Page 33

Naia lifted her head slowly. One mage hovered over her like a mountain, blocking the sun from her face.

“You are not worthy of being a goddess. You are weak.” The woman spit on her.

The glob splattered across Naia’s cheek and into her eye. She gasped.

“A goddesses’ place is not on the soil, and yet, you make no move to stand up and fight me while I taunt you.” The woman snorted and spun around. “You are useless.”

Naia flinched, wiping the spit from her face with a shaky hand.

Useless.

A white bellied whale wading through the waters cast a shade across the arena, and the mage’s robe swayed as she walked away. An impulse arose in Naia to make the mage choke on her words and prove her wrong.

But if Naia fought, what would the result be?

More pain. Suffering.

Naia’s skin prickled, and it was as if the walls of the arena folded over her.

Being useless keeps you safe.

Marina’s face emerged in Naia’s line of sight. Long black locks of hair hung down like a satin curtain as she slightly bent over. “Go up to Mother and Father.”

“Why?” Naia blinked. It was the first time her little sister had ever spoken to her, and it bridled her with an anxious excitement.

Mira forbade communication between them. Naia once asked her father why, but he responded with a soft smile and a buttery excuse on Mira’s part.

Naia hadn’t even noticed Marina enter the arena. Had she walked in or transported? The idea of her sister being able to transport filled Naia’s head with more self-loathing thoughts. She is a child and can do more than I. The mage is right. I am useless, weak, and unworthy of my immortal blood.

“It is my turn,” Marina said in a monotone voice.

Her turn?

A life force blazed Naia back into focus and she sprang to a sitting position. “Absurd! You are merely ten years old.”

Marina’s expression was a barren desert, her irises two spooling lakes of black, as she stared down at Naia. “I will show them what it means to be a goddess. Now leave, or else I will take you down with them.”

Marina’s boldness pushed bile up Naia’s throat, suffocating the glimpse of tender excitement Naia had felt seconds ago.

Such foolish arrogance. A trait inherited by Mira, no doubt. Naia could hardly stand it.

From what Naia had observed over the last ten years, Marina was a quiet child. Often described by others as moody with a permanent scowl. Her power overshadowed her unappealing characteristics. The servants quaked in fear, doing everything in their power to avoid provoking her. They had rumored she would extinguish the light in the room, and in the end, the servants would run out in tears.

Naia crawled to her feet and marched up the arena steps to her parents’ box.

As she crossed the threshold of the stone, her words spewed out haughtily. “What are you thinking, sending a child down there?—”

The stinging cut of Mira’s milky eyes tore Naia’s courage to shreds. She halted in her tracks, regretting saying anything to attract Mira’s scrutiny.

“My darling.” Father spared a tender look in Naia’s direction. “Your mother wishes to test your sister’s strength, is all.”

Naia studied the worry lines creasing his forehead. There was something he wasn’t saying.

His gaze idled on her as a silent plea to stand down; to make herself invisible. She recognized it from the time she sat in his lap, overflowing with questions as the Council gathered in the throne room all those years ago.

Naia obeyed and stood by his side, farthest from Mira.

Gritting her teeth to swallow her argument, Naia peered out into the grounds. Marina seemed smaller from this distance—an infuriating reminder of how young she was.