This was a woman’s life. And the gods were just so callously throwing it away for... what? Fun? Entertainment? To feed the goddess’s pet sea serpent? My hand twitched at my side. Khalasa must’ve known what I was going to do before I did.
She reached for me from across the room right as I stepped forward and commanded the goddess to stop. Truthfully, I think I blacked most of it out. When I came to, I stood there in front of the goddess of water, fists curled. Everyone had gone completely silent. I wasn’t even sure what I’d said, but I knew it couldn’t be good based on the terror flashing in Khalasa’s eyes.
Larissa had looked at me, blue eyes glimmering with rage. “Should I feed you to Saree instead?”
“You shouldn’t be feeding anyone to the sea serpent,” I found myself saying against my better judgment.
The crowd shuffled uncomfortably. The gods had straightened in their seats, staring at me with interest, even Uruth now paying attention.
Khalasa’s face had lost all color.
“What did this woman do to deserve a fate like this?” I asked.
Larissa just shrugged my question off. She didn’t even have an answer, which confirmed this woman was innocent.
The woman in question whimpered, staring up at me with tear-filled eyes.
“Let her go,” I pleaded. “She doesn’t deserve to die.”
“No one does,” Larissa said. “You die at our whim. You live at our whim.”
“Oh, enough of this.” Ragar disappeared from his chair and reappeared in front of us. He looked up. “Sacrifice her already.”
Inky shadows appeared out of nowhere, and I whipped around to see the god of shadows standing behind the crowd, his shadows slipping through them like smoke.
A few people let out screams when the shadows brushed past them. The shadows surged forward, wrapping around the rope, fraying its edges until the rope snapped in half, and the woman fell. Ragar and Larissa both smiled, cruelty and mirth shining in their eyes that made me shudder. When I turned to the god of shadows, he was already gone.
The sea serpent devoured its prey, everyone breaking into cheers.
One minute I stood in that temple, and the next, I was being wrenched outside, Khalasa grabbing me and flying me back to my farm. We didn’t speak until we landed. She stood in front of me, her shimmery purple gown bunched in her fists.
“How could you be so stupid?” she’d asked.
I’ll be honest. I wasn’t expecting that kind of response. Khalasa has spent so much time telling me she hates the other gods, hates their callousness, hates the games they play with mortal lives.
So I couldn’t understand how she could be so angry with me for standing up for a mortal.
She told me I put myself in danger, that I made myself into a target.
But I didn’t care. That woman deserved better. In fact, I was growing angry at Khalasa for not doing something. She was a goddess. She had power. She could’ve stopped that. It made me wonder how many other deaths Khalasa had witnessed, how many times she’d done nothing to stop the murders of innocent souls.
Up to that point, it was like we’d been living in our bubble, but now that bubble had burst, and it had changed everything.
She’d done something, then, that scared me. Her eyes turned a deep maroon color, and she’d raised her hand like she was about to call down her powers. I’ll never forget that look on her face. Her features were twisted in rage, an expression I’d never seen on her before.
Then her eyes widened like she realized what she was doing, and she lowered her arm and disappeared in a cloud of purple smoke.
I haven’t seen or heard from her since.
I want to say the most disturbing part of this tale is the woman who I saw murdered. But it’s not. The most disturbing part is the goddess that I’m beginning to think I don’t know as well as I thought I did. In fact, I might not know her at all.
Chapter Twenty-Five
BELLAMY
Leoni, Driscoll, and I sat on a couch in the parlor as Wesley played the piano while Jerome sang. Goji sat on a velvet maroon chair, leaning over and sipping from a glass of wine. We’d just eaten dinner, a fabulous meal prepared by Cook, and now we were getting to the entertainment portion of the evening. I winced as Jerome hit a high note that made my ears ring.
“I’d rather be out facing the shadows right now,” Driscoll mumbled, sipping from his own glass of wine.
