Chapter 2 #2
Children of cursed women born within Rust Hollow’s walls, like Peonica, have pure white hair, unmarked by the curse. That purity buys them freedom.
Most are sent away by their mothers the moment they’re old enough to understand what Rust Hollow truly is, because even a life of begging on the streets is better than growing up surrounded by punishment and death.
But not Peonica.
Her mother was lashed to death when she was a child. And instead of leaving like the others, Peonica chose to stay. She made Rust Hollow her home.
Not because she had to, but because someone had to care for those who couldn’t provide for themselves. The ones who are too old, too young, too sick, or broken. She stayed for them.
And now, she’s here, risking everything to free Brienne.
Panic flares in my chest. I search for Zyrel, but he’s nowhere to be seen. And by the time I scan the plaza again, both girls are gone.
“Your little friend is a clever one,” Mael says, watching me closely. I don’t like the glint in his eye. “She waited for the right moment to play vigilante.” He quirks an eyebrow.
I say nothing. He doesn’t wait for a reply and nudges me again, this time toward the line of carriages behind the dais.
“Get in,” he orders. Then pauses, eyes narrowing as he finally notices the bones still clutched in my hand.
His brows lift, a smirk forming, but I step into the carriage before he can say another insufferable remark, sliding into the seat and turning away to stare out the window.
Mael climbs in after me, whistling under his breath. The chaos outside doesn’t touch him. He knocks twice on the ceiling, and the carriage jolts into motion.
“And what exactly is so funny?” I snap.
His grin is all teeth and trouble, like we’ve just fled the scene of a crime we committed together.
“Whatever possessed you to protect that girl must’ve pleased Demetria’s divine enemies,” he says smoothly.
“For them to smite the Archpriest so publicly, so violently, all in defense of your little act of rebellion? That was…” He twirls his fingers in the air, searching. “Intriguing.”
I stare at him, spine stiffening, pressing my back into the seat.
The gods… protecting me? Enacting divine punishment to defend my choice?
I understand the words, but strung together, they make no sense. “You think the gods… did that to him?”
Mael’s dark eyebrows shoot up, as if he’s the one stunned by the question. “Who else, Ray?”
He blinks once, then suddenly shifts across the carriage, fluid as water, and lands beside me, our hips touching.
I freeze.
Only now do I realize my duenna is missing and I’m alone with Mael, Ryker’s brother. The future king’s scandalous sibling.
This isn’t just inappropriate, it’s something I’ll be scolded for the rest of my life if anyone finds out.
But there’s nowhere for me to move. I’m already pressed against the wall and asking him to shift over would only draw more attention to how aware I am of his nearness.
“You really don’t understand what happened, do you?
” he murmurs, leaning in as if to share a secret between co-conspirators.
“The Archpriest’s use of the Crimson Tether was outdated.
Cruel. His goal was eradication, making people so terrified of becoming cursed that, over time, the cursed would disappear entirely.
” His voice drops even lower. “But with women’s…
insatiable appetites for pleasure,” he says with a sly glance, “that was never going to work, was it? Not with all these new freedoms you convinced him to allow.”
I glare at him, but he presses on.
“The gods must have decided his time was over. That our kingdom needs a new voice of divine will.”
I swallow hard. The idea that my defiance triggered something that monumental, that the gods themselves answered through fire—it sounds absurd.
But then again… isn’t that what just happened? The Archpriest abused his power. Is it so far-fetched to believe the gods had finally had enough?
“Demetria won’t be pleased,” I mumble.
Mael drapes his arm around my shoulders, casual on the surface but, beneath it, something calculated, as if testing how far he can push the boundaries of propriety.
I tense instinctively but refuse to shrink away. I’ve never agreed with how strictly every interaction between men and women is policed, so his overly familiar gesture shouldn’t bother me. He is my future brother-in-law, after all, and while we weren’t so close growing up, we’ll soon be family.
I let him guide my gaze toward the window, where the white-gold marble temple rises above the rooftops of Calcatra like a crown carved from bone. The monument is so massive that it blocks the sun, even from this distance.
“Do you see that?” Mael asks, pointing toward the temple’s highest spire, its apex, crowned with the sacred dome. There, seven shimmering colors swirl in a frenzied dance, colliding and twisting like waves from different oceans crashing into each other.
“The Trial of the Bound has awakened,” he says.
“That magic only rises when the gods have chosen to invoke a new age, led by a new Archpriest. Once the seven streams merge, the challenge begins. A new god will lead Calcatra to its next chapter. And you, Raylane…” He smirks, voice soft with something close to awe. “You made it possible.”
I stare at the coalescing ribbons of magic—iridescent pinks, deep golds, ocean blue, blood-red, violet, green, silver—spinning around each other in chaotic beauty.
And I try to imagine the ancient moment when the seven gods, despite their rivalries, made a pact to each surrender a sliver of their power.
They bound those fragments to the temple, letting them lie dormant for generations, waiting.
When the time comes to choose a new Archpriest, that magic rises and becomes the Sphere, a sentient force entirely independent from any one god’s will.
It sets the rules. Designs a path that no deity can rig or influence. A divine system of fairness, forged to silence accusations of interference once a Champion claims victory.
The Sphere doesn’t awaken often.
Most generations live and die without ever witnessing it. I certainly never thought I’d see it stir, let alone be the reason it did.
But here it is. Alive. And it rose after the Archpriest burned. My thoughts drift back to the scene that transpired.
He died in agony, just like so many girls who dared to defy their exile to Rust Hollow. I’d like to believe the gods saw justice through his death, so that his cruelty won’t be inherited by the one who comes next.
But there’s no guarantee, no promise the next patriarch will be better. And as I peer into the riot of divine colors clashing in the sky, a bolt of lightning splits the blue heavens above the temple. Then, the clouds rupture.
Rain falls in sheets—sudden, violent, unrelenting, like wrath incarnate.
And a strange chill coils in my gut at the sight. The gods likely killed the Archpriest for his unbridled cruelty, and I can only hope that we’ll now witness an age of greater freedom and tolerance. But I know enough of our realm’s history to know that’s not always the case.
Our next divine leader may be far worse.