His appearance gave hints as to what Xyta’s true form might look like. Ramkael was tall and thickly muscled, his arms left unclothed by a sleeveless tunic. But they were not bare. Every inch of his exposed arms and neck was covered with swirling dark tattoos. I thought I saw runes, like the ones on my forehead and wrist, but they shifted before I could decipher them. His brows were dark, but there was no hair on his head at all, only more shifting marks that followed the curve of his skull.
Despite all of that, his eyes were not unkind. They glowed bright red, like the enchanted fire he’d emerged from. If anything, I thought I saw sympathy in those unnaturally bright orbs a second before he began to speak.
“Devotion and sacrifice are irrevocably linked.”
“The only meaningful sacrifices involve those people and things that we are most devoted to,” Xyta finished for their twin.
Realization landed in my stomach, heavy and painful. I should not have brought Garrick with me. I owed two sacrifices. And this was a tidy trap that Xyta had laid. If I refused to sacrifice Garrick, my own life was forfeit, and he would die anyway.
“He should not pay the price for my mistakes,” I said the thought aloud.
“Koryn.” Garrick stepped closer to me, as if he would intervene. As if he could possibly stop the gods from taking whatever they wanted from me.
“That is precisely what the Lifebind means.” Xyta laughed. “Did you think it was a gift? Seraxa certainly does. But the rest of us know better.”
Ramkael shot his sibling a reproving look. Apparently, siblings were just as fractious even when they were both deities. Though Xyta stopped laughing aloud, their smile still showed all their teeth.
“This is the Devotion Gate,” Ramkael said. “Your Lifebind is not our concern. It belongs to Seraxa.”
Even as he said it, the tattoo on the inside of my wrist burned. I looked to Garrick, but if he felt it too, he did not react outwardly.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“No matter what decision you make, the bounty hunter will face his own trial and his own consequences,” Ramkael said, the tattoos on his neck moving in time with his words.
I exhaled slowly, shakily. “You are not asking me to sacrifice Garrick in order to pass through the Devotion Gate?”
“No,” Ramkael confirmed.
But Xyta’s smile chilled my blood more than my ice ever had. “I want your dragon.”
CHAPTER 55
It had to be a nightmare.
I was still asleep in the barracks of the temple, my mind conjuring up horrifying visions of the Devotion Gate to haunt me. I had already passed through the Sacrifice Gate.
I was every bit as foolish and desperate as the humans whom I’d looked down on with condescension. I’d made a deal with a deity, and now that would be redeemed.
The Seven Gates were as much a punishment as the curse leeching life from Velora. Those of us foolish enough to attempt them, to hope, were punished for that again and again and again. That was why no one had ever made it through all the gates. Supplicants were not saviors. We were martyrs.
Isanara flared her wings out wide behind me and Garrick, then snapped them together. I thought it was a show of pride. I wished I’d known her long enough to understand all of her nuances.
“I will protect you,”she said, holding her elegant head high.
The ice in my chest threatened to splinter me from the inside out.“No.”
“A familiar chooses her witch. I chose you, Koryn.”She flicked her tail above her head, the spike at the end daring the two deities to come closer.
“You did not choose to die before you even reached maturity,” I said aloud. I wanted them to understand what they did. If deities were capable of feeling guilt, I wanted them both to ache with it. Both Xyta, for asking this reprehensible sacrifice, and Ramkael, for letting his twin do it.
“Maybe there is another way,” Garrick said, his voice low, just for me. We both knew the deities in front of us could hear whatever they wanted. But the secret, special tenor of it was a caress I did not deserve.
I still held Garrick’s hand. How had I not realized that? His steady warmth had held my power in check, allowed me to anchor myself and remain in control. Now it helped me make my decision without my senses overwhelming and distorting my thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him, just as softly.
They’d said that whatever happened at the Devotion Gate would not interfere with the Lifebind. That had to mean that Garrick would not die. I had to believe that, because if saving Isanara meant damning him, I did not think I could make the choice.
