Page 90 of Flame and Sparrow

She shrugged. “That will come out soon enough. As strong as my magic is, I can’t disguise your appearance from them forever. But once you’ve passed their trials, it won’t matter; the blessing they’ve extended to you cannot be undone, even once your true bloodline is revealed.”

“So there’s nothing—no law of magic or anything—that will prevent one of my kind from entering the Tower of Ascension?”

She shook her head. “The God of the Shade will determine the final trial in that tower. And he already knows the truth about your blood.”

I picked anxiously at my nails, trying to picture what the meeting with that upper-god might be like. Should I take my ruse so far? At what point would I feel like I’d done enough?

How—andwhen—did this all end?

“There’s a prejudice here against your kind, it’s true,” Mairu said, as she further secured the pinned braid behind my pointed ear. The majority of my hair remained down, curling in waves more defined than anything I’d ever managed; I would have sworn it was her magic shaping it.

“Most of the Marr are only repeating what they’ve seen and heard,” she continued. “Those other two courts…the upper-gods who rule over them are disgusted with the elven-kind and their failures, and thus, their servants are, too.”

I thought of Dravyn’s comment from the other day—how most of the Marr would have destroyed a flawed creature like Moth in favor of trying to create something better.

To most of the divine beings, Iwas a flawed creature far worse than a griffin prone to spontaneous combustion.

“But you and your court don’t harbor that same prejudice?” I asked.

She was thoughtful for a moment, pulling one of my hands into hers to stop me from picking at my nails. “Do you know,” she said, “that when it came time to deal with the Velkyn, the only one of the upper-gods who resisted was the one I serve? He is the reason the elven-kind weren’t simply wiped out of existence entirely. He thought it was possible for the elves and newly-created humans, and all other creations, to continue shaping the realm together, for better or worse.”

The thought caused a strange tingling to spread through my skull. “Together?”

“His thinking tends to be less black and white than the other two, in my experience. He is the Moraki who gifted the world with knowledge, after all—all different shades of it.”

She made the possibility of co-existing sound so simple, so obvious. Her effortlessly confident tone made me almost embarrassed to admit that I’d never really considered such a world. I’d been so busy struggling to survive—and hating the ones who threatened that survival—that it had left little time for anything else.

A month ago, I would have ignored the possibility and kept on hating.

Now, after all I’d seen and learned this past month, I felt compelled to at least sit with the idea for a few minutes, even though its newness made me feel uncomfortable. Uncertain.

I decided I didn’t want to talk about it anymore just then, so I shifted the focus solely to her instead. “How long have you been a goddess?”

“I am the second oldest ascendant of the Shade Court,” she informed me. Fluffing her hair—which today fell in thick, dark ringlets well past her shoulders—she added, “Though I know I don’t look it.”

“Were you royalty as a human, like Dravyn was?”

She laughed. “Not exactly.”

“But you live like royalty now, I suppose?”

“Of course.”

“In a palace similar to this one?”

“But far more tastefully decorated. I’ll take you for a visit if you like.”

“Instead of going to this dinner, you mean?”

She gave me a wry smile. “Nice try, but no. Dravyn insisted on the dinner tonight. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

Dravyn insisted on it.

Why was he so insistent on celebrating my victory? On gettingcloseto me, if Valas was to be believed?

I shoved my questions about the God of Fire down as deeply as I could; I’d confront him about these things later.

“If you’re the second oldest, then that means Valas is the oldest of your court,” I thought aloud.

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