“If your first child was sacrificed on Ninkil’s altar, how did she stop his rise?”
“I’m afraid?—”
“It’s not within the rules to tell me,” I finished for him. “But if you’re hoping I’ll willingly sacrifice my life for the greater good of the world, I’m afraid you will be disappointed.”
“I would hope so. Sacrifice worked once, but it will not do so again. Ninkil is many things, but he is not stupid.”
“Then why say sacrifice might yet be my future?”
“Because it is a possibility that remains in play. Your bloodline—that of a god and a seeress of extraordinary strength—holds the necessary power to bring forth a banished god.”
Suggesting his first daughter had been powerful in her own right—and that Liadon had been right. The darkness he was still attempting to bring to the fore inmewas very much a part ofhisline.
“Then how do I stop himwithoutending up as a sacrifice?”
“He has a relic?—”
“The Harpe? Yeah, we know.”
“Find it and destroy it.”
“You don’t think we’ve been trying?”
“To the degree that’s necessary, no, and it emboldens our enemies.”
“Those enemies watch every step I take, and until I can uncover how, slow progress is the better option.” The clouds in his eyes darkened, an obvious indication he disagreed. Tough, I wanted to say, but resisted. “Once Idofind it, what am I meant to do with it?”
“Destroy it, of course.”
“In the forge of the gods?”
“For normal artifacts that is an ideal solution, but the Ninkilim will feel the moment you lay a hand—be it flesh or wind—on the Harpe, and they will swarm your location to claim it. You must destroy it with the power my blood has given you.”
“Drawing down that much lightning could kill me.”
“Indeed.” He paused. “In fact, your death is a necessity for the game to be won.”
Chapter
Two
For several seconds, his words echoed around me, gaining no traction or comprehension in my mind.
He simply sat there, watching me, judging me.
I swallowed the instinct to rage against his proclamation and said, as calmly as I could, “And why might my death be necessary?”
“Because that is the rules of the game—the key players on either side must die for a winner to be declared.”
“Thatis an utterly stupid rule.”
He shrugged, as if it was of no matter to him. And I guess it wasn’t. I was a player in a game, nothing more, nothing less.
At least to him.
“But... how can any side consider themselves a winner if their main protagonist dies?”
“In this particular case, while winning is vital for both sides, so too is a fitting tribute to the vanquished. Is not the blood of the strongest fighter considered such by many in your world?”
