Her gaze lingers on the farthest tile to the right. On two figures painted in light, pretty shades—a mermaid and a winged man. They are both crowned with woven laurel and coral, leaning in for a kiss while crowds small as a pinprick gather around them, throwing petals at their feet. The next tile shows the mermaid pulling away, but the winged man keeps hold of her waist. Purple bruises color her skin. The third tile shows a slippery escape, and the fourth depicts the winged man flying after her, giving chase.
There are dozens of them—scores. Tile after tile highlighting the lengths the man went to—to find her, to hunt her, tokeepher. I swallow hard, unable to stand the sight. Equally unable to look away. Zephyra rubs her wrists—right over her scars—without seeming to realize she’s doing it. Her face is pale. Drawn.
Eventually, the mermaid returns. The winged man joins her…here. I glance around us, recognizing the scene. In this very temple, the background illuminated with glowing silver light, while coins spill over the painted offering tables and rose petals drench the floorin a river of pink. This time, she wears a veil, and he slides a ring onto her finger. They kiss.
Until she pulls out a knife. My stomach sinks.
Until she carves out his heart.
Zephyra steps closer as the winged man’s—Mortem’s, I realize with a sickening lurch—soul flees his body in a vague shadow, banished to the Fathoms, before the mermaid hurls his heart through a dark blue chasm in the floor. She turns as if the job is finished. The deed is done. But she doesn’t realize his body is still behind her; she doesn’t realize he’s notdead. Tears weep from her turquoise eyes as he slits her throat.
The last tile is smeared with blood.
A crimson handprint. Beneath it, the same red spells out,FLEEWHILEYOUCAN.GODISEVIL,ANDWEAREDOOMED.VILACANNOTSAVEUS.NOONECAN.
Zephyra recoils as she too reads the words, blinking rapidly. And—
Fuck.Fuck.
Vila.
Vila, the merrow goddess. Vila, the heroine of Zephyra’s tale. Not a mermaid nor a demon seductress. Especially not ano oneas Elder Branche inferred. Nausea churns to anger in my stomach. The warlocks were wrong.Mortiais wrong. If these tiles are correct, Mortem murdered a fuckinggoddess. I stumble back a step, knocking into one of the tables. A gilded oyster falls to the floor. Clatters. Zephyra whirls around at the noise. Her lips twist upward in a bitter smile.
“Told you so, warlock.”
What do I say to that? Everything—everythingMortia taught is a lie. Mortem was not tricked. Mortem was not avictim. Mortem had a counterpart, a goddess who severed his immortality, because—according to these tiles—he was mad with power.
What else don’t we understand about our history?
What else happened with the merrow?
“There is no recorded evidence of this. Anywhere,” Gavriall says quietly, tracing the tiled pictures with his finger. “There is no goddess of the sea.”
Vesper clears her throat. “Vila was the Goddess of Life,Love, and Sea.”
Zephyra nods, her bitter smile fading to sadness. “What would they tell the citizens—‘our own god is evil, and we are doomed’? Not super inspiring at the best of times, least of all when the poor are starving and their roofs are caving in. Mortia needed something to believe in. They need to believe they’re on the winning side, fighting for a higher purpose, for goodness and justice, or else… what has all the pain and suffering been about?”
I swallow hard at that. Remember a hundred times, a thousand times, I listened to my father pray in his room long after night had fallen.
“Mortem, be kind. I beg you, have mercy on my child. Do not let my reflection cast the same sins upon him. Keep him safe. Keep him fed. Keep him from harm. Do not let me ruin him. Please. Have mercy, Mortem.”
The memory haunts me here as I gaze at the mural of an abandoned utopia and blood streaks its walls in an ominous finality of what unfolded here.
God is evil.
And we are doomed.
Bile stings my tongue. A sense of wrongness permeates the air, cold and unsettling as the waters that spat us here. Standing this close to the mural, seeing evidence of the one thing I’ve been searching for, tasting its ancient magic on my tongue, I want nothing more than to turn away. To leave this place and its legacy far behind me. I want nothing to do with it. With Mortem. Hunger still beats frantic wings in my chest, however, swirls white-hot through my veins. I might not want that fucking heart, but I need it.
My gaze clashes with Zephyra’s as if she’s thinking the same.Weneed it.
More than anything, I can’t stop thinking about that stupid fucking poem.
Deep in a chamber
A heart doth lay
Torn from a god
