Chapter 37
The day dragged on.
I kept drifting off, half-asleep, half-conscious.
My magic was drained, my body weak, and the lack of food wasn’t helping.
The priest turned out to be sharper than I expected.
Eager, too.
He’d clearly absorbed everything Maelis had fed him like it was sacred text.
When he arrived at midday, he was practically glowing.
Giddy.
All because he was about to perform a ritual so old and corrupt it had been banned before half the Realms had names.
Unfortunately, I knew the ritual well.
I’d studied it long before Maelis ever existed.
All the Wisdom and Knowledge in the world, collected and curated for over 500 years, ruined because I let my heart rule my head.
Guilt made my stomach turn.
The ritual began with the circle. An intricate weave of runes drawn from the oldest, most volatile forms of magic.
Not just complex, deliberately dangerous.
These sigils were written in the language of the forgotten Gods, the Serathic.
The tongue of the forgotten Gods.
Now extinct, except in fragments.
Known only to the most ancient evil deities and now partly to Maelis and the priest.
The circle had to be ringed with void crystals, dark, jagged things pulled from the chaotic planes. The kind the God of Dreams would keep on hand, likely for manipulating nightmares. In this ritual, they’d be used to twist the natural flow of divine energy, bending it toward Maelis.
Blood would be required, of course. Hers and mine. The connection established through that exchange would let her draw power directly from my essence.
And then came the invocation: The Whisper of Ignorance. A chant designed not to destroy knowledge, but to unravel it, to scatter it like ash and let the remnants sink into her.
That was the theory, anyway.
Whether it would actually work?
No one knew.
It surprised me how readily they believed her.
Trusted her.
Welcomed her into their circle like she belonged.
But perhaps, to them, it made perfect sense.
She was mortal.
And now she had the chance to seize the power of a God.
That kind of ambition was something they understood.
Respect, even.
To them, she was exactly what she appeared to be, a wordsmith hungry for more.
And maybe they were right.
In me, she had seen a weakness, an opening. And she had taken it.
I just wish I hadn’t made it so easy for her.
Never again.
No one would get that close again.
* * *
The setting sun cast a golden glow through the windows.
The preparations for tonight had begun right after the lunch rush.
Guests had started to arrive not long ago.
Maelis entered the room and despite the hurt she had caused me, I couldn’t ignore how utterly stunning she looked in a tight-fitting red robe.
She greeted a few people and casually strode over to my cage.
“Did they bring you something to eat?” she asked quietly.
I didn’t want to respond, but just hearing her voice calmed my nerves.
What was it about her that could bring me to my knees, even after everything she had done to me and the realm?
I needed to get my feelings under control.
“Why do you care, wordsmith? Just leave me alone,” I said tiredly.
She didn’t respond, but walked over to one of the waiters and told them to make sure that food was given to me.
She then made her way over to Ignara, who looked her up and down approvingly.
“I knew this would look splendid on you, wordsmith!” she exclaimed and hooked her arm into hers, “Let me introduce you to a few important people here.”
After that both of them were out of earshot, but I kept track of Maelis’s movements the entire time.
They spent an hour circling the room, shaking hands and making polite conversation. The air was getting stuffy and smelled like a mixture of sweat, expensive perfume, and cigar smoke.
I closed my eyes again and tried to meditate, until a bell rang and indicated that it was time for the guests to take their assigned seats.
Somnaris was at the head of the table, of course.
Ignara and the other God, who I recognized as Meridian, The God of Trade and Prosperity, were sitting to his left and right, accompanied by Thalora.
Then there was Maelis and the priest and several other noble born Faeries.
Everyone else was seated on separate round tables across the room.
The whole time during dinner, Maelis kept a bored and disinterested look on her face, but I could see she was listening intently to their conversations at the table.
She had that concentrated look on her face, where her eyebrows drew together slightly and her head leaned forward.
The voice of a noble Faerie with purple hair carried over to me.
“They have taken many Heralds as prisoners, but have yet to ask for an exchange for their own men.”
The Herald seated next to him responded, “It’s remarkable how quickly they lost their minds when the wordsmith switched sides, just like Ignara had predicted. They know they need her to fulfill the prophecy and are out of options now that we have captured her and Auretheos.”
The Herald chuckled at that. Their words hurt, knowing that my court was crumbling under my captivation and her betrayal.
I did this.
It was my fault.
I had lost sight of what was important.
I let them all down and now they would pay the price for my transgressions.
Somnaris stood up and tapped with his fork against his glass. The murmurs quieted down and everybody looked towards their host.
“Good evening and welcome, dear friends and comrades-in-arms. Tonight, we are going to right a wrong that has been weighing on our shoulders for more than 500 years. I want to thank you all for being a part of this journey and contributing your ideas, your armies and your hearts to our cause. Thanks to you, we have successfully not only ensured the help of the wordsmith, but have also captured Auretheos, the God of Wisdom.” He gestured towards me, the guests openly staring.
He continued, “When the moon is up, I invite you all to witness history being written, when we undo the prophecy and once more become the rulers of this earth.”
Cheers erupted and I leaned forward, watching them.
I wanted them to know I was taking a mental picture of everyone that was here in this room.
I wanted them to know I was writing a list in my head of who I was going to kill and in which order.
Someone had brought food into my little cage earlier tonight, but I hadn’t touched it.
I didn’t want anything from her.
As I looked back up at her, our eyes met.
She tore her gaze away and inconspicuously pointed to the food on her plate, trying to get me to eat at least a little bit.
I leaned back again and closed my eyes, just to make a point of not eating the food she had gotten for me.
Petty and stupid?
Maybe.
But it was the only weapon I had right now.
Somnaris addressed Maelis: “Wordsmith, why don’t you give a toast? Something to lift the spirits and commemorate this joyous occasion?”
She gulped.
The Maelis I knew was uncomfortable speaking in front of strangers.
The Maelis I knew didn’t like being the center of attention and kept in the background at all times.
But had I ever met her true self?
She got up with purpose and lifted her glass.
“Thank you, Somnaris, for inviting me tonight and to all of you for coming. I am a little unprepared, so bear with me.”
She was quiet for a second and put her thoughts into order.
Her voice was shaky at first, at least to my ears, but she kept going.
“Here’s to being unapologetically ourselves, in a world that so often asks us to be anything but.
To be cherished by those who see us for who we truly are, and to finding the courage to cherish ourselves.
To the moments we feel lost, and the ones where we’re found—sometimes by others, sometimes by our own hearts.
And to discovering our purpose, not in perfection, but in the journey we take, one step at a time.
May we live fully, love deeply, and always find our way home to where we belong. ”
Cheers erupted from the tables around us and Ignara nodded approvingly.
But it was me who felt every word.
Not just heard them, felt them.
Like she’d stitched them into my skin.
Something in her voice struck a chord.
As if she’d spoken directly into my bloodstream.
Then I realized she’d quoted me.
My own words, turned back on me like a blade.
Was it deliberate?
A message?
Fates.
What was wrong with me?
She was standing there, shoulder to shoulder with my enemies.
She’d hurt Lythandra.
Mocked me.
Used me.
And still, still, I searched her face for the woman I loved.
Still, I told myself there had to be a reason, that she was playing a part.
That the Maelis I knew hadn’t disappeared, just… buried herself beneath something necessary.
But maybe that’s the lie I told myself so I wouldn’t have to face the truth.
How do you recover from something like that?
When the person you trusted most hands you the knife and smiles as you bleed?
At some point during dinner, someone decided that looking at me, rotting away in my cage wasn’t a good sight for the sensitive feelings of the dinner guests and had placed a sheet over my cage.
In the dark, I contemplated my options.
They were going to harness my powers tonight and transfer my magic to Maelis.
It probably wouldn’t kill me, but it would leave me defenseless for a while.
I also had no idea what would happen to Maelis when she received my hekas.
She was only a mortal after all and to my recollection, harnessing a God’s power had never been done before.
I decided to eat, just a little bit at least, to try and keep my strength up.
The room had cleared out earlier and the guests were probably taking their places for the ceremony in the courtyard.
Someone entered the room and removed the sheet from the cage.
The priest stared down at me and took a deep breath.
“I am going to write history tonight. The Fates help me! Take him out of the cage,” he ordered a young servant.
Straightening his gown and wiping the sweat from his forehead, the priest left the room, waiting for the servant to follow with me.
As we entered the courtyard, the guests were already seated.
I was led to the front and pushed into the circle of crystals.
I wanted to laugh as Maelis and Somnaris appeared at the end of the aisle and started walking towards me.
I had imagined what it would be like to get married, seeing her walk down the aisle towards me.
This was surely not what I had in mind.
The priest pressed down on my shoulders, forcing me to kneel.
I struggled to suppress my need to smile at the sheer ridiculousness of this whole situation and put the mask of indifference back on my face.
The priest led Maelis up to the circle and addressed the guests with some flourished words, obviously enjoying being the center of attention for once.
It seemed like he had decided that this was his big moment and he’d make the most of it. Mae stood to his right so she couldn’t see me kneeling to the left of the priest.
Her dagger was strapped to the priest’s belt.
So they didn’t trust her entirely either, interesting.
And probably smart.
Smarter than I had been at least.
But they needed the dagger to finish the harnessing, so it made sense to keep it close by.
The priest was yapping on and on about the importance of the occasion when I suddenly heard a whizzing sound.
Towards the back of the crowd stood one of the Heralds, his eyes suddenly widening in shock. He toppled over without making a sound.
There was an arrow in his back.
The court of Wisdom had come to free me.