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Chapter twenty-five

Talia

T alia was awake when her mistress, Skatia, arrived to fetch her from isolation at last. She had spent three days drenched in darkness and silence, as was customary—fasting from all food, all water, and all influence from the outside world.

The Cleanse , it was called. A time for communion with none other but Our Lady Below Herself.

The first day had been the hardest. Talia had never thought she was afraid of the dark until it surrounded her. Slowly smothering her in the small cell that held nothing more than a cot and a hatch-covered hole in the floor through which she could relieve herself.

There were no windows. The door was sealed shut. Nothing had greeted her in that quiet save for the sound of her own breath and the thrum of her pulse .

Not even the voice of Our Lady Below.

Talia had waited, and waited , hungry for any sign her goddess was with her. She thirsted for any recognition at all, more than she thirsted for the water the Sisters denied her during the Cleanse. But there was nothing. There was always nothing.

There had always been nothing.

She wasn’t sure why she thought her Cleanse would be any different. She wasn’t special. She wasn’t chosen as Skatia had been.

And she most certainly wouldn’t be surviving her trial.

Eyes staring into the nothingness above her, Talia lay there, unmoving, until the door flew open on a loud scrape of wood against stone. Rolling away from the door onto her side, she squeezed her eyes shut against the blinding light pouring into her dark, tiny prison.

“Today is the day,” came a familiar purr from behind her, and Talia relaxed at the sound of Skatia’s voice. She parted her lips to answer her mistress, but no sound came.

Her throat was too hoarse. Her mouth was too dry.

“Are you ready?” Skatia asked her after a small span of silence.

Talia nodded and pushed herself to a sitting position. She swayed from that minuscule physical effort alone, weakness clinging to her like wet fabric—heavy and damp.

Cautiously, she cracked open her eyes, slowly adjusting to the light.

“Did you hear Our Lady Below while you fasted?” her mistress asked her next, and Talia nodded again, more quickly this time .

It was easy enough to lie when one had an excuse not to speak. But still, Skatia’s eyes crawled all over her—those gloriously golden eyes she had always envied, beautiful and other.

Scouring. Searching.

She was too much of a coward to meet her mistress’s gaze in those moments.

“Good,” Skatia eventually declared, and some tension eased out of Talia’s shoulders. “Then let us go. Your trial begins shortly.”

After three days of doing little more than pacing and lying on a hard cot, Talia wasn’t sure how she could be so tired. But she certainly felt that exhaustion all the way to her bones when she rose to her feet and followed Skatia through the narrow doorway and out into the world.

Thirst gnawed at her, leaving her thoughts turned toward nothing but the burble of the fountain whispering in the distance. Her hunger had ebbed into a dull nothingness long ago. But the thirst? It was maddening—so much so, she almost didn’t notice the fact that she was being marched through the temple grounds by a couple of Witchsworn she had never seen before.

The towering brutes flanked her on either side, pressing in close as if wary she might try to escape her fate.

Talia pushed aside the twinge of hurt plucking at her heart at the realization Skatia thought she needed to be under guard. Perhaps it was simply a custom her mistress had to observe, as ordered by the Mother .

There was no way for Talia to know for certain. She had never witnessed another apprentice undergo their trial before. Only full-fledged witches could witness such a thing.

She had never heard of an apprentice trying to flee from their trial either, though. The trial was simply the way of things, once one was promised to the Order of the Sisterhood—either by choice or by misfortune.

One underwent the trial to become a full-fledged witch, and they either survived and joined the Sisterhood or they died in the attempt.

She had known for many years her fate was to be the latter.

Talia only vaguely remembered the day her father had brought her to the temple after her mother’s death. She remembered the day Skatia chose her as an apprentice with a good deal more clarity, though.

The wonder and the pain of it all were burned into her memory just as her mistress’s mark had been burned into her skin.

While she walked, Talia rubbed the brand stamped on her inner wrist. She traced the familiar ridges of her unique scarring until the movement soothed her growing nerves.

Like all apprentices and Witchsworn, she was branded with the mark of the Underworld, the domain of Our Lady Below—a crescent moon pointing upward, crowning an inverted mountain peak.

But as Skatia’s apprentice, she also bore the mark of her mistress’s personal sigil: a desert rose, which twined itself around the crescent moon of the Lady .

She had always thought it was a pretty addition.

But that day, she wondered if it was a premonition of sorts. A desert rose for her unmarked grave once her soul was taken to the Underworld and kept as an offering to the Lady.

That was what happened to those apprentices who failed their trial. Their souls became forfeit, mere sustenance for the Lady.

There was some comfort in that, she had always thought. The knowledge that even if she were not strong enough in life to be useful to the goddess, at least she could serve Her in death.

Stepping into the temple on that day of all days stole her breath as it ever did. Black and gold yawned all around—majestic and fathomless. Inky marble columns twined upward into infinity, disappearing into the darkness far overhead. Underfoot, the crescent moon and inverted mountain of the Lady were carved into the very stones and edged with gold to provide a glittering walkway which led her straight to her fate. On the walls was written the history of their Sisterhood: the story of the first witch led to the darkness and gifted extraordinary power by their goddess.

Glancing around, Talia swiftly counted the Sisters who had come to witness her failure. Their golden eyes all watched her through the dimness with the inscrutable intensity of predators. At the shoulder of each stood at least one Witchsworn, marked by the emblem of their mistress on their chest.

Some Sisters, though, had brought a full handful of Witchsworn with them.

The temple swiftly became claustrophobic .

Too many eyes followed her as she trailed in Skatia’s wake to the very center of the temple, where the Mother waited for them both. Eyes that had seen far too much over the years bore into her own as she reluctantly met the gaze of the wizened woman.

The Mother was so old, she had long since lost her own name.

She was simply the Mother, chosen by the Lady to guide the Order of the Sisterhood until her death, at which point another Sister would be chosen.

The Mother frowned when they stopped in front of her, as if she saw something in Talia’s eyes that displeased her.

Or perhaps she didn’t see anything at all.

The latter was a far more likely choice, Talia thought. Whichever it might be, she ducked her head to avoid further scrutiny.

“Sister Skatia,” the Mother addressed her mistress. “Is your pupil ready?”

“Yes,” came Skatia’s immediate reply.

At the feel of her mistress’s golden eyes skating across her form again, Talia straightened her back and lifted her head. At last, she met the gaze of her mistress—the woman who had raised her—and let those molten eyes pierce deep.

For the briefest of moments, Talia was certain Skatia had gifted her one of her rare smiles—a mere twitch of the lips and nothing more.

But perhaps that was simply the delirium.

“Seeker Talia,” the Mother addressed her, and Talia did her best not to sway on her feet as she looked back toward the much older woman. “Do you enter the trial of your own free will, knowing that to fail will result in the forfeiting of your life and the consigning of your soul to forever wander the Underworld?”

Talia nodded in response to the Mother’s words, which earned another frown from the high priestess. “You will speak when you are spoken to,” the Mother boomed with heightened authority.

That command echoed around the cavernous confines of the darkened temple with such strength and fury, every nearby candle flickered out of existence.

Talia swallowed as best she could and croaked out an answer of, “Yes.”

But even then, the Mother seemed dissatisfied. Eyes narrowed, the high priestess studied her for a few moments more. Assessing. Judging.

Clearly finding her wanting.

But there was no turning back now. For the past eighteen years, this was all Talia had lived for, ever since she was first apprenticed to Skatia at the age of six.

The certainty of a sacred death. With the slightest sliver of a chance that, perhaps, by the grace of the Lady, she might become something… more .

No further words were exchanged between them. A great hush fell over the temple as the Mother reached toward her and placed a weathered palm against her brow.

The moment the woman’s hand pressed to her skin, Talia reeled.

Her consciousness dimmed, and she crumpled like a discarded doll to the marble floor in a bone-jarring tumble of limbs .

In the moment before all went dark, she was almost certain she heard Skatia whisper a nearly soundless, “Do not fail me now,” in parting.

But that was probably just the delirium again.

The Underworld .

Talia knew that was where she was the moment she opened her eyes and saw darkness stretching all around her—impenetrable and murky.

It wisped about her form like tendrils of inky mist, bringing with it a chill that soaked deep into her bones and chipped away at what little strength she had left.

She swayed on her feet, unsure of when she had even stood up. But she was certain even the lightest breeze would send her toppling over again.

There was no breeze in the Underworld, though, she found.

There was simply…a presence .

She felt it rather than saw it, like eyes prickling across her skin. As the moments ticked by in further silence—a silence far more profound than any she had experienced during her Cleanse—fear slowly burbled to life within her.

She tried to choke it down. To chase it away.

A witch fears nothing , she reminded herself .

But that fear kept growing and growing all the same until Talia had to grit her teeth against the scream hammering at her throat, desperate to be free.

Are you afraid of the dark, child?

The voice oozed from the shadows, oily and thick. It took every ounce of her willpower to keep from flinching away.

Was that the Lady? It sounded like no woman she had ever heard.

It sounded like no man, either.

Words could not truly describe the bestial growl which somehow formed speech with neither mouth nor tongue.

“No,” Talia bit out through her clenched teeth, which earned for her a low rumble from the darkness.

It sounded unhappy.

Liar!

That single word cracked forth like the snap of a whip, bringing Talia to her knees. The force of it crushed all the air from her lungs. Her lips parted on a gasp that never came.

She struggled to breathe. She drowned in the weight of the darkness. Before too long, her vision blurred and blackened.

This was it. Her greatest failure.

And in record time.

When at last she had no more breath within her lungs, Talia swayed in place before going slack.

And then, she fell. But the floor was no longer there to catch her.

Talia fell into nothing, plunging into a deep and fathomless pool .

Breathless, speechless, she sank deeper and deeper into that oblivion. A vast emptiness whipped by her in a silent blur, punctuated by the flutter of the simple black dress she had been adorned with for this ceremony—for her funeral.

Take me, then , she whispered into the growing darkness of her mind. Just… take me and get it over with.

Is that what you want? the voice asked while she fell, while she existed in that narrow space between waking and one final, glorious sleep. For me to take you?

It was so close now, her death. So very close, she could nearly taste it. All she had to do was let go and let the darkness do the rest.

A tear crept its way from the corner of her eye, but it was swiftly swept away by her free fall. No , she admitted, her voice small and weak even inside her own mind. Like little more than the mewling of a kitten. Pitiful.

Far from the conviction of a powerful and fearless Seeker of the Sisterhood.

And yet, Talia didn’t want to die. She had never wanted to die. Not truly. She had always wanted so much more, though she never let herself dare hope for it.

The darkness showed her what she had always wanted in that moment, as if it pulled those long-smothered dreams directly from her heart and projected them around her in a panoramic vision of devastating proportions.

Visions of her , gloriously beautiful and bearing those haunting, golden eyes of the Sisterhood, rose around her, larger than life .

In the visions, she was a priestess fully fledged. In her hand, she wielded a soulblade. From her mouth spilled witchfire. At her side stood a man who could be no other than a Witchsworn, given his black clothing, though there was something slightly odd about his smile…something knowing. Something amused.

Something beyond the usual vacancy she would have expected.

At their feet, nations fell and dynasties burned. It was beautiful. It was everything she had ever wanted—to be someone . To mean something . To have power at last.

A power no one could take away from her.

Yes , Talia whispered in answer to the question the darkness never bothered asking. That was what she truly wanted. Not for the darkness to take her away.

She wanted power .

In the next moment, Talia’s free fall ceased so abruptly, her head snapped backward from the whiplash. For one fearful second, she thought her body might break in two from the force of it all.

But then something cold wrapped about her as tightly as any lover’s embrace, bundling her close, holding her firm. It might have been reassuring if it didn’t chill her all the way through.

And what would you be willing to do for this, Seeker Talia? What would you be willing to give for this dream?

Confusion nagged her as she hung there, suspended in the hold of the darkness. Was this truly the trial? She had expected a contest of strength and will, a battle against a demon, riddles she must solve.

Perhaps it is a test , she mused. A test of faith…or lo yalty…

She was met with only silence.

Are you truly Our Lady Below? Talia questioned at last, almost afraid of what the answer might be. She had never imagined her goddess would be like this .

But who else would be speaking to her down in the bowels of the Underworld?

Still, silence was her only reply.

It is a test of faith , Talia realized.

How many Seekers had succumbed to doubts within the dark? How many had succumbed to fear? How many had chosen release rather than the promise of power from an unknown presence?

But Talia knew this presence.

She had prayed to this presence every day since she was first apprenticed, even though her goddess had never once blessed her with an answer.

You are Our Lady Below. Talia named the darkness at last, no longer posing her words as a question. She was certain now. There could be no other.

Please … Talia called to the Lady as she reached her arms toward the impenetrable shadows, like a child begging her mother for a bit of attention.

Finally, a bit of attention.

Never had the Lady spoken to her. But here the Lady was now. Holding her . Speaking to her.

Tears welled in Talia’s eyes yet again as the gravity of the moment pressed upon her. Please…give me my dream and I’ll serve you and yo u alone…forever…and always…

The Lady’s response was immediate; the darkness’s hold on her tightened, promptly snuffing out what breath had seeped back into Talia’s lungs.

But that time, she didn’t suffocate for long.

Forever and always . Those words reverberated all around her, sounding with all the finality of a tolling bell.

Had she said the right thing? Had she passed?

Talia had her answer when she felt a soft pressure against her lips. A wind as hot as the sands of Dry Reach and just as unforgiving poured into her.

She couldn’t resist that heat. Nor did she want to.

It was a welcome reprieve from the chill, and each subsequent breath scorched her lungs, bringing with it something truly delicious she had never properly tasted before.

Power .

I gift to you the last of the dragonfire that once scorched all of Avirel , that dark and oily voice hummed directly into her mind and into her soul.

Talia’s body hummed with it, alive and hungry for more.

Dragonfire? The last of the dragons had all died out thousands of years ago.

But with great power comes great pain, she soon learned, as pure agony lanced itself through her eyes next. Arching her back against the Lady’s hold, Talia screamed. Her voice echoed into the furthest reaches of the Underworld, until she had screamed herself voiceless and went limp within her goddess’s embrace .

But even then, the pain lingered on—a thrumming reminder of the bargain that had been struck.

I gift to you my mark. May you carry it into the mortal realm with pride.

The mark? Her eyes? They were gold?

She felt silly in that moment as her heart fluttered at the thought. She had always envied those of the Sisterhood for their eyes. She had always hoped she might one day be just as beautiful.

From the darkness unfurled a low chuckle of all things, and heat bloomed in her cheeks.

Was the Lady laughing at her?

And lastly, I gift you with the ability to claim souls for yourself and for me. May you choose your servants well, Sister Talia.

A sudden pressure formed against her fingers, and she raised her hand to inspect this latest gift. Even within the darkness, she could see it plainly, though dark shadows themselves writhed down the length of it—a soulblade.

A soulblade of her very own.

It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, forged from some dark metal and honed into a wickedly sharp point. A dagger born from the Underworld itself. A dagger sporting a clear jewel in its hilt.

The jewel lay empty, empty and still, but she had seen Skatia’s own soulblade on more than one occasion. She knew how pretty it would shine once she had collected her own souls and made her own Witchsworn .

Forever and always , the Lady’s voice came to her again, in solemn reminder of the vow forged between them. Servant and goddess.

And then the strength of the darkness’s grip on her melted away.

She didn’t even have time to scream before she fell.

Talia came to with the scream that had gone unvoiced within the depths of the Underworld exploding from her throat. Leaping to her feet, she swung a confused glance about the temple.

The Sisters and their Witchsworn still stood there, waiting.

More than a few widened their eyes when they witnessed her awaken.

A deeper darkness had fallen across the temple in the time she had been in the trial. No glimpse of sunlight was now visible beyond the confines of their black marble palace.

How long had she been out? She had no measure of it.

But as she witnessed every Sister currently present dip her head in a show of respect, Talia had her confirmation at last.

She had passed. She was one of them.

When her gaze fell upon the Mother, Talia could have sworn she saw the elderly woman’s lips twitch in what could only be either surprise or displeasure.

Perhaps both .

But she didn’t have time to consider the matter further, as Skatia suddenly swam into view with a rare, brilliant smile curving her red-painted lips.

“Sister,” her mistress greeted her with great warmth. The kiss which fell against her cheek soon after was even warmer still.

Compared to the dragonfire the Lady had breathed into her, though, it might as well have been ice from the furthest reaches of the north.

“Sister,” Talia whispered, a strength in her own voice she had not been expecting.

Gone was her weakness. Gone was her fatigue. Gone was her thirst and hunger. She felt rejuvenated. She felt…reborn .

“I have a gift for you,” Skatia continued, sounding excited for once.

Curious, Talia turned and stared at the strange man who stood in front of her, trembling.

The scent of his fear was something new, but it was just as delicious as the new power coursing through her body. The way he looked at her, with equal parts awe and trepidation, sent her soul to humming in a way she hoped she never truly grew accustomed.

“Your first Witchsworn,” Skatia whispered in her ear.

But Talia frowned as she tilted her head to the side and gave this man another once-over. He was handsome, as all men of Arath were. Tall and chiseled from ebony. His hair was dark. His eyes were a rich umber she could easily become lost within. But…

This was not the man from her vision.

Soon , that dark and oily voice from before—the Lady herself—breathed into the very depths of her mind.

Talia nearly swayed off her feet in glorious reception. Tears threatened, but she swiftly blinked them away.

The Lady. The Lady was still speaking to her. At last .

Soon? The Witchsworn from her vision, the one who would help her bend the world to her will, would be with her soon?

Talia toyed with the soulblade still clasped within her right hand as she considered that thought. She supposed she had been waiting for him for eighteen years.

She could wait for him for some time more.

“Thank you, Sister,” Talia finally voiced aloud, her gaze finding Skatia’s once more. “…But I don’t know what to do with him.”

A whimper escaped the strange man’s throat as they discussed him as if he weren't even there. But the sudden laughter from Skatia’s lips seemed to put him even more ill at ease. His trembling became even more visible when his dark brown eyes skated a look between them.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” her once mistress purred as her long fingers wrapped about Talia’s right hand.

She didn’t resist the pressure of Skatia’s hold when the other woman guided her new soulblade until its dark tip rested just over the stranger’s heart.

His eyes flew wide.

“I’ll show you what to do,” Skatia promised as she gently released her hand .

When her new sister took a single step back to leave her alone with her quarry, Talia didn’t hesitate for a moment. She plunged her blade into the man’s waiting heart and claimed his soul for her own.