Page 109 of The Lost Reliquary

“I told you, Lys. I don’t force anyone into service.” His eyes are forgiving as they meet mine, but hard. “If you say no, that’s your choice. You’ve proved that you know how to keep a secret. But”—his words take on an sharp note—“this offer only comes once. Decline and you’ll never see the reliquary, or me, ever again. I’ve been patient this long, I can be patient a little longer. The rise and fall of another of Tempestra’s avatars is the blink of an eye to a god.”

But not for me. That part hangs in the air, thick as incense.

Avery escorts me out of the cliffs, through walls and passages that stay where they should be this time. Not that I would have noticed—there’s a lot on my mind as we make our way through the maze. New gods and old, truths and deceptions, enough to keep me pensively silent until we reach the crevasse that leads back out to the city.

There, I pause. “How long have you been a part of this?”

My question seems expected. “Since shortly after a kind man took me off the streets and offered me a purpose.”

Offered. Not “gifted.” Not forced.

“Why bother with Nolan at all? Why not just give me the reliquary when I asked for it and cross your fingers?”

“There are only so many chances we can spend. If our next fails…” He takes in a breath and holds it before freeing it again. “You are our best chance to destroy Tempestra-Innara, by far. But if you fail, so do we. Only divinity can destroy divinity, and what might be used to stand against the Goddess didn’t work in the way we’d hoped. We wanted you to know the real stakes, and how important your decision was. Which means you needed the truth.”

No pressure. “You’re really on board with all of this?”

“I would have been in Emmaus’s place, if I could have.”

It’s an unpleasant image, Avery’s gentle features contorting into the monstrous. The same thing might happen to me if I agree to Rion’s terms. Of course, there are other kinds of monsters I might become. Might already be.

“When you’ve made a decision,” he says, “light a candle and put it in your window. Then, go to Tempestra-Innara’s shrine.”

“Got it.”

“Lys… I know this is a lot to consider. But you could help us rebuild the entire world.”

Not my goal, or my concern. But Avery looks so damn imploring. “You know, since I learned about the one thing that might help me kill a goddess, I thought I’d have to tear it from the grip of some zealot’s corpse. It wasn’t until you showed up that I considered you might hand it over willingly.”

He gives me a fragile smile. “There’s more places to put faith than in the divine, Lys. You trusted me enough to bring you to where we stand now. Why is it still so hard to believe we’d put our faith in you too?”

Avery’s sentiment catches me like a bludgeon—foolish, unfounded sentiment that it is—the weight of it pressing heavy on my chest. Confidence in my skills as a killer is one thing, but he actually seems tobelieve that I’m the crucial missing piece in their crusade. And maybe I am.

Or I might be another failure waiting to happen.

We slip back out into the night, climb down to the base of the statue. I scan the area quickly, training and habit taking command, but it’s as shadowed and deserted as when I arrived. “I can find my way back from here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Are you going to protect me if I’m ambushed?”

Avery smiles at my joke, but what do I know? Maybe the favor of a god means he could, somehow. But he doesn’t argue, only gives me a hopeful nod and returns to the tunnel entrance.

Good. I need some time alone, to think. Because I have no godsdamned idea what to do. I don’t. And it leaves a slimy pull in my stomach, tightens the muscles in my shoulders so much that my shoulder wound begins to ache again. My plan made sense when one fact sat as a cornerstone: that Tempestra-Innara was the most powerful force in existence. But now? That must be technically still true, if Osiron desires my help. Theywantme. Ineedthe reliquary.

Except… new gods. I’ve known the Flame. What is left of the Storm, Green, Salt, Stone…? What new forms might these new deities take? What, like Osiron seems to think, could they offer?

What could they take away?

Fragments of possibilities roil, some hopeful, others fearsome, too many impossible to label. For all the deaths of a god I have imagined, I can’t seem to picture the new life of one, no matter how important it is to the choice I’ve been given. Maybe if I had weeks, months to consider…

But I do not have the luxury of endless time. Or even enough of the human sort.

And if I say no to one god now, I belong to another forever.

Forty-three

There are those followers that are fickle, moving from Storm to Shadow to Stone, with only one desire driving their choices: to bask in the presence of the divine.