She swallows hard, and I imagine we are thinking the same thing at the same time—that Nyatrix’s body might one day grace one of these grottos, as though she is but a fresco or a sculpture.
“Though, Ophelia, many warriors want this. It’s seen as a great honor among our people,” she adds with a shrug.
“But you do not,” I say hesitantly, watching her face, studying the way her sharp jaw clenches, the muscles feathering.
“No,” she murmurs before turning back toward our strange little party as two Cult fellows approach. “It’s time, I think.”
I square my shoulders and lift my chin. I try to be the woman my mother might have raised me to be. Then Nyatrix’s hand brushes mine, and it’s like I am suffused with her indomitable courage.
Her fingertips stay pressed to the back of my palm until the Cult fellows lead me away into the belly of the Conclaves to determine if a piece of a long-lost goddess lives in my chest, or if the broken shards between my ribs are just the same as anyone else’s—grief, loss, and the remnants of who we might’ve been if this world were softer and less hungry.
Chapter 39
Deep within the ancient dwellings carved into Liminalia’s sea cliffs, I stand in a large chamber, facing a blazing fire. The hearth from which it springs is ornate, far more care taken with its creation than the rough, uneven walls surrounding me. The pale, shimmering stone depicts two women, both much taller than me. One is powerfully built with severe features, the other soft, shapelier, with flowing hair. Their hands meet in the center of the hearth, fingers delicately etched by long-dead sculptors. In the space between them, within the circle their interlocked hands and arms create, a flame burns bright and wild.
The Creatrixes and their Ignis—the spark of life that brought the entire world into being.
I shift my weight, growing warm beneath my clothing. The Cult of the Mater Dea was not clear on how long I would be in here, only that I could not sit or speak, and that I should direct my gaze into the flame. Perhaps one of the long-lost goddesses will appear to me, cup my face in her hands, and heal all my wounds.
Or perhaps not.
My longing for Mysterium—for the approval of saintly bodies, for the love from divine things—raises its head beneath my sternum. The First Son found me faulty. Perhaps the Creatrixes will not. I inhale sharply, steadying myself on my cane. The fire crackles, throwing shadows around the chamber, and for a moment, I think I see something within the inky dark.
I do not, just as I did not see tears of blood. There are many things I thought I saw in Lumendei that were only illusions in the end. Renault’s kindness. Carina’s friendship. The purity of the First Son’s love. My gardens and my Feast Days, my beloved Devorarium and all the beauty that inspired me to believe. Not just gone or Sundered for the sake of more power but never having existed in the first place.
Does that make it worse, I wonder? Or should it make the grief easier? I don’t know. The flames before me blur as tears invade my eyes. I don’t move to wipe them away or to stifle them. I cry silently, my shoulders trembling, before the hearth of long-gone goddesses. They won’t hear me. They won’t see me. Perhaps, in a strange way, this Votum chamber is the safest place I’ve ever been—locked within the ancient walls of the Conclaves where there is nothing but the distant roar of the sea.
Time stretches long and endless. Some time later, Agrippina enters the room, startling me. She takes my hand and leads me into the small antechamber, where she gestures for me to sit on a stone bench piled high with embroidered cushions. She takes the bench on the opposite wall, pushing her thick gray braid over her shoulder. She’s dressed in the same robes as the rest of her Cult fellows, though she’s removed the black lace veil.
Agrippina asks me questions. If I saw anything in the flames. If I heard any voices. If any shadows moved or any visions appeared to me. I tell her no. I admit I cried, but nothing more. I expect her to look disappointed—my mother, a suspected Avatar before her death, just days from her own ceremony inthe chamber—but to my surprise, Agrippina’s shoulders sag with relief.
I open my mouth to ask why, but she volunteers her answer freely. “An Avatar, like all heroes,” she tells me, her fingers steepled in her lap, “is a sacrifice. Be happy they did not claim you.”
“But no oneeverclaims me,” I find myself whispering, the storm of emotion stirred up in me not yet quieted.
Agrippina reaches across the narrow space for my hand, and I let her. “I claim you,” she replies fiercely. “I will never replace our beloved Celia, but I claim you, Ophelia. If you’ll permit me. Be the daughter my wife and I couldn’t have, not with so many of our sacred herbs wiped out by the Sundering, our rituals written in languages we can no longer decipher. Make something of your life here in Liminalia, as much as you possibly can. If you are not an Avatar, then you are free, do you understand?”
I grip her hand like it’s a line to a man drowning in the sea. Through my tears, I nod, not trusting myself to speak. I almost tell her about the Hexen and the violets, about Renault’s healed hands, about the rich soil in my bed linens. But if I am not an Avatar, if I do not have Mysterium, then I fear what the truth might be. I fear I’ve had enough of the truth. So I say nothing.
When I’ve collected myself, she shows me back to the main hallway, instructing me on the turns to take in order to meet up with Nyatrix. In the meantime, she says, she’ll inform the rest of the Cult of the outcome.
I follow the path back to Nyatrix as quickly as my legs will carry me, passing tiny alcoves in the walls filled with gilded bones and tattered ribbons—all manner of reliquaries, the Sepulchyre calls them, taken from the bodies of those they found holy. If I’m honest, the practice stirs my stomach, so I keep my eyes trained straight ahead until I arrive at the waiting chamber.
Raised voices reach my ears, so I slow, moving quietly toward the door. I only want to make sure I’m not intruding on anything private, but instead I hear something that makes my entire body turn to ice.
“You told me you seduced her, Nyatrix,” a voice I don’t recognize says. A woman.
“Because I did,” Nyatrix replies, emotionless. “I saw a way to get out. I used it.”
The words feel like a punch to the gut. I clench my jaw, my insides twisting into a knot. Nausea blooms on the back of my tongue.
“And now you’re willing to draw Lucretia’s ire for her sake? For the sake of aHostwoman?” the strange woman demands, sounding exasperated.
I squeeze my eyes shut and silently beg for Nyatrix to say something that will stop this horrible feeling overtaking my body. Anything at all that will stop me from feeling as though I want to climb out of my own skin.
“Apparently a Sepulchyre woman,” is all Nyatrix says. A long pause, my heart thundering in my chest all the while. “Besides, she’s lived there for nearly thirty anni. She knows the layout, the servant tunnels. She’s useful.”
Useful. My shoulder collides silently with the doorframe. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I don’t know why this vast grief rises in me, threatening to drag me down into a place so deep I may never see the light again.
