Page 41 of The Garnet Daughter (The Viridian Priestess #3)
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
A glowing light filters in through my closed lids, the utter darkness of our camp replaced with the warm hue of a campfire we did not start.
I squint and find steady, dancing flames on the previously abandoned rock circle, the charred logs no longer covered in a layer of sand but ablaze, burning brightly.
I rub at my eyes to rouse myself from the sleep I did not welcome and take in the details of our changed surroundings.
Even the air is different as I breathe it in, colder and thinner.
The plateau has morphed into something else, like a veil has lifted.
“August.” I shake him lightly. I’m unable to sense how long we slept, but it is deep into the night, possibly closer to dawn than dusk. “Wake up.”
He sits up abruptly, patting the ground next to him with one hand, searching for his weapon, and reaching for me with the other. The gun is missing, and even the waterskin that sat at my hip is gone.
“Did you start a fire?” His eyes are bloodshot when they focus on me, wild and startled at how different our camp looks before sleep took us over.
I shake my head.
He quickly stands, lifting me with him, but before I can even firmly plant my feet on the ground, we hear a noise on the other side of the plateau, a gentle rustle just out of the reach of the firelight.
Glowing eyes examine us with unnerving fascination as August tries to tuck me behind him.
The shadowy figure of the old god we came for steps forward, the taloned feet it walks on changing to a delicate human form.
The wings tucked close against its body, tall and arching, fade into the shadows, and as they shimmy downward, the feathers transform into cascading black hair.
Omnesis’s human form mimics a small woman, her eyes bright blue and piercing, face and teeth a little too sharp. I only saw this form briefly when she rose from the deep break in the floor of the temple before blue light transformed her into the truth of what she really is.
“Fear not, divine child,” she says in the language of the gods. She stands within the flickering light of the fire and then speaks again with a voice that echoes inward, chilling me down to the marrow. “The wind remained balanced until you began your journey to my temple.”
August is tense next to me, slowly glancing around to locate his missing weapon while trying to keep his eyes on Omnesis.
“It’s alright,” I whisper to him, realizing I need to translate her words. I can’t even imagine how they sound in his own ears. “She knew we were coming.”
If she wanted to kill us, she could have long ago. We made it through her ward, or perhaps she let us in, and now she stands before us as human, in the best way she can reflect. For reasons I am not sure, fear does not manifest within me, but a sensation closer to awe does.
“Do you claim the company you keep?” She glances at August and then back to me, as if confused by our contrasting reaction to her.
I step out of the comforting protection behind his body and take his hand. “Yes, I claim him.”
His expression is a mix of terror and trust as I whisper that it is alright to him again.
“You have nothing to fear. The human woman you traveled with was going to kill you. Her balance tipped too far for too long. The only relief in her demise was on the scales of her future victims,” she tells him directly, sensing the reason for his reluctance.
I get a flash in my mind of Sav’s face, the sounds we heard that night, but push the memory away, wanting to believe what Omnesis said. Her gaze is on me again, observing and waiting.
I translate, but August squeezes my hand, not convinced by the old god’s reassurance. He can see her as I can, more vulnerable in this form she presents to us. But it’s clear he doesn’t feel the calm of this place, the peaceful ebbing coming from the ancient rocks around us like a gentle heartbeat.
“Do you know who I am?” I ask, hoping she recognizes me.
She nods. “Your words were spoken in haste, not with care and even tone. I heard them fail. You freed me by divine accident. The mistake was not solely in the words, but also the third vessel in the ritual, the one that succumbed. You grieved when you saw me liberated because of the cost, a sacrifice of life, ever exchanging energy.”
The old god’s recounting of the ritual is like a slap across my cheek, a cold, striking reminder of my failure.
“Crixa, the highest priestess, had passed. We were desperate to replace her protection.” Thea’s yelp of surprise before she fell through the floor rings in my ears.
“I felt her ward around the city snuff itself out. The one around my cage faltered, but the many captors took over. She was a powerful divine child, but nothing compared to the one who claimed me for their own . . . or the one who freed me.”
How long had Omnesis been under the Estate, caged and locked away for the Temple of Divine Mothers to carry out their rituals? How many falsely divine priestesses did they truly create in that time? We counted hundreds in the birth records before we ran out of time to submit them.
Omnesis squats down, wrapping her arms around her bent knees.
The way she looks up at us from across the fire is so disarmingly human, even August loosens his grip on my hand.
“My temple’s ward could not decipher if you came to kill me or bring an offering, the balance of both fluctuating to the point of intrigue. Tell me, why have you come?”
“The other . . . vessel in the ritual. Her name is Ferren, and she is very dear to me,” I stammer.
“One of many forced into divination while the balance keeper remained deep, deep below.”
“Yes, my elders believe you will balance the tilt your captors created. I have come to ask you for mercy, not only because they are innocent of what their temple has done to them, but also because they are needed in the coming days . . . and every day after.”
“So much power siphoned from the worlds into that temple.”
I stand straighter. “The means were not just, but each of them will protect the stones from First Son.”
She finally looks me in the eye, her expression flat and observing. “You have come to make an offering in exchange for the falsely divine lives?”
“If needed.”
“If I were a lesser god, I would not remind you of the tilted balance between us when you freed me.” She adjusts the stones around the fire circle before drawing in another breath to continue.
“The priestess order’s balance will be restored slowly over time.
Divinity cannot be created or multiplied.
Their numbers will dip, and they will become weakened.
I am not the god of death, only balance, and some scales take eons to right.
Even now, in this moment, there are scales balancing, ones tilted at the very beginning.
Humans assume the universe works quickly, perhaps because your lives are so short.
I am fond of watching you build and destroy.
Again and again. As if the laws and rules you humans make hold any meaning to the stars in the sky or Mother, who sleeps.
But each time you rebuild, you create an ever-fluctuating balance. ”
Omnesis waves her hand back and forth absently, but all I can focus on is Ferren.
“You will not harm her? Yet you called her an abomination.” My tone is more demanding than I intend.
August shifts next to me, leaning in and hoping for some clue of what she is saying.
“And yet you understood the language of the gods.” She smiles, her teeth sharp and spaced widely. “She is an abomination in more ways than you know, but I will not harm her. Surely this is not the only reason you have come.”
I step back, a raw, exposed nerve struck with blinding precision.
Questions I did not know I needed answered hurl themselves behind my eyes, leaving them lined with water.
If I asked, would she know what the source of the voice I have heard is or why I understand her language?
I can sense Omnesis trying to unravel the walls I have erected to protect myself from paths that do not serve our mission.
“What did she say?” August whispers, his posture stiff, as if he is worried by my sudden energy shift.
“She isn’t going to kill the priestesses born in the Temple of Divine Mothers. Ferren’s safe.” I gulp on air.
She perks up as if fascinated he has spoken, her smile hissing across the plateau.
“Where is Cosima’s stone?” I capture her attention again, determined to stay on task.
“I can answer any question asked so long as the answer does not deviate from the path my balance has drawn. I will do so, as to begin to tilt ours back to harmony, my debt for freedom. But not here.” She stands slowly, turns her back to us, and walks toward the cliff wall behind her.
A carved, stone stairway comes into view from nothing at all, the orange glow of the fire illuminating it as it makes itself solid into the space. She gestures me forward to follow her up the ancient-looking passage.
“Bring the human male with you,” Omnesis calls over her shoulder. “Every cell in your body vibrates with imbalance when he is not near you.”
Suddenly, I’m frozen, my mind firing every nerve ending and disabling my ability to speak or even comprehend what she is saying.
“Callia,” August whispers next to me. “Does she have Cosima’s stone?”
“She wants us to follow her.” I search his face, still a little flustered.
He nods patiently, so calm and solid it’s impossible to panic. My heart surges with affection. He is here with me; I am not alone.