“Hey!” I yanked against his grip. “What are you doing? Let go of me!”
And Raithe did, suddenly and forcefully. His face was tense with anger as he bit out, “You’ve got an endless well of questions, Odessa, about the gods and the divine. It seems your curiosity alone is all the confirmation I need.” His tone cut like stone. “We’re going to the Ossirae. No more questions. Move.”
He turned without waiting, striding ahead.
I stood there, motionless for a moment, unsure whether to follow. The Ossarith felt different now. Enormous, unfamiliar, and suddenly cold. I looked around, but everything blurred with uncertainty. Raithe’s figure grew smaller in the distance.
Something churned in my gut, something restless and hollow.
He was right.
The fog in my head was creeping back, slow and heavy. I could feel it, like water rising in my lungs. If I didn’t drink more sap soon, I’d lose myself again. I’d sink back into the haze where my thoughts dulled andmy memory unraveled. But in that silence, something surfaced. Recollections of what I’d felt the last time I let the darkness take hold. The power. The clarity. That wild, terrifying freedom. I had touched something infinite. Something divine. And I hadn’t wanted to let it go.
I told myself I was afraid of it.
But the truth was, I liked it. I wanted it.
I wanted to live.
I wanted to become a god.
As the truth rooted itself in me, fear was the first to come, then something darker stirred.
Hunger bloomed in its place, wicked, wanting, and wretched.
39
I chased after Raithe,his form slipping further into the shadows. I knew if I lost him now, I’d have no idea how to find my way out, or if escape was even possible. But more than fear, it was the pull of the Ossirae that kept my legs moving. I needed to see it. I wanted to taste the sap. I’d buried so many truths about myself, locked away memories too heavy to face. But I was done hiding, I was ready to feed the part of me that felt raw, powerful, and real.
Was Raithe right about what he’d said about my brutality? I’d taken lives. Too many to count. I’d nearly killed my own father. But wasn’t that an act of protection? My mother was beaten and broken. He would’ve killed her if I hadn’t stopped him. If my darkness hadn’t answered. Did that make me monstrous? Or merciful?
I’ve been torn between two selves for as long as I can remember: the life I knew as skirtsfolk, and this divine calling that pulsed through me like a second heartbeat. My vision splits in color on one side, silver on the other. There was something truly divine, something ancient, trying to take hold.
“Raithe!” I shouted, but his figure kept dwindling into the distance. “Raithe, wait!”
The demigod of Vengeance was vanishing before my eyes. No matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t close the distance. Each stride only pushed him further away. I tore across the rolling hills, ducked beneath tangled roots and wove through mazes of trees, but it was useless. He was gone.
I stopped abruptly, chest heaving, hair wild around my face. I turned in every direction, over my shoulder, right, left, but the Ossarith had fallen into a dead silence. My heart thundered in my ears. The song that once hummed through the forest had vanished.
“Raithe, where are you?” My voice came out strained and distant, like it was being pulled underwater.
I forced myself forward, desperate for a sign, for anything. And that’s when I saw it. A soft, silver light.
Then I saw a raven.
A calm washed over me the moment our eyes met. Ravens had always been my guides, my allies. Extensions of something deeper, something truer within me. I didn’t hesitate, I simply followed. The bird flew ahead, its wings cutting through the still air. Nothing else mattered, just that dark blur and the certainty that I was meant to follow. Time was unclear as I ran, blindly chasing the one thing that felt real.
At last, the bird slowed, circling once before landing on a thick branch high above a gnarled, towering tree.
I stopped cold.
I knew this tree. I’d seen it before. Years ago, in the forest of Brier Len, while mapping with Caz. It had called to me even then.
Now, standing before it again, I knew without question that this was the Ossirae.
The Ossirae had been calling to me for years, maybe even longer. And Raithe, he had always been watching. Yellow eyes, sharp and bright, always present when my darkness rose. Always arriving when Ididn’t know I needed him. He understood my divinity in ways I had never dared to.
But then awareness crashed over me. Disoriented, I turned in place, heart racing, eyes scanning the space around me. The Ossarith had vanished. The divine forest was gone.
