Page 5 of Godbound
The words leave me with more authority than I feel. I have no right to speak to them, though. I bear no crown yet, have no divine permission, no power sanctioned by the Church or throne.
And yet I believe Ryker will stand beside me. He will shield me. He must.
I turn my head, seeking his eyes, needing his affirmation more than I care to admit.
Ryker is already on his feet. But the look he gives me isn’t one of reassurance. There’s something heartbreakingly panicked in it, as if I’d thrown myself before a pack of wolves.
It strips the breath from my lungs and sends a chill through my bones. But I don’t have time to make sense of it before an animalisticroar splits the air behind me, low and primeval, the kind of sound that silences thought.
Dread claws through my gut as the guards turn toward the sound, stepping back in unison.
The crowd goes still. Even the warden lowers his whip.
Because the Archpriest has arrived.
With him, his Godbeast, the dragon gifted by the divine to enforce his will. And I realize, too late, just how grave a mistake I’ve made.
The Archpriest enters along the same path I have taken, and the gathered nobility straighten their spines as if his presence alone demands it. My own body stiffens on instinct, and the warden jerks his arm away from mine, making me realize I was still gripping it even though his whip had been dropped.
A retinue of the Archpriest’s acolytes follows him, their green robes whispering against the stone.
They say he is over a hundred and fifty years old, yet he looks only a few years past forty—the same age he was when he won the Trial of the Bound and secured Demetria’s dominion over the kingdom. The Goddess of Forest and Time’s Champion rose above all others that day and became the instrument of her triumph. She has reigned as our Sovereign goddess ever since, with the Archpriest representing her earthly will.
As I watch him shuffle forward, slow and heavy-footed, hair greasy, lips wet with shine, it’s hard to imagine this man enduring the brutal contest.
The Trial demanded strength, cunning, resilience, yet whatever edge he once had has long since been buried beneath the abundance of power. Bloated with comfort, softened by indulgence, it seems the god’s magic, which slowed his aging to a crawl, preserved his youth, but not his discipline.
His Godbeast—a creature bestowed upon him during the Trial, meant to aid in his triumph and bound to him ever since—stepsbehind him. The brown dragon is the size of six horses, wings twisted like broken rafters. It is said that the disfigurement of dragons’ wings became a common method of domestication among the gods even before the Skyburn War, carried out at the moment of hatching to ensure the creatures could never take flight and were therefore easier to control.
It moves with a quiet, unshakable power, a stark contrast to the man it follows, as if it alone remembers the strength required to win.
I watch the Archpriest approach, my expression tightening with each shuffling step, even as dread coils low in my gut. Spitting at his feet would be easier than bowing, as custom demands.
The royals might oversee the lashings, and the warden might deliver them, but the Archpriest is the architect of this brutal spectacle. The one who decreed that cursed women, those who dared to resist their exile to Rust Hollow or tried to escape, must be hunted, shackled, and whipped in public before being discarded like rotting fruit.
He is the reason their bodies are carved with scars that will never fade.
He wasn’t meant to be here. He never is. Attendance at his own cruelties is beneath him.
Had I known he’d come, would I have dared to intervene on Brienne’s behalf?
The answer is immediate and ugly: I wouldn’t have dared. And that truth burns hotter than shame, turning every ounce of my earlier righteousness into dust.
Across the plaza, the Godbeast pads to a shaded corner, its scaled flank brushing the edge of the stone dais. With a lazy huff, it drops into the shadows, unimpressed, as if none of this warrants its full attention.
At least it isn’t poised to incinerate me with its ashen breath.
But the Archpriest doesn’t stop. He keeps walking toward me, neither pausing nor blinking, his path unyielding, his gaze fixed, like he means to walk through me.
Even the Chastity Warden seems to sense it. He steps aside, giving his superior a wide berth. I barely register the motion until I see the Archpriest’s arm rise, and the ground beneath my feet cracks.
Thick vines erupt in a riot of life around me, and snare my ankles. There’s a fleeting tang in the air, like rust, strange among so much green, but my thoughts already fly to Ryker as his voice cleaves through the crowd.
“This will not do!” the king roars, and whatever punishment the Archpriest had been preparing, whatever command was about to fall from his lips, Ryker stops it. The vines go still around me—not tightening but not dropping down either.
Ryker steps down from his dais with a thunderous grace, purpose carved into every line of his face. Relief swells in me as I watch.
“Your Highness,” the Archpriest rasps, “Lady Raylane stepped beyond the Partition Decree’s protection when she assaulted one of my Chastity Wardens. Her punishment is no longer under your royal jurisdiction.”
