’d foretold instead?