Chapter 11 #2
Kaelzar moves through the trees with the certainty of someone who already has a destination in mind, and I can’t help but wonder if this is where he disappeared to earlier, scouting for a place where my magic wouldn’t cause too much damage should another accident occur.
I follow him quietly for a while before deciding to make use of the time and press for details about the Spectra Judicium.
His replies are measured and spare, each word clipped clean of anything unnecessary.
The Spectra Judicium, he tells me, takes place two weeks after the first challenge.
Every Champion is required to display their magic before the city, a performance meant to win public favor and prove their divine worth.
The more they believe, the stronger I become.
The event is set to take place in the Grand Plaza, the same place where everything began. The same stone courtyard where the noble women cursed by the Crimson Tether are punished. Where my mother was lashed.
I still don’t know who delivered her punishment. Who held the whip. Who watched. Who stood idle. I don’t even know where her body was laid to rest.
The thought of showcasing my magic before those same people—those who watched her suffer and did nothing—sends a slow, simmering rage through my veins. They’ll watch me too, just as they watched her. But they won’t see a helpless woman this time.
They’ll see someone far stronger.
They’ll see someone worth praying for.
If my magic feeds on faith, I need belief, not fear. In the Plaza, I’ll have to make them choose Calista.
Because only with their prayers behind me will I be able to stand against Champions like Zyrel and Seraphina. Only with their trust can I rise high enough to end this cycle, to become the next Archpriestess and stop the lashings for good.
Kaelzar guides me into a quiet meadow hidden deep within the forest, then gestures for me to go ahead. But the moment I step forward, a sudden rush of air brushes past.
When I turn, he’s gone. Again.
I stand there for a moment, mouth half-open in disbelieving outrage that he’s managed to disappear without a single word yet again. When it becomes clear he’s truly gone—off doing whatever it is he does—I shake my head and let out a breath of irritation.
The meadow around me is impossibly still, the air warm and fragrant.
The field is blanketed with the same red, fiery flowers that tangled around the animal’s rib cage I so brazenly picked on my way to Brienne’s lashing.
And it strikes me how beautiful they are, how the color itself, so despised in Calcatra for what it represents, is actually alive with warmth and vigor.
It feels suddenly unfair that the world has learned to fear its brilliance, simply because it shares the shade of our sin.
A soft clink of chains cuts through the hum of the forest. Kaelzar steps from between the trees, his cloak shifting with the movement. A white rabbit cradled in his hands.
“Take off your gloves,” he says. When I do, he sets the rabbit down at my feet. “Decay it.”
My breath hitches. “You want me to rot it?” The rabbit settles at my feet, calm, unaware. My eyes widen. “Have you no heart?”
Kaelzar doesn’t flinch. “Such is the nature of your magic.”
The name of my Goddess—of Blood and Decay—echoes in my mind. I remember what my magic did to the guards and courtiers at the temple.
A wave of nausea rolls over me. I clench my fists and look up at him.
Kaelzar’s silver eyes narrow, studying my reaction with disdain. His shadows coil at his back, curling around him like living things. They move at his command. Effortless, controlled.
I look down at my own empty, trembling hands. The contrast is smothering.
“Can I use only one part of the magic?” I ask, my voice tight. “If Decay only takes, can I just… use the Blood magic to restore?”
Kaelzar’s expression doesn’t change. “You cannot give what you do not have.”
The words form a fist-size knot under my breastbone.
“To give life,” he continues, “you must take it first. Once you do, it is yours to command.” He folds his arms, voice detached, factual, as if discussing the weather, not the act of killing.
“After the Trial, you can keep it for yourself, give it to others, or scatter it to the wind for all I care. But right now,” his silver eyes pierce through me, “you will take and take and take, until you have enough to sustain yourself through the challenges.”
Is he really expecting me to stockpile the deaths of the innocent like some kind of ammunition?
A pulse of unease flickers in my chest. “How much of that lifeforce can I get from plants?” I ask. “Can I rot a log? Shouldn’t everything have some kind of energy I can use? Even a rock?”
Kaelzar exhales slowly, but the tension in his posture shifts. Irritation creeps into the set of his jaw.
“To wield Blood magic, you must rot something that bleeds,” he says, voice clipped. “As for the rock, it’s nearly impervious to your Decay. Only the goddess can draw power from it. You’d need all of Calista’s magic to break it down. And she would never give it to you.”
I sigh and chew on the inside of my cheek.
“My friend said I need prayers to receive more magic from Calista. If I could receive a large amount of it, would that mean I could stop drawing power from decaying things?” My gaze drops, shame rising at the fragile hope that maybe, somehow, I could avoid death altogether.
“Or would it just let me decay more and faster?”
For a moment, he just stares at me, as if weighing whether I truly understand what I’m asking.
“You speak of avoiding death,” he says at last, his voice edged with scorn, “when you haven’t earned a single prayer to your name.
And even if you somehow managed to gather a few, the rules wouldn’t change.
You must decay to give life, with more magic from Calista, you’d only do it more efficiently. ”
His gaze hardens. “But now, without a Church or worshipers, your Godbound thread is little more than a drooping stem. Flimsy. Weak. Barely up to the task.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the rabbit shift—its ears twitch, body tense. It’s about to move. Kaelzar begins to turn toward it.
And I panic.
“You sound like you have a lot of experience with drooping, weak, and flimsy stems,” I blurt, too quickly.
A beat of stiff silence follows, and my cheeks burn when I realize what I’ve said.
Kaelzar’s head snaps back toward me, offense sparks in his eyes, and my embarrassment deepens until I see that the rabbit is finally starting to hop away.
I take a small step back, the tiny bells on my sandals betraying me with a soft chime.
His gaze drops to my feet, and something shifts in his expression, like he’s just remembered that a person wearing such ridiculous footwear couldn’t possibly mean true offense.
That my insult isn’t worth the effort of taking seriously.
As his eyes begin to lift again, I tilt my head, my voice dripping with false innocence. “Maybe you can give me some advice. About overcoming the issue with my barely up to the task magical stem.” I flutter my lashes. “You know. From experience.”
Kaelzar’s shoulders stiffen, the movement running down his arms like a restrained quake. The rabbit, now forgotten, slips further away from us toward the brushes. And I smile, slow and wicked.
His nostrils flare as he slowly leans in. “Trust me,” he murmurs, voice low. “I’m far more familiar with stems that are strong, steady… and quite formidable.”
My breath catches. Heat rushes up the back of my neck and blooms across my cheeks. I have to look away. What is it about him that draws this out of me?
Weeks ago, I could barely speak to Ryker about something as innocent as a kiss. And now— now I’m out here in the woods, throwing around suggestive comments with a shadow-wreathed monster of a man, making lewd remarks about—
Gods, I don’t even finish the thought.
Instead, I drag my fingers through my hair, feeling the familiar streak of red. Does the Crimson Tether curse affect my mind too? I think of Ryker. Would he recognize this part of me? Would he like it? Would he hate it? A low, aggravated sound pulls me back.
I blink. Kaelzar’s hand is raised, his fingers curved slightly, a wisp of inky darkness coiling towards the woods. I follow his gaze just in time to see the rabbit hop away, disappearing into the trees.
Then, suddenly, he drops his hand with a sigh and the shadows dissolve. I exhale, relief washing over me. But the moment is ruined by the ghosts in my mind.
All those people from the temple… their hollowed-out faces. The ones who hadn’t been as lucky as that rabbit. The ones who hadn’t escaped the claws of my magic.
The rational part of me insists it wasn’t my fault, that they were the same people who would have gladly dragged cursed women into Rust Hollows with grins on their faces.
But the other part, the one that refuses to let go, knows better.
I had a choice. I brought this magic into the world.
And I failed to control it. Now all I can do is keep it caged.
Whatever Kaelzar sees in my expression is enough to make him pull back, his earlier frustration fading. He gives me a cool once-over, shakes his head, and orders me to rot a flower instead.
Over the next several hours, we both discover that I cannot rot a flower.
I can’t even summon my magic, which Kaelzar declares is self-sabotage and entirely my fault.
We stay until the sun dips behind the trees, and my stomach growls louder than the wolves in the depths of the forest. Only then does he finally relent, allowing us to head back.