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‘I don’t hate.’ She took another sip of wine. ‘But I learn.’

I raised my mug to my lips with trembling hands and forced a few drops of the warm drink over my lips. If any divine magic lingered in this wine, it wasn’t enough to slow my heartbeat.I learn– and she wouldn’t be fooled a second time. Not even with the fate of the world on the line. Not even as war stirred on the islands, defeat looming around every corner.

Pleading wouldn’t change her mind. Pleading was what a mage hungry for power would do, a mage who might turn that treacherous magic against the world at the slightest provocation.

Would I ever choose that road?

I steeled my heart against the twinge of doubt, lowered my wine, and said, ‘So you’d rather leave things as bad as they are? Because the alternative is risking worse?’

Zera sighed. ‘I suppose that summarises it.’

She’d been the last to choose sides in the War of the Gods, Agenor had said, the last to conclude there was no other choice but to fight. I should have heeded that warning. Should have known I wouldn’t find her brooding for revenge in her forest, ready to launch into battle at the first opportunity.

I’d be damned if I gave up that quickly, though.

‘If you won’t give anyone else the power to break the bindings …’ My mind was spinning at breakneck speed. ‘Would you be able to do it yourself?’

‘I doubt it,’ she said, a mirthless smile spreading over her lips, ‘and no, I’m not coming with you to try. If I’m left with a mortal lifespan, I don’t have much time left, and the world needs me for the little things I’m still capable of doing. Carrying some grief. Sending some blessings. What little magic remains in me.’

Wasn’t that choosing a side, too? I bit my tongue.

‘Yes,’ she added, reading my expression correctly, ‘perhaps I’ve given up, indeed. And perhaps you should be glad of it. You know the weight of choices, and they become heavier with power. Are you sure you want to burden yourself that way?’

Her voice was so gentle, and yet it hit me with the force of a sledgehammer – those gods-damned choices, again. Paralysing me, adding the weight of all those lives to every small decision … The world would expect more from a binding-breaking mage than from an unbound one. It would be even more disappointed with the fallible little cactus hugger it got instead.

Then again …

Who else would do it?

‘I need to take a look at the pumpkins,’ Zera interrupted my thoughts, rising to her feet with the smallest groan. ‘They’ve become the target of an army of slugs, it seems. Join me if you have any other questions.’

‘I’ll …’ I gestured weakly at my wine. ‘I’ll finish this and come find you.’

A meagre excuse for the moment of silence I needed, but she smiled, took up her bag of grief again, and staggered out of the door, leaving me behind in that small living room smelling of warm wine and resin-soaked wood.

I put down my mug and lay back in the pillows with a carefully curated yet heartfelt series of curses.

None of this made sense.

Only that thought felt solid to my wavering mind as I stared at the dark wood ceiling and the bushels of dried flowers that hung from the beams with unseeing eyes. One way or another, the universe had to be making an utter fool out of me, and I’d completely missed the joke. Was this really where my mission was going to end? I’d found the goddess I needed despite all sensible predictions, and then she’d kindly yet resolutely turned me down?

Because I might just turn into a second Mother if she were to help me?

I drew in a deep breath, held it, released it, the calming rhythm Tared had taught me. His voice echoed in my ears, imperturbable and wryly amused –How many times do I have to tell you a clear mind is everything in the thick of a fight?

Right.

Time to think.

I sat up straight again, forcing my breath to keep that slow, steady pace. Methodical, meticulous thinking, now. If Zera was afraid I might ruin the world even more than the Mother had already done …

Was there any chance she was right?

What would I do if someone were to snap Creon’s neck tomorrow?

Every muscle in my body tensed up at that thought alone. I forced myself to stay calm. Slow breaths, rational thoughts; I couldn’t allow sentimentality to cloud my senses here. If Creon died tomorrow … I’d take bloody revenge, probably. Find whoever was responsible. Kill the Mother out of nothing but the purest spite, save the world in his memory.

But would I go on to eradicate every single soul to ever have served the Mother? Would I sacrifice Lyn and Tared and everyone else I knew just for the sake of retribution, the way the Mother had gladly sacrificed Korok to destroy everyone who had condoned the murder of her son?