Page 126 of The Lost Reliquary

It’s not, I want to say. Toscream.

But I would be lying.

“And you have many gifts,” they continue. “To which I will add one more: the gift of mercy, so that you may repay what you’ve done, and serve your blood brethren and me as you were always meant to do.” Tempestra-Innara reaches out with one slim finger and pushes my chin up, so that they can peer into my eyes. As much as I crave their touch, this time it feels like a shiv held to my throat. But I can’t move away.

“Your strength, cunning, and persistence are undeniable. And these will serve us well, when you become my new avatar.”

Forty-nine

There is glory in the choosing of an avatar. The awakening of a new era. And, for the chosen vessel, another, greater gift than they have ever been given: the gift of eternity.

—WRITINGS OF PRIOR SUPERIOR RADHICK

WHAT.

The fuck.

That’s what Iwantto say, but speech is gone, strangled by disbelief, as tight and draining as a mortal wound. Only the smallest sound escapes. “No.”

The Goddess’s patient expression doesn’t flicker.

“No,” I say again. “No.”

Innara is dying.I hear Nolan’s voice as if he’s spoken aloud. I look to him, his attention finally on me, only to see a knowing, tired expression. He knew. Theyallknew. Even though I’m suddenly the Goddess’s most favored, I’m also the last to be told that my body, my mind, is to be co-opted, invaded, and stolen away. And that not only am Inotbeing executed, but I will likely live another century or more.

Except not me, not really. I’ll be absorbed by Tempestra, a slowly devoured meal.

I jerk away from the Goddess’s touch, skin crawling. “Burn me, gutme, string me up in front of the Cathedral as a message. But I won’t be your cursed puppet.”

“It’s what you’d deserve,” the Prior Superior snaps, speaking for most of the room, myself included. “You are being given a gift you don’t even begin to—”

“Shh.” The command slips softly between Tempestra-Innara’s lips. The Prior Superior obeys. “You aren’t going to die, Lys. Not for a very long time.”

I grip the bars again, pulling myself close. “Please… Mother…” A plea, a sad, pathetic prayer that grinds what little pride I have left beneath its heel. “Please, if you love me in the way you claim you do, you won’t do this.”

A delicate chuckle. “OfcourseI love you. I have loved you from when I looked into your eyes, saw what lay there, in the very depths of you. For all your disobedience, your defiance, the kernel of what I search for in my children was always there. And as I had hoped, it grew. Oh Lys…” They are as patient with me as with a fussy child. “I promise that you will not feel this way after. When we are bonded, entwined, and our thoughts become one, you will understand.”

Thoughts…

Fuck fuck FUCK.When Tempestra takes up residence in my brain, they will know me…allof me. Disregarding the particularly long list of fantasies about murdering them, there’s one other very choice tidbit that they will find interesting.

And that will be bad. Very,verybad.

I struggle to keep calm, measured, though it already feels as if I am losing pieces of myself, even before the Goddess gets their divine claws into me.

But before I am fully gone, my betrayals will be complete.

Tempestra-Innara.

Nolan.

And finally, Osiron.

A traitor to all. What follows then, when Tempestra learns about the Whisperer? Another war? Something worse?

I knew killing the Goddess would bring chaos. I didn’t expect failing to do so would too.

I have to stop what’s coming. For me. For everything. I can fight… but I will lose. That’s what Osiron said, wasn’t it? That the avatar possession need not be permanent, but also that the divinity gets who they want, when they want it. Whatever chances I had to win this game are already long spent.