“It could be. I rejected Her, Lex. I pushed Her away. When I was in the fire, when I was burning alive, I called out to Her and asked Her to rescue me.” He made a sympathetic sound, but I needed him to understand. “I betrayed my own vow to myself, when it came down to it.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the fire started on my feet, I told Her I’d give up my freedom. By the time it reached my ankles, I’d thrown in the rest of the Omegas. The ones on Pict, the ones like my mom. I’d start having heats and babies and give everything up, even saving them. I would have done anything to stop that pain. She knew that and didn’t answer me.”
“She sent me,” he whispered.
I thought about what he’d told me, about finding Goran’s horse, and how he’d left the warlord to rescue me and gone back to get my saddlebags. “Like a good valet should,” he’d teased. He still hadn’t told me how he’d recovered my cloak and pendant… No. He washidingthat from me.
His whisper was louder this time. “I prayed, and She answered.”
I tried not to laugh. “You think She answered your prayers by having you find Goran’s warhorse?” I wasn’t going to lay out the differences between coincidences and divine providence; I knew that he wouldn’t see it my way, being raised in the temple. And I knew that the Goddess worked far more directly when She meddled. “By the time you got there with Goran, I’d already broken down and promised myself to the evil god who did answer.” I let out a shaky breath. “I’d had a suspicion that I’d fucked up by refusing to do what She wanted. But She made it incredibly clear then that I wasn’t forgiven. I may never be. And the end of the deal is months away, and I’ll be…”
I swallowed hard. I wouldn’t mate the fire god, or breed little lava babies, or whatever the fuck twisted plan he had. I’d take my own life before I let that happen. But Dustin had seen how unprepared I was. No cloak, no dagger, nothing that might help except stubbornness and close to three decades of stored-up rage. “I’ll probably be dead by the time our deal is up.”
“No, Mina. She sent me.” His tone was stark, and I finally looked away from the east and to his face. His expression was bleak, but a hint of anger, or something, lurked in those dark eyes.
“What do you mean? In Mirren?”
“I mean the night before you showed up on my island, almost five years ago. I had a vision in the courtyard of the temple. The other priests saw it, too. She appeared in the moon, a translucent face, weeping tears of gold. She spoke, not in symbols or signs, but in words. I was packed to leave by the time you arrived. She gave me a command, and I followed it.”
What was he saying? “A command?”
“She told me to wait on the steps for my charge. Do you really think She would have let you be unprotected all those years? Itwas the greatest honor one of Her priests has ever been given, the task of caring for you. You were protected all along, it seems, but She insisted you would need a priest. I was assigned to you.”
“An ex-priest. Assigned to me.” It felt like he’d kicked me in the stomach. All along, he’d been taking care of me… as a job.
“I’m to be your valet,” he’d told me back then, with something like mischief sparkling in his eyes.
He dropped his solemn gaze now. “I’m not an ex-priest. I am still in Her service. In Mirren, when you were taken, She appeared to me again. She sent me to the room where they had your belongings. She opened the door and hid me from the guards. She sent me to the stable where I found the horse. I didn’t save you; She did. She’s never stopped watching over you. She just had to find another way to protect you.”
“You… didn’t quit the priesthood.” Suddenly, the depth of his betrayal was clear. He’d kept his vows, not out of some sense of guilt, or habit. Somehow, I managed to stand and stared down at him, horrified at myself. “You’re not a valet, you’re a priest.” I stepped back, knowing if I remained close enough to touch him, I’d kill him. I balled my hands into fists that I would not use. He wouldn’t hit back, but not because he cared. “You’re not my friend. You’re a spy.”
The Goddess’s spy.
SKADI
At the beginning of our battle, the kraken had tasted of salt and rage. Now, the flavor of his disgustingly hot blood was soured by panic.
I had felt an odd moment of fear myself, at first. The fight had begun too close to the ocean, the source of his power. He was as much a creature of water and storm as I, and powerful as well as long-lived. He’d left long gouges in the scaled hide I’d been forced to wear, to inflict physical damage on him.
But he was not an immortal being, as I was. Even over the sea, I’d torn more than one of his tentacles from his wriggling form and removed chunks of his gem-encrusted shell. When I finally was able to form a shell of ice from the seawater and wrap him in it, I’d thrown him as far inland as I could.
The distance from the water had accomplished my goal. It had been many hours since the beginning of the fight, and I’d dragged him hundreds of miles and wedged him into a crater in the middle of a waterless stretch of rock and soil. I blew the clouds away to keep him from pulling rain to heal himself.
Finally, he’d stopped struggling. He’d almost stopped breathing. No, he had.
Hmmm.I wasn’t sure I truly wanted him dead. I had… memories of his kind. They were a breed of ancient magic users who cared for the sea and its folk. There had never been many of them, though there had been far more than the handful that lived now.
I thought of the story the Omega seal man had shared. One of the krakens had been chosen as the first consort by the one they called Goddess.Hmph.That kraken had been her first mate, a mark of favor.
Stories changed over time, stretched to fit the world as it spun. But I was old enough to remember the truth. The parts I’d been awake to witness, anyway.
Weak from my battle with my brother, I had been asleep in my icy home when their goddess had emerged from the sea and walked the world. I’d woken, some snippet of music on the wind, or some scent, rousing me.
Edan had still been in his prison, though he’d already begun trying to chew his way out, spewing heat into the perfect cold of the north. I knew he was still trapped, pinned and raging beneath the sea where I’d left him, though the ice I’d placed there had melted during my rest.
Still weakened, I hadn’t left my home to be certain he was contained.
