But a wisp of doubt echoed in my mind. I scratched at my Curse mark as the idea became a steady thrum of life.
It did make sense, right? That’s what we’d always been taught.
“Perhaps you make a point.” Moonlight splayed across Echnid’s pale features as he tilted his head. “But I would caution you to consider that because bridges from Ambrisk to other realms have been sealed, there are a lot of truths left out of this one.”
What kind of truths? Endless possibilities raced through my mind, sending my fingers fidgeting around my glass. I ate the cookie with an air of false patience and picked apart every word out of the god’s mouth.
“You have learned of the bridges that connect the realms and those who can traverse them,” Echnid said.
“The Realmspinners,” I breathed. Aimee—the Storyteller Tolek and I had met multiple times on Gallantia now—had told us about them in a pleasure house in Lendelli. She’d been the only Storyteller who knew of the Angelcurse and pointed us toward the Gates of Angeldust.
Had she known about Echnid, too? I wished I could ask her.
“Realmspinners,” Echnid confirmed, grimacing, and I pushed aside thoughts of the Storyteller. “They are the only ones with full access to other worlds, though they have not been seen in many, many years.”
“Why?” I asked.
“That is a long story for another time,” Echnid said as he gazed out over the mountains again.
But I pushed. “Were they killed? Like the seraphs?”
“No,” Echnid declared with finality. “The Realmspinners did not see the same fate as your predecessors.”
I was going to ask more, but he turned back to the table and continued, “We—my sibling gods and I—are not the only pantheon, but we were the ones who breathed life into Ambrisk and many realms it initially bridged to. And when this source of power grew stronger, we had to break connections with the other worlds. With lower gods and our children who inhabit those realms, and with a number of other creatures and subjects. But they all continue to feel the repercussions of power struggles and events on Ambrisk.”
“You and the known gods can no longer access other realms either?” I asked.
“No,” Echnid clipped, reclining in his chair and drumming his fingers on the arm. “Not anymore.”
Not without Realmspinner magic, apparently. Echnid was stuck on Ambrisk unless he could access that coveted source.
I leaned forward, riveted as my fingers wrapped around my Curse mark, the pulse within mounting. “Where are the known gods, then?”
“They exist in a plane above the realms they created, overseeing and manipulating. If I wish to banish their influence for good, I must first open the way to bring them into this realm.” He was so forthcoming with this information, his mist swirling eagerly around the table. It lured me in, tugging at some root deep within me.
“How will you do that if the Realmspinners are lost?”
Echnid considered, and his eyes lit with glee—deranged or exhilarated, I wasn’t sure. “There will be a way.”
And while chills tried to break across my skin at the words, his mist washed over me and soothed them.
Night after night,Echnid summoned me to the Rapture Chamber—always alone. The meetings went on in much the same fashion as the first. I would arrive and sit at the table where I was settling easier into the wooden chairs. The white mist of his power would creep along the marble floors and over the back of my seat. And the god would speak of his plans.
The days in Damenal started to blur into one endless stream, nothing differentiable, all buried beneath the haze of misty magic and godly demise.
He told me of his goal to lock his brother and sister gods from Ambrisk completely so he could restore the warriors to greatness. Of how for all those years he was trapped in that Stone Realm, he dreamed of a world where our kind was not pushed beneath others simply because he had grown more powerful.
One night, he told me of the horrors he had faced in isolation. And as I sat there, absently brushing a thumb in circles over the Curse mark on my wrist, the part of me that wanted to believe this god grew.
He has the best intentions for our people.
It was that voice that took over when I arrived in the Rapture Chamber one night to find a caged bird chirping between the pillars. When I asked the reason, Echnid told me he wanted to help mentor my magic from thefel strella mythosnow that we were working together.
That was good. I needed to learn more about the mythos power so I could share it with Jezebel. Perhaps we could help Echnid do away with the gods.
He directed me to stand before the cage and pull up as much of the myth magic as possible. To pour it into the bird within and see how I could transform it.
The shimmering gold spilled out of me, much more controlled now that I was training with Damien. It wrapped around the little bird’s feathered frame, and Echnid stood over my shoulder.
