Page 69 of Flame and Sparrow

Don’t be alarmed if it begins to fade.

I could already feel the scars starting to emerge beneath whatever magic Mairu had covered them in, I thought.

I clenched my fingers into a fist and jerked it back down to my side.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, quietly but firmly. “I spoke the truth that day on the platform—I intend to serve in your court. I will become divine, or I will die trying.”

Chapter20

Dravyn didn’t arguewith my declaration, but his eyes grew distant, glassy with an emotion I couldn’t name.

“Then it’s settled,” came the voice of the Ice God as he suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. “How exciting.”

“The doors below were left open for Mairu, not for you,” Dravyn told him, tonelessly.

“That’s terribly rude.”

The God of Fire offered no apology.

They continued to chatter and bicker for a moment while I studied them, wondering how beastly they’d looked when they first ascended. How long had it taken them to settle their power? How long had they both been human-like, as they were now, and able to converse so easily as this? They seemed to fight like well-acquainted siblings, I thought.

“Don’t look so worried about it,” Valas was saying. “It’s been some time since we’ve had an ascension trial, but I think this one will go better than the last one.” He shrugged, and with his sly, chaotic smile, he added, “I mean, it can’t go muchworse,can it?”

Dravyn shot him a warning glare.

“What happened at the last trial?” I asked.

Dravyn shook his head. Valas appeared eager to keep talking, but neither had a chance to answer my question—the Serpent Goddess appeared as suddenly as her fellow court member had, interrupting us with her smooth, powerful voice. “Valas, my sweet,” she called.

The Ice God lazily tilted his head toward her.

“Do you remember the time your magic slipped out of your control and encased your big stupid head in ice, mouth and all?”

He grimaced. “A painful, traumatic memory of my second divine year, yes—thank you so much for bringing it up.”

“I wish it had been permanent,” she informed him. “At least over your mouth.”

He clutched a hand to his heart, and in a wounded voice he said, “You’re both incredibly rude. We’re supposed to be a team, you know.”

Dravyn was, again, unapologetic. “We need to discuss some things before the meeting later,” he said to Mairu. “If you’d like to be a part of theteam,” he added with a cursory glance at Valas, “then you can help the servants prepare for the arrival of our guests.”

“Delighted to, of course,” said Valas with a mocking little bow. “That isn’t degrading work for a middle-god, at all.”

Dravyn nodded toward me while keeping his glare on Valas. “And no more games with her,” he warned. He was gone in the next instant, disappearing through one of the doors along the room’s edge.

Valas wasted no time turning to me, looking all too eager to play another game. “So you met the God of Death,” he said. “You two got along wonderfully, I assume?”

I narrowed my eyes. “If I’d realized you were also the God of Chaos, I never would have listened to a word you said.”

His beaming smile was annoyingly handsome. “And then you never would have had this opportunity to move closer to the Fire God,” he said, gesturing to the room around us. “He was going to keep you locked in that little cottage indefinitely, I’d imagine. I mixed things up on your behalf.”

“On my behalf?”

“It’s what I do,” he said with a shrug. “No need to thank me.”

“No one in their right mind is thanking you,” Mairu said in a deadpan voice.

“Well they should.”

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