My mother made the petit fours. She was a baker. The best baker south of the mountains. If there were petit fours at the party… the physicians must have been wrong.
“I am the lady of the house now,” Rylynn said.
“The pendant is fae-made. Father will kill you if he sees?—”
Rylynn grabbed Janessa’s arm and yanked her close. I slid into the opening she left, unnoticed by either of them. My eyes followed the path of the petit fours across the crowded room.
“If I have it, then Father cannot sell it,” Rylynn said, cupping a protective hand over the ornament pinned to her chest.
I clutched the banister, one foot already reaching down for the next step, my little body fighting the forward momentum.
Mother would never let Father sell the brooch. It was given to her by her mother, passed from her grandmother and great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother…
“He wouldn’t,” Janessa whispered. Her body went limp beside me.
Rylynn sighed, the sound shakier than it should have been, coming from my confident eldest sister. “He would. Mother is dead. He will sell it or gift it to his next wife…”
Mother is dead. She didn’t make the petit fours.
Mother is dead.
My hand slipped on the banister. I tumbled down the stairs into the chaos before my sisters could catch me.
CHAPTER 5
The hayloft was coveredin bird shit. I slept there anyway. At least the crows would alert me if anything more perilous came near. But aside from the occasional caw, they let me sleep right through the night and well into the next morning.
Black night gave way to gray day. The sun rarely broke through the clouds anymore, but at least it wasn’t raining. Or snowing. The cold couldn’t kill me, but it could make me damn uncomfortable.
I planned to get up, eat the heel of cheese I’d shoved into my pocket the night before, and get the hell away from Canmar. Instead, I found myself in front of the temple with Elodie’s offer echoing around inside of my head. At some point, the words transformed. They were no longer in Elodie’s melodic voice, but Maura’s sharp, abrasive one.
In her voice, the words morphed. Not an offer, but a threat.
Go through the Seven Gates, or else.
An unhinged laugh bubbled up out of my throat. Maura had already banished me from my coven and sentenced me to a slow, excruciating demise as the Dark God’s power deserted my veins. What else could she possibly do to me?
The snow swallowed my laugh.
Plenty.
She was a thousands-year-old witch in command of the last remaining coven on the continent. The fae were gone. The humans had never had power or magic to begin with. Maura might well be the most powerful individual in all of Velora.
And she’d ordered me through the Seven Gates.
I inhaled an icy breath and refocused on the courtyard sprawled out in front of me.
The stone edifice rose several stories overhead, seven of its faces ornamented with colorful stained-glass windows depicting each of the gods. Even with the rest of the continent in shambles, the temple rose out of the ice and decay, still standing strong. I hadn’t frequented temples in life, let alone in death. I could hardly report on whether the inside had changed in the four hundred years since the curse. But while the stones stood strong, the altars beneath each stained-glass window were depleted. No more flowers grew in Velora. Food was too scarce to be left as an offering, candles needed for their meager warmth.
But food and warmth were plentiful within those walls. That, I knew. Everyone in Velora knew. Enter the temple, fill your stomach, rest your head, and pay the price.
Just as I had the night before in the tavern, I surveyed everyone who entered the courtyard. I’d been watching for half the day and only two people had approached the temple. One only made it halfway across the courtyard before veering left and disappearing at a run. The other was unremarkable at this distance. But he entered the temple, so he was desperate enough.
Not much in the way of adversaries.
They’d only be adversaries if I entered the temple. If I accepted Maura’s offer and attempted the gates, I’d face not only the challenges set by each of the gods but also the other desperate supplicants trying to get through them.
Death was not certain. Everyone said that. People did survive the gates—for a while. One. Maybe two. But eventually, one of the Gates or their fellow supplicants would kill them. No one was ever going to get through all seven. No one was going to break the curse.
