“Koryn.”
Xyta’s summons echoed through the arena, whatever magic they used to contain the sound of their conversations temporarily dampened. I jolted upright, icy shards immediately starting to form in my veins.
Nash was gone. He must have disappeared through the passageway the same as Alize.
Garrick had managed to distract me from the dread, had used his hand in mine to help ease the tidal wave of power that rolled out of my control. But there was no escaping the deity below with that feline smile curving their mouth.
“Koryn.” Not Xyta this time, but Garrick. I turned back to face him, expecting worry. If I bungled this, his life could be in danger, too. But his face was inscrutable once again.
“Xyta is a bored immortal. All they want is some entertainment.”
What in the Dark God’s frigid hell that was supposed to mean, I did not know. But I committed every word to memory as I climbed down to my doom.
CHAPTER 37
“A witch.It has been many years since one of your kind made it to my gate.” Xyta rose for me, which I did not consider a good omen. They looked me over with as much interest as that cat once had its mouse, as if deciding which part would make for the most succulent first bite.
I willed the ice in my veins to hold me still, to keep me from twitching under their gaze. “You are Xyta.”
Their smile deepened until a dimple appeared in their right cheek. Right, but not left. A tingle of awareness started in my chest, directly between my breasts, where my heart had once beat.
Xyta motioned to the seat across from them. I moved toward it but waited until they took theirs before lowering myself into the chair. Like so many I’d encountered, it was too narrow for my frame. The stone arms clung to my hips uncomfortably. I tried to keep my face neutral, but from the sparkle in Xyta’s eyes, I guessed that I had failed.
I did not want their attention on me, not like that. Not reading me. They were a deity; for all I knew, they could read every thought in my head. But that did not mean I had to make it easier.
“Why this form?” I asked, stilling the impulse to shift in the chair to try and make myself more comfortable.
The deity shrugged their delicate shoulders. “I take whichever form pleases me—which is usually the one that will most unnerve the person sitting across this table.”
I blinked. They had taken this form… for me?
I looked over my shoulder to where Garrick waited near the top of the arena, watching me intently. Did he… did he see a different form of the deity than I did?
“Do you not recognize your mother’s face?”
I turned back slowly, certain I had misheard them. Xyta waited, legs crossed beneath the golden velvet dress, a warm smile on their face.
A smile I remembered so vaguely, I could not have put a name to it. But that dimple… Janessa had had the same one, just on one side, just on her right cheek. And the dark hair that hung in loose waves, not straight but not quite curled, was a very particular shade of dark brown. The same as Rylynn’s had been, and then Rowellyn’s, and now Kyrelle. The same as mine.
“She died when I was very young,” I said.
“And you have walked this continent for many centuries.”
You have forgotten your own mother, Xyta’s cat smile said.You should be ashamed.
And I was. “I have.”
Xyta’s eyes lit with the victory. “Perhaps I should have chosen this form instead.” They waved their hand, and instead of my mother’s middle-aged form, now Rylynn sat before me, as lovely and beautiful as she had been on the day of her betrothal celebration. “Or this? She scares you, though you would never admit it to yourself or any other.” Rylynn’s skin paled to an unnatural white, the texture and color of her hair changing and darkening until an unmistakable face looked back at me. Xyta even got the condescending tilt of Maura’s mouth right.
I looked back over my shoulder. Garrick had not shifted, his expression unchanged. He watched me intently but showed nothing else. No flicker in his jaw, no lift to the half-moon scar by his eye. He had not seen Xyta’s change. The spectacle was for me alone.
Who did Garrick see? I could not let myself wonder. Not when everything I cared about hung on the next few words.
“Take whichever form pleases you,” I said, training my eyes forward. I would not let myself look back at Garrick again.
Xyta uncrossed their arms. This time, I stared down the thick form of my father.
Mistake.
