“Questions after, perhaps?” Rulene said, more magic toying with her orb. “I will want to rest when I am done with my task.If I don’t tell you all that you need to know by the time I am finished, then you will have to come back another time.”
Matheo shifted uncomfortably. Mariah glanced up at the orb, then back at Rulene, and nodded.
Rulene studied her orb. “To aid the humans, we decided to create an item. Something fused with the power of eight, with the hope that it could kill one.”
Mariah quickly counted all the gods. “Wait. Are you saying that Kol contributed to this? That he was one of the eight?”
Rulene huffed. “By the maker, no. His power was used in its creation, but he did not contribute it willingly.”
“Then…how?” It felt impossible. Kol was many things, but capable of being manipulated was one Mariah would not have predicted.
“Why do you think he holds such a deep hatred for Zadione, when once he loved her?” A sad smile played at Rulene’s lips. “But that is a story for another time, to be told by another voice.”
Questions burned inside Mariah, but she forced another nod. She wanted those answers, but not more than she wanted to rid the world of its sun.
Rulene spun up another piece of light into her orb, and Mariah asked the only question that mattered.
“What did you make?”
The silence that answered was tense, strained, and uncomfortable.
Rulene dropped her hands to her lap, still studying her orb, refusing to meet Mariah’s gaze. “We do not know,” she said finally, her words resigned.
Mariah blinked. “You…don’t know.”
What was this? Some sort of godly game? Did Rulene want her toguess?
“It was a spell, Mariah,” Callamus added gently, seeing the frustration rising in her. “We made something that could killa god, then cast a final spell. One that made us forget. We remembered what we made, but the details—what it was, what it does, how it works, where it might be—we spelled ourselves to forget.”
Emptiness settled around Mariah, cold and distant.
Then the anger came.
“Then what’s the fucking use of all this?” she seethed, jumping to her feet. Matheo scrambled up, his brows lifting with surprise. “I come to you, asking for help. You promise me an answer. All so you could tell me that what I seekexists, but you don’t know anything else about it?” Mariah scoffed, hands clenched into fists.
“Come on, Matheo. Let’s leave Rulene to her magic tricks. We’re done here.”
A clap split through the sanctum.
The orb exploded. Light and magic and heat speared through the room, toward the glass ceiling, into the sky above. Mariah could barely move fast enough to cover her eyes against the brilliance, the gust of power knocking her off balance and sending her staggering backward. A hand gripped her forearm, calloused and warm—Matheo.
Rulene’s voice thundered through her sanctum, rich and filled with all the colors of a rainbow.
“You misunderstand me, child,” the Day Sky Goddess said. “We are spelled to forget. That is true. But that does not mean our knowledge is lost.”
Mariah’s eyes fluttered open, spots peppering her vision. Rulene and Callamus stood now, the former wreathed in the might of her domain. Her golden eyes glowed brilliantly, her sky-blue hair floating delicately around her shoulders. She raised her hands, drawing in the scattered magic around the room.
With a final exhale that boomed like the western wind, Rulene pushed her magic up, through the glass roof of the sanctum. It sparkled in the sky, flickering amongst the clouds, then vanished from sight.
The sanctum plunged back into normalcy; the tang of magic was gone from the air; the breath of otherness still and silent. Rulene’s aura retreated, her skin dulling to its normal near-mortal complexion. Though now her eyes seemed darker than before, like she was exhausted and trying to fight it.
“I understand your anger,” the goddess said. “I feel it, too. I have felt the same rage for thousands of years. You come asking for help, and we still hope to give it.”
Mariah was rooted to the floor, fighting to catch her breath. Matheo’s grip on her arm was tight, almost painful, as if he was fighting to remind himself that they were amongst allies.
Her heartbeat slowly calmed, air pushing through her lungs with deep regulated breaths. She rested her free hand on Matheo’s shoulder, his hazel eyes snapping to hers.
“I’m all right,” she said quietly. “Let me go.”
