Chapter Forty-Nine
Forty-nine
There is glory in the choosing of an avatar. The awakening of a new era. And, for the chosen vessel, another, greater gift than they have ever been given: the gift of eternity.
—WRITINGS OF PRIOR SUPERIOR RADHICK
WHAT.
The fuck.
That’s what I want to say, but speech is gone, strangled by disbelief, as tight and draining as a mortal wound. Only the smallest sound escapes. “No.”
The Goddess’s patient expression doesn’t flicker.
“No,” I say again. “No.”
Innara is dying. I hear Nolan’s voice as if he’s spoken aloud.
I look to him, his attention finally on me, only to see a knowing, tired expression.
He knew. They all knew. Even though I’m suddenly the Goddess’s most favored, I’m also the last to be told that my body, my mind, is to be co-opted, invaded, and stolen away.
And that not only am I not being executed, but I will likely live another century or more.
Except not me, not really. I’ll be absorbed by Tempestra, a slowly devoured meal.
I jerk away from the Goddess’s touch, skin crawling. “Burn me, gut me, string me up in front of the Cathedral as a message. But I won’t be your cursed puppet.”
“It’s what you’d deserve,” the Prior Superior snaps, speaking for most of the room, myself included. “You are being given a gift you don’t even begin to—”
“Shh.” The command slips softly between Tempestra-Innara’s lips. The Prior Superior obeys. “You aren’t going to die, Lys. Not for a very long time.”
I grip the bars again, pulling myself close. “Please… Mother…” A plea, a sad, pathetic prayer that grinds what little pride I have left beneath its heel. “Please, if you love me in the way you claim you do, you won’t do this.”
A delicate chuckle. “Of course I love you. I have loved you from when I looked into your eyes, saw what lay there, in the very depths of you. For all your disobedience, your defiance, the kernel of what I search for in my children was always there. And as I had hoped, it grew. Oh Lys…” They are as patient with me as with a fussy child.
“I promise that you will not feel this way after. When we are bonded, entwined, and our thoughts become one, you will understand.”
Thoughts…
Fuck fuck FUCK. When Tempestra takes up residence in my brain, they will know me… all of me. Disregarding the particularly long list of fantasies about murdering them, there’s one other very choice tidbit that they will find interesting.
And that will be bad. Very, very bad.
I struggle to keep calm, measured, though it already feels as if I am losing pieces of myself, even before the Goddess gets their divine claws into me.
But before I am fully gone, my betrayals will be complete.
Tempestra-Innara.
Nolan.
And finally, Osiron.
A traitor to all. What follows then, when Tempestra learns about the Whisperer? Another war? Something worse?
I knew killing the Goddess would bring chaos. I didn’t expect failing to do so would too.
I have to stop what’s coming. For me. For everything. I can fight… but I will lose. That’s what Osiron said, wasn’t it? That the avatar possession need not be permanent, but also that the divinity gets who they want, when they want it. Whatever chances I had to win this game are already long spent.
My knees give out, the world around me retreating to some distant horizon.
“We will hold the ritual in a few days,” the Goddess announces, in complete disregard of my breakdown. “And then…” Their hand falls to the crown of my head, a damnable blessing. “Innara’s service will be done, and yours will truly begin.”
I stare at the place where their feet meet the floor, cold as ice.
“Come,” says Tempestra-Innara. “It would be unfair to Lys to have her anything other than her full self in front of her blood brethren. We must let her finish regaining her strength.”
The others shuffle toward the door obediently.
Prior Petronilla eyes me as she passes. She appears as if she wants to say something.
I feel like I should say something. Like You were always right about me.
Or maybe You were completely wrong instead.
But I say nothing, the weight of her disappointment barely a pebble on the mountain I’ve built.
Only Nolan remains where he is. “May I speak with her?” He addresses the Goddess, a young boy asking Mother for a sweet. “Alone?”
The departing parade falters momentarily, scandalized yet again in this absolute clusterfuck of events, but the Goddess nods.
“Of course.” It is as if the request is nothing at all. They run a hand lightly over Nolan’s hair—affectionate. Loving. “The two of you… I have never been so reminded of the differences between my children. And of their similarities. We will all work well together, I think.”
My eyes meet Nolan’s. I’m not sure what that means, but I can guess. I’m not the only one who expected punishment and got rewarded instead.
Everyone, including Tempestra-Innara, leaves the chamber; I am left alone with Nolan.
And we’re back to awkward silences.
“Sorry.” I speak first, another apology. “It should be you.”
“I know.” He doesn’t specify what part of what I said those words apply to. “But I accept the Goddess’s will.”
“I don’t want this.”
“I know.”
“Executrix, then?”
“Yes.”
“Congratulations.”
We go back to quiet, during which everything in the room, in the whole world, seems to still. Then Nolan sits, bringing himself down to my level. Very considerate.
“Lys,” he says. “Being chosen as avatar… it’s an unimaginable honor.”
“No,” I spit. “It’s a life sentence. Now not only will my life not be my own, but my body won’t be either.” A laugh escapes, only a little hysterical. “The Goddess really got it right. This is the worst possible punishment they could have given me.”
Conflict rolls off Nolan like a heavy perfume. Within it, I scent a way out.
“It should be you.” I grab the bars again, pull myself closer to him. “Maybe it still can be.”
His brow knits with concern.
“Give me a blade.” A desperate grin splits my face. “And go. Couldn’t be any easier.”
Shock flashes in his eyes as his face turns hard. Then, sadness—a flood of it. More emotion than I’ve ever seen from him. “No.”
“Please. You must hate me for all of this.”
“I know. I should. And I was angry with you, so much so that I wanted more than anything to see you pay for betraying the Goddess… for betraying me. And then, when they said they’d chosen you to be their avatar, I…
I knew I should be even more angry. But I wasn’t.
I…” He stops, the struggle within him bared.
Exposed. Is this what our blood mother’s unwelcome mercy has bought me?
The full truth of Nolan’s thoughts? Two frustrated tears—honest to goodness tears—escape, leaving glittering tracks over his pale cheeks.
Everything makes even less sense now with him broken open, silently spilling like a damaged dam.
“I don’t hate you at all. You were an obstacle… a means to an end… and then…”
He can’t finish. For all our training, our education, our experience, he doesn’t have the words for this. To be fair, neither do I. “Everything was a lot easier back when you were just quietly planning to kill me, huh?”
Silence, again.
“It was a bad idea, making us work together. Always was. Should have kept us at each other’s throat.
” I reach through the bars, fingertips just able to brush the back of his hand.
I’m not sure why I do it; any past contact was out of necessity.
Or maybe that’s exactly why. Outside of the Cathedral, the people in your life come with pats on the back, an arm around a shoulder, a hand on yours when the world has gone dark.
Not that we’d know. Nolan looks down at the touch.
He doesn’t engage with it. But he doesn’t pull away either.
“Nolan, if I mean anything to you…” I suck in a breath.
“No, fuck that. Mercy—that’s what I’m after.
The kind I need, not the kind the Goddess wants to give. And that mercy is sharp.”
Nolan stares at me. The air around us stretches, goes taut.
“Please…”
His hand twitches, moving closer to his belt.
Then freezes.
Horror spreads on his face as my weak hope shatters. He starts shaking his head. I don’t even know if he realizes it at first, but the motion increases.
“No,” he says. “I won’t. I’m not going to help you hurt yourself.” He leans closer. “Lys, you have to live.”
I pull my hand back, grip the bars again. “What’s going to happen to me isn’t living.”
“Yes, it is!” The words are strained. “Why must you be so damn stubborn? You will be alive, together with the Goddess, part of the greatest thing left in this world. And…” He falters.
“And you’ll still be here…” His voice fades, going so quiet I can barely hear.
Then, his hands find mine, wrapping around them.
“Please, Lys.” The words plead. Beg. “Let me serve you both.”
His fingers tighten. Mine grip cold iron.
I stare at him, the weak spots in my resistance becoming clear, threatening to give way the way his almost did moments ago.
I can almost imagine it—it’s not really losing, for either of us, if I become the avatar.
The bond we’ve formed remains, after a fashion.
And maybe I won’t lose myself to the Goddess too quickly.
Maybe there is some way to trade on my knowledge of Osiron, bargain some kind of peace between the two deities.
There’s an undeniable appeal to the fantasy of it.
But that’s all it is, one more fantasy.
Osiron wants the last of their siblings gone.
I won’t be a skin worn by Tempestra. And Nolan…
there’s no changing him. There never was.
For whatever grew between us, the soil is the same as it was when we started this misadventure.
Always the same obedient, devout, loyal Nolan.
No matter what edge I ended up on, he was always going to push me over.
I extract my fingers from Nolan’s, gut aching as his touch falls away, the hope in his eyes fading to disappointment.
“It’s a nice thought,” I say simply, and turn away.
I focus on the hollow thump of my heart until he speaks again.
“They’ll come for you no matter what. You will be the next avatar.”
“Then it won’t be much different from when we were kids. Except this time, I know I have a choice. And this time I choose to not be part of my own corruption.”
I close my eyes, saying nothing more as a hot frustration builds in them. And keep them closed until, eventually, Nolan stands, makes his way over to the door.
And leaves me behind.