“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear her choice. She chose to end the game. She chose no Champions in Kavios. No influence of the goddesses”—she gestured between herself and her sister—“will drive this kingdom. Each citizen will choose their own fate. Those were her words.”
“She demands too much,” Themis said through gritted teeth.
Eris waved away her sister’s concern. “We each designed a way out. It’s not my fault that yours lacked creativity.”
Themis looked like she might lunge at Eris. Then her gaze shifted to the pendant that glowed with seven colors around my neck.
Hart seemed to notice the same moment I did. “Fucking Chaos,” he hissed, turning his back on the goddesses.
“This isn’t over,” Themis started. I didn’t hear the rest.
Hart’s green eyes searched mine, and the taste of his fear coated my tongue. “We have to finish this, Chaos. She’ll take the emotion from the necklace, erase the trials, claim we didn’t meet the requirements of Eris’s loophole…”
My mind spun, and finally, I understood why Themis had chosen him. It wasn’t just his charisma, his drive. It was the way he considered everything, the logic and order of his thought patterns, which I had only learned over years of study with Alaric. Of course, he was right. Themis would find any way to discredit us. Any path she took would show we didn’t follow the rules, that we were unfit to claim our choice.
“It’s finished, Themis. There is nothing more for you to do.” The sisters were still locked in their standoff. The way Eris needled Themis with her words, the slight tilt of her head in my direction when she first arrived … if I didn’t know any better, I would say she bought us time.
Time to cement my choice. To end the cycle of Champions in Kavios. To free the city of the goddesses’ hold. To give the people here a chance to choose their own fate.
We had to act fast, and I had a pretty good idea of what we needed to do. “She’ll need you before the end.” That was what Scarlett had told Charon.
I had needed him. I’d needed him to storm the castle. I’d needed him in the throne room to trigger my choice, and I believed I needed him again now.
The postscript of Alaric’s pages had held an interesting note:Dragonfire can burn away all manner of sins.I had thought this referred to Hart’s sins, those of the Champion denying his summons—those of a young man desperate to do anything to avoid the fate demanded of him. I thought it referred toCharon and Hart fighting it out and moving forward, toward their shared goal.
Now I considered the words in a new light.
When Alaric and I had worked the adamas stones, we used adamas to cut and shape them. It took something hard and powerful to work the stone’s delicate lines. I’d proved in the Oldwood that a standard gem saw could do some damage. It could break pieces into smaller pieces, but it couldn’t whittle, work, and grind the hardest stone into dust.
Only adamas could truly destroy adamas.
But was that entirely true?
I wanted to destroy this pendant so that there was no chance Themis could suck the emotion from the stone. I wanted no opportunity for her to require a do-over. Yes, I could probably chip away at each of these stones with an adamas knife, until they were little more than dust in the wind. But we didn’t have time for that.
Dragonfire can burn away all manner of sins.
The heat of my connection with Hart flared as I thought, maybe, I could burn them away with dragonfire. It was Charon’s flame, after all, that had granted the adamas stones their magic.
“Charon,” I whispered as the sisters continued to debate the merits of my claim to dismantle their game in Kavios. “Charon, will your flame destroy this?”
I could tell now when he smiled. It was still all teeth, but the twist of the scales near his eyes told me everything I needed to know.“It is my creation, Ember, willing or not. Of course, my fire can destroy it.”
Something in me clicked with his words, and that near-physical connection between Hart and me burned to life with the thought. I held the pendant up for both sisters to see. “Iclaim my prize. Our trials are complete. Our choice is made. Do either of you deny us?”
Eris’s sly grin said I’d taken the most chaotic path, which happened to be her preference. I could have just had Charon destroy it, but I wouldn’t allow Themis to claim she hadn’t seen the pendant glowing in full.
“Do either of you deny us?” I shouted again.
The sweet taste of Hart’s joy mingled with the bitter taste of his fear. Both goddesses were still far too close for his liking. He shifted so that both goddesses could see the pendant as I held it, but the breadth of his body hid mine from view.
“I see the trials complete,” Eris said. Her knowing gaze shot to her sister’s. “What do you see, Themis?”
Themis looked like a tempest ready to wreak havoc. If chaos was passion and heat, like the flame that burned between Hart and me, then order was ice and restraint. It was clear my actions tested Themis’s now. The temperature in the room plummeted as we backed the Goddess of Order into a corner.
“Themis,” Eris warned. “We agreed.”
Once again, I was at a loss to understand the game these sisters played. They had rules they followed and rules they ignored, and it appeared that only the two of them understood the distinction. It made me wonder if their game had higher stakes than which kingdom worshipped which goddess.
