“How did you free the dark god, Mariah?”
The whispering stalled. Gazes widened. A low growl rumbled in Andrian’s chest.
Mariah, despite all her deepest failures, all the darkest murmurings about what she’d done, kept her head lifted, chin proud.
“Kol murdered my mother. So, I set the goddesses grace free.”
The Oracle narrowed her eyes. “You shifted?”
“I did.”
The council gasped, but the Oracle didn’t so much as flinch.
“Can you shift now?”
Mariah hesitated. But after telling so much truth, why start with a lie now? It was clear this woman would see through all of it.
“No. All that magic—that grace—is locked from me.” She glanced at Callamus. “Which is part of the reason I’ve come here.”
The God of the Night Sky stepped to the table. The council cast their eyes away from him, reverential deference written into each of them. But the Oracle and Mariah met his stare, waiting.
“The Onitan Queen speaks the truth, Silje.” He folded his hands behind his back. “And as much as she may think it, Kol’s return was not her fault. It was as inevitable as the rising of the sun each break of day. You know this.”
Silje relaxed back in her seat, nodding. Her piercing gaze finally left Mariah, and Mariah almost heaved a sigh of relief.
Until she shifted it to Andrian instead.
Mariah didn’t like the darkness that flashed over her face when she looked at him.
“This is all…very troubling.” Merete was unable to hide the tremble in her voice. “Very troubling indeed. Our duty is, and has always been, to protect the people of Leuxrith from the darkness nipping at the edges of the world.” She glanced at Callamus. “But you come here with the support and blessing of our god. That is not something we can ignore. If he stands with you in this, then so do we.”
The rest of the council nodded. Mariah clenched her fingers around Andrian’s, relief tearing through her. “Thank you. I only wish our reception in Kreah had been the same.”
“The Kreah people will come around,” Callamus said. “Trust Rulene and your friends.”
Mariah nodded. Merete nodded as well, sympathy flashing in her eyes. She opened her mouth?—
“You are one ofhis, aren’t you?”
The Oracle’s soft hiss froze the room. The old woman stood from her chair, palms flattening on the stone table. Her lip pulled back from her teeth, anger and hatred flashing in her eyes. “I felt something the moment you crossed this threshold. It’s been so long since I’ve felt that darkness, I could not place it. I remember now. I rememberyou…reykr.”
“What?” Birgitte’s horrified question fractured all of Mariah’s tentative hope. Andrian yanked back his hand, hardness falling over every line of him. Matheo shifted nervously in his seat, hand twitching toward the dagger at his hip.
No. No, this peace wouldnotbe shaken because the man she loved was the heir to a power he never asked for.
Mariah rose from her seat, meeting Silje’s venom with her own. Metal clattered against stone as she leaned across Andrian, her grandfather’s dagger gripped in her hand and flat on the table.
“He is not Kol’s,” Mariah snarled. “He ismine.”
Silence quaked through the temple. Mariah and the Oracle were caught in a battle of wills, young soul against old. Neither willing to break, not until the other snapped.
Mariah couldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t allow it. She knew Luexrithians had a deep, complicated history with the shadow-wielders. But that history was not Andrian’s burden to bear, and she wouldn’t let them further convince him that he wasn’t worthy of goodness in his life.
“That is enough, Oracle.” Callamus’s deep, ageless voice tore through them. The Oracle blinked in disbelief, glancing at her god.
“Callamus, he is one ofthem?—”
“I know very well what he is,” Callamus said. “The young queen is right. He bears the dark god’s magic, but he does not belong to Kol. He is the consort of a queen who carries the grace of the two moon goddesses. Nothing else matters besides that, and Iwillhave it respected.”
