Chapter 10
The veil was hot against my skin as I panicked. It was thin and nearly weightless—but still it clung to the sweat on my brow, refusing to let go.
“You have been veiled,” the High Priestess said, her voice rich with ritual, “because the queen will not be chosen for her face nor for the hunger in men’s eyes.”
The air shifted. Even through the silk, I could feel the room tighten, as though the words had pulled a cord around every throat.
This was not good. My beauty was what I had. It was what men noticed first, what they wanted, what they envied … what they cursed. If that wasn’t to be weighed, then what else was there of me to measure?
“A god sees deeper. He looks past flesh and finery and weighs what lies beneath.”
Beneath.
What lay beneath my skin, my name, the dirt and flecks of blood still caught in the cracks of my knuckles? What would she find if she scraped away the surface?
“My aunt says the High Priestess looked straight into her and saw everything, every lie, every shameful thing she’d ever done,” a girl whispered to me fearfully. “Said it felt like her soul had been stripped bare.”
I pressed my palms together hard, as though pressure alone might keep the truth from spilling out of me.
Because the High Priestess had begun to move …
I watched, rigid, as she paused in front of the first woman, a willowy thing with fidgeting fingers twisted in the folds of her gown.
Without a word, she lifted her arm in a fluid arc that showcased the sacred glyphs stitched into her sleeve.
Her wrist flexed with quiet strength. Rings of obsidian and amber coiled around her knuckles, glinting like watchful eyes.
She extended her hand and held it above the woman’s brow. Not touching. Just hovering. The woman sucked in a breath, her veil fluttering and her shoulders locking as she waited.
The High Priestess’s expression was blank as her gaze bore into the woman’s veiled features, giving no sign of what she saw—or if she saw anything at all.
Slowly, she pressed two fingers to the center of the woman’s forehead.
The woman’s whole frame jerked, as though the touch had struck something deep and unseen.
We were all holding our breath. Dozens of veiled women stood frozen, hearts pounding behind diaphanous fabric. The priestess withdrew her hand, turned so that all could see her clearly, and gave a single, solemn nod.
Chosen.
The woman dropped to her knees, silk whispering around her in a pool of white. Her veil fluttered with each shallow, frantic breath.
The High Priestess stepped forward, skirts gliding noiselessly across the stone, and stopped in front of the next woman. Her arm rose and she once again pressed two fingers to the woman’s forehead.
The woman went rigid.
The contact lasted a breath, maybe two, and then the priestess stepped back with another blank expression and nodded once.
Once again, the woman collapsed in stunned relief, her knees striking the floor with a soft thud as a sob slipped through her shaking shoulders.
The High Priestess had already moved on.
She stopped before each woman. Always the same, the lift of her hand, the press of her fingers to a brow. Each touch exact and measured.
And then the judgment. A nod, and a woman would fall to her knees, joy breaking over her like dawn. A shake of the head, barely more than a flick, and the High Priestess’s judgment would settle over the woman like a shroud.
A few remained upright, swallowing the rejection with fragile dignity.
But one didn’t.
She stared after the priestess as though she hadn’t understood. Her hands fisted at her sides, trembling. When it sank in, her legs gave out.
“No,” she gasped. “No, please—please!”
She lunged forward, caught by attendants before she hit the floor. Her veil slipped sideways, revealing tear-streaked cheeks and wild, red-rimmed eyes.
“I can prove it,” she sobbed. “I can prove that I’m worthy. Please, don’t—”
The attendants were hauling her away before her scream had finished echoing. They shuffled her toward the doors, her limbs flailing, silk tangling around her ankles.
I couldn’t look away. My heart thundered, not with pity, but terror.
That could be me.
She fought the whole way to the doors, her voice breaking until it was no more than a desperate rasp. They slammed shut behind her, sealing the sound away.
And the High Priestess had already raised her hand again.
The line was thinning. Fewer girls remained between us now, only a handful of veiled figures separating me from her judgment.
My heart thudded, a relentless beat against my ribs. Each breath burned on the way in, too shallow to soothe.
Closer. Closer.
The soft drag of her robes across stone seemed deafening now, louder than my pulse, louder than the whispers clawing at the edge of my thoughts. I gripped my dress, trying to look calm.
She stopped in front of me and my breath fled, stolen clean from my chest, as if the very air had turned its back on me. A hush settled over my skin as her hand rose.
It was the same thing she’d done with all the others. But this was different.
This was me.
I stared straight ahead, every muscle tense as my lungs ached with the strain of so much stillness. My heart was thrashing like it wanted to break free of my chest, to reach for her fingers and force her to choose me.
Please.
Her hand hovered just above my veil. One breath away.
And then … she convulsed.
Her spine snapped taut, arching back as if struck. A tremor ripped through her thin frame. Her mouth opened, but no words came, only a strange, primal sound rising as if dredged from some forgotten cavern of her soul.
Around me, the air shifted, a gasp rising amid the rustle of silk and the whispers of girls drawing back.
The High Priestess staggered away, one step, then another. Her arms flailed slightly, clawing at the space between us like she was trying to fend me off.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t.
Her eyes flew open, wide and terrified. They locked on mine.
She looked at me, not at the veil, not at the girl beneath it, but through me, as if my skin were nothing but glass.
Her gaze peeled me open, seeing every secret I’d buried beneath my ribs, every scraped-knee prayer whispered to forbidden gods, every desperate promise I’d made to survive.
She saw my village, the red dust still clinging to my hem, and the years of training and trembling hope I’d carried like chains of lead across my back.
The High Priestess opened her mouth again, her lips moving as a voice not her own slipped free, colder and older than the air itself, rough and heavy with prophecy. “She will be the ruin of us all.”
The words slammed into me, impossible to dodge.
The High Priestess swayed, her chest rising in fractured gasps as her fingers twitched at her sides.
She blinked once, twice, again, each blink slower than the last, as if she was waking up in a place she didn’t recognize, as though she had forgotten where she was … until her eyes darted back to mine.
For a heartbeat, she stilled.
Then her expression shifted, terror flooding her features.
The room seemed to hold its breath as she stepped back from me in a clear rejection.
With jerky and forced movements she shook her head, rejecting me, and then quickly moved to the next candidate, but her eyes flicked back to me in quick, fearful glances, as if she expected me to strike.
I stood frozen, emptied of breath, her words sinking into me like molten metal finding every weakness in the mold.
My chest rose and fell, but it wasn’t breath. It was panic.
The hope I’d held, tightfisted, sacred, all I had, cracked beneath the weight of that moment.
She didn’t choose me.
No. She’d refused me.
Her words crashed through my skull, louder than the ringing silence, louder than the gasps and muffled sounds of fear that were filling the room. She will be the ruin of us all.
What did that mean? What had I done?
The girls beside me were edging away as if I was carrying the Dread.
I ignored them, reaching for the High Priestess, my fingers scraping at the empty air, desperate to bridge the distance she’d created.
“Please,” I managed, the word cracking in the silence.
The High Priestess didn’t turn. I took a stumbling step after her.
“You don’t understand,” I said, my voice breaking on the edges of the plea. “Look at me.”
She kept moving, her head held high, as though she hadn’t heard. I lunged forward, but hands caught my arms before I could reach her.
A snarl tore from my throat as I turned, ready to fight whoever dared hold me back—only to find the servants clutching my arms. Their faces were bloodless, eyes blown wide with something closer to horror than duty.
Their hold was steady, but their fingers quivered against my skin, like they also feared I carried some lingering curse.
I kept struggling until one of them leaned in and hissed, “Enough. Go quietly, or they’ll take it out on your village. ”
The words struck like cold water, stealing the fight from my limbs. I froze, every thought collapsing into that single, awful truth. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, bring more suffering to Amyklai. Not when I’d already failed them.
My shoulders dropped, the strength bleeding out of me until even breathing felt like a burden.
The weight of it all settled heavy in my chest, turning to ash in a single breath.
I let them guide me toward the door, numb and unresisting, my body moving where theirs led while my heart beat on uselessly.
Everything I had carried, years of training, of being told this was my destiny, my duty … it had been ripped out from under me. Whatever had lived inside me, the hope, the drive, the belief that I was meant for more, that I could save Amyklai … it had gone silent.
Not shattered. Not even broken.
Just … gone. Like it had never been mine to begin with.
I hadn’t been chosen.
I had failed.
And whatever I had been before that moment … I wasn’t anymore.