People selected to worship death.
I hold my head high as I ride beneath the stone and into the dark cave, until Mavros stops in front of the fountain that rains blood each full moon. Right now, the water is crystal clear, but I can see the crimson liquid in my mind’s eye.
My mind floats off to anywhere but here.
Before I dismount, I take a long breath.
I cannot show my shame.
Beneath the mountain, we are free from our duty of violence, but it is here that I am most terrorized. Here, where the world is quiet. Where people are free and alive and happy.
Where children are not only born healthy but with full bellies every day. Where they can laugh and play.
Until they too are forced to kill or be killed.
Maybe it’s a flaw that I feel each ounce of pain I cause so deeply. Or maybe if I had been like these children, raised in the cool shadows of the underground city, around my people, maybe I wouldn’t know to mourn the loss of light that exists outside.
Maybe I would have believed their tales—that we are the sacred people and our god demands the souls of outsiders. Maybe if I hadn’t tasted more than this.
I don’t know if it is because I am half-black magic, half-red, but my soul burns with shame.
I feel the wrongness in my bones, but I am helpless to stop it. I am a coward for continuing on this way, and yet I know my death would only fuel their magic more. There is no way to win in this terrible game.
She is alive. Alive but at risk, and I cannot protect her.
More failure to add to my list.
Not yet. You have not failed her yet.
I shake my head from the shadows pressing in on my mind. I’ve long let them rule me, but I cannot let them win now.
Ivar could cut her down out there just to spite me, but I saw his desire plainly. He intends to bring her here and claim her to taunt me.
I march down the steps toward the sanctum.
The Nihil Priestess, Blythe, is kneeling before the walls of skulls when I approach. She stands slowly then bows her head in greeting.
“You’ve arrived alone,” she says. “Where is your commander?”
I keep my chin up. “Mikael has fallen,” I state plainly. “I was sent ahead to deliver his drakai to the stalls to be prepared for a new binding.”
If this news is surprising, she does not show it. Her eyes remain steady. Her expression bored. “And Ivar?”
“Tracking two humans he believes will make good additions to our community.”
She narrows her eyes, considering this information. It is a strange turn of events. An unbound drakai is useful here, but it is not so urgent that a day or two would be so beneficial. There is a deeper motive that I would arrive alone while Ivar continues a mission, and she knows it.
“Were you not useful in the hunt?”
“Apparently more useful elsewhere. I follow my orders.”
“I see.” She looks me over once but then nods. “We will prepare a ritual for Mikael and add his drakai to the list for the binding. Come, let us fulfill your prayers so you can rejoin the community.”
This is usually my least favorite part of rejoining the den, but today when the red-haired priestess washes my hands of the blood and dirt, I watch closely.
I will never be clean. I will never again be innocent. But that blood does not include hers, the girl who will forever haunt me.
And when the priestess presses obsidian against the center of my forehead and prays to Nihil for a blessing, I close my eyes and chant her name inside my mind.
