His fingers tightened imperceptibly around her forearms. There it was, finally: the stilling of his limbs as the gravity of the situation weighed over him. “You can’t be forsaken,” he said. “The godsrarelyforsook the daivyakt of old, and only for things like patricide, or stealing from the temples. You’ve never done anything so severe?—unless there’s something you want to confess?”
He quirked one eyebrow gently, and Poppy softened involuntarily as she shook her head once, quickly. “But if I’m not forsaken, then w-why?—”
“Why wasn’t your prayer heard? Sometimes, individual prayers can be rejected if the gods don’t think it was felt. Remember, they’re divine beings. They can see if your intentions are genuine. Whom did you direct your prayer to?”
“The entire pantheon.”
He frowned. “You didn’t try to invoke one god specifically?”
“I didn’t know whom to ask.”Because I don’t know anything about any of the gods, so how could I know whom to ask?She pulled her arms out of Hasan’s, hugging them to her chest. “I don’t have a connection to the gods the way you do.” She trembled, shaking with the depth of this loss. “I’ve spent the last two decades unaware of their existence, following the teachings of the Founder. I wasraisedto shun the stories of the gods and their divine energy, to rebuke them as heresy. It may not be patricide, but I doubt the gods will ever listen to me.”
Hasan listened intently, his face impassive. When she finished, he dropped his head down for a second, nodding to himself before he looked up and locked his gaze on hers.
“Tell me one thing, Miss Sutherland,” he said. “How long are you going to let who you are hold you back?”
Poppy flinched at the sudden ice in his tone. “What are you talking about?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring her stance. “It sounds like you’ve decided?—perhaps from the moment I introduced you to the gods and the concept of naumya?—that you were too scared to be answered, and so you didn’t eventryto make yourself heard.”
“How dare you?” she seethed. She wasn’t sure what stung more: his accusation that she was self-sabotaging, or the fact that he had accurately guessed the depths of her self-doubt.
“You heard me.” He took a step forward. Coolly, he said, “If you’re not even going to try, Miss Sutherland, then I might as well take you back to your fiancé today.”
She stopped shaking. Sorrow and shame gave way to anger.Who is he to threaten me?She straightened up, taking another step forward instead of back. Surprise flared in his eyes.
“You’re one to talk about not making any effort,” she retorted. “You all butdumpedthese new concepts on me, didn’t bother to tell me a single story about any of these gods, and now you’re surprised that I don’t have any personal connection with them.”
Hasan’s expression shifted, some of the heat leaving his eyes. “Poppy?—”
“No.” Something heavy had shaken loose in her chest, and Poppy couldn’t stop talking until she was free of it. “I’m not like you, Hasan. I didn’t have an heirloom pantheon passed down through generations of my family. I don’t even know what gods wereimportant tomy birth family, because I was adopted by the Sutherlands as a toddler. All I know of the Virian gods is what the Welkish people taught me: that it’s heresy to follow them, and that their magic is forbidden. You have no idea what kind of environment I was raised in. When I learned that I had powers, I vowed I would never use them, for my own safety. So for me to break that vow means that Iamtrying. What else can I do? I’m repeating what you’re saying, copying your actions, and it’s still not enough, because I’m a lifetime behind, and I’ll never catch up. I’ll never have what you have.”
Poppy’s speech drained out of her, chest heaving. Hasan stared at her, his expression blank, but his body loose and free of tension. He lifted his thumb to her face. Only when she felt his thumb smearing something wet across her cheek did she realize she was crying. Her skin went hot under his touch, and she shoved his hand away.
He opened his mouth, but she didn’t want to?—couldn’t bear to?—hear whatever he was going to say next. She shoved past him and rushed up the steep steps, roughly wiping her eyes with her dupatta, leaving him downstairs with the pantheon of silent gods.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Complicated History
Hasan realized Poppy was right about one thing: He didn’t know how she’d been raised. He’d lived with the gods all his life, and though he knew the Welkish position that it was heresy to follow them, the people in his life hadn’t taken it seriously. Poppy, however, hadn’t had that option. He couldn’t begin to guess at her upbringing, and she was unwilling to share it with him. But there was one other person in the safe house who could shed some light on her past for him. Hasan knew that before Samina had come to him seeking employment, before she burned down the orphanage she had spent two years in, she had lived on the Sutherland estate, where her mother had worked as a servant. She might be able to tell him more about Poppy as a child.
He found her inside, recovering in one of his mother’s spare bedrooms. When he asked about Poppy’s early years, her whole body tensed, like a bird ready to take flight.
“Yes. I knew Poppy as a girl,” Samina answered tersely, twisting the bedsheets in her fists. “We were friends.”
Hasan sensed a complicated history there, but he knew Samina too well to demand the story from her. He lifted a stool from the corner of the room and put it down beside her, settling in patiently.
“Things were different, when we were children.” She sighed. “My mother was her nanny, but Poppy never treated us like we were beneath her, or tried to pull rank. When she was scared or hurt, I remember she would find my mother in the servants’ quarters instead of going to the duchess. Most of the Welkish kids wouldn’t play nice with her, so she sought me out instead. We were... close. She was the closest thing to a sister I’ve ever had.”
How different this child Poppy was, he mused, comparing her to the lofty lady who had sneered down at him even as her own wrists had been chained together. Was her pride something she had learned at that Welkish college? Or was it a callus, something that she’d grown to protect her from the friction of being jammed into a world in which she had no place?
Samina continued her story, interrupting Hasan’s thoughts. “My mother thought it was important for Poppy to know the stories of the gods. When Poppy came seeking comfort, she used to tell her the old epics. Poppy loved them, believe it or not. But when her father found out, he fired my mother. I will never forget how he came all the way to the servants’ quarters to shout at her. He threatened to have her exposed as an unnatural, but it was an empty threat?—he didn’t actually know that she herself was daivyakt.”
He frowned. “Poppy doesn’t seem to remember any of those stories about the gods.”
Samina shrugged. “She was six, and her father likely bulldozed right over those stories with some more rubbish about the Founder. Either way, life moved on. As you know, my mother never found comfortable employment in a household again. She passed away after a factory accident. I became desperate. My mother had moved to the city from her village years ago, and I didn’t have the means to go back safely?—especially with my half brother. I couldn’t write home for help; my aunts and uncles were as illiterate as I was. I turned to the only person I thought could help me.”
“Poppy,” Hasan said.
