Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(81)

Dread and sorrow warred in my heart. My blood would always hold the answers I sought. It always came back to this, no matter how hard I tried to escape it.

This time, I would do this on my own terms.

I needed all the gods to give me strength.

I rose to my feet and went first to the altar of the earth god. Her steadiness would still my shaky hands. I nicked a finger and pressed it into the dip in the stone worn smooth by the thousands of hands that had come before mine. Invisible magic twined around my arms, familiar and comforting. She had accepted my offering.

“Please say hello to Miriel,” I whispered.

I circled the rest of the temple to the other gods. The wind god was the only other one to answer me, with a sourceless breeze that whispered across my cheeks.

My stomach churned as I faced the shadow god’s altar. She might not answer my call. Some would say it was madness to try to speak to a god when I didn’t have a crown and wasn’t pledged to a temple. I didn’t even know which of the gods had fathered me. None of them appeared to be willing to claim me and my dark gifts.

The shadow god’s turret was darker than the rest, the mosaics depicting death and mystery, shadows swirling throughout the other images.

She had taken so much from me.

Or perhaps I had given too many lives to her with my mistakes.

I offered a drop of blood to the empty space beneath a hollow box studded with gemstones. But instead of asking about the Fatestone, an entirely different question slipped out.

“Why did you let this happen?” I whispered. “Did you really need to take everyone from me?”

The light in the temple grew richer as the sun sank to the west.

“At least tell me how to make it right!” I shouted.

I collapsed in front of the altar and finally let the tears fall.

Everything was hopeless. Perhaps I would have to find Atheon on my own, or Nismae would kill me before I could even try. Perhaps the Fatestone was lost forever, and I would have to live with the tangled mess I’d made of the future—both my own and that of the kingdom itself.

I sobbed into my shadow cloak, not noticing at first that black smoke had begun to pour from beneath the shadow god’s box. I scrambled backward, clutching the silver knife so tightly that the base of the blade nicked one of the fingers on my uninjured hand. A trail of blood droplets followed me to the center of the room.

The black cloud finally drew in to become a tall, hooded figure, wisps of smoke retreating until it became solid. It moved toward me, shrouded in a cloak of darkness that shifted restlessly about its body. The figure leaned forward, and terror choked off the last of my tears.

Only in moments when I had used my blood power and felt it steal the years from my life had I ever felt as mortal as I did kneeling before the god of death.

Hope and fear battled inside me, shifting and tumbling until I couldn’t tell which was stronger.

“I am both sorry and glad to see you.” Her voice was gentler than I expected, almost soothing. It had the low quality of a bell, and held the promise of a quiet place to rest. A white hand with long, slender fingers emerged from the sleeve of her robe.

“Look up so I can see you, child,” she said. Her hood left her own face shrouded in darkness.

Frozen in place like a frightened rabbit, I obeyed the nudge of her hand when she tipped up my chin. I swallowed hard, grasping to find words to ask for what I needed.

“You have his eyes,” she said, and her voice faltered. She withdrew her hand, leaving me staring at her in stunned shock.

“Whose eyes? My father’s? You know who my father is?” Though I’d come here for other reasons, my desperation to know consumed everything else. My mouth went dry and tremors continued to rack my body as I waited for her to answer.

Instead, she drew back her hood.

Hair the deep red of dried blood cascaded over her shoulders. Her eyes were empty and black as a starless night, but that wasn’t what frightened me. It was the long arch of her eyebrows, her high cheekbones and delicate nose, the angle of her jaw and the pensive pout of her lips. It was that her face, in spite of bearing the terrifying exquisiteness of a god, was so similar to the one I saw when I looked into a tranquil pool of water and saw my own reflection.

My tears finally spilled over.

My father was not a god.

My mother was.

The abandonment I’d known about all my life cut down to the dark heart of my soul. How could a mother leave her child? How could she have let all this happen to me?

“Asra. My child,” she said. The sorrow in her voice made my chest grow even tighter.

“Why did you leave me?” My voice cracked. Even as I asked, some part of me knew that no answer would be satisfying. I couldn’t imagine leaving a baby in the hands of strangers without so much as any idea who she was—or how much destruction she could cause.

“Amalska was supposed to be a safe place to keep you out of mortal hands. Who would look for you in such a small and unassuming place, especially if your gifts were never used?” The lack of emotion in her voice made it impossible for me to tell how she felt about it. Did gods even have feelings?

“Where is my father? Why couldn’t you have left me with him?” It would have meant something just to know I had family. That someone loved me without conditions or because they were hungry for the dark power I possessed. Even Hal’s friendship hadn’t been free of ulterior motives, much less his love.