Page 41 of Flame and Sparrow

“We know who you are, child,” interrupted the Serpent Goddess. “The one you mortals call ‘Dravyn’has told us all about you, the game you’re playing, and the…amusingthings you offered him.”

My skin crawled with heat.

I was not a child, and I had not come here to amusehim.

Though it was probably safer if these divine beasts believed as much. Let them think I was only here to play. I would make sure they regretted this assumption before the end.

“I came here to meet him, as we agreed,” I said calmly.

The two of them exchanged a lazy glance.

The God of Ice said, “He washere earlier. But some urgent business pulled him away.”

“What sort of business?”

Valas yawned again. “The godly kind.”

“That’s…vague.”

“You should be thankful I’m not impaling you with spears of ice for inquiring about divine business.”

I lifted my chin, refusing to tremble beneath his frigid gaze. “He knew I was coming.”

“He didn’t think you’d actually show up.”

This irked me even more than being called an amusing child, but I still kept my voice level. “His portal revealed itself very plainly to me.”

“Yes, but how many humans would be idiotic enough to actually step into a river of fire, hm?”

It seemed to be a rhetorical question, so I didn’t bother replying.

Instead, I looked back to the Serpent Goddess, who was watching me curiously, her chin resting upon curled fingers laden with golden rings. Her eyes seemed to darken as she stared, from honeyed amber to the rust-colored tint of dried blood.

I fought the urge to reach for my sister’s sparrow, which was tucked carefully underneath the layers of my clothing. The magic lacing the totem came from the Mimic spirit, I’d been told, but that spirit ultimately answered to the very goddess now staring at me. Under her gaze, the power I’d relied on to disguise myself all these years suddenly felt as flimsy and useless as a gauzy, translucent shroud.

She said nothing about the matter, however—a strange shadow overtook us before she could.

I thought I’d imagined it until both of the deities rose gracefully from their beds and looked to the sky, which had shifted from pale purple to a deep, foreboding violet streaked with black.

“Duty calls,” said Mairu with a frown.

I studied the sky for a long moment, trying and failing to make sense of its sudden change. “Godly things?” I guessed.

The air chilled, and I braced myself for the spears of ice Valas had threatened me with earlier.

To my surprise, he only gave a dark, quiet chuckle and said, “At least she catches on quickly.”

In the next breath he was changing, his form shifting to crystals of frost, then twisting and spinning into a panther-like shape.

The pale beast leapt straight up as soon as it was fully formed, landing on one of the nearest columns. He balanced delicately on the column’s point for a moment before bouncing to the tops of several more pillars and trees—more bounces than seemed necessary, I thought. Likely an attempt to show off and further intimidate me, but I couldn’t help being impressed by it.

The Serpent Goddess turned to me as he finally disappeared into the distance. “You will stay here until the god who sent for you comes to collect.”

It wasn’t a command so much as a sentencing; as she spoke, her hand rose, her fingers twitching with her controlling magic, and the vines wrapped around several nearby columns began to unravel. I watched, both mesmerized and terrified, as they snaked their way around us, weaving into bars that blocked all of the paths leading away from the clearing we stood in.

Before I could protest, the goddess changed as gracefully as her fellow Marr had, twisting into a dark and sparkling cloud that took on the serpentine dragon shape she was most known for. She didn’t prance around as her fellow court member had; she shot directly up and over the trees, gone from my sight after scarcely more than a blink.

I stood completely still, barely even breathing. A long moment passed before it all truly sank in. I’d just had a casual conversation with two middle-gods. I washere. In their realm. Completely overpowered, essentially lost, and now I was alone, too. Trapped until the God of Fire cameto collect—as if I was a piece of luggage he’d forgotten about.

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