Chapter 75

I sat on the low wall that crowned the watchtower, boots dangling over the edge. The courtyard lay below - stone lit by diffused moonlight, Arvellian soldiers settled into the barracks I’d sung into being hours earlier. Beyond them, the hills rolled dark and quiet.

Overhead, thick bands of cloud smothered the stars. The moon’s usual green glow bled through in diluted silver, washed thin by the veil above.

I felt the swell of Faith a heartbeat before the faint tinkling of windchimes reached my ears.

“So what’s the protocol when visiting other gods?” I asked the night. “It’s not like you can knock. We don’t generally use doors.” I didn’t bother turning around.

“Should you wish not to be disturbed,” came a feminine voice I did not immediately recognize, “you would remain within your demesne.”

“So my demesne is safe from other gods?” My eyes stayed fixed on the horizon.

“Primarily,” she said. “There are those strong enough to **** entry. But doing so places them at a disadvantage.”

“Great. Just the news I wanted.” I exhaled slowly. “Nowhere is safe.” A pause. “So what do you want? What new lies are you here to feed me?”

Soft, barefoot steps approached - stone faintly illuminated as the figure approached. She slipped onto the wall beside me, her linen gown settling around her as though gravity itself treated her gently. Her legs were translucent as glass, faint light shining within. Beneath her skin, golden threads wove and unwove themselves - words forming in elegant script before dissolving into nothing.

“I am not known for my lies,” she said.

“Be that as it may,” I replied, “there’s only one god who hasn’t lied to me yet. At least as far as I know.”

Her opalescent eyes swirled lazily as she studied me. “I would apologize again,” she said calmly. “Though I suspect you would not believe me.”

We sat in silence awhile, wind brushing the stone, clouds drifting in heavy silence overhead.

“So what is it you want, Elyndra?” I finally asked.

“I have questions,” she said. “If you are willing.”

I gave a short laugh. “Aren’t you a goddess of knowledge?”

“I am the goddess of revealed truth,” she corrected. “Secrets evade me. But I can discern fact from falsehood.”

“So there’s something I know that you don’t.”

“There is knowledge you possess that would aid me in uncovering truth.”

“Ask,” I said. “We’ll see if I’m willing.”

“It is said you fought a Myrddin and prevailed.” The pause that followed made it clear she wanted confirmation.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I stabbed it and burned it to ash.” My voice was flat, emotionless.

Her gaze sharpened, studying me in silence. Weighed. Measured. Searching for fracture or fabrication. I didn’t look back at her - just kept my eyes on the dark line of hills.

“You entered the Interstitium,” she continued, “and fought more Myrddin there?”

“No.” My jaw tightened. “I was dragged into the Interstitium kicking and screaming while they tore my arms and legs off.” I turned then, meeting her swirling gaze. “The chaos of that place dissolved my Will until I was nearly dead.”

Her expression did not change.

“How did you survive?” she whispered.

“There it is,” I said quietly. “The million dollar question. What you actually came here to ask. How did I survive? What’s the secret? How can the rest of you learn to do it? How do you defend yourselves if and when they return?” I looked back to the horizon. “I don’t know.”

“That is not the whole truth,” she said after a long moment.

“It’s the only one I have.” I shrugged faintly. “I have theories. Guesses. But I don’t know. And no - I won’t share them. They wouldn’t help you anyway.”

She considered that, golden script flickering faintly beneath her skin.

“You have been mostly honest with me,” she said at last. “So I will return the courtesy.”

I didn’t look at her, but I listened.

“You are feared,” she said. “Among gods and mortals alike. None know what you are capable of. None know your intentions. Within the High Witan, some speak of you as a threat. Plans are being shaped - some to bind you, others to end you.”

“Wonderful.”

“You are not without additional enemies,” she continued evenly. “The God-Kings have taken notice. Many of their schemes are veiled even from me, but your encounter with Pyraeth has earned you both enemies and false allies. You would do well not to trust them.”

A muscle ticked in my jaw.

“Among mortals,” she went on, “you have stirred the ire of petty kings, sparked fear in nations, and planted a dangerous hope in common men. There are whispers that war is coming. That destruction follows in your wake. That you are Arthyr returned.”

That last one I really didn’t like the sound of. Arthyr wasn’t just some talented fighter. He was a symbol. A myth. And there was so much that rode on the heels of myth.

There was no way to measure against a legend like that without falling short. Legends didn’t have bad days. They didn’t miss deadlines. They didn’t make the wrong call and live with it. They got polished by time until all the rough edges were sanded off and all that was left was a highlight reel. There was no winning that. All it did was set me up for failure.

“I am no seer,” she said softly. “But danger will come to you and those you care for. For the rest, I will wait and see.”

She rose from the wall, linen whispering against stone. The clouds shifted overhead, pale, green light catching along the glass of her limbs.

“I hope we are wrong,” she said.

Then she was gone, the sound of windchimes fading into the night.

* * *

Elyndra stepped from her demesne into the library where she spent most of her waking existence.

It stood upon a solitary pillar of stone along the southern shore of Esmori - a remnant of a cliff long ago claimed by wind and tide. Ocean waves hurled themselves against the rock, exploding into plumes of foam and salt that drifted upward like ghostly banners. The pillar endured only because of her Faith - the mainland it had once touched receded year by year, gnawed away by time.

She crossed the chamber to her great desk - dark wood carved into the likeness of layered scrolls, open books, and quills frozen mid-word. Upon it rested a massive tome bound in pale leather. She opened it to the final page.

Her diary. Her history. Her record of all that had ever been revealed.

She lifted a quill.

“I was wondering when you’d return, sister.” The voice carried warmth - mirth laced with something sharper.

Elyndra set the quill down without turning. “Why are you here, Nyssira?” Her tone was sharp as cut crystal.

“Can I not visit my sister from time to time?” Nyssira asked lightly.

She stood near the arching windows, moonlight catching her living parchment skin. Words, glyphs, and sigils scribbled themselves across her surface in quick, elegant strokes before fading away.

“We are not sisters,” Elyndra replied, finally facing her.

“Are we not?” Nyssira tilted her head. Two stars exploded in amusement as they passed the infinite starfield that was her face. “You are truth revealed. I am veiled secrets. Two halves of the same revelation.”

“I will ask once more,” Elyndra said. “Why are you here?”

“I have a secret that needs to be brought to the light.” She skipped over to her sister, a nebula blooming across her face. “May I write it down for you?”

Elyndra’s featureless, opalescent eyes rolled, swirling faintly. She closed her tome, retrieved a fresh sheet of parchment, and stepped aside from the desk.

Nyssira approached with theatrical grace. She seized the quill in one fluid motion and bent low over the page, shielding her words from Elyndra’s view. The quill scratched briskly - neat, sharp, decisive.

When she finished, she set the quill down and stepped back.

Elyndra returned to the desk and lifted the page.

The time of reckoning is at hand.
The gods will fall and all you have built will crumble.
I, Seth Grimm, will become the god of everything.

Her opalescent eyes widened. “What is the-”

She was unable to finish the question.

Nyssira’s fist drove through her chest. The sound was not flesh tearing but glass shattering. Though buried to the elbow, her hand did not exit her sister’s back. Instead it reached deep inside, gripping at Faith.

Black tendrils spread through Elyndra’s translucent body like ink dropped into water. Golden threads within her - those living strands of truth - twisted into silent pleas as her stolen voice failed her. The darkness devoured them, burning away revelation itself.

Cracks spiderwebbed across her form. Light fractured. Her body splintered into glittering shards that collapsed into a drifting cloud of luminous dust.

Nyssira inhaled sharply.

The sparkling motes rushed into her lungs. Faith - fresh and radiant - poured into her being. The runes across her parchment skin flared brilliant gold before settling into a darker, richer script.

She smirked.

With a casual motion, she lifted Elyndra’s great tome from the desk and vanished.

A heartbeat later, a thunderous crack split the air.

The pillar - no longer sustained - fractured at its core. The great stone column splintered and gave way. Library, desk, shattered remnants of glass and gold - everything - plunged into the churning ocean below.

The waves swallowed it whole.

* * *

We talked it through at breakfast.

Mirri grumbled at first - loudly - but in the end she relented. Trade needed to be restored. Reedwatch was already feeling the strain, and winter wasn’t done with us yet. I’d only be gone a few days. With the way I could step between places now, I could still check in if something felt off.

It would also give me a chance to explore - stretch the boundaries of my reach, maybe find another anchor for my Faith. Another place I could return to if things went sideways.

Still, Elyndra’s warning sat like a pit in my stomach.

Did I trust her? Hell no. I trusted very few people right now. But I wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the pattern. The people I cared about had already been put in danger because of me. Odds were good it would happen again.

So I stepped to a high mountain pass and made my way to the small campsite I used whenever I visited Yveth. The snow crunched beneath my boots; the wind cut clean and sharp across the peaks.

She appeared within minutes.

I still didn’t know how she sensed me. She’d mentioned once - offhandedly to Mirri - that she could feel my Faith even from afar. I’d have to ask her to teach me that trick someday.

But not today. Today, I needed a favor.

I told her about the queen’s invitation and about Elyndra’s visit.

“I know it’s short notice,” I said when I finished. “And I have no right to ask this of you. But would you look in on the Keep while I’m gone? Just for a few days.”

The kohl around her eyes ran in dark streaks down her pale cheeks, stark against skin like fresh snow. It gave her an appealing, goth-girl beauty - mature and wounded all at once. She seemed… lighter than she had before. Or maybe I just wanted to believe that.

She wasn’t only the goddess of unending sorrow. She was winter’s beauty too - stillness, clarity, fragile light. I wanted her to remember that.

She considered my request in silence, the wind tugging at the hem of her gray dress.

“Very well,” she said at last.

Relief loosened something in my chest. “Thank you.”

I took her hand and pressed my lips to her knuckles. Her skin was cold as glacial stone against my warmth. Her eyes widened slightly, and the faintest blush touched her cheeks.

“I don’t have many people I trust,” I told her quietly. “You’re one of them. I doubt anything will happen. And if it does, they’re strong and can probably take care of it. But knowing you’re watching over them… it helps.”

She looked away, clearing her throat. “It must be time for you to depart,” she said, regaining her composure. “Come visit me again, Seth.”

“I will.”

She walked me to the edge of her icy halls and I stepped back to the Keep.

After letting the others know, I exited the entry hall to speak with Fairholt.

“Seth?” Elise’s voice cracked behind me.

I turned, smiling. “Yes, Elise?”

She stood just inside the keep, hands twisting in the fabric of her white robe. Her face was pale as ever, but color rose quickly in her cheeks.

“M- Could I-” She swallowed. “What I mean is, may I… accompany you? To Crownreach?” She trembled under her own question, eyes struggling to meet mine.

I tilted my head slightly, curious about the request. “I have never been-,” she rushed out. “Not to- I mean, I have never seen it.”

I moved back toward her and rested my hand gently on her shoulder. “Of course you may. I’d be honored to have you with me.”

Her blush deepened to a brilliant red. She nodded quickly, then turned and hurried inside - nearly colliding with the doorframe in her haste.

I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my lips.

Then I continued across the courtyard and informed Fairholt that two of us would be riding for Crownreach.