How I want to keepbothmy siblings, but doing it on my own feels like an impossibility.
So maybe it’s time I reach out for some help with that.
The next morning,I awaken before dawn with one goal in mind: to learn more about my magic. And there is only one person I can go to to do so. Once again, I check in on Kay, and once again she is fast asleep, but I’m not too disappointed. I don’t want to start the day with an argument, and right now, that feels like it’s all we’re capable of doing.
Still, I tell Benny that she isn’t to leave. Maybe it’s unfair of me to put that kind of responsibility on him, of holding a grown adult hostage in her own home, but I can’t have her wandering about. Not until I know what I’m going to do.
Leaving the house early and alone, I grab a carriage without issue. No longer do I need to hitch a ride or cling desperately to the side of a passing vehicle. Instead, the leather seat hums faintly beneath me with the rhythm of the horses’ hooves, and the simple fact that I am inside the carriage, paid for with my own coin, sends a thrill of satisfaction through my spine.
Thanks to the speed of the horses, it’s barely mid-morning when I arrive in the third and am dropped off directly outside my intended destination: Etta’s temple.
Rather than heading through the temple doors, I move around the back towards a lightly coloured brick wall. Other than one incident where I snuck in via the sewers, this is how I have always called for Dinah in the years both before and after my mother’s death. Not that I called on her that often after Mother was gone. The memories were like old wounds that would open up whenever I glimpsed this part of Mother’s past, and so I struggled to visit.
Still, Dinah visited us, even in the slums. More than once her arrival was nothing short of lifesaving, coming right when we were most desperate, having run out of food, resources, and options.
Maybe someone else would have thought that Dinah was the Goddess’s way of watching over us, even then. Back in those dark days, Iassumed we’d been forgotten by all the Gods, and it was merely Dinah’s kindness and love for our mother that brought her to our door time and time again, but now I wonder. Did Etta know, even then, that I would become the gifted? The idea is an unsettling one.
No, surely not. It was my choice to enter.
Mine and mine alone.
As my hand hovers beside the brickwork, I think about the last time I came here, when Dinah gave me the dagger that is currently strapped to my thigh. A blade with unknown magic of its own, just like me. No wonder we are so well matched. Two weapons, equally as dangerous and unpredictable as the other.
I press my hand against the stone wall and speak the priestess’s name. ‘Dinah Poltick.’
How long it takes her to come to the calling varies, but within minutes I am pacing, anxiety creeping up with every footstep. It has only been a matter of days since she was the avatar of Etta, hosting the Great Goddess in her human body. And while it is an honour, it comes with a toll.
As time passes I cannot help but picture Dinah in my mind, frail and weak, lying upon her bed, still ravaged by the Goddess’s presence. What if she’s hurt? What if being the avatar of the Gods causes something worse than mere weariness? What if it’s not an honour one even survives?
The thought tightens my chest, making each breath feel shallow and laboured.
‘Rose?’ I spin around to find Dinah standing behind me. She is dressed in her usual blue priestess’s garb to match the blue stone embedded in her forehead. Her eyes are tired, but warm.
A smile lifts her lips at the sight of me. ‘I’m so sorry for keeping you waiting. I was performing a blessing in the temple. I could not leave.’ She wraps her arms tightly around me, drawing me in. ‘Is everything all right? You’re stone cold,’ she says, clucking her tongue at me.
‘I need to talk to you. Is there somewhere we can go?’ I ask her. ‘Somewhere private?’
‘Of course.’ She releases me from her warm embrace. ‘Follow me.’
Dinah parts the stones of the wall with a sweep of her hand andushers me through the divide and into the Goddess’s Garden. Being in the priestess’s presence is enough to ease my anxiety. Dinah will have the answers – she always does.
Inside the garden, I cannot help but get distracted by the beds full of herbs and flowers. The Goddess’s Garden was my mother’s favourite place, and it was from here that I once pilfered a deadly poison without Dinah’s knowledge or consent.
I still do not regret my actions nor do they haunt my conscience. Rula, who ran one of the slum’s protection rackets, used the poison to kill a rapist and murderer, the victims of whom included one of the few friends Kay had in the slums.
Not that Kay ever found out the true cause of her friend’s death. Back then I told her Talia was killed in a bar fight, and she believed me without a moment’s doubt.
I’ve always protected Kay, even from the truth.
But now three rings adorn her hand, and I have learned what I should have known all along: that I cannot protect her from herself. From her own poor choices.
Part of me still refuses to accept that this marriage has taken place, although I can admit to myself that Jonas is a far better choice than Artur. The fact that he has kept William safe all these years should earn him more of my respect, even if it’s the very same reason that anger bubbles in my veins. I do not know how to forgive him for his deception.
It’s only when I see the way Dinah is looking at me that I realise I have stopped walking. Rooted myself to the ground, mired in my own fears.
With a nod of my head, I force a deep breath in and expel the fear that only moments ago had gripped me. It is not possible to live that way. Anticipating danger around every corner. Always imagining the worst. Always primed for attack.
It was the way of the slums and the Retterheld. But now that needs to change. Whatever perils may await me in my future, I will fight them head-on when they arrive, but I will not give them the space in my mind before then. I owe myself that much.
