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H e’d find the Low One himself if he had to, and that was the way he preferred it. The way it should have been all along.

The centaurs’ attack was just the opportunity Lyre had been searching for to slip away from the group, and he did not hesitate to seize on it the moment it presented itself.

Raif was hardly devout; Rodney and the Red Woman, little more than infidels.

His god would not protect them. He would return to them eventually, when the time was right.

But until that time arose, until he’d had his chance to kneel before the Low One unencumbered by their presence, he was more at risk with them than he was on his own.

When he’d learned of Merak’s offer, he’d been almost giddy at the prospect of it: he’d heard of Elowas, read about it, but had never once imagined he’d see it for himself.

To open it again would be a great and terrible feat, and for the newly-appointed High Prelate to bear witness would set him apart from his predecessors before him. Set him above them.

Lyre’s lips curled into a smile that he didn’t attempt to suppress when he imagined the reception he’d be met with upon his return to the Undercastle.

His firsthand knowledge would make him a scholar; his face-to-face communication with the Low One, practically a deity himself. He’d be revered. He’d be remembered.

He continued to walk on through the darkness, unsure of where exactly he was walking to. But there was a breeze at his back, gentle and cold, and he let it steer him. It was a sign, undeniable and true.

Aisling was the only one he felt any amount of regret for leaving behind, if only because she was the easiest of the three to bend. Innocent and unfailingly kind, she’d played so easily into the plan he’d laid out for her, and far more unreservedly than even he’d foreseen.

“I can see you’ve made an error—a very human one, at that,” he’d chided her once he realized. “You’ve grown too close to the king. You’ve lost sight of why you’re here.”

Aisling had balked, but she had no defense. She’d only argued weakly, “You’re the one who encouraged me to get close to him.”

Lyre had said nothing of caring for him, but it worked in his favor either way. He was High Prelate, he was protected, and now he was in Elowas. His grin stretched wider.

The lilting breeze shifted, guiding him into a darker part of the forest. The trees grew closer together here, so that at times he had to turn his shoulders sideways to squeeze between them. He snaked through the wide trunks, back and forth. When the breeze stopped, Lyre stopped, too.

A small house stood in front of him. Less of a house than a hut, really. Lived-in, but not dilapidated. And familiar. Lyre moved towards it, drawn to the entrance. The handle was pockmarked and cool and whined when he turned it, stepping back to let the door swing open wide.

He was home—standing in the living room his mother had birthed him in, raised him in. And she stood there now before him with his father. They were tall.

He was a child again.

A knock sounded on the door behind him, sharp and insistent.

His mother beckoned to him and he ran to her side, his small hand moving instinctively to grasp hers as his father welcomed in their guests.

Three robed Prelates stood at the threshold, the one in the center stepping forward and lowering his hood.

Werryn nodded to them solemnly. He was young, too, his skin smooth and unmarred by the years that had taken their toll ever since.

“He is bright,” Lyre’s father said from above, “and curious. He reads and writes better than most his age.”

Lyre felt his chest swell with pride to hear his father speak of him this way.

To know that he, above all the other young males in the dominion, had been chosen for the great honor of learning to serve their god.

But despite that pride, something deeper in him stirred.

He remembered it, that feeling. He’d since learned its name, and how to rid himself of it.

Doubt , it was called. And it was almost stronger than he was at that age.

His mother nudged him to go stand with the Prelates, and Werryn laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. Lyre gazed up at them. He was so young, and so green. A sapling amidst towering, old-growth pines.

“He will live well with us,” Werryn assured his parents.

Lyre knew this moment exactly; it was etched into his mind. But before he could stop himself, as he’d managed to that night, he said, “I don’t want to go.”

Such a simple sentiment, and understandable.

He’d never left his home before. The words felt unfamiliar on his tongue, though he could recall them repeating loudly in his mind when his parents handed him over.

It was his own memory he was trapped in, Lyre suddenly realized, yet playing out differently than it had when he lived it for the first time.

Now, he was watching another outcome entirely.

“You will come with us,” another Prelate murmured, tone low and threatening. Lyre couldn’t remember his name, but he remembered hating him fiercely. “Your name has been recorded; He is expecting you.”

The doubt that Lyre had barely managed to overcome that night burned hot and angry in his stomach, a fire that he didn’t yet know how to quell. “No,” he argued. “I want to stay here. I don’t want to leave.” He couldn’t swallow the words before they slipped from his lips.

That same Prelate stepped forward, drawing a long blade from where it hung hidden beneath his cloak. He drifted to stand behind Lyre’s parents. They didn’t move, didn’t flinch. Just stood staring at him, a look of joy frozen on their faces.

“You will come with us,” the Prelate repeated, raising the blade to hover at his father’s throat. “Or we will take you with us.”

This wasn’t right—Lyre had never said those words. He hadn’t fought, hadn’t cried, though he’d wanted to. He hadn’t even looked back to wave goodbye to his parents as he’d ridden off in Werryn’s saddle.

But in this version, he shook his head adamantly. “I don’t want to go,” he said again.

The knife glinted and, before Lyre could comprehend the motion, his father lay still on the floor. Blood flowed thick and fast from the open wound bisecting his neck. His mother fell next, eyes dull and unseeing. Yet somehow, they still looked exceptionally proud.

You doubted me, a voice crooned in Lyre’s mind. It was the Low One’s voice, but different. Raw. As though the distance between Elowas and Wyldraíocht had acted as a filter before, softening and smoothing the edges.

He’d waited so long—so, so long—to hear that voice for himself.

He was skeptical of Werryn when the former High Prelate claimed the Low One spoke to him regularly.

Lyre had suspected his god had communed with Kael, but he never thought that the first time hearing His voice for himself would be so damning.

“Never,” Lyre swore. “I only ever doubted myself. I doubted that I was worthy of serving you.”

The voice chuckled, a low rumbling vibration that echoed in Lyre’s skull. You cannot beguile me so easily as you do others, Lyre Lorsan. I know you. I see you.

“I was young,” he tried, pleading now as his parents continued to bleed out before him, though their forms were beginning to fade away. “I was afraid. If I’d known then what I came to know, what I know now, I wouldn’t have been. I never would have questioned your will.”

The Low One hummed, the sound deliciously drawn out. It dragged a shudder down Lyre’s spine that ticked over each vertebra slow as dripping honey. You think you know of my will? You do not. I am not your god.

Lyre faltered, his expression shifting from one of awe to one of confusion. It was the first time in a long time—maybe ever—that he’d worn such an expression on his face. It felt terribly out of place there.

He shot to his feet, shaking off the last of that warped memory as he ran straight through his parents’ bodies, straight through the fading wall of his childhood home, and back into the forest. His robe snagged on a branch as he went, and he let the tree take it from him.

He didn’t need it. What he needed was to get out. To get back.

He had to reach the doorway before it closed.