Page 34 of Flame and Sparrow

Even if he had been real, it was foolish to think we’d truly come to any sort of agreement, or that he’d given his word about anything. The gods didn’t truly give anything. They only took whatever they wanted and did not give back.

Bastards.

“You should rest more before we head off to Hael or anywhere else,” Cillian said, misreading the bitter anger and exhaustion that I’m sure was written all over my face. “I don’t think you need to—”

“I nearly died at the hands of humans eager to sacrifice me to their chosen god,” I interrupted quietly. “And it was a godmarked human—one with the Moon deity’s power—who tracked me down and gave me away. They will not stop hunting me just because I slipped through their hands this afternoon. They wanted more than justme, too. They wanted the names of all of you as well.” I inhaled sharply at the memory of the bloody interrogations I’d suffered.

“Karys—”

“I owe them. And I don’t plan on resting until I’ve evened out the score between us and those damnable gods again.” My voice was loud and angry enough that everyone else in our circle stopped what they were doing to look in my direction, their eyes wide and uncertain.

I started to apologize for my harsh tone, but Cillian didn’t look offended when I shifted my gaze to him.

He looked…afraid.

“Karys.” My name fell hesitantly from his lips, like something had latched on and tried to drag it back.

“What?” I demanded, voice still sharper than necessary.

“Your…your arm.”

A tingling sensation swept from my scalp down my spine. Fear followed in its wake, trying to freeze me in place, but I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, lifted my arm, opened my eyes again…

And there it was.

The god’s flame-shaped mark had once more appeared on my skin, bright and burning for everyone to see.

Chapter11

“Oh,”I said.

“Oh?” Andrel repeated, breathlessly. “What do you meanoh? What in the name of all the realmsis that?”

A fresh silence draped like blankets of snow over the forest clearing, settling even heavier than before.

Cillian, with arms folded across his chest and green eyes narrowed in thought, finally broke the quiet as he calmly said, “It looks…like a godmark.”

“I know what itlookslike,” Andrel said, “but why the hell is it appearing on Karys’s skin?”

I was again struck by the instinctual urge to extend my claws and carve the mark and all its dark connections out of my body.

Saphiel stared, along with nearly everyone else who’d helped with my rescue, for several beats before taking a deep breath through her nose. “Explain yourself.”

I met each of the gazes searching me in turn. The truth seemed murky at best, heretical at worst, but I didn’t want to lie about what I’d done. I needed to make them understand whyI’d done it—hell, I needed to makemyselfunderstand why. Anything else could be disastrous to the overall plans and attempts we had to unite our kind against our divine enemies.

“This is how I survived so long on the platform without sustaining so much as a burn,” I said. “He was there, controlling the flames somehow.”

Andrel went silent and rigid, lifting his gaze to the rain-thick clouds.

Cillian kept his gaze perfectly leveled with mine. “Who do you mean byhe?”

“Dra’ Zerachiel—the God of Fire.” I’d nearly whispered the name, but I might as well have shouted, given how high Cillian’s brows reached in response.

I told them every detail I could recall, then, of what had happened from the minute I woke in my prison cell to the moment I’d been paraded up to the burning platform. Andrel kept up his silent contemplation while Cillian grew increasingly restless with every word.

“I still don’t understand why he gave you this mark,” Cillian said, and the others crowding around us nodded and whispered, wanting to know the same thing. “Didn’t he realize what you were? Who you are?”

I ran a hand through my hair, anxiously tucking and untucking it. “My ears were hidden by my necklace’s magic,” I explained, “and the mark…it came only after I struck a deal with him.”

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