Chapter 28
Another day dawns, and Amriel still doesn’t come.
I know what it means, that the sun has risen on a world without him in it. I knew it yesterday, too. Only this time, I get angry.
The swish of stiff skirts announces someone’s arrival. I pry my eyes open to find Brynne and Evelyn approaching my bed, Evelyn wringing her hands at her waist.
Brynne stops short, her expression hard, her arms folded across her chest. “Come on. We’re going to temple. And you’re going with us.”
I don’t even lift my head from the pillow. “No.”
“Yes. You can’t keep lying here. It’s been more than a day.”
“Brynne…” Evelyn says, plainly concerned. “She’s been through so much. Maybe we should let her—”
“No.” Brynne’s eyes flash. “I’m not letting her waste away like this. She needs to get up. She needs to pray. She needs Ishanna. Because I saw what she did in Velindra. What…” She trails off, maybe hesitant to say the rest in front of Evelyn.
I snort—a cold, hard sound that sticks in my sinuses. Maybe I should care that she was watching me, but I don’t. Not anymore. “If you saw, then you know Ishanna hasn’t done a damn thing for me. Not here, and not in Velindra. Not in my whole entire life.”
Brynne’s head rears back. Even Evelyn gasps.
I want to answer their shock with a scream. To wail until my vision stops tunneling at the edges, until I have to force air into my lungs.
But it won’t change anything, so I just lie there.
“Sariah…” Evelyn’s tone is tentative, now. “I don’t know what happened, but you aren’t thinking straight. Which is probably normal. Trauma can do that to a person. But Ishanna will help you. She’s probably the only one who can. So please. Let us take you to temple.”
The words pulse in my veins like acid, eating away at my insides.
I push myself up, my legs swinging to the floor.
“I’m not thinking straight? I’m not thinking straight?
No, this is the first time in my life I actually am.
You’re the one who can’t see, who can’t—” I break off, anger ballooning in my throat, blocking off the words.
“Sariah,” Brynne says, her tone sharp.
But mine sharpens even more. “No. Don’t Sariah me. You weren’t there. You have no idea what it felt like, what I went through. You don’t know anything, as it turns out. I didn’t, either.”
They exchange horrified glances. “Sariah,” Evelyn says, placating now. “You don’t know what you’re saying. But prayer will help. It’ll—”
“Prayer? Prayer?” My tone soars upward, verging on a loss of control.
“Ishanna hasn’t answered a single one of my prayers.
Not there, and not here. Because prayer is useless.
Just a way to sit idle while the world passes you by.
A way to delude yourself into thinking you’re participating in life when really, you’re just a bystander. ”
My sisters’ eyes flare. Maybe I’ve finally stunned them into silence.
Good.
“Where are my clothes?” I spit, my anger expanding, heating my throat. Energy crackles in my limbs, the first I’ve felt since Amriel died.
“What clothes?” Evelyn ventures.
“The leather ones. My pants. My shirt.”
Her gaze fills with dismay, and I can see what she’s thinking—that this is so much worse than she realized. That I’m somehow different. Changed. Maybe even unsalvageable.
And she’s right. I can’t be saved. Don’t want to be.
“Just give me my clothes,” I say. “If you do, I’ll go to temple. Show you exactly what I think of Ishanna.”
“Sariah, we burned them,” Brynne snaps. “They weren’t even clothes. They were…I don’t know, but you’re not wearing them again. There’re dresses in the closet. Your dresses. Normal ones.”
I don’t spare a single glance for my closet. The loss of my leather hurts—my last link to Velindra—but I can’t dwell on that right now. I stagger to my feet. If I can’t have my clothes back, then I guess I’ll do this in my nightgown.
I push past Brynne and Evelyn, aiming for the door.
“Sariah!” Evelyn shrieks. “What’re you doing? You can’t go out like that!”
I hear her, but her words mean nothing. Amriel is dead and I’m not, and my whole life has been a lie.
Who cares what I’m wearing?
I clomp into the hall, my hair floating around my face, my nightgown tangling around my calves.
My feet know their way to the temple, and they carry me onward through my haze of rage.
My sisters shriek in protest, but I ignore them, stomping down the stairs and through a hallway and out into the morning, then through the gardens I once thought of as so beautiful.
They’re not. I see that now. They’re orderly and soulless, the bushes pruned to within an inch of their life. The whole place reeks of sterility and order and I finally understand why Calen shuddered that day, the day I met my mate.
At the thought, agony threatens to rupture me down the middle.
But I gather my anger and use it to seal up all my cracks.
Let it power me up the hill. My bare soles slap against the well-trodden path, puffs of dust exploding with each step.
A steady stream of penitents trudges upward, but I weave past them, ignoring their scandalized cries at my attire.
The sun climbs higher as the soaring pillars of Ishanna’s temple come into view. Evelyn and Brynne are shouting behind me, but they can’t stop me, can’t change this.
I reach the wooden doors and haul them open, pass into the temple’s lofty marble halls.
The cloying scent of incense hits me in the face.
All around, people kneel at the prayer benches, their heads bowed, while the High Priestess murmurs intonations at the head of the room.
The Book of Disciplines lies open on the altar before her, its gilt-edged pages gleaming.
It’s all so familiar, yet I feel like a stranger, here.
I stomp up the aisle, my nightgown billowing, my expression hard. The High Priestess freezes. Her long white robe swishes, her hair swaying against the backs of her knees.
My hand finds my necklace. Curls around the crescent moon pendant and yanks. The chain breaks, the snap echoing in my ears as the necklace comes away in my hand.
I reach the altar and slap it down, my palm stinging against the marble.
The High Priestess aims a stricken glance at it. Then up at me. “Sariah…?”
“I renounce Ishanna,” I say, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Shocked murmurs circle the room, the resulting silence dense enough to touch.
“I renounce the Book of Disciplines and everything in it. I have no use for a goddess who demands obedience, then refuses to show an ounce of caring. Who takes everything and gives nothing. Who asks us not to truly live. Do you hear me? I renounce her. I renounce this entire way of life.”
That prompts a chorus of gasps, and I spin on my heel and march back the way I came, my sudden burst of energy already sliding back toward despair. My limbs lighten and turn fuzzy, my blood fizzing strangely as I…
I pause. Brynne and Evelyn stand before me, blocking off the aisle, the looks on their faces unfamiliar. They stare at me, their mouths open, their eyes as round as dinner plates.
And…good goddess, what is this feeling zipping around inside my rib cage?
Am I dying? Am I flying? I pause, look down at my hands, at the odd white glow emanating from my skin.
It brightens and brightens, searing my eyes, swallowing me up.
Warm flutters cascade through my body, swirling through every crack and crevice of me before finally dying away.
When I can see again, my sisters are as still and pale as death.
“Ishanna help me,” Evelyn murmurs, one hand flattened against her chest. “Sariah…your Grace. I can’t believe it. You finally got your Grace.”