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CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

I dreamed of Naro. We were children. I was nine years old, him thirteen. We were out in the deserts past the borders of Vasai, sitting on a rock that was hot with the remnants of the sun. It was late in the day. I had a chipped cup of pineapple juice in my hands, which Naro had stolen for me on our way out of town. Our lives were hard and sad, but in these moments, we were content.

I giggled at some over-exuberant story he was telling me, his gangly limbs flailing and freckled face contorted. He finished his imitation of the shopkeeper who’d run after us, a grand finale featuring a stumbling caricature of the man’s clumsy run, which had me rolling with laughter.

“Careful!”

Naro snatched the cup from my hands.

“We suffered for that, Vi. Don’t spill it.”

My laughter faded. Naro sipped the juice, staring off into the sunset. He was starting to look a bit like a man, in the right light, his jaw harsher and dotted with the beginnings of stubble.

“One day,” he said, “It won’t matter. Everything will be different.”

I knew that he was talking about a future in which we didn’t have to worry about spilled juice or what we would eat tonight, or where we would sleep, or whether tomorrow might finally be the day that one of Tarkan’s guards got us. But for some reason, the truth of that statement made a nauseous feeling coil in my stomach.

I shivered, suddenly cold.

“Yes,” I said. “That’ll be good. I can’t wait.”

Naro turned around and looked at me. His smile faded. His stare lingered for a long time, like he’d forgotten what he was about to say.

Then he replaced his lopsided grin and handed me the cup again. “But not now, alright?” he said. “And when it happens, you can’t forget this. None of it will matter if you forget this.”

I took a gulp of pineapple juice, relishing the sweet sting of it on my tongue. “This?”

“Who we are right now.” He rustled my hair, and I scowled and pushed his hand away. “Remember that, Vivi, alright?”

I didn’t like Naro talking to me like this. It was too sentimental of him. It made me feel like something bad was about to happen.

I stuck my toes in the sand and wiggled them around.

“Alright?” he said.

“Alright,” I said.

And it wasn’t until I agreed that the uncomfortable feeling came over me—the feeling that I had just lied to the most important person in the world to me. That not only would I not remember these times, I would one day crawl over rocks and sacrifice my body and give up my name all to make sure that I forgot , to erase this version of myself from existence.

A sudden panic fell over me. I should have said more to him—I should have given him the promise he really wanted. But when I turned to him, frantic, Naro was gone. The skyline of Vasai was in tatters. And the cup of pineapple juice was now full of rancid black blood.

I awoke in the Salt Keep.

The familiarity of the place hurt now. All the smells and sensations. My body recoiled from it .

The memory of what had happened in the Pythora King’s castle came back to me immediately.

The Pythora King.

The Sightmother.

I barely made it to the washroom before I emptied my guts, not that there was much to hack up.

I let myself stay there, leaning against the basin with shaky arms, for exactly ten seconds. Ten seconds to feel the panic and despair and fear.

That was all I could afford here, in the Salt Keep, where not even emotions were private.

That was all I could afford when there was work to do.

I straightened and washed out my mouth. Then I stripped off my clothes—still the dirty ones from my journey to the Pythora King—and left them in a pile on the floor.

I needed to think.

The Sightmother wouldn’t leave me alone long. Did the other Sisters know what had happened? The insecure part of me feared they did—what if everyone had always known, and I was the only one who never guessed it?—but my logical mind knew the answer had to be no. Information in the Arachessen was carefully controlled and even more carefully doled out. It was rare for anyone to know much of anything about other Sisters’ missions.

The sickening implications of this made my stomach lurch again, and I had to pause to swallow down another wave of vomit.

A knock sounded at the door.

I knew it was the Sightmother.

This was not the time to keep her waiting. And nakedness didn’t mean much to Sisters anyway, all things considered. Still, I was very conscious of how exposed I was when I went to the door and opened it.

The Sightmother took me in. I wondered if she sensed my unease, even though I was careful to hide it.

I thought instead of the Sightmother as the person I had so admired for the last fifteen years. I thought of the possibility of losing her, and my Sisterhood, forever. I let myself feel that unease, instead. An acceptable emotion to let her see.

“Yes, Sightmother?” I asked.

“Get dressed,” she said. “Your gown. Then come join me in my dining room.”

My dining room. She was inviting me to her private wing, in the upper levels of the Keep. I’d only been there once, and briefly. Few were allowed.

I wasn’t sure how to ask this question.

“Are the others?—”

“No. Just us.”

I couldn’t decide if I was grateful for that or not.

The Sightmother gave me a soft smile. Maybe I was looking too somber. “You are going to meet a goddess today, Sylina,” she said. “This is a gift most never get.”

Weaver, I felt sick.

But I returned her smile.

“I’m honored,” I said, and made myself believe it to be true.

She nodded back into my room. “Get ready. Be in the dining room soon. We don’t have much time.”

Every Arachessen had a single gown that was many times finer than anything else she’d ever worn. Usually, it was gifted to us on our eighteenth birthday, and then sat untouched in our closets for years after that. The gown was intended for one purpose alone: to be worn in the presence of our Lady of Fate, Acaeja.

Most never got the opportunity to wear their dresses. Actually, as far as I knew, none of my Sisters ever had.

Mine was red as blood.

The bodice was made of beaded lace, and the skirt of flowing silk chiffon. The hem where the bodice met the skirt was decorated with a series of tear-shaped beads, which were intended to resemble flower buds but now just seemed like drops of blood. The neckline wrapped around my throat, exposing my shoulders, with chiffon sleeves that dangled down my arms.

I could sense all these factual aspects of the dress, just as I could sense that it was incredibly well-made, certainly worth the large amount of money that had been spent on it. I couldn’t quite know how I looked in it, or if it was as lovely in that intangible way as it seemed like it would be.

As I brushed my hair and put on a fresh blindfold—red that perfectly matched my dress—I wondered if I looked beautiful. There was a certain appeal to leaving behind a pretty corpse.

Whatever the Sightmother was able to sense of my appearance, she must have been pleased, because her smile was one of genuine pleasure when I joined her in the dining room. She wore her gown as well, teal blue, just as ornate as mine. The room was large, the ceilings high and made of glass, revealing the red dusk of the sky above. But the table at its center was small, designed to sit no more than five people. Today, it was only set for two.

She gestured to the place setting across from her, and I sat down.

The food smelled incredible. I didn’t realize until now exactly how long it had been since I’d eaten fresh cooking.

The Sightmother sipped her wine glass. “Eat,” she said. She’d already started on her own meal, her steak half-gone. “You’ll need your energy tonight.”

I had no appetite. I daintily cut the meat and took a bite anyway. It was perfectly made, but tasted like ash.

“Thank you,” I said. “It’s very good.”

A waste of words. I had so many questions to ask. Some, I might be able to. Others were far too dangerous.

“It’s alright,” the Sightmother said softly.

My knife stopped moving.

“What, Sightmother?”

“I sense your fear, Sylina. There’s no shame in fear. I was terrified the first time I met Acaeja.”

I felt no lie in her words. Nothing but kind compassion.

I had still been partly convinced that she was going to kill me. But perhaps I could chance the questions I most desperately wanted answers to, if I asked them carefully.

I set down my silverware.

“I do have a question,” I said.

The Sightmother’s brow twitched over the ebony silk of her blindfold. “I’m sure you have many.”

“Why are you allowing me to do this when I disobeyed your orders?”

Her smile faded.

“Many people asked me, years ago, why I allowed you to stay at the Salt Keep,” she said. “Considering your age.”

Normally, every time someone mentioned the way I came to be here, I’d bristle with shame, like it was a terrible flaw being pointed out. Something unpleasant and bitter lingered on my tongue now, but it wasn’t shame. It was a different kind of anger, directed not at myself but at the Sightmother.

“The truth was that I saw such potential in you,” she said. “I saw... parts of myself, perhaps, in you. Even all those years ago. There can be beauty in what makes us unique. I sensed that what made you so could be a great benefit to the Arachessen.”

My hands shook slightly around my knife. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

It was what I had wanted to hear my entire life. That validation.

“It was always made very clear to me that my ten years before the Arachessen were a detriment to my position here,” I said, keeping my voice carefully level.

“In some ways. Yes.”

“But you never believed that.”

Another calm smile. “It isn’t so simple, Sylina. Something can be both a detriment and a strength. Suffering makes us strong. You, Sylina, have suffered so greatly. And you have grown so, so strong because of it—and because you had so much to prove. Complacency does not make anyone strong.”

I had to focus on keeping my breathing level. Needed to speak past the painful lump at the base of my throat.

Puzzle pieces, slowly, were clicking together, even though I hated the picture they revealed.

“Then you’ve done me a great service,” I said. “Just as you’ve done Glaea a great service. ”

For a moment I thought I’d pushed too hard, mentioning Glaea, my implication clear. But I kept my presence still, all those feelings of love and loyalty and gratefulness at the front of my mind. And at last, the Sightmother inclined her chin.

“Complacency does not create strength,” she said again. “Not in you. Not in Glaea, either. You have fire, Sylina. Think of a version of yourself who was not forged in those flames. Think of how soft you would be.” She shook her head. “That is not what’s Right for this country.”

Right. As if this is what Acaeja wanted for us.

I put my hands under the table, folded over my lap, terrified they would betray me. I could control my presence, but damn if I could control those shaking hands.

“It’s... a shock,” I said. “The truth of the king.”

“I know. It will take time to come to terms with it.”

“How long…?”

The rest of the question faded into too many others: How long has the Pythora King been dead? How long have you been ruling over a never-ending war? How many deaths are on your hands?

My sister’s? My mother’s?

“Does it matter?” she asked.

Yes , I wanted to say. It matters more than anything. But instead I lowered my chin, as if to concede. “No. I suppose it doesn’t.”

“A long time,” she said. She took another sip of her wine. The smell of it was too pungent—it was a ceremonial drink, I was sure, likely loosening her lips and her inhibitions in preparation for the ceremony she’d soon have to perform.

“Who else knows?”

I dreaded the answer to this question. Because despite everything, they were my Sisters.

“The Sightmother who came before me,” she said. “Two of my highest advisors. And now, you. It’s... a truth most aren’t ready to understand. I’ve gone through great lengths to protect it.”

I thought of the various Sisters who had been shunned from the Arachessen, punished with death and dismemberment for crimes never disclosed to us. I wondered whether any of them had simply been removed for knowing too much.

“Yet you’re letting me live,” I said.

“I told you, child, that we would need your fire for what’s ahead.” The smile she gave me was so warm, so loving—so sickeningly genuine. I could even feel her pride and affection in her presence. “Do you know what your name means, Sylina? It means bringer of rebirth , in the tongue of the gods. I saw your greatness when I meditated on you, that day I brought you here and found that name for you. Fate is ever-changing. I wasn’t sure if you would come to fulfill those expectations. But now, I believe that you can. The offering you’ve brought us has convinced me of that. That’s why I want you here to meet Acaeja with me. Because you are the future of the Arachessen. The flame in which we forge the next version of ourselves. I saw that fifteen years ago, and I see it even more clearly today.”

My eyes stung. The lump in my throat had grown unbearable. If I opened my mouth, I’d sob.

The Sightmother held out her hand, and I laid mine in hers. Her thumb rubbed comforting circles over my skin.

“You have won, Sylina,” she murmured, her voice cracking. “Now come with me, and help me forge this new world.”

She swallowed the last of her wine in a single gulp, then rose.

When she held out her hand for me again, I took it.