Chapter Forty-Two #2
Alina bit down on her tongue to steady herself and followed the woman dressed differently from the rest.
All the Saqar wore robes that concealed them completely, but the others were clothed in sand-brown fabric, light and practical, easily swallowed by the desert.
The Altaa Saqardatis wore blue, so the gods could spot her from the sky.
Her robes were thicker, longer, sweeping the sand and covering even her hands and feet.
Alina glanced over her shoulder as she followed the Altaa Saqardatis farther into the open desert. She did not like leaving Mareena behind with those silent, watchful figures. The Saqar unnerved her. Too still, too knowing.
She had been raised in a land where religion was little more than tradition. Prayers were rarely spoken; the Sun God was invoked in passing, a phrase more than a presence. What mattered was the crown. The throne. Power that could be touched and seized.
She had never understood the hunger to believe in something unseen. Something intangible. Something that demanded faith without proof.
The desert stretched endlessly around them, gold bleeding into amber beneath the lowering sun. They walked in silence until a cluster of caves emerged from the dunes, their dark mouths yawning open like secrets waiting to be swallowed.
Desert caves were common in these lands.
Dunayans used them as refuge during sandstorms or to hide from prowling beasts.
Some tunnels ran deep into the earth, winding like veins beneath the sands.
Many were natural—raw, untouched by mortal hand.
Others had been shaped and claimed, their walls smoothed, statues carved into the stone, turning shelter into sanctum.
The Altaa Saqardatis moved towards one such entrance.
Alina halted at its mouth, the air cooler there, tinged with the scent of dust and ancient stone. She turned once more.
She could still see Mareena in the distance but she was too far now to read her expression, too far to know whether Alina walked towards danger.
Not that she needed protection.
With every passing day she felt the shift within herself. Stronger. Sharper. More deliberate. Mareena had been teaching her the disciplined, lethal forms of the Phanax; Kai had trained her in wyverian combat. Her body no longer felt like something fragile to be broken.
She no longer felt helpless.
And once she mastered how to fight blood magic…
Well.
Then the world would have reason to fear her.
The Altaa Saqardatis moved swiftly into the cave, and Alina followed with measured reluctance.
Candles lined the walls, their flames steady and unwavering, as though protected by unseen hands.
For a fleeting moment, Alina had imagined they would descend into solitude, into shadow and silence, but the cavern was anything but empty.
Saqar lined the stone walls, seated upon the ground, their veiled heads bowed in prayer.
When they reached the heart of the cavern, Alina’s breath caught.
The space opened into something vast and cathedral-like, far grander than the mountain’s exterior suggested.
The ceiling soared impossibly high, vanishing into darkness.
They must have descended far deeper than she had realised.
Here, the stone had been painstakingly smoothed, transformed by deliberate hands.
Carvings adorned every surface—intricate patterns woven around flowing lines of scripture she could not decipher.
She could speak Sandhii, yes, but reading it was another matter entirely.
At the centre lay a great circular chamber.
Dozens of Saqar knelt in a wide ring, their robes pooling around them like dunes of cloth.
Their veiled faces tilted upwards towards a single aperture in the roof, where a shaft of natural light poured down like a divine blessing, illuminating the exact centre of the circle.
The chanting filled the chamber. It hummed through the stone and into her bones. The sound was hypnotic, almost tidal, and Alina found herself swaying ever so slightly where she stood, caught in its current.
‘It is powerful,’ the Altaa Saqardatis said beside her. ‘If one is not careful, you could awaken hours later still listening to the chants.’
Alina blinked, as though surfacing from water.
She realised, with a faint unease, that she had no sense of how long she had been standing there. Minutes, or something far longer, had slipped through her grasp without her noticing at all.
‘I didn’t kill your daughter,’ Alina said, forcing her mind to remain her own. The rhythm of the chants pressed against her skull, urging her to surrender. She pinched the flesh of her palm, hard. The sharp sting anchored her, pulled her back into herself.
‘I know you didn’t,’ the Altaa Saqardatis replied, her voice steady beneath the veil. ‘But they do not. You must prove yourself to them.’
‘How?’
‘By killing Saren.’
‘I intend to.’ Alina pinched harder as the chanting swelled, the sound climbing like heat against her skin.
‘You seem to believe that you stand a chance.’ There was no mockery in the woman’s tone, only an unadorned truth laid bare.
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘She is not like us.’
Alina stilled. ‘What is she, then?’
‘A god, wearing a vessel.’
Alina gave a dismissive shrug, though something cold shifted in her chest. ‘Then I will have to kill a god.’
The words sounded bold, reckless even, but she held onto them.
Deep down, she knew how absurd it was. No mortal could slay a god.
Yet she did not truly believe this fever of whispers about divinity walking among them.
Saren was flesh and blood. A jealous Dunayan hungry for power.
She had wanted leadership, had wanted Hessa removed from her path.
And when Alina had been thrust into their lives, Saren had found the perfect opportunity to strike.
God or not, Alina would make her bleed.
‘The Saqar stand against you,’ the Altaa Saqardatis said, her voice weaving through the rising cadence of prayer. ‘But if you win their trust, you will hold power over the desert.’
‘And they will trust me if I kill Saren?’
‘No.’ The veiled woman did not hesitate. ‘But they will if you kill a god. I have been guiding them. Preparing them to see what is true.’ The chants swelled, echoing off the carved stone. ‘If you slay a god, they will believe.’
‘If I kill Saren, what will that change? Why would they think she’s a god?’
‘Because I will make them believe she’s one.’
Alina frowned. ‘Is she?’
‘That is irrelevant. Whether she is or isn’t. I am the Altaa Saqardatis. If I say she’s a god… they will believe. And if you kill her, you shall become a god-slayer. They will fear you.’
‘I don’t want them to fear me.’
‘Fear is the one true power.’
Alina tore her gaze from the sea of bowed bodies and fixed it upon the woman beside her. ‘Why are you doing this? Why help me?’
‘I am not helping you.’
Confusion shone across Alina’s face.
‘This was always the path,’ the Altaa Saqardatis said.
A chill crept beneath Alina’s skin. She took a slow step away. ‘Did you know?’ she asked, her voice tightening. ‘Did you know what would happen to Hessa? To both your daughters?’
Silence lingered, heavy and deliberate. When the woman finally spoke, the words struck like a blade.
‘Not precisely,’ she said. ‘But I knew they would die. Both of them. And that their deaths would mark the beginning of the end.’ The Altaa Saqardatis turned towards Alina. Though her face remained hidden beneath layered veils, Alina felt the weight of that unseen stare. ‘Saren must be stopped.’
‘You knew,’ Alina breathed, fury rising like wildfire in her veins. ‘You knew and you did nothing to save them.’
‘It is the will of the gods,’ the Altaa Saqardatis replied, already turning back towards the circling chants. There was no apology. No doubt. Only cold devotion. The matter, to her, was finished.
Alina pivoted sharply to leave, her pulse roaring in her ears. She took two steps before halting.
‘Fuck your gods.’
She did not look back. She did not need to.