Page 8 of Godbound
I understand the words, but strung together, they make no sense. “You think the gods… did that to him?”
Mael’s dark eyebrows shoot up, as if he’s the one stunned by the question. “Who else, Ray?”
He blinks once, then suddenly shifts across the carriage, fluid as water, and lands beside me, our hips touching.
I freeze.
Only now do I realize my duenna is missing and I’m alone with Mael, Ryker’s brother. The future king’s scandalous sibling.
This isn’t just inappropriate, it’s something I’ll be scolded for the rest of my life if anyone finds out.
But there’s nowhere for me to move. I’m already pressed against the wall and asking him to shift over would only draw more attention to how aware I am of his nearness.
“You really don’t understand what happened, do you?” he murmurs, leaning in as if to share a secret between co-conspirators. “The Archpriest’s use of the Crimson Tether was outdated. Cruel. His goal was eradication, making people so terrified of becoming cursed that, over time, the cursed would disappear entirely.” His voice drops even lower. “But with women’s… insatiable appetites for pleasure,” he says with a sly glance, “that was never going to work, was it? Not with all these new freedoms you convinced him to allow.”
I glare at him, but he presses on.
“The gods must have decided his time was over. That our kingdom needs a new voice of divine will.”
I swallow hard. The idea that my defiance triggered something that monumental, that the gods themselves answered through fire—it sounds absurd.
But then again… isn’t that what just happened? The Archpriest abused his power. Is it so far-fetched to believe the gods had finally had enough?
“Demetria won’t be pleased,” I mumble.
Mael drapes his arm around my shoulders, casual on the surface but, beneath it, something calculated, as if testing how far he can push the boundaries of propriety.
I tense instinctively but refuse to shrink away. I’ve never agreed with how strictly every interaction between men and women is policed, so his overly familiar gesture shouldn’t bother me. He is my future brother-in-law, after all, and while we weren’t so close growing up, we’ll soon be family.
I let him guide my gaze toward the window, where the white-gold marble temple rises above the rooftops of Calcatra like a crown carved from bone. The monument is so massive that it blocks the sun, even from this distance.
“Do you see that?” Mael asks, pointing toward the temple’s highest spire, its apex, crowned with the sacred dome. There, seven shimmering colors swirl in a frenzied dance, colliding and twisting like waves from different oceans crashing into each other.
“The Trial of the Bound has awakened,” he says. “That magic only rises when the gods have chosen to invoke a new age, led by a new Archpriest. Once the seven streams merge, the challenge begins. A new god will lead Calcatra to its next chapter. And you, Raylane…” He smirks, voice soft with something close to awe. “You made it possible.”
I stare at the coalescing ribbons of magic—iridescent pinks, deepgolds, ocean blue, blood-red, violet, green, silver—spinning around each other in chaotic beauty. And I try to imagine the ancient moment when the seven gods, despite their rivalries, made a pact to each surrender a sliver of their power. They bound those fragments to the temple, letting them lie dormant for generations, waiting.
When the time comes to choose a new Archpriest, that magic rises and becomes the Sphere, a sentient force entirely independent from any one god’s will.
It sets the rules. Designs a path that no deity can rig or influence. A divine system of fairness, forged to silence accusations of interference once a Champion claims victory.
The Sphere doesn’t awaken often.
Most generations live and die without ever witnessing it. I certainly never thought I’d see it stir, let alone be the reason it did.
But here it is. Alive. And it rose after the Archpriest burned. My thoughts drift back to the scene that transpired.
He died in agony, just like so many girls who dared to defy their exile to Rust Hollow. I’d like to believe the gods saw justice through his death, so that his cruelty won’t be inherited by the one who comes next.
But there’s no guarantee, no promise the next patriarch will be better. And as I peer into the riot of divine colors clashing in the sky, a bolt of lightning splits the blue heavens above the temple. Then, the clouds rupture.
Rain falls in sheets—sudden, violent, unrelenting, like wrath incarnate.
And a strange chill coils in my gut at the sight. The gods likely killed the Archpriest for his unbridled cruelty, and I can only hope that we’ll now witness an age of greater freedom and tolerance. But I know enough of our realm’s history to know that’s not always the case.
Our next divine leader may be far worse.
Isoak in the tub, steam rising in thick lavender-scented ribbons, yet it’s not hot enough to chase away the phantom stench of burning flesh.
