Chapter 50 #2
Calista, occasionally, interjected with questions.
Ilia, with snide comments. Sylina, with thoughtful musing, as if trying to piece together the feasibility of all this.
Only Septimus was silent the entire time.
From him, there was no yelling, no questioning, no bitter sniping.
And yet, that silence felt every bit as vicious, his rage so clear and frigid that I felt frost crawling over my skin.
At last, when I was done, everyone was quiet.
Tick, tick, tick, a clock hummed forebodingly.
Only then did Septimus finally speak. He turned to Sylina and just said, “Well?”
He meant: Is she right?
Sylina let out a long breath. I found her difficult to read, with her eyes covered—but it was clear now that she was shaken.
I knew she had been prodding my mind as I spoke, testing my truthfulness.
She touched her blindfold absentmindedly, and I wondered if she was remembering her last encounter with Acaeja.
The one all those years ago, which now led us here.
“It’s . . . a shocking story,” she said. “But it is true, or at least true enough that she believes it. And what she describes isn’t impossible.”
Septimus refused to look at me. “So you can find it. This prison.”
“I’ll need the help of the other seers. It could be anywhere in a radius of miles, and if Nyaxia really went through such lengths to hide it, I’m sure it’s magically protected, as well.”
“But you can find it.”
“It will take time. But yes.”
“We don’t have time,” he said. As if to demonstrate this, another feral wail echoed in the distance.
“A day, maybe.” Sylina was deep in thought. “Twenty hours. If I have enough people to threadwalk. To cover the most ground as possible.”
He shook his head. Once, sharp, definitive. “Too long.”
Because if we made this move, we had to do it quickly. So quickly that Nyaxia wouldn’t have time to see what was happening and stop us.
Sylina stood. Paced. “Twelve hours. We can do it in twelve.”
“I’ll be the one to state the obvious,” Calista said. “We already followed one prophecy and look at where it brought us.”
“Seering is imperfect,” Sylina said. “There are gaps in what it can see.”
Calista thrust her palm toward me. “She was a big gap.”
“The visions were correct,” Sylina said, not hiding her annoyance.
“They were just about the wrong person. There was a version of fate in which those events came to pass. Just not this one. I won’t make the same mistake again.
Respectfully, you’re asking me to save our skins, Princess. Don’t misdirect your anger.”
“You’re right. I apologize.” Calista leveled a cold glare at me. “By the way, can we kill her yet?”
Ilia had risen, circling the room like a panther, face hard in thought. “If we were to do this, we don’t know what we’ll find down there. We will need to gather some warriors.”
“Warriors capable of caging a goddess,” Sylina muttered beneath her breath.
“Lure her,” I said. “Get her into the temple. And if you can draw her blood, you’ll be able to cage her.
” I wanted to avoid looking at Septimus.
His cold, deliberate indifference was so much worse than the others’ scathing glares.
But at this, I turned to him, though he dutifully ignored me.
“You’re Thastias’s descendant. You can operate the cage. ”
“Draw her blood?” Ilia scoffed. “Are you insane? How will that work?”
It was a good question. I’d managed to kill four gods, but hadn’t so much as scratched Nyaxia, even bearing Shiket’s swords. And even if we did draw Nyaxia’s blood, then what? Acaeja hadn’t provided much in the way of more detail.
“I can,” Septimus said. “I can do it.”
Everyone glanced at him, confused, but he looked past us all, out the window, hands tucked into his pockets. Another wave of gurgling shrieks echoed from below, quickly silenced.
Calista sighed and rubbed her temple. “This is risky.”
“We will do it,” he said again, with harsh finality.
“One Bloodborn king already damned us all once. I won’t be the one to do it again.
For two thousand years, king after king has failed.
The only option we have left is the reckless one.
” His eyes slipped to mine, as if unintentionally, seething cold.
“Might as well finish what I started, no matter how lacking.”
A pang of hurt. Even though he was right.
Then he turned to Sylina. “Go. Start your work. Get the other seers. Ilia, stay with her and don’t let anyone else near her. And if you can’t control yourself—”
“Don’t insult me, my king,” Ilia grumbled.
“It needed to be said.” He glanced at Sylina. “You’re too important to risk. And besides, Atrius would murder me if I let anything happen to you.”
Sylina chuckled drily. “He’d hunt me down in the underworld if I got myself killed.”
Her thumb rubbed the silver ring on her left hand. Where was Atrius, I wondered? The memory of his face, already close to the edge so long ago, hit me with a wave of unease. Maybe he was already lost to his curse, pushed by Nyaxia’s final slight.
Septimus turned to Calista, whose jaw was set, arms crossed over her chest, as she leaned against the wall.
“You’re going to take Alric out of the city,” he said. “As far away as you can manage. Out of the kingdom, if you can manage it.”
She hesitated, and I thought she might argue, but she just inclined her chin.
“As far as we can go,” she said.
But there was a hollowness to those words. A hopelessness that none of us acknowledged. The enemies that the child was outrunning were not ones that remained within the boundaries of a single kingdom. They would catch him wherever he was, even an ocean away.
“Go now,” Septimus told her. “Don’t wait.”
She rose, beginning to cross the room, but halfway through she stopped short, turned, and clasped Septimus’s hand. A glimmer of softness passed over her face.
“I have no desire to be a queen, Septimus,” she said. “Make sure you don’t die.”
But it was another hollow request. He didn’t even bother pretending otherwise.
“You would make an acceptable queen,” he said, and released her hand.
Her eyes turned to me. “And what about her?”
“Hand her a pen and have her draw what we saw,” Ilia muttered. “Then we can get rid of her.”
“Enough,” Septimus snapped. “I decide what happens to her.” And finally, finally, he turned to me. My snarky words died in my throat at the look in his eye.
“And you,” he said. “You stay here. Lock this door, and don’t open it for anyone but me.”