Page 72 of Godbound
“Thank you,” he whispers into the narrow space between our mouths. Then, after a pause, the corner of his mouth lifts. “The memory of your… performance should be enough to sustain me through at least the next few episodes.”
The memory of my ridiculous flapping and singing crashes back with full force, and I jerk away, scrambling to my feet.
“If you tell anyone,” I snap, pointing at him, “I’ll deny it.”
Kaelzar rises after me, that insufferable smirk curving his mouth, rare and entirely too pleased with itself. It should irritate me. It does, a little.
But the sight of it, softening the sharp lines of his usually grim face, steals the sting from my embarrassment.
Somehow, the fact that he’s smiling at me—because of me—makes all my mortification worth it.
Finding Eva waiting outside my apartments is a quiet relief after the heavy silence between Kaelzar and me on the walk back. The intimate moment we shared feels distant now, like something I dreamed. But his history and the truth of what binds him still linger at the edge of my thoughts.
He has as much at stake as I do. But what happens if we win? Returning to his people can’t be an option, not when he’d belong to the Archpriestess, as per the Trial’s rules. So what then?
I don’t dare ask him, not after throwing his mother’s death in his face. Shame still burns in my chest, so I promise myself to choose my words, and my inquiries, more carefully. At least, to try.
I should be thinking about the next challenge, about the Rust Hollow women, not about what victory might mean for my Godbeast.
“Gods above, Raylane, you smell like a distillery.” Eva wrinkles her nose the moment I step inside.
I shrug. “I may have had a drink or two.”
Truthfully, I expected her to be here. Eva always seems to appear when I need her most. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever repay her. Maybe when I become Archpriestess, I can send her to that alchemist university in Maraneethos, no matter what her parents say about her ‘respectable future’.
Eva arches her brow. “A drink or two? It smells like you bathed in it. What are you doing?” She snatches the wrinkled dress I’ve just pulled from my dresser.
“I’m changing and going to see Ryker,” I say, reaching for it. “After what Zyrel said, I need Ryker to denounce it publicly before the next challenge.”
It’s late, but not too late. The dinner festivities will still be in full swing, and after everything that’s happened, there’s no better time to find Ryker alone, to clear my head before my thoughts unravel any further.
Because if I can get him alone, I can make him listen. And if I can make him understand, maybe things will finally be right again.
Though, truthfully, I’m not even sure I know whatrightmeans anymore.
Eva hides the dress behind her back, glancing toward Kaelzar, who lingers in the corner of my chamber, clearly unwilling to leave even here, in the privacy of my rooms.
“Not until you bathe,” Eva says, her tone firm. Then she gestures at my head. “And brush out whatever nest you’ve got going on up there.”
I run my fingers through my hair and wince when they snag halfway through the tangles.
“I don’t have time for that,” I say. “I need to tell Ryker what really happened. I need to tell him… everything.”
The words catch me by surprise. They slip out before I can stop them, yet somehow they feel true. I should have told him everything long ago—about my secret work with Peonica, smuggling food into Rust Hollow despite the Church’s decrees. About my true dream: to close the Rust Hollows and bring the cursed women back into the world.
And about my mother, how, even after my father forbade me from seeing her, she still found a way to stay in my life. Even when she wasn’t supposed to.
“So?” Eva’s voice comes from behind.
“So what?” I ask, not bothering to look up.
She crosses her arms. “Why is your Godbeast watching you like a predator waiting for you to bolt? And why do you keep stealing glances at him like you want to be caught?”
I sigh. “It’s nothing.” I scrub my arms in the basin, watching thewater go gray. “Turns out, the chains around Kaelzar’s chest become real and cut into him whenever he lets himself think ill of Calista. It was brutal. He was in so much pain that I had to distract him before his shadows tore the whole street apart. So this… it brought us closer, I think.” The last words slip out barely above a whisper.
Eva blinks. “And how did you distract him?”
“I sang,” I mutter.
