Chapter 21 #2
“You’re not the first to try,” he finally replies.
I flinch. Not at the words themselves, but at the emptiness behind them. As if he’s already accepted that pain is inevitable.
“I built my whole life around the wrong thing,” I say, the truth scraping its way out.
An awkward beat of silence follows, as if my tongue has forgotten how to move.
But then I force the words out. “For years, I believed that if I was good enough, if I ruled well enough, I could erase everything horrible that had happened to my family. My mother’s shame. The whispers about her. About me.”
I let out a short, bitter breath. “I thought if I was perfect, the court would forget. That it would all just go away.” My hands clench, and the ache tightens in my throat.
“But every choice I made in service of that dream only made things worse. I chose to push my mother away. Then came Ryker. I don’t even know if what I had with him was real, or just another lie I clung to in order to survive.
I made him start changing things the moment he put the crown on his head and it immediately backfired.
Then Mael drugged me. Stripped me of choice. And I realized…”
My voice thins.
“Maybe my mother never had a choice either. Maybe she was coerced. Hurt. Forced.”
Saying it out loud shatters something in me.
“And I’ll never know, because I didn’t ask. I just judged. I turned my back on her. And now she’s gone, and I can’t take any of it back.”
Kaelzar’s hands adjust on the reins, drawing me subtly closer, as if without realizing it, his body is steadying mine while I spill this painful truth, offering comfort he may not even know he’s giving.
“And then my choices led to the curse. And I gave myself to a goddess who might be the worst monster of all... because once again, I chose the wrong thing.”
My voice catches. “Then there was you.” I don’t turn to look at him. “You challenged me. Matched me. You didn’t obey like the other Godbeasts, and you didn’t fear me like so many others. You made me feel like I had a partner. Like maybe, for once, I wasn’t walking into battle alone.”
I pause to take a deep breath, before speaking again.
“But when you shut me out... when you pull away or make decisions without me, it feels like everything starts unraveling again. Like I was foolish to believe we were building something different. And when that happens... I lash out. I try to hurt before I get hurt. I hate it. But I don’t know how to stop. "
I swallow the lump in my throat.
“It scares me. Because I don’t want to destroy this, too. I hope... maybe this time, I’m finally making the right choice.”
Silence folds around us again.
When Kaelzar speaks, his voice is low, as if he’s turning my words over in his mind.
“Hope,” he says. “It’s dangerous. It blinds you to the things that will hurt you most.” His words carry a grim, practiced cynicism, the kind repeated so often it’s become reflex as if the very mention of hope triggers his instinct to deny it.
I tell myself he’s probably right. I should let go of it the way he’s learned to.
Then he exhales slowly and adds. “But maybe, even if what we hope for comes too late to save what we were, it’s still not too late to build something better.”
So I decide to hold on to it a little longer.
The city gates groan as they swing open, revealing the bustling streets within. Morning light spills over the cobblestones, setting the world alight in gold. But something else catches my eye.
At first, I barely notice them. A flash of red here. A thread of crimson there. But as we move deeper into the city, the color spreads.
Tied around wrists, looped through braids, fluttering from belts like silent declarations.
The baker unloading trays of bread. The boy running past, a strip of red trailing from his pocket. The woman at the market stall, twisting a crimson cloth into her hair.
It strikes me all at once. It’s the symbolic Crimson Tether.
I glance back at Kaelzar, my voice barely above a whisper. “Are those…” I hesitate, gesturing subtly toward the scarves. “For me?”
He follows my gaze. “Seems like it,” he says casually, though there’s a faint edge of amusement in his tone. “No wonder your magic’s been pouring in.”
A strange feeling twists in my chest, a mixture of wonder and unease. They wear it so easily, these colors of allegiance. The shopkeepers, the laborers, even the children—woven into their clothes, tied to their wrists, fluttering from carts and doorways like quiet declarations.
They are standing with me.
The warmth of belonging swells inside me. But the cold realization creeps in immediately after. They aren’t just supporting me.
They’re praying to Calista, the Witch Goddess.
The weight of it is heavy. I need their prayers to win, to survive the Trial.
But what happens when all that faith, all that strength, goes to Calista? What happens when she is strong enough to rival other Gods? What horrors will an evil goddess unleash with such power behind her?
Kaelzar’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “I suggest,” he says pointedly, his tone almost indifferent, as if he’s offering me a choice rather than forcing a decision, “you revive her temple soon. Temples focus prayers. Makes it easier for gods to… digest them.”
Digest.
The word slithers down my spine like something cold-blooded.
My stomach churns. Temples don’t just gather prayers, they channel them. Direct them. Condense them into something more usable.
Calista is buried. Forgotten. And I am the one clawing her back into existence.
Before I can dwell on it further, a blur of motion catches my eye. A boy darts out, no older than seven, his face glowing with excitement as he sprints toward us. Kaelzar pulls our horse to a stop.
“Our ray of light!” the boy shouts, his voice small but piercing, cutting through the murmuring street. “To the future!”
I barely have time to react before a woman rushes forward, grabbing his arm. “Apologies, my lady!” she says hastily. “He didn’t mean to bother you.”
The boy squirms in her grasp and his wide eyes lock onto mine, full of something raw and urgent. “My sister is at Rust Hollow!” he cries out, his voice cracking with desperation. “Will you free her?”
The world stills.
I see the hope in his face before I feel it in my chest, before I recognize the sharp, gutting ache of it.
The woman—his mother?—claps a hand over his mouth, her face paling as she bows again, murmuring another frantic apology.
I don’t move. I don’t blink.
Kaelzar says nothing. He leaves the moment entirely to me. But his words slice through my memories like icy water to the face.
Hope is dangerous. It blinds you to the things that will hurt you most.
But he’s wrong. Hope is the only thing that matters.
Hope is the only thing that has ever changed the world.
I straighten in the saddle, my heart steadying as I lift my chin. No. I will not be afraid of hope. I will not fear the thing that makes people fight, that makes them believe.
I smile at the boy with a nod. “To the future!” I call back, letting the words ring, letting them take root.
The boy beams. His mother goes still. Around us, a murmur ripples through the crowd. Uncertain at first, then swelling into a tentative cheer.
“Here finally comes the trouble,” Kaelzar murmurs.
I shoot him a sidelong glance but can’t suppress my own small smile. And maybe, just maybe, I imagine that stubborn, contagious thing called hope taking root in him too.