Page 148 of Godbound
I watch, stunned, as a jagged pattern of dark ink etches itself into my forearm: sharp angles, wild lines. This time, when I pull away, he lets me. My eyes dart to his face. I could swear he whispered somethingunder his breath, but it’s too quiet to make out.
“What is that?” I rub at my arm. The skin feels smooth, untouched, yet the mark is there.
“A protection spell,” he says simply. “My life is now bound to yours. When the time comes for your life to be taken, this spell will redirect the threat to me. It’ll take mine instead.”
I jerk back, then thrust my arm toward him. “Take it back, Kaelzar. Right now! Undo it!” My voice rings sharp and too loud, trembling with panic.
My life is still in real danger. Every breath between now and the final challenge hangs on the edge of a blade. Calling it a fifty-fifty chance would be optimistic, if not delusional. I can’t have his life—hisactuallife—standing in the way of mine. I can’t let his death become the cost of my survival.
Maybe it’s the Godbeast’s duty to sacrifice for their Champion, but he’s not just?—
The thought is so stark, it cuts clean through my mind. He’s not just my Godbeast, is he?
“Please,” I say quieter now. “We’ll get through it together. Trouble and her beast.” I try to smile, as if I can still turn this moment into something light, something that can be laughed off and undone with the right words.
Kaelzar takes my marked arm in both hands, gently, and presses it back against my body. “Once a shadow is severed from its Origin, it can’t return. You carry a part of me now. A part that will protect you. Always.”
His earlier words echo in my mind, how he never knows what part of an Origin transfers with its shadow. What did that part of his shadow take from him to give me? I don’t know. I didn’t feel any new power or trace of his magic. And yet, for all its strangeness, I’ve never felt safer.
Micheline clears her throat and I jump a little, realizing that I completely forgot she was still in the room.
“There are plenty of people who love those cursed by the Crimson Tether,” she says. “They’d give whatever they can to rebuild the settlement.And in the meantime, we could?—”
“No,” I cut in, my voice firm. “They’re vulnerable there. Different men will come back and destroy it again.”
“What then?” she snaps, hands on her hips. “Let them submit and live in rubble?” She glares at me, and her voice drops to a bitter whisper. “You’re the one they trusted. And they’re dead. What will you do about it?”
Her tone, despite the harsh words, isn’t accusing but edged with frustration, like she’s been waiting for me to fix this for far too long and her patience is finally running out.
I glare at her, but then catch myself. Her words are true and she has every right to be disappointed. I’d practically just declared myself a failure.
I drop my gaze. “I’ll do what I promised,” I say quietly, then add louder, “I’ll give the survivors the future I swore I would.”
Even if I have to build it with my bare hands.
I standbefore Calista’s temple, untouched by human footsteps for centuries. The pale moonlight softens the neglect, giving the massive building a false air of grandeur.
Many of the goddesses’ sanctuaries were destroyed throughout the kingdom, but this one, like the other main temples of Viele, still stands in the heart of the city. Tearing it down would’ve caused too much of a spectacle, an unpleasant scar in the center of Calcatra’s capital. So they left it, and nature slowly took it back.
Now, overgrown with weeds and tangled greenery, surrounded by a rusting iron fence, the temple looks like a pocket of wilderness that the city has learned to ignore.
The gates are so stiff with time and rust that Kaelzar has to use his shadows to pry them open, not just for me, but for the crowd of women following at my heels.
Now that the Church of the Goddess of Blood and Decay has been restored, and I by default serve as its spiritual leader, I have theright to recruit acolytes. Once they swear themselves to Calista, they will belong to no one else.
Even if I lose the final challenge, the Church will remain. And once the rites are completed, another priestess can rise to lead in my place.
Even if Zyrel claims the title of Archpriest of Calcatra, my acolytes—though they will acknowledge his god’s rule over the kingdom—will still belong, in body and soul, to Calista. Only acolytes of other Churches are free from praying to the Sovereign God, their prayers belong solely to their own deity.
So, just like Mael, I give these women a choice: abandon your worldly possessions and submit to the Church or stay behind and face an unknown, unprotected future.
Not a single one chooses to stay behind.
They follow me, these battered girls and women, into the forgotten temple. Into the future I promised them.
I survey the structure. “We’ll have to clean it up first,” I say.
It’s buried under spiderwebs, wildflowers, dust, and timeworn cracks. Within the hour, nearly two hundred women, along with the few brave family members who stayed, are scattered across the grounds with buckets and brooms. Candles flicker across the shadowy walls, illuminating the eerie quiet of the temple.
