She thought for a moment. “To give something up.”
“Anything?”
“Something important to you,” she said.
“Something of great value,” Varten offered. “Something precious.”
Gilmer nodded. “If you want to release what’s inside this caldera, Tarazeli ul-Matigor, House of Bobcats, what are you willing to give up?” His soft smile was almost fatherly.
What was she willing to give up? She’d risked much to get this far—her safety, her future, but she already knew that wasn’t the type of sacrifice he meant.
“I can show you how to restore Songs, starting with your own,” Gilmer said.
Her breath caught at his words. “You can bring my Song back? Can you just bring everyone’s back?”
Gilmer shook his head. “That is not for me to do, and furthermore, I cannot from here. Some level of proximity is needed.”
She exhaled, trying not to show her disappointment. “But mine?”
He held the king stone like an offering and held her gaze. “You have to choose what you will give up.”
“What sort of thing should it be?”
Yllis snorted. “This doesn’t make any sense. It’s blood magic, it needs blood and death. Maybe the girl should open an artery.”
Zeli swallowed, and Varten shot him an angry glare, but Gilmer remained just as calm as before. “This magic is created with blood, true. But the spell to unlock it needs only a surrender. A yielding. What do you hold dear? What makes you who you are? What is as easy as breathing to you? What is holding you back?”
His last question gripped her hard. She stared at the encased dagger, an idea forming in her mind. But that didn’t make sense, did it?
Gilmer continued, “There is a debt that is owed this spell. Blood flows through our veins, brings us life, and its spilling is the loss of the precious. But there are other things that sustain us. Other valuable commodities that fuel our tanks, if you will. What brought you here today?”
She struggled to find the right word. “Duty.”
Gilmer tilted his head. “Just duty?”
Her mouth trembled. “No.” She blinked slowly, turning to Varten, who looked encouragingly at her.
What she’d overheard in the Goddess’s office had set her on this path. She’d been filled with a feeling that caused her to rush out and find Varten, to seek comfort from him.
She straightened, recognizing what it had been. “Fear,” she whispered, sotto voce.
“What?”
“Fear,” she repeated, louder this time. “I was afraid. Afraid of what the Goddess was planning, of Her inaction. Of what Her brother is capable of. Fear that my people will have nothing, thatI… will have nothing.” She shook her head. “I have nothing. I never have,” she muttered.
“And have you had this fear for a long time?” Gilmer asked.
She met his gaze. “My entire life.”
The door of her home kicked down, her parents brought out screaming, branded traitors for being members of the Keepers of the Promise. Their execution. Zeli sold into servitude.
The darkened wagon that transported her to the capital where the True Father drained her Song. A sack over her head. Being tossed in a pit. A pair of lips pressed against her rigid ones. Fear, fear, and more fear had lived within her. Dogged her steps. It’s what had made her join the Sisterhood.
Hope had lived alongside it, kept her going through many difficult times, but the fear of starving, fear of being alone, that had motivated her even more.
Varten’s presence beside her was impossible to ignore. She was afraid of him, too—not of him exactly, but of what it would mean if she gave in to the feelings she had for him. What would happen when it had gone as far as it could, and then ended.
Fear was her fuel, Gilmer was right.
