Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Images rushed by, fate shuffling a deck of cards. I floated, formless, like a jellyfish riding the current of these countless futures. I couldn’t see Septimus, but somehow I could sense him near me. His voice, a distant whisper, permeated the vision.
You saw the beginning of this story, Kyrene. That the Vindica Ultis, the warrior once chosen by Shiket, would slay her, and then go on to slay more gods until the White Pantheon collapsed.
The flames melted into a silhouette of a woman bearing a blessed sword.
I saw Srana falling under the swing of a divine spear, and then Kajmar as a harp played on, and then, in a muddied chaos, shadowed form after form crumbling.
In the distance, a grand city hanging upside down in the sky—Ysria, the home of the White Pantheon—shattered like a broken mirror, the shards falling over the mortal realm like rain.
Yes. I had seen all this.
Here is what you did not see, Septimus went on.
The remains of a god are a powerful weapon.
And you, Vindica Ultis, have access to the greatest remnants of a fallen god.
Those remnants are now more powerful than ever with more gods dead, and their pool of discarded power flowing back into the communal divine ether.
The vision twisted again, clouds re-forming to paint an image in the mists:
Swords. Five swords.
I recognized them immediately. These were the blades on Shiket’s back—Zefiah’s siblings.
Even in the vision, reduced to painterly silhouette, they were broken, damaged by the death of their mistress.
The ghost of the Vindica Ultis stood at their center, Zefiah raised.
Light burst from her hands as the weapons rose into the sky.
And then, Nyaxia appeared.
She stepped from the clouds, painted in silver. Her hands were outstretched, mouth contorted in an enraged snarl.
These weapons, Septimus murmured in my ear, will be the ones to kill Nyaxia.
Nyaxia stepped toward the divine warrior. I watched, unblinking, as the warrior swung her sword, and with the movement, all those blessed blades plunged into Nyaxia’s heart.
You, Kyrene, Septimus said, voice hungry, will be the one to kill Nyaxia.
Nyaxia let out a howl and burst into streaks of night. The shadowy dust mingled with the remains of the fallen White Pantheon, obscuring my vision in suffocating darkness.
Then all at once, the darkness parted.
The sky was still, quiet. There were no gods fighting. No blood spilling. Utter peace like I had never known, seeping into my soul.
And above it all, the sun. Gold and warm and sweet.
I had no body here. Yet I felt myself gasp, the words coming anyway: What is this?
This, Septimus said, is a world beyond gods.
The light burned, and burned, and burned, until it overtook everything, and then I was falling.
I jerked my hand from the fire, barely catching myself before I fell backward. In the moments when I crashed back into the real world, I saw another fragment of the vision. The gods falling. The swords assembling. Nyaxia’s blood bursting free.
And the sun.
I squeezed my eyes shut. My heart was beating so fast. I couldn’t catch my breath. I pushed myself to my feet and began pacing.
“So now you see,” Septimus said. “The one way to end the curse. To end her.”
“And—and that at the end—”
“Glimpses of a world beyond the fall of the White Pantheon. Beyond the fall of Nyaxia. A world that is no longer at the whims of the gods. Only glimpses, but . . . possibilities.”
But sunshine. Peace. Such beauty that my heart ached to even dream it could be possible. Easier to believe it wasn’t.
And yet.
And yet.
“But you can’t know that’s what it is,” I said. “You can’t know it’s going to happen.”
“No,” he admitted. “We can’t know anything. But we can see chances.”
“And this is—”
“Our only chance at killing Nyaxia.”
Only chance. The words made me suddenly ill.
“Me,” I said. “It has to be me.”
“The Vindica Ultis. The divine warrior to whom Shiket bestowed the Blade of Retribution. Yes. Every vision was clear on that.”
I finally forced myself to meet Septimus’s gaze. He was watching me intently, as if analyzing my every expression. I repeated, the words slow and intentional, “The Vindica Ultis must use Shiket’s swords to kill Nyaxia.”
A smile bloomed over his lips, oddly gentle. “Please, lyri. Don’t try to tell me you’d rather have it any other way.”
My chest was tight. My heart stuttered. I forced myself to look away, pacing again.
“And what is the alternative?” I asked. “You’ve shown me one possible future that may not even come to pass. What is failure?”
The smile disappeared. “We won’t fail. No matter what happens, this ends with me.”
“You started a fucking god war, Septimus. You deprived us of the sun. So many people have suffered for this. I—” I cut myself off, swallowing, pushing away the thought of my own sacrifices, too close to the surface now. I let out a breath. “And you’re telling me it’s for a chance.”
His gaze flicked to the fireplace. “Stop pacing and sit back down. I want to show you something else.”
I turned back to him. Now, he held another copper cup, this one bearing a rainbow of powders.
I didn’t move, arms crossed over my chest. “What, you want me to go kill some queen now, too? Or throw in another few gods?”
He let out a long sigh, and begrudgingly, I sat. He tossed the powder into the fire. This time, the flames sputtered in rainbow colors, so many they thickened into a muddy soup. It looked, felt, different than last time, though I wasn’t sure how.
Septimus’s mouth was thin and straight, jaw set. He thrust his hand into the flames, then leveled a steady stare at me in a wordless challenge.
I sat beside him. And I put my hand into the flames right next to his, the two of us consumed in color.
Right away, this vision was different. Visions formed into the mist only to immediately disintegrate. My head spun with the disorientation of being lurched from image to image without time to steady myself, each lasting for mere seconds, and all of them horrific.
The first night we showed you a vision of the future, Septimus’s voice said in my ear, Sylina told you that fate is a web, not a path. That seering was a matter of finding the outcome you were looking for and then reverse engineering the key branches that could lead to it.
Screams echoed in the sky. I saw what appeared to be the ruins of a burning city. Looked down to see an emaciated figure, missing their legs, dragging themselves toward me. Reaching out, only to melt away.
We did not undertake this mission lightly, Septimus said, as horror after horror flashed by. I tried everything, Kyrene. Everything. We tested every outcome. Looked into every probability.
The flames surrounded me, blinded me, and there were so many of them that it took me a moment to realize that this was yet another vision—a world aflame, stretching from horizon to horizon, distant gods looming over it all.
If the sun never falls, if Atroxus never dies, then the gods come to a great war that destroys this realm.
When?
Ten years. A hundred years. It’s hard to say. But it happens. It isn’t even the first time. They killed the world they built before this one, and one day, they would kill this one, too. Countless decisions lead to that end.
The images shifted again—now a world of darkness, soulless crawling from rubble, little bodies in their teeth.
If the House of Night never comes under the rule of Raihn and Oraya Ashraj. If the Nightborn never pledge their fealty to Acaeja.
Another shift. Now, a blinding, cataclysmic clash of power burning in the sky, while a wave of movement rolled over the sea. An army, I realized—and it took me a beat longer to realize that every one of those soldiers were dead, their faces masks of bone.
If the House of Death never splits from the House of Shadow. If Nyaxia maintains control of the dead in the realm of the underworld.
More horrors formed and dissipated, faster and faster, so quickly that they became a smear of death. Famine and flame and war and genocide and great cracks that opened in the earth like seeping wounds and, and, and—
These are the discarded futures that I have been living in for all these years, Kyrene, Septimus murmured, and even though I had no form, I could feel his breath at the shell of my ear.
This was my prayer. Another end of the world, every morning before I slept, every evening when I woke up.
I have loyal seers who have ruined themselves watching this for a decade.
Watching the world end, over, and over, and over again.
So yes, I pushed those pieces where they needed to be.
I saw two figures in an alley against distant rolling silver dunes—a tall man with wings, and Septimus, a cigarillo in his hands. Blink, and that image melted into that of the very same winged man in a blood-soaked colosseum—a single nod, a deal cemented.
I made sure that Nyaxia’s greatest strengths were taken from her. Made sure that the right people ended up in the right places. Made sure the right crowns ended up on the right heads. Made sure the right weapons found the right hearts.
I saw Queen Egrette holding a letter written in a familiar hand, then smiling over a shackled woman with burn scars on her arms. Blink, and that woman slipped through the underworld, ran at Atroxus with an arrow in her grip. Just like that, the sun fell.
And I will not lie to you, Kyrene. It has all been a gamble. So much relies on fucking luck. Dice rolled over and over and over again.
Now, I saw a woman standing before Shiket, a glowing blade in her hands.
But it will be worth it. It has to. Because there is no alternative.
The woman raised the sword.
And by the time she let it fall, I jerked my hand from the flames.
My palm burned. I was on the ground, pushing myself up from the floor. I was grateful for its stabilizing force. The images still smoldered behind my eyes when I blinked. Hell, even when they were open.