Page 31

Chapter

Nineteen

I’m twenty minutes into my game room exile when I really start to get worried.

I told myself that I’d spend the time drawing or brainstorming new character ideas, but within five minutes of pacing circles around the living room I’d already scrolled through several D it’s a privilege.

She embraces the magic of possibility, of opportunity, of luck.

She is bold and brave, and she doesn’t look back.

As my throat gets unexpectedly tight and my vision blurs, footsteps pad down the hall toward me. They aren’t the familiar quick, quiet steps of Liam in his house shoes but the heavy footfalls of boots. Noah appears from around the corner in his Docs.

He gives me a tentative smile. “Liam told me to come get you. To ask you to come back.”

“Is Jaylie going to be okay?”

There’s a beat of silence. “You’ll have to come see.”

I inhale shakily. Noah watches me expectantly, and I take a moment to study his features, to capture them in my mind.

His stance is tense, almost energetic—just on the edge of something.

His blue eyes are crinkled at the corners, and I just barely catch the way his mouth curves up on one side in a small, hopeful smile.

Something in my chest unfurls, like a flower stretching toward the sun.

Whatever time Jaylie has left—whatever time I have left with this campaign, this town, these people…I want to make the most of it.

“Noah.” My voice is soft. “I’m sure.”

He blinks a little, and then the furrows bracketing his eyes suddenly deepen as he smiles. He stretches out his hand toward me.

I lace our fingers together and don’t let go.

Jaylie stands next to a well. It’s familiar, built with gray stones worn smooth by long years of use. Though she cannot remember how she got here, she can’t help but smile to see it again.

It’s the well where she first made her escape.

A decade ago she stole her handmaid’s drab uniform and snuck out of her locked tower room to run for the rolling green hills past her father’s estate.

She didn’t know where she was going or how she would get there—all she knew was that she had no choice but to leave.

Better to make a run for it than to marry the old, cruel man her father had promised her to—a union meant to solidify their trade partnership.

Jaylie remembers hearing the guards behind her raise the alarm to signal that the heiress was missing, and she collapsed next to the well and threw in a handful of coins.

“Please, get me out of here,” she had gasped between sobs. “I’ll go anywhere. I’ll do anything—I swear it.”

Marlana had saved her then. One of the goddess’s clerics had given her shelter and then a new name and a new life in the temple of Belandar. Jaylie had never looked back.

Now, ten years later, Jaylie peers into the well again.

She must be in a dream, of course. She has not set foot on her father’s land since the day she left.

All around her, servants and guards busily pace the length of the yard, dressed in the mustard-yellow livery Jaylie always hated.

Women chatter with buckets of water in hand while stable boys give the horses their breakfast. No one takes notice of Jaylie.

In fact, they don’t seem to see her at all.

Dressed in her ceremonial garb, with wide pink sleeves that brush the dirt and a deep hood embroidered with dozens of dangling coins, Jaylie should be the glowing center of attention.

Instead, she is undisturbed as she watches her reflection ripple in the well’s depths.

“You’re a lucky girl, my dear. You’re getting a second chance.”

Jaylie startles. The voice is resonant and rich—and it’s coming from the bottom of the well. Jaylie peers suspiciously again into the water, but her reflection is the only thing to look back.

When Jaylie straightens again, she nearly jumps out of her skin. The yard is suddenly empty of all souls save for herself and a stranger standing next to her.

She’s beautiful.

It’s the first thought in her stunned mind.

Standing a good two heads taller than Jaylie, the woman is resplendent in rippling robes of cream, peach, and gold.

Dark gold medallions clasp the fabric at each of her shoulders and hang in a shining belt at her waist. Her skin, too, is dark gold, and the blaze of her red hair falls in perfect ringlets past her waist. Jaylie has never seen her before—but she has seen her likeness reproduced in a dozen different ways.

Woven into massive tapestries. Painted on tiny keepsake canvases.

Patiently pieced together in great windows with stained glass of red and gold.

Stamped onto the face of every coin in Jaylie’s possession.

The priestess falls to her knees and presses her forehead to the dirt. “My Lady,” she gasps.

“My cleric,” Marlana says warmly. “Please, stand. We must speak.” She gathers Jaylie’s hands in her own and helps her to her feet. Marlana’s skin is inhumanly warm. Jaylie feels as if she’s standing before a hearth in the middle of an inn. It makes her feel safe.

Marlana leads Jaylie to the other side of the well and leans gently against its foundations, facing away from Jaylie’s father’s squat little castle.

The two women peer into the distance to where the setting sun has painted the tree line with rays of orange and pink.

Staring out across the fields of wildflowers and into the forest, Jaylie can almost imagine that she’s somewhere else entirely.

“What am I doing here?” she asks. “What happened?”

“You died, my love.” Marlana’s lips move, but Jaylie hears the goddess’s voice envelop her from all directions. It’s the only sound in the world.

“Oh.” She can’t think of anything else to say; she can barely remember how it occurred.

She recalls magic coursing through her veins, freezing her solid, and then nothing at all.

She tries to look directly into the sun.

So close to the horizon, she can almost stare at it without squinting. “What happens next?”

“You have a decision to make.” Marlana reaches for Jaylie’s fingers and holds them between her palms. Jaylie’s hand is dwarfed in Marlana’s, but it’s a soothing gesture.

“You can choose to leave this realm, and I will guide your spirit on to the next. Your soul would rest for a time. Then one day, if you are lucky, it could be reborn.” Marlana gestures toward the forest at the edges of Jaylie’s father’s land.

A narrow dirt path that Jaylie does not remember from her childhood leads directly into the sunset.

She imagines she can see a ripple of water in the distance, beckoning her. Tempting her.