Chapter 2
The Archpriest enters along the same path I have taken, and the gathered nobility straighten their spines as if his presence alone demands it.
My own body stiffens on instinct, and the warden jerks his arm away from mine, making me realize I was still gripping it even though his whip had been dropped.
A retinue of the Archpriest’s acolytes follows him, their green robes whispering against the stone.
They say he is over a hundred and fifty years old, yet he looks only a few years past forty—the same age he was when he won the Trial of the Bound and secured Demetria’s dominion over the kingdom.
The Goddess of Forest and Time’s Champion rose above all others that day and became the instrument of her triumph.
She has reigned as our Sovereign goddess ever since, with the Archpriest representing her earthly will.
As I watch him shuffle forward, slow and heavy-footed, hair greasy, lips wet with shine, it’s hard to imagine this man enduring the brutal contest.
The Trial demanded strength, cunning, resilience, yet whatever edge he once had has long since been buried beneath the abundance of power. Bloated with comfort, softened by indulgence, it seems the god’s magic, which slowed his aging to a crawl, preserved his youth, but not his discipline.
His Godbeast—a creature bestowed upon him during the Trial, meant to aid in his triumph and bound to him ever since—steps behind him.
The brown dragon is the size of six horses, wings twisted like broken rafters.
It is said that the disfigurement of dragons’ wings became a common method of domestication among the gods even before the Skyburn War, carried out at the moment of hatching to ensure the creatures could never take flight and were therefore easier to control.
It moves with a quiet, unshakable power, a stark contrast to the man it follows, as if it alone remembers the strength required to win.
I watch the Archpriest approach, my expression tightening with each shuffling step, even as dread coils low in my gut. Spitting at his feet would be easier than bowing, as custom demands.
The royals might oversee the lashings, and the warden might deliver them, but the Archpriest is the architect of this brutal spectacle.
The one who decreed that cursed women, those who dared to resist their exile to Rust Hollow or tried to escape, must be hunted, shackled, and whipped in public before being discarded like rotting fruit.
He is the reason their bodies are carved with scars that will never fade.
He wasn’t meant to be here. He never is. Attendance at his own cruelties is beneath him.
Had I known he’d come, would I have dared to intervene on Brienne’s behalf?
The answer is immediate and ugly: I wouldn’t have dared. And that truth burns hotter than shame, turning every ounce of my earlier righteousness into dust.
Across the plaza, the Godbeast pads to a shaded corner, its scaled flank brushing the edge of the stone dais. With a lazy huff, it drops into the shadows, unimpressed, as if none of this warrants its full attention.
At least it isn’t poised to incinerate me with its ashen breath.
But the Archpriest doesn’t stop. He keeps walking toward me, neither pausing nor blinking, his path unyielding, his gaze fixed, like he means to walk through me.
Even the Chastity Warden seems to sense it. He steps aside, giving his superior a wide berth. I barely register the motion until I see the Archpriest’s arm rise, and the ground beneath my feet cracks.
Thick vines erupt in a riot of life around me, and snare my ankles. There’s a fleeting tang in the air, like rust, strange among so much green, but my thoughts already fly to Ryker as his voice cleaves through the crowd.
“This will not do!” the king roars, and whatever punishment the Archpriest had been preparing, whatever command was about to fall from his lips, Ryker stops it. The vines go still around me—not tightening but not dropping down either.
Ryker steps down from his dais with a thunderous grace, purpose carved into every line of his face. Relief swells in me as I watch.
“Your Highness,” the Archpriest rasps, “Lady Raylane stepped beyond the Partition Decree’s protection when she assaulted one of my Chastity Wardens. Her punishment is no longer under your royal jurisdiction.”
The words land like ice. The Partition Decree—every child is taught its lesson. Centuries ago, an Archpriest decided that those blessed with divine power should not bow to kings without it. He overthrew the crown, ruled by faith and fear, and bled the land until even prayers fell quiet.
For the first time, the gods stood united and chose to intervene. They tore his magic from him and laid down the Decree: the Archpriest would guide souls, the crown would rule bodies, and neither would ever reach for the other’s power again.
It was meant to keep balance. Now it does nothing but chain Ryker and me with it.
My mind floods with all the ways this could end—the Archpriest tightening his vines and choking me before the crowd, Ryker helpless to stop him yet ready to risk the gods’ wrath for me—when a searing gust of air explodes beside me.
I throw up my arms, shielding my face from the heat. A scream, raw and inhuman, shreds the air.
I turn. And for a heartbeat, I don’t understand what I’m seeing.
The Archpriest is ablaze.
Blue and orange fire erupts from his body, devouring him whole in a single, silent gasp of heat. Flames spiral upward like a holy inferno, a divine pyre sent from the heavens themselves. The vines around me drop to the ground.
In the space of a blink, he’s dead.
No Archpriest.
No verdict.
No voice to demand more blood.
The metallic scent thickens, as if the fire condensed it. I can’t move. I can only stand there, numb, letting the heat lick my skin as disbelief roots me in place.
Then hands close around me and yank me backward. My body crashes into a hard chest. Someone shields me, pulls me away from what was once a man, now just a smoldering husk on the stone.
Stunned, I grip the arms around me like they’re the only thing left tethering me to this world.
“Are you hurt?” Ryker’s voice cuts through the ringing in my ears, edged with a fear so raw it yanks me from my stupor.
My tongue feels like stone, so I shake my head stiffly.
He cups my face with both hands, brushing sweat-damp strands of hair away, then runs his palms down my neck, shoulders, arms, checking for burns, for damage, for proof that I’m still whole.
A strange thought drifts through the fog in my mind. This is the most he’s ever touched me.
As if he hears it too, Ryker pulls back abruptly, jaw tightening.
The roar of the crowd rises, isolated shouts swelling into a cacophony of unrest. He turns to someone just beyond my line of sight and commands, “Take her to her rooms. It’s not safe here.”
His words barely echo before the plaza erupts in sharp, crystalline sound, like a dozen panes of glass shattering at once.
We whip around. All around us, guards, duennas, and stewards, the very people meant to ensure our safety, are staggering. They are clutching their chests, shielding their eyes. Where the Borrowglass vials once shimmered at their throats, only jagged glass remains.
With the Archpriest’s death, Demetria has fallen, and her divine claim to Calcatra is broken. And with her fall, her God-given magic that once filled thousands of Borrowglasses—magic that had shielded our kingdom for decades—vanishes.
The Godbeast rears up, all four limbs quaking, then vanishes in a blink, pulled back into the gods’ realm now that its Champion is gone.
“Come, little bride,” Mael murmurs beside me, his voice almost gentle as he places a hand on my back.
Ryker’s eyes dart to the place Mael touched, his face hardening.
Mael only rolls his eyes. “You told me to take her, brother,” he says, all silk in tone. “So I will.”
“Your Majesty!” A soldier stumbles toward us, blood streaming from his face, glass embedded in his temple. “You must return to the Palace now!”
“No,” he says. “We stay and calm the unrest.” Then he turns to us. “Go!” Ryker barks at Mael, his voice laced with steel.
Unease ripples through my chest. Leaving Ryker now feels like pulling a thread that might never be woven back into place.
Every part of me aches to stay by his side. To feel his arms around me again. To believe that whatever storm is coming, we’ll face it together.
Without thinking, my arm lifts and my body shifts forward, toward the space that feels safest.
Ryker’s eyes go wide.
In a breath, his hands shoot out, gripping my shoulders, gently stopping me. “You’re in shock, my love,” he says gently, his voice a quiet anchor against the rising chaos around us. “You need to get to the Palace.”
His touch lingers for a heartbeat, grounding me. Then, slowly, he lets go and offers me the softest smile. One that tries to hide the weight pressing behind it.
“I’ll come to you as soon as I can. Go now.”
I don’t argue. I step away, not wanting to complicate things further, not when chaos yawns wide across the plaza.
The crowd is already pouring in, commoners flooding the square to glimpse the impossible. To confirm what cannot be true: the Archpriest is dead. A death so rare, so mythic, few will see it in their lifetime.
Ryker will have to speak to calm the frenzied tide. And while his reputation among the people is strong—revered, even—I can’t help but glance back, uneasy.
The plaza is a maelstrom now. Goldspear guards rally near Ryker, some still wiping blood from their faces. Others form a circle around what’s left of the Archpriest, his smoldering corpse still licking flame. But the pole with Brienne still on it has been forgotten in the chaos.
That’s when I spot it. A flash of a familiar long white braid.
Peonica.
Her slender fingers work swiftly over the iron lock binding Brienne’s wrists. She moves like smoke, quiet and quick.