Chapter 39 #2
My stomach drops. The full scope of it clicks into place all at once. From the moment I swore myself to Calista, I thought I was choosing my fate, taking control. I thought I was becoming the people’s champion. But I was only ever being used, and now the truth hits hard enough to hollow me out.
I was never free.
Calista closes her eyes and exhales, soaking in her victory. My mind races for anything—any loophole, any idea—that could stop people from feeding power into her. I’ve made her a hero, and unleashed a monster.
Her voice lowers, steady and cold. “When my power returns fully, we’ll burn every temple but mine. We’ll undo the cities. Baptize the land in blood and rot. The entire realm will worship me, because they will have no other choice.”
Something inside me gives way and my knees hit the floor. Kaelzar is beside me in an instant, but I shove him off. Even his touch feels wrong. He flinches, yet stays close. The guilt in his eyes only sharpens the pain.
“What are you doing to her?” he snarls at Calista.
Doing to me?
I look up and freeze. That grin on Peonica’s face. A grin I knew better than my own. Wrong now in every way.
“The Godbound thread,” Kaelzar says, panic creeping in. “She’s still connected to you. She’s been pulling magic through it while you were distracted.” His hands grip my shoulders, steady but urgent. “Pull it back.”
His words barely register. I can only see his eyes—wide, desperate, pleading. Concern for me. After weeks of knowing I was meant to die. After guiding me straight toward it. And yes, he tried to stop it at the end—but only by letting Peonica take my place. I don’t know which betrayal cuts deeper.
“You knew this would happen,” I whisper. “These past few days… you knew I’d lose her again.”
“Peonica wanted it that way,” he says, jaw tight. “She made me swear to keep her secret. And what would it have changed? She had to give the ring back willingly. She never would have.”
I have so much to say—anger, grief, questions burning through me—but nothing comes out. My gaze drops to his chest.
No ink. No chains.
He follows my stare. He sees the question forming before I speak it.
Kaelzar shakes his head. “Our bargain”—he gestures to the remaining puddle of ink on his skin—“forbids me from harming Calista. Even now, after it’s done. I can’t stop her, Trouble.” His voice softens. “But you can.”
I hate the way he looks at me with his storm-gray eyes full of trust I don’t want and need anyway. Because right now, as Calista draws in every prayer meant for me and strips power straight from my core, I don’t know who I am without it.
“She’s weak,” he says, low and urgent. “She’s using experience, not strength. She’s working off the power she stole from you and a few desperate prayers, but you can stop her.”
Kaelzar leans closer, his breath warm against my temple.
“The Godthread is still open. It links you, Peonica, and her real body in Elysium. You can both channel through it. But right now…” He presses his hand over my heart.
“You’re stronger.” His voice catches, barely.
“You always were. I just… didn’t see it soon enough. ”
He looks at me like he doesn’t deserve to touch me. “You have to trust yourself enough to take it back.”
I close my eyes. The pain has spread everywhere—into bone, muscle, the sigil carved into my skin. It flares like a hot iron. But I push through it and I reach.
Pull it back, he said. So I try.
I summon the thread humming beneath my veins, the thread I’ve felt since the moment I bound myself to her name. It coils now, tense and slippery, tied to something ancient on the other end. I grab hold and pull.
Calista laughs. The thread slides through my grip like water. “You think you can win against a god?” she mocks, her voice wearing Peonica’s mouth. “You’re too late. It’s already mine.”
I grit my teeth and pull again. Nothing.
The thread burns. Her pull is stronger. My heart hammers, but I don’t let go. My eyes lift to her face. Peonica’s face. Not Calista’s. My sister.
I make myself see her, really see her. Not the magic. Not the threat. Just her. And the sight knocks the breath out of me.
Peonica, who always smiled too brightly. Who fought for things I often dismissed—honor, mercy, loyalty. Who hid her truth behind laughter and easy affection. Who carried the weight of her origins every day.
And I never saw any of it.
If she’d told me, I would have seen only her father, the man who stole my mother. The shadow I never outran. Hating him would have been easier than forgiving her. Easier than wondering if my mother had loved him. Or, if leaving my father wasn’t a betrayal, but a form of survival for her.
Now I understand why Peonica always defended Calista’s husband, the God of Night and Stars, even after he betrayed his wife. Because Peonica had to believe his betrayal could still be rooted in love. That what came from it—what she came from—wasn’t wrong.
Because our mother did the same by betraying my father, and Peonica was the consequence.
And still, knowing that I’d hate her if I knew the truth, my sister loved me.
Enough to stand by me. To hide everything that hurt her, just to stay close.
She didn’t want to lose me. And I was too blind.
Too self-centered to see what it cost her.
Now I feel it all—her fear, her hope, the small, steady ache of wanting to be loved back. The way she tried to hold on to me in the only way she could, with that quiet, careful meal she’d made just for us. Her last attempt at closeness. Her last offering. And I dismissed it.
I dismissed her. Tears blur my vision, and I let them fall.
I reach for the thread again. Not with anger. Not with vengeance.
With love.
I pour into it everything I never said. My regret, my forgiveness, the truth I refused to face. I would break for her. I would bleed for her.
I will save her.
And I pull.
This time, the thread snaps tight and the power wavers. Calista snarls, and her grip on it tightens. Magic snaps through the air. My body convulses, spine bowing. A warm wetness leaks from my nose. Blood.
She’s fighting harder now. The backlash slams into me, tearing through skin and vision until everything goes white. I’m not strong enough, I realize as my palms scrape across the stone floor.
Then something brushes across the thread. Faint, almost nothing. A tremor. A ripple.
As if Peonica is reaching out from the other end. I freeze, trying to focus on it. It’s not the violent tug of Calista’s Decay magic. Not the hungry, writhing pull that threatens to rip me apart.
This thread is different, thinner than a hair, nearly invisible. But it’s there, I know I didn’t imagine it.
I follow it inward, closing my eyes. There it is: soft, thin, glowing faint red.
Blood magic. Healing magic. The same thread I used when she lay dying in my arms. The connection never broke.
And once I sense it, I feel the others—dozens—woven through me like a web.
All the women I’ve healed. All the pain I carried for them.
Threads of life I’ve given I didn’t know were still attached.
Each one beats on its own, untouched by Calista.
Peonica’s is the strongest. I isolate it and touch it with care. Her life—what I poured into her—still pulses against mine, still something I can pull back if I wish to.
A terrible thought strikes. What would happen if I pulled?
The idea turns my stomach. My body recoils. It feels wrong, invasive, like reaching into her chest and tearing out something that should stay there. I almost step back from it, but then have to remind myself that if I don’t try, I lose her anyway.
So I reach again. And I pull, taking away the healing magic I’ve given her.
A sharp breath tears from Peonica’s lungs. Her body jerks. Her scream cracks through the air—pain returned through the thread. I flinch, but I don’t stop.
I tell myself that it isn’t Peonica screaming. It’s Calista.
I hold on, careful not to shatter the thread fully. Calista’s reaction is immediate; her hold on the Godbound thread slips.
That’s all I need.
I yank.
She reels back with a howl. Her whole body seizes as the magic she stole rips free. Every scrap of it—every prayer, every shred of power—flows back into me. And beyond that, I feel the other end of the Godbound thread.
Distant, bright. Reaching toward her true body in Elysium. I know I shouldn’t reach that far, but I do, unable to stop myself, soaking in the power, the limitless magic that just became available to me. I reach through.
At first, it feels like victory, like everything I lost has finally come home.
But then comes the sharp, cold edge beneath it.
It’s wild, it’s chaotic. It hits me like lightning.
This power, vast and ancient, floods into me.
It’s intoxicating. Consuming. Too much of it, too fast. I want more of it, even as part of me recoils, terrified.
I take.
And take.
And take.
Magic roars through me like fire in the open air, filling every hollow space I ever carried. Somewhere far away, Kaelzar’s voice cuts through the haze.
“Raylane, stop.”
I ignore everything but that hunger. Eyes closed, lips parted in a silent gasp, I drink deeply. Gulping magic like it’s the only thing keeping me alive. I drown in it, gluttonous, ravenous, consuming without restraint. Calista’s cries twist into wet, choking sobs. But then suddenly—
Silence.
Just before it falls completely, she gasps out one final breath, “You will never get her back.” She goes still, and the absence of sound is louder than any scream.
I stop, my chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged bursts. The threads I’d clung to go slack, unspooling in my grasp. The power still swells inside me. But now, it’s laced with panic.