Liane stood up and backed away from the Avatheos. “My mother is what’s best for the empire. We’ve had peace and prosperity for over three decades.”
“And yet the elves are growing restless. They’ve struck at the heart of the kingdom. They slew the opera singer playing Cyra. Do you think your mother has the strength to protect the kingdom when they make their next move?”
“Of course,” Liane said. And she felt it with certainty.
The Avatheos shook his head slowly. “I have seen a vision. It has been coming to me in bits and pieces for a long time, but I saw it all the night you were born. A golden blade, charging into battle against a rising army of the undead. Do you know who I saw at the head of that army of darkness?”
Liane’s throat was tight. It was her, surely.
“It was your mother. Golden hair streaming in the morning light, she sent wave after wave of corrupt chimeras and monsters, to devour fields, livestock, and innocents. Anyone who stood in their way was turned to ash.”
“My mother wouldn’t…”
“But the Nameless would. Now that the sword has returned, the seal that keeps her in place is cracking. She will grasp onto power by any means necessary and use it to bring about her dark reign of terror. Unless you can stop it.” His voice rang with such assurance and certainty that Liane could almost see his dire vision in her mind.
“What do I need to do?” she asked.
“Follow me, trust me, implicitly.”
Liane felt his gaze boring into her. Once again, she had that strange sensation that he could see through her, into her very soul, and was ready to bring forth all her sins for examination.
“I do,” she said.
He did not reply but walked to the far end of the room and picked up a piece of cloth. Beneath it was a cage and a small, round bird.
“Time is running short; the last crack in the seal will break the night of the winter solstice. Before that happens, we must draw the sword from your back at the fall equinox in order to prepare you. Your mother robbed you by not giving you a temple education, but there are things I can teach you to make this process easier.” He set the bird and the cage between them.
The bird was fluttering inside the cage, beating its tiny wings against the bars of its prison. The Avatheos reached into the cage and grasped hold of the bird, cupping it gently in his hands. Liane thought for a moment he would let it fly free, out of an open window. Then he clenched his fist, and the bird stopped moving.
“Hold out your hand,” he said.
“Why did you kill it?”
“Your divinity, you trust me, don’t you?”
Liane swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Yes.” She held her cupped, shaking hands open. The Avatheos placed the lifeless bird into them. It weighed nothing at all, and its little wings were bent at an odd angle.
“Heal the bird.”
“I can’t heal it. The bird is dead.”
“The vessel is damaged, but the bird is not dead—not yet,” he said. “Pull upon the threads of life and mend its broken body.”
Liane looked down at the bird, feeling helpless. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. But she desperately wanted to help. When she looked closer, she could see the very shallow breaths it was taking. Its tiny black eye seemed to be pleading with her to save it. Please. Let me save it.
Then her hands started to glow faintly, a shimmering golden light that surrounded the bird, wrapping it in a sphere of luminescence, growing brighter and brighter by the second. Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped. The bird sat up on her palm, unharmed. It tilted its head side to side, examining, as if it were thanking her. Then it fluttered up and took flight out of the open window. Liane stared after it in a daze. She’d healed the bird with her own two hands. Could this power be harnessed to save Erich as well?
Liane sat up straighter. “Could this power heal corrupted? Is that what I’m meant to do?”
The Avatheos narrowed his eyes. Did he suspect? Had rumors of Erich reached him? “Did you know before the Nameless Goddess betrayed the light, there were cults in her honor, and they were the first who turned corrupted when the rivers of magic turned?” He motioned to the map on the table. “Our magic comes from these veins of the goddess. Her blood and tears filled them, and those who drank from those magic springs were granted her power. Similarly, those the Nameless Goddess birthed, like elves and dragons, were born corrupted, and the black ichor in their veins cannot be reversed, because they are the antithesis of the light.”
“But chimeras are born from the corruption. How do we know that dragons and elves can’t be saved?”
“You have a generous heart, but you cannot save the damned.”
Her stomach twisted into knots. She wanted to save Erich, and she wanted to believe there was a way to do it. “What about the sword? Surely that gives me some power. Maybe it can reverse the darkness.”
“The sword in your back is a weapon of light. If it were to be drawn against those sworn to the shadows, it would turn them to dust. That is why we must draw it out, to use it in the coming battle. Forget these dreams of salvation. They will not be as kind to you when they come to destroy your kin.”
