The sphinx sat in the bank’s long grasses, her tail swishing behind her, and tucked in her wings. “Step forward, sisters of myths.” She nodded to Jezebel and me, and with eyes carefully searching our surroundings, we did.
“Now bow over this core of magic and allow it to enthrall you and sweep you away, so you may find the answers you seek.”
I whipped my gaze to her. “How can we be sure you won’t hurt us while we’re distracted?”
“You can’t truly,” the sphinx purred. “But you must take my honorable, god-given word as enough.”
To trust a god-blessed creature? Never in my extended lifetime did I think I’d do that. But I didn’t have an option if I wanted answers. And I supposed, as a woken myth, she may not be so different from Sapphire, whom I trusted intrinsically.
“You okay with this?” I checked with Jezebel.
She cast Erista a look I couldn’t read, but there was hurt layered within. Later. We’d figure all of that out later. “We’ve come this far,” Jez said.
Together, we knelt at the pool’s edge.
“You do not need to submerge yourself,” the sphinx instructed. “Simply,look.”
Skeptically, I gazed into the waters. It reminded me of the pool in the cavern we’d kept Sapphire and the khrysaor hidden in, but much larger and flooded with a more potent form of magic. One that reached out to even me, with my meager Soulguider inheritance, and tugged on the possibilities of my power.
The dazzling water rippled gently, like a breeze wafted over it, and the crystal surface clouded.
The sphinx began speaking again, that same melodic tone as when she’d given us the riddle. “My mistress was always more than an Angel.”
A mural swirled—a story unfolding. Beside me, Jezzie inhaled and grasped my wrist as Xenique’s beautiful face filled the image. Her wings flared behind her and cast a sheen on her dark skin and kind smile.
“The blood of the gods beat through her veins, a daughter of Artale herself.”
What?
I meant to ask it aloud, but it seemed the sphinx’s magic had stifled our words as she spoke.
“Xenique, the Prime Warrior of the Soulguider clan, was a demigod. Child of the Goddess and a human consort, a powerful, powerful being born oftruelove.” Two shadows wavered on either side of the Angel, a golden tether between them. They stood in a chamber much like this one, cascading waterfalls and cyphers haloing their forms.
“The influence to see death ran through her veins, a magic straight from her Goddess mother. To Xenique, death was a portrait layered over the true world, a veil of sorts, through which she saw every fate that would befall those around her.”
The image shifted, Xenique’s surroundings blurring and dulling. Lives extinguishing. Everything but the Angel’s exquisite face took on that gray-tinged veil she saw through.
And the smile that had seemed so kind, so loving—it didn’t truly reach her eyes.
No, in those amber depths, fear and sadness lurked. Loneliness.
The sphinx went on, “Because she saw destruction everywhere she went, Xenique asked the gods for a defender.” The Angel fell to her knees in this very chamber, muttering unheard prayers to the waters. “But she made a mistake. She asked her questions too broadly. And instead of her mother or a more understanding God, Lynxenon answered.”
The God of Mythical Beasts. Lynxenon had heard Xenique’s plea, and in return?—
“That is how I came to stand at her side. He chose the sphinxes for our tie to Artale. A defender. A protector who kept all others away, something which may have actually made her lonelier and less understanding of her own magic.”
Sure enough, as Xenique sat in her revered seat above the desert, the rest of her warriors were nothing but blurs on the landscape. And that murky veil remained around her.
“Of all the Angels, she most longed for the connection of the seven to return after their inner feuds caused them to split. Because while she may be distanced from her warriors and guardians, at least those higher beings understood her.” A dignified scoff. “Or, she hoped. She was always different than the others, thanks to her status as a demigod. It is why she demanded the secret never be spread among all seven clans. That onlyherpeople may know.”
Flashes of images sped through the rippling waters. Of Xenique, isolated and alone, wings drooping behind her. Of her attempting to reform relationships with the other Angels andbeing handed denial after denial. Only Ptholenix and Valyrie deigned to meet with her after many years of pleading.
“I, and my sisters, were her companions,” the sphinx went on. “Until that wretched Ascension Day.”
Wretched?
The water splashed like an explosion beneath the surface, shooting high above us, and the entire scene dissolved into seven Angels gathered in a field of burning flowers. Six others stood at their sides.
