And below that,BLESSED BE THE GODDESS.
When I hesitate, the sorcerer’s golden eyes glow with muted power. “Are you ready?”
I force myself to look at Lil’s ashes. “Did you ask her if she was ready?”
She flinches, then squares her shoulders. “No. And I shouldn’t have asked you. This is bigger than any individual.”
I give her my nastiest smile. “If I’m about to die, I should at least be spared your tired cliches.”
“I’m sorry.” Oddly enough, I’m sure she’s telling the truth, though it’s too late to matter.
My hand rises almost of its own volition, and I tilt my head to look at my trembling fingers. “Let’s do this, then. Maybe …” I need to swallow before I can continue. “Maybe you can say a prayer for Lil and one for me, after I’m gone.”
“You carry all of Altarra’s hopes with you,” she whispers.
I shake my head. “Storms pass.”
“What?”
“Storms pass. Pain ends. Even the pain from burning alive.” I barely choke out the words. “I will never quit.”
Then, before terror can break me, before my mind can betray me, I aim all the defiance I can muster at the monstrous king, and I try to speak last words that maybe someone, someday, will remember.
I want desperately to sayFuck you allbut don’t think it’s quite what I’m aiming for, so I try to do better.
“I freely choose this, in the hope that it might make a difference. Finally, today, I choose to be the architect of my own destiny.”
I whisper, “Pain ends,” plunge my hand into the box, and grab the amulet.
Just as light needs darkness, we need each other to sustain balance for all of Terra.
—Artemisen, speaking of herself and Corvynne, her sister goddess, to the scribe Thalassi, Second Age
CHAPTER FOUR
Shocking everyone, I don’t die.
I don’t die.
I can’t stop shaking. I’m clutching the amulet so tightly it cuts into the skin of my palm, but it doesn’t feel even a little warm. For a heartbeat, when I first put my hand on it, the gemstone blazed hot, and I closed my eyes and prepared to die.
But then—miraculously—it cooled.
We wait … and wait … and wait, for ten minutes that feel like ten hours. I stand frozen, still expecting to die horribly any second. Unable to keep from looking at the charred remains of a blameless young girl.
We’re not meant to touch the possessions of the gods.
“Now, we begin,” the Air Touched says, fiercely triumphant.
But I don’t know what that means. Should I drop the amulet? If I do, will I die thenexttime I touch it?
Slowly, I open my fingers.
Itryto open them.
They won’t budge. My hand is locked in place, holding the amulet, and I can’t move my fingers.
“Air Touched, what do I do?”
