This time, I remember.
I remember opening my eyes to three faces hovering above me. The Sages. Their expressions tight with something I didn't understand then. Something I'm not sure I understand now.
“Are you sure this is them?” Mother's voice. Sharp. Urgent.
“I'm positive,” Anala the All-Seeing responds calmly.
“How could she have survived this wound?” Mother asks. Beneath the sharpness, I see something else. Something that might have been fear.
“How could any of these children have survived the Shroud on their own?” Freida the Hunter asks.
A pause.
“Who says they did?” Anala replies.
“What are you saying?” Mother hisses.
Anala leans closer. Her fingers brush my chest as she speaks in a language I don't recognize. Ancient. Guttural. The words scrape against my ears like stone against stone.
Mother gasps. “How is that possible?”
“The Reckoning,” Anala says simply. Her eyes meet mine, and I swear she knows I'm listening — knows I'll remember this somehow. "They were chosen. Sent for the Reckoning."
My eyes fly open.
I'm lying in a hammock. The familiar sway of it. The familiar scent of herbs and smoke and something faintly sweet.
The healing chamber. I'm back at the Temple of Veritas.
My body feels heavy. Wrong. Like it belongs to someone else. I turn my head slowly, and my gaze lands on the Undying Flame at the center of the room. It flickers. Dances. And for a moment, just a moment, I swear it's watching me.
Safety is an illusion.
The words drift through my mind like smoke.
As my eyes grow heavy again, as the darkness pulls me back under, I can't help but wonder who the Sages have been idolizing this whole time.
And what, exactly, did they raise us to become?
Chapter Five
Ismell it before I see anything. Eucalyptus. The metallic tang of burning torches. The familiar warmth of hot stones seeping into my bones.
The healing chamber. I'm in the healing chamber. I keep my eyes closed, clinging to the darkness behind my lids. If I don't open them, I don't have to face what I've done. I don't have to remember. But then a memory creeps in. The Flame.
Use what you've buried.
My eyes fly open. I stare up at the shadows dancing along the vaulted ceiling, my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my teeth. How long have I been here? Who brought me? What do they know?
I lift my hands to rub the sleep from my eyes. And freeze. My fingers are stained black. From the tips down to my knuckles, as if I dipped them in ink.
That only happens when I make memory elixirs, and I haven't?—
The rest of the memory slams into me like a fist. Jordi. The arrow in his torso. His blood, hot and slick beneath my palms. The black veins crawling through his skin. The heat building behind my eyes until I thought they would burst into flames.
And then … his wound closing. Skin knitting together beneath my fingers like it had never been torn at all. A dull ache pulses beneath my ribs. I suck in a breath as I press my hand to my own torso, to the spot where the arrow pierced my brother.
So that's how it works. I don't just heal. I take. The wound. The pain. The poison.
