Page 99 of The Tarot Trials

Be safe, Daughter. If I could will one thing to be truth, it would be that you grow up happy and loved and safe. I have to believe it will be so, that my actions will ensure there’s a world where it’s possible.

I love you more than words can express.

—Your Mother

I reread her words a dozen times, mining for truths in the cracks of the sentences. If the assurances of her love heal a wound so old I’d forgotten the shape of it, the rest of the letter’s contents create yet another mystery I want no part of.

If the gods haven’t gone anywhere, then why aren’t they present, no matter how hard people pray? How could her attempting to bring down the wall—and I haven’t the slightest clue how she thought to manage that—make me safe? Yes, there are settlements along the river, but they’re not safe. Nero’s scars and his goal to fight for the safety of the people who live outside Caelria’s walls were proof of that.

Nero.

I make myself gently roll up the scroll and place it back in the box. Part of me didn’t actually believe I’d survive the Trials, and now that I have, the cost is so damned high. To me. To the other champions. To the people I care about. But fuck, at least the gods have been honored. Have been fed, because I don’t know how else to term it. I shudder.

I thought finding the truth about my mother would change … something. Instead, even the frank answers from Death—from my mother herself—have done nothing but create more questions.

The strikes tick past until I feel the Sun set, ceding the sky to the Moon. Only then do I rise and walk up the narrow staircase, cross the main room, and slip through the doorway.

I don’t exactly have a destination in mind, but I find myself back in the garden I passed through the first night. There are several stone benches placed strategically beneath trees, no doubt to offer some reprieve from the Sun on summer days. The stone is still warm as I sink down and press my hands to the seat on either side of me.

Inhale. Exhale. Again and again and again. No matter how awful I feel, my lungs keep working, my heart keeps beating.

“I did it,” I whisper with only the Moon lingering overhead as witness. “I’m a member of the Cinque.”

Now, I just have to survive the privilege.