Page 37 of Of Sins and Sacrifice

Damn it!

“Minerva, this is Groyo from the House of Moirai.”

I nibble on my lip.

“H-hello,” I murmur guiltily.

“I suppose you know why you have been summoned here, do you not, Lady Minerva?” Groyo asks.

I bite my lip as I sneak a glance at Kai. He’s wearing a somber expression, his hands behind his back as he distances himself from me.

Not wanting to show any favoritism. Got it.

“Uhm, not really?” I force a smile.

With a wave of his hand, Groyo unveils a golden silk veil with one flickering dot.

“This human was supposed to have died twenty-three hours, forty-five minutes, and thirty-four seconds ago.” He pauses. “The human is still alive.”

“Oh, is that so?” I murmur.

Another wave of his hand and the golden veil turns into a canvas featuring a moving picture. The lighting is much better here than it was at the actual site of the incident, and I canclearly see myself reach into the mass of rubble to pull out a little girl.

Oh damn. How did they get this footage? It’s not as if there were cameras around. Then again, I’ve never had to deal with the House of Moirai before, and according to rumors, they are all-seeing.

This is what happens when I break the rules. I’m caught.

“All right. I helped her,” I admit. It’s not as if I can deny it when the evidence of my misdeeds is staring right in my face. After all, I knew about the potential consequences, did I not? And yet, I still chose to get involved.

“You didnothelp her,” Groyo says, his voice booming in the empty building. “You thwarted her fate and made us work overtime at the House of Moirai to undo the damage you have caused.”

“What do you mean?” I frown.

“The girl will die, as she was meant to. But we were unable to schedule her death until one hundred and five days from now.”

“So you fixed it. She’s still going to die.”

Groyo glares at me.

“No, we didnotfix it, as you say it. It means she is going to live one hundred and five daysmorethan she should have.”

“But she’s still going to die,” I add weakly.

He gives me another harsh glare.

“It means that someone else died in her place to maintain the balance, Minerva,” my brother mentions.

“General Molokai is correct. So not only you didnothelp, since someone did end up dying, but you also made it more difficult for the House of Moirai as we sought a way to ensure that human will die on the exact same day the human who died in her stead would. I cannot even begin to tell you how many threads we had to unravel to make that happen.”

My lips flatten. I didn’t think of it that way. Damn it all, I really messed up, didn’t I?

“We cannot, of course, let this go. It is our duty to ensure that the threads of fate run their course accordingly. It is for that exact reason that deities are not allowed to interfere in mortals’ fates.”

“What?”

“You need to be punished for your misdeeds, Minerva,” my brother says.

“But—”

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