Nariah’s throat went dry as the woman’s crystalline eyes met hers, bringing the visions rushing through her mind’s eye at rapid speed. Knees shaking, Nariah clutched the doorframe to remain upright. Warm hands on her shoulders steadied her, bringing with them the citrus and rain scent that Life always seemed to bring with him. Her neck tingled as his breath brushed against her ear, a strand of his long hair falling over her shoulder.
“See only this moment,” he whispered, his voice soft but commanding. “Stay with us.”
Darkness crept into Nariah’s vision, heralding the oncoming immersion within the destruction she could never escape. Rowan’s grip tightened on her shoulders. Slowly, the darkness receded, and the goddess released her gaze.
“Keet!” Truett cried, but the bird on the goddess’s arm made no move to join him. Instead, it cocked its head to one side. The goddess stroked its head with a single finger, then scratched under its beak as though it had a chin.
A poof of black smoke brought Death to the center of the balcony, dressed only in a pair of thick black leather pants and fluffy black slippers both shaped like emus. His back, a terrifying jumble of vicious scars from what must have been lashes, stood bare and broad between him and the rest of his comrades.
“Where are your sisters?” Raiyer demanded, looking around before craning to see over the goddess’s shoulder into the horizon. “How long before you raze this mountain to ash?”
“You forget, nephew, that my purpose in sojourning here differs from my willful sisters’,” the goddess said, tut-tutting a moment. Tapping her chin, she took stock of the six lords and mortal exile before her. A soft kindness and sad smile graced the goddess of Destiny’s face, so different from Irony’s. “It would be my entreaty that you return home to our world. To your families. Your mothers grieve the loss of their treasured sons.”
Rowan’s nails bit into Nariah’s shoulders, and he began to shake. Glancing at him over her shoulder, she saw not a lord of great potential, but a man, no different than any other, eyes wide and face ashen with sheer terror.
“Your sympathy for the womb-bearers who birthed us means little, Destiny,” Raiyer said. “Those who bore us solely for favors from the High Council. Women who sold our bodies and souls into bondage at the hands of the Sisterhood, even before our conception. Your kind are glutted with power enough already. Leave us to serve those with no power of their own.”
Ocean waves breaking against the cliffs far below and wind echoing through the halls were the only sounds to follow Death’s scathing words. The bird on Destiny’s arm—Keet, Nariah supposed—let out its wings and took to the sky, circling around the goddess’s head like a living halo.
“It is admirable, what you propose,” she said at last, her tone devoid of any emotion or even intonation, as if she truly was the living statue she appeared to be at first glance.
Destiny’s gaze bore into each person one at a time, holding them each frozen in turn for several long seconds. When she looked at Nariah, though, she only nodded briefly before returning her attention to Raiyer. The dismissal was both a relief and a slap of inconsequence. Worse than the hatred of her people, or even the needy desperation of Irony, Destiny’s indifference matched the attitudes that Nariah had always assumed the goddesses must have of her, for allowing this to be her lot in life.
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away and gritted her teeth. She may have been only a mortal piece cast into a divine game she was never meant to oversee, but they dragged her into this mess. Princess or not, Seer or Exile, she was going to win back the kingdom that was rightfully hers from the clutches of fiery damnation.
“Admirable, but not shared by all in your party,” Destiny finished at last. “The time for seeking solace in the shadows is over. Payment has become due for the souls you have stolen from us… all seven of them.”
Everyone turned on Karma as he made his way out onto the balcony. As if he’d known what was to come, he stood draped in a simple brown traveling tunic and cloak, with a rucksack strapped across both shoulders. When had he changed into them? There had been no rucksack or traveling clothes when he first arrived in the dining room…
“Karma,” Death hissed out of the corner of his mouth, stretching an arm across Karma’s chest to stop him. “Don’t.”
“Prayers of three goddesses will set me up for at least six lifetimes,” Karma said. With his back to her, Nariah couldn’t see his expression, but the leering lilt that accompanied his snobbish smile had returned. “Maybe seven; enough for all of us.”
Karma shot a cold glare in Nariah’s direction with his last statement. Her face burned red, her hands balling into fists.
“My soul is not yours to steal!” she snapped. “I offered it to Death, and he refused to take me up on my offer. It’s not on the table.”
The goddess held up a hand and shook her head. “Six bearing the blood of glory stand before me now. But seven glory bearers left our world. Return to us whole that which was stolen, and we will release our claim on those who propose to serve in truth.”
Raiyer laughed so loud it shook the mountain. Rowan stumbled, almost pulling Nariah to the floor with him. Grabbing him around the waist, she planted her feet firmly and held onto the doorframe to keep them both upright. Screams echoed out from within the mountain, and the reverberation in the floor ceased.
Unbothered by the mayhem of his worshippers, Raiyer turned a cold gaze back on Destiny and waved his hand.
“Riddles and twisted bargains are a waste of your breath. Either tell us how long we have to save the souls in this mountain or be gone, harbinger of destruction. We know who travels with you; they are never far from your side.”
Motioning to the bird above her head, the goddess whispered something unintelligible on the wind before addressing them once more. “I leave you with a gift. Long have I searched for its source, and little is the time you have left to claim its secrets.”
Keet let out a muted caw around the scroll in his mouth before descending toward the balcony. The goddess appeared before them with just a blink of her eye. Marbled fingers stretched out to Karma, who accepted her hand with a sigh so euphoric that Nariah flushed at overseeing them.
“Karma! No!” Death shouted, lunging for the teal-haired lord’s ankles as he levitated off the floor.
A shockwave of power laid Raiyer low, but only sent wind lightly across the others. Rising into the air, Destiny enveloped Karma in her arms. His eyes were only on her, gleaming with tears and beaming with adoration. To have loved her so dearly, why would Karma have ever left Destiny’s side?
“The gift the falcon bears repays the debt we owe you, Nariah Alcon of Ellonai,” Destiny’s voice rung out in Nariah’s head as the goddess looked down at her one last time. “For the violation Irony imposed upon your soul without your consent. The board between us is now clear.”
Nariah blinked. Violation of her soul? A debt owed? None of it made sense. She was a mortal, and these were goddesses; they could do whatever they please.
“Remember!” Destiny cried over her shoulder as Keet zoomed the rest of the way down to the balcony. “The eclipse will purge all with fire and ice. Beware, those who hold the blood of glory.”
If the goddess said anything else, it was lost on Nariah, whose breath was knocked from her chest as a flurry of wings and talons smashed into her so hard that her back slammed against the door. Keet was almost as big as she was—a monster of a bird. Throwing her arms over her face, she tried to shield her eyes from the claws and piercingly sharp beak tearing at her skin.
“Get off me!” she cried, bringing a knee up and smashing the creature in the chest.
The bird spiraled backward, knocking into the railing, and Nariah sank to the floor, massaging her aching face. Rowan knelt by Nariah’s side, but she barely acknowledged him. Check for my own wounds first, she told herself, then deal with that bird. The bird was scrambling to stand, but its head darted from one side to the other, stunned. The scroll in its beak fell to the floor, forgotten.
At first, Nariah didn’t feel much pain, only slight burning sensations on her face and forearms. Blood trickled from deep wounds, though, and small chunks of flesh were missing in places. Pain grew quickly, and she made short work of ripping the hem of her dress and holding it against one arm. What would she do about the other?
“Keet! You poor thing!” Truett swept into view, scooping up the giant falcon and ruffling the feathers on its head in a manner she couldn’t possibly imagine the bird enjoying. “That horrible woman kidnapped you, didn’t she? What’d she make you bring us?”
Nariah gaped, then growled deep in her throat. War’s falcon may have meant a lot to him, but it had also tried to eat her alive. The bird squawked, almost affectionately, before plucking the scroll from the floor. A frayed burgundy ribbon held it closed, and Truett quickly tossed the ribbon on the ground.
A glitter of gold on the end of the ribbon caught Nariah’s eye. The moonlight glistened upon it for a fraction of a second before the golden writing dulled. That shade of red… golden ink that dulled in the moonlight… Her heart pounded in her ears. The goddesses were repaying some manner of debt, Destiny said. But surely it couldn’t be…
Falling forward, she managed to snatch the ribbon up before the wind carried it away. Sure enough, when shaded from the moonlight, a single golden sigil stood out on the end of the ribbon: a single bramble bush with a sword protruding from the top, upon which a crown dangled. Below the bush, the initials K.A. stood out boldest of all. This scroll had come from the desk of Kelton Alcon—Nariah’s father, the King of Ellonai.
“Here,” Rowan said, kneeling beside her. She barely had time to shove the ribbon into her pocket and take a breath to calm her frantic heart before Rowan took her arms in his hands. “Let me help.”
“I can manage,” Nariah said, but Rowan simply smiled.
“The moonlight shines beautifully in that bracelet,” he said as his gaze passed over it during his inspection of her arms. It was unclear whether he was whispering to himself or to her, with the faraway look in his eyes. “You know, it reminds me of one I’ve seen before, so long ago.”
Of course! Nariah wanted to smack herself. The lords and goddesses all new each other—many were even related, she supposed after the events they’d just endured. Her bracelet most likely belonged to a friend or family member of his, or at least an acquaintance. Her breath caught in her chest, and her fingers moved to cover the bracelet. Would he want it back, if he knew who it belonged to?
“It was my ancestor’s,” she said instead, looking straight out at the ocean and hoping he would change the subject.
“And the birthright of the Heir of Ellonai,” Rowan added.
Nariah whispered a curse. Rowan’s face flushed at the profanity. Wanting to disappear once more, Nariah realized that people probably didn’t curse much in their lords’ presence.
“As you’ve seen,” he whispered, leaning forward so his breath was tickling her ear once more, “we are, perhaps, not so different than you in many ways. Be careful which pedestals you place us on.”
Closing his eyes, Rowan drew in a deep breath. Slowly, he chanted in a language that flowed like a song. Gold and green light swirled around Rowan’s hands, crawling up Nariah’s arms like living beings. The smoke grew heavier, until its weight matched the pressure of the hands which held her in place. Into every scratch and puncture wound, the golden and green light snaked itself in a fuzzy, warm way that had Nariah crawling out of her skin. It was like a million fire ants had set upon her at once and were rampaging up her body, stinging her already aching wounds and tickling with thousands of tiny legs.
The light enveloped her face, and she closed her eyes. She gagged as it crept down her throat, then sniffed as it crawled up her nose. A sneeze was building.
“Ah… Rowan…” she sniffled, but he was locked in place, eyes closed, hands glowing.
“Rowan!” she pleaded, turning her head to avoid sneezing directly in his face.
His eyes flew open, and the glow vanished all at once, but it was too late. Nariah’s sneeze echoed off the cliffs all the way down to the ocean below, drawing a glare from Death and amusement from the lords inside the hall.
For a moment, Rowan and Nariah—lord and mortal—sat together in silence, unaware of the others spectating or Death’s looming fury. How human Rowan looked, Nariah thought, as his shoulders slumped and his eyelids grew heavy. The sensation of ants had vanished with the light, but a strange tingling sensation remained on her now flawlessly smooth arms, as well as on her cheeks.
The lord of Life swayed a moment, putting a hand on the floor to steady himself. It was hard to tell for sure in the moonlight, but Nariah was almost positive that Rowan’s lips had turned blue, his face a pasty white.
“Lord, are you okay?” she asked. His second hand hit the floor and his face turned down away from the moonlight. His golden hair shifted to a deep brown. Dread filled her. What had she done?
“Lord…”
“Rowan,” he whispered, and despite his physical condition, he raised his head long enough to grace her with a smile. “Just… call me Rowan, okay?”
“Rowan,” she amended, not wanting to argue over how unacceptable it was for her to call a lord by his first name. “Are you okay?”
“Raiyer” he whispered, almost pleading.
Raiyer was at their side in an instant, swooping an arm around Rowan’s waist just as Life’s arms gave out. Death lifted his brother as though Life weighed nothing, and he threw the weakened lord over his shoulder. Nariah scrambled back until she hit the wall, unable to tear her gaze from the towering lord of Death. Emu slippers or not, shirtless or not, this man had murder in his eyes. Death was furious, and she was in his sights.
“Stay away from my brother, mortal,” Death seethed, pointing a single finger down at her.
A cold sweat broke out on her brow. Malevolence far grimmer than the prospect of a mortal death lingered in his unspoken threat. Teeth chattering, she tried to nod, but couldn’t manage it. Every muscle sat frozen.
Death dropped his hand, still glaring, but, she assumed, satisfied with her terror. A boom shook the hall, leaving a cloud of black smoke where Raiyer and Rowan had stood just a moment before.
Franco chuckled bitterly, bringing Nariah back to the reality that three more lords were watching from inside the dining hall. Shaking his head, Light asked, “Why is Raiyer always so dramatic? Truly, such a diva…”
“You’d hardly think he was Winter’s child,” Truett agreed, unrolling the scroll and skimming over the contents.
At that point, Nariah had heard the names of too many deities to know if they meant yet another lord, a goddess, or the season itself. Seven souls, that’s how many lords had fallen to her world, according to Destiny. But only six were here. So where was the seventh?
“Shorn!” Truett whistled, running a hand through his hair as he offered the scroll to Dark. “Estes, you know the King better than any of us. Is this letter real?”
Dark raised a hand in refusal, then motioned and nodded to Nariah. “Let his own flesh and blood be testament to its authenticity.”
“You truly believe that the Seer is his flesh and blood, then?” Truett whirled on her, taking her in as though seeing her for the first time. “Truly?”
Nariah could only shrug. To admit her heritage would only defy the decree of disownment her father passed after her exile. To deny it would be pointless—these were lords after all. Truett’s eyes sparkled, and a grin spread across his face.
“That’s why she has those eyes!” he announced triumphantly, pumping a fist in the air.
“Wow,” Estes mumbled, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he sighed and shook his head. “Took you this long, did it old boy?”
Ignoring Dark, Truett thrust the letter into Nariah’s hand.
“Hurry! Is this your father’s handwriting?”
Scrolling golden ink on jet black fabric did indeed flair and curve like her father’s handwriting, though it wobbled unnaturally in places and skipped dots in others, as though written in haste or with a weak hand. Skimming the letter, her own hands began to shake. Only one sentence in, she could barely keep the words in focus.
Dearest Nariah,
I write to you in haste in what I fear may be one of my last hours.
If you are able, meet me in Frierfeld.
Time is not with us, but secrets meant only for your ears must be shared before I breathe my last.
Speed and safety,
Your Father
“Well?” Truett demanded.
“Truett,” Franco whispered, placing a hand on War’s shoulder. Light shook his head reproachfully, and War snapped his mouth closed.
Coming to stand by Nariah’s side, Light held out a hand for the letter, but said nothing. Blinking away her tears, Nariah sucked in a deep breath to console herself before raising her eyes to meet Light’s. One corner of his mouth tipped up in a sympathetic half-smile as she placed the letter in his outstretched palm. Light was a stranger to her, taking the one piece of proof that her father still thought of her as his daughter, even after exiling her. The empty air in her hand weighed down her soul.
Her father hadn’t said much in the letter, but she wanted it near her. To read its familiar scrolling, to trace each letter with her calloused fingertips. And yet Light bowed, a genuine, deep bow, as he turned to read it aloud to the others.
How could she get to Frierfeld? In truth, the small hunting village and Ellonian fort nearby were one of the furthest settlements outside of the castle itself. Even if she’d been at home, she’d have had trouble navigating the wastes to find it without using the main road.
“It is clear that King Kelton is unwell,” Franco announced to the group as though he himself knew her father. “The text is written in faint ink, and rushed on top of that. Perhaps Destiny herself ordered that he write, and waited as he did so.”
Nariah’s eyes widened at the thought of the woman who’d been floating outside just now sitting over the deathbed of her father, demanding letters.
Shaking out her right hand, Nariah placed her pinky over her mouth and blew out, a prayer for release of bad omens. She hadn’t prayed it in a long time; there wasn’t much need for an exile bearing bad omens to pray for protection from them herself, she’d reasoned. Still, darkness swirled at the edge of her conscious thought. It had been a while since she heard Irony in her head, she realized. Was it a coincidence that this fear of pending doom now grew in the missing voice’s place?
“Estes, should we go?” Franco asked, turning to his brother. “If it’s a trap—which it very well may be, since Destiny came alone—we should not send our new Seer directly into Irony’s hands.”
The pending doom grew in Nariah’s mind, even as she opened her mouth to protest. She could almost picture her father, in his grand poster bed in the tapestry-covered room in his hunting lodge, sweating out a fever while lords and goddesses blasted his home apart.
“My father has seen enough divinity to last him what little life he has left,” she still found herself saying, despite her logic that they were right. A lord or two couldn’t hurt, if she needed to make a quick escape from what sounded like an extremely vengeful goddess or two.
As though he hadn’t heard her at all, Dark called for monks. Six men appeared whom Nariah had never seen before, each of them in a plain black robe and with bald heads. Their feet were bare. A single ring sat upon each monk’s right hand, and the rings emanated a faint humming sound as well as a black whisp of smoke.
The monks gathered around Estes, raising their cowls up to cover their heads and keeping their faces trained on the floor as they awaited his orders. Were these monks only in service to Dark? Both Franco and Truett stood alone, almost ignored entirely save for a brief nod when the monks first entered the room. Neither of them seemed to mind, though.
“Ready my carriage at once,” Dark commanded, his head high. “And tell Death he is not to harvest the King’s soul until I give him clearance to do so.”
“Yes, m’lord,” one of the monks said.
The group of holy men scattered. Two went back out onto the cliffside hallway. The others left through another set of doors in the back of the dining hall, into inner rooms that Nariah guessed must somehow lead to stables somewhere on the cliffs above them.
“It will be sunup by the time you arrive,” Dark told Truett. “You can take my carriage to fly through the night, but you must land before sunrise this time. It took me a year to rebuild the last one.”
Truett grinned, pounding Estes on the back before heading to the doors in the back of the dining hall.
“Always so generous, dear Estes. You have my thanks!”
“I’ll go with you,” Franco interjected, pointedly ignoring his brother so that he could give Truett his two cents. “When the sun rises, I will bless the horses anew; they will have the strength to carry us to Frierfeld.”
Frierfeld… wait… were they actually planning on taking her there, even after her protest?
“What a minute, why are we all going to Frierfeld?” she asked.
Dark snatched her by the arm and rushed her to the hallway.
“Hey! Estes! Where—” Truett began, but Dark slammed the doors behind them before running back down the hall toward their sleeping suites.
“Come!” Estes said in a huff. “You need to change.”
Much faster than they’d left it, they returned to Dark and Light’s sleeping quarters. A whisper from Estes pulled the darkness out of the room, leaving something that was not quite light, but a grayscale in-between in its place. Calling out in a foreign language, Estes summoned Pearl and Shrive out of their small chambers at the very end of the hallway inside the sleeping suite.
Neither woman wore nightclothes, Nariah realized with a start. Both wore the same white robes and blue silk head-wrappings as before.
“Prepare her for travel and a potential fight,” Dark bade the women, speaking in Nariah’s language once again. “She rides hard through the night—try to not let her be too flashy, will you?”
“Flashy?” Nariah gaped. “Who do you think—”
“Drop her off with your other master when you’re done with her,” Estes cut her off. “I have an unfinished distraction I wish to see to.”
Once again, the girl in Dark’s bath robe flashed across Nariah’s mind. Her whole body tingled at the boldness this lord seemed to toss around whenever he pleased.
“Of course, lord.” Shrive curtsied, and Pearl follow the younger maid’s lead.
As soon as Dark turned his back, frantic preparations began, and Nariah could only allow herself to be swept along for the ride.