Page 77 of Scourged

“That is …” She exhaled heavily, still staring at those eyes.

“I know,” Mariah whispered. “But it’s true. And you know it.”

Ryenne closed her eyes. Breathed again. And nodded.

“I do. I do know it.” She reopened her eyes. “Do you know what it means? To carry the magic of the goddess of life and the goddess of death?”

“No.” Mariah turned back to the mountains. “Do you?” There was a subtle, hopeful note to her question. As if she truly believed Ryenne might have the answers she sought. The answers to who she was and why she existed.

But Ryenne could not lie to her. Not now, not anymore.

“I am sorry, Mariah. I do not.”

The two women stood on that balcony for several minutes in silence, lost in their thoughts and the impossibility of the future that now stared back at them.

“I want to discuss my coronation.” Mariah’s voice, hoarse and tired, broke the silence.

Ryenne again rested her hand on Mariah’s arm. “Whenever you are ready, so am I.” Another pause. “The final bond happened … there, didn’t it?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mariah’s nod. She didn’t pry further; there was no need. She could feel the magic, could feel the change in her very aura.

“I carry one final drop of magic with me. At the coronation, it will become yours. And it will be done. My connection to the earth will end, and my Armature and I will be at rest. Onita will be yours until Qhohena wills it otherwise.”

“Until Qhohena wills it otherwise,” Mariah echoed, still staring at the mountains.

A sound burst through the doors behind them. Something exuberant, and filled with tears, and carrying the faint scent of saffron and cinnamon and cloves.

“Lassie!” Mikael’s bright voice echoed across the balcony, and Mariah whirled. Tears leaped into her eyes, and with more emotion than Ryenne had seen from her, she jolted forward, straight into the cook’s arms.

“Mikael,” Mariah choked out through sobs. “I am so fucking happy to see you.”

“Oh my, dearie,” Mikael said, his tears streaming down his freckled face, his usual brown band of leather holding his unruly shock of orange hair from his face. “If you were that hungry, all you had to do was send for me earlier.”

As Ryenne watched the merry reunion, and then joined them for a full breakfast, as she watched Mariah shovel food into her mouth with a desperation that twisted her heart, she wondered how many more mornings like this she would have.

With Mariah, Ciana, Mikael, and Kalen engaged in happy conversation, Ryenne glanced out the balcony window. A smile touched her lips at the golden Attlehon eagle perched upon the railing, watching the festivities within. It met her gaze, blinking once, before lifting into the sky, visible for a few moments until its feathers shifted it into the brightness of morning.

Chapter 31

Mariah’s gaze swept her bedroom, Ciana’s tinkling laugh as she said goodbye to Mikael slipping past the closed door.

She’d excused herself a few minutes ago after Ryenne and Kalen had left. As she’d finished in the bathroom, she meant to rejoin them, but something held her back.

She hadn’t yet had a moment to herself within these four walls. She’d bathed, then slept, but there’d been no lingering. Not a second to pause and breathe and try to figure out who she used to be, before everything. Who she was now.

The plush white rug beneath the massive, quilted bed. The arching window, with a cushioned seat below. The marble floors and gilded walls, shimmering with royal, ancient decadence.

Ten queens before her had called this room home. What gave her the right to reside here, too? Despite her confident words to Ryenne, she was no queen.

Not yet.

Her feet moved to her nightstand of their own accord. Her fingers wrapped around the leather pommel, sliding the silver blade from its red leather sheath. The dragon wings on the cross guard gleamed in the paleallumelight.

Mariah remembered the night she’d taken this dagger. How she’d scaled the walls of Lord Donnet’s keep, slipping into a poorly guarded room, plundering his trove, and taking her fill before leaving that town forever.

That sack of stolen gold still lay beneath her bed. Right next to …

Mariah strapped the dagger to her thigh, its weight the first welcomed familiarity, before dropping to all fours and peering under her bed.

---