Chapter Twenty-Four
I lurch upward into a blue nimbus of moongloam.
Which makes no sense, because I’m sitting up in my bedroll, inside my tent. It should be dark.
No, that’s not right either. Last I remember, I was leaning against a tree, Titus’s head in my lap.
But I’m definitely alone now. Did I dream that voice?
“Titus?” I call into the night.
The strange voice comes again. “We have some things to discuss.”
I hear it with my whole body. My spine shivers with it. My chest expands with it. My toes tingle.
Something compels me. I hardly seem in control of my own limbs as I slip from the bedroll, push back the tent flap, and crawl
outside.
The world glows. The fire still burns, but it’s a strange whitish blue instead of orange. Beside our campsite, mist rises
off the surface of the Iolandria, which seems depthless and glittery; a river of stars.
There’s no breeze and no sound. I’m neither warm nor chilly. As I step toward the crackling blue fire, my footsteps seem not
to touch the earth, leaving no impact, no footprint.
“Titus?” I call again.
“He’s not here,” says the voice. “It’s just you and me.”
The air splits open, like a piece of fabric torn in two. Through the seam steps the tallest mistwraith I’ve ever seen, glowing
and ephemeral. No, it’s a banshee, hair flowing like water and eyes like mini suns.
No, it’s neither of those things. How could it be? The very air crackles with her. She’s barely more than my height, but somehow
she looms larger than a dragon.
A goddess, of course.
“Cerastes the Fourth, I presume?” I say archly, before realizing maybe I ought to bow or express my undying loyalty or offer
up a blood sacrifice.
“He told you about me,” she says, closing the gap between us until her face is a handsbreadth from mine. She tilts her head,
studying me.
I study her right back. I always imagined the goddesses being beautiful, with kind faces, flowing gowns, and slow, graceful
movements.
I was so wrong. She is striking, certainly, with strong features and a presence that takes up all the air. But her nose is
too long, her glowing eyes too keen for warmth, and she wears rough linen pants and an unmatching shirt with rolled sleeves,
like she just came home from working in the field all day.
“You’re not what I expected,” I tell her.
“I get that a lot.” She circles me, eyes roving like she’s sizing me up for slaughter, deciding which cuts of meat will be
best. “You, on the other hand, are exactly what I expected.”
“How so?” My limbs, which were so eager to get me out of my tent all of their own accord, are strangely immobile now. Traitors.
“Well. You’re very pretty.”
When she says no more, I prompt, “That’s it? I’m pretty? That’s all you expected?”
“Each champion is allowed to choose a single companion for their quest. All the others chose someone useful. Titus chose you.”
I glare at her. “And you think it’s because I’m pretty.”
“He assured me that he would break with tradition and not choose anyone at all. That he’d rather be alone than put someone
else in danger. Then you came along.” She shrugs. “That’s what I get for choosing an eighteen-year-old boy as my champion.”
“I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit.”
“Why else would he choose you?”
I flash back to the cage cart, my dead sister dangling from her manacles. “Maybe he wanted to help me.”
“Because you’re pretty.”
I open my mouth to tell her that he left me to die on a mountaintop, at first, but that actually it turns out I’ve helped
him quite a lot.
Maybe it’s futile to argue with a goddess.
“You are nothing,” she says, her lips suddenly close to my ear. “No one. Titus is my chosen one. You, on the other hand . . .”
Here comes that slithery feeling, like someone is trying to slip into my mind and make me think and do things I don’t want
to think and do. Cerastes is a sway, just like a mistwraith.
She circles around to face me and adds, “You are no more than a complication in his story.”
My eyes drop to the ground. “I know,” I whisper.
“You won’t be able to follow him in the end.”
“I know.”
“He is so far above you in power and potential. You are like mud on his boots.”
“I know.”
She smiles, and her smile is actually lovely—broad and genuine, bringing the first hint of warmth to her eyes. “Still, I would
give you a gift.”
“I already have a Gift.”
“No, merely a gift.” She retrieves something from the pocket of her pants, hands it to me.
I reach for it without thought or will. It’s cool and hard in my hand, with smooth curves. It glows blue, but I’m certain
that if Cerastes returns me to the real Sunderland, back from this odd, dreamlike existence, it will be white-and-pink swirled
marble. Cerastes’s coil.
It’s just like Titus’s, but smaller, and I don’t hesitate to lift the cord around my neck and let the amulet settle against
my heart.
“Thank you,” I say. “It’s lovely.”
“It will offer some protection. Keep it against your flesh at all times.”
“What kind of protection?”
“One more thing before I go: For better or worse, my champion has chosen you. So I expect you to do a good job of it. Don’t
disappoint me.”
This is what she really came to tell me.
My fingers twitch as my limbs begin returning their allegiance to me. It emboldens me to say, “You didn’t have to make a special trip just to threaten me. I was already doing everything in my power to get Titus to that godsmoot.”
She seems amused. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“And, come to think of it, you’re wrong.”
“About what?”
“I’m not a complication in Titus’s story. He’s a complication in mine. I have my own story, you know.”
“Everyone has a story,” she acknowledges. “Some just aren’t very important.”
I say, “We’ll see.”
Her eyes flash, and I can’t help recoiling and putting up an arm to ward off whatever is coming.
Instead, the glow around me fades, the earth is suddenly cold and damp beneath my feet, and an icy breeze demands that I feed
the fire—now glowing a perfectly ordinary orange.
Cerastes is gone. The moons have set, leaving the space outside our halo of firelight in total darkness.
Titus is asleep near the fire, wrapped in his bedroll. His color has returned, and his chest rises and falls with the healthy
breaths of deep sleep. He must have wakened while I was passed out, then set up my tent and put me to bed for real.
My relief at seeing him looking so normal is an actual pain in my chest. My fingers twitch to pull up the corner of his bedroll,
tuck it under his chin, smooth back the hair that has escaped its tie.
I don’t indulge. Instead, I crawl back into my tent so I don’t have to look at him.
Titus is not for me; he belongs to the Sunderland.