Page 43 of Ash and Feather

The game had been underway for an hour already.

At least.

We had taken up residence in the largest of the courtyards scattered around my palace grounds. A fence of fruit trees hedged us in, their scent sickly-sweet. A great black table stretched between us—one I’d personally made, mostly by hand, from a slab cleaved from a large vein of onyx on the edge of my territory.

In the chairs surrounding the table sat six deities from outside of my own court. The Healing and Ocean Marr represented the Stone Court. The Sun Court was here in full, the goddesses of Sky, Star, and Moon all present, along with the Storm God.

Karys and Valas sat to my left, Mairu to my right. Zachar had initially refused to join us, but had shown up several minutes into the meeting without speaking a word to anyone. He now stood a short distance away, leaning against the largest of the trees, his dark shadows gathered around him like a second cloak.

Following the aforementioned hour of bickering and gamesmanship, a tense silence now stretched over our group. I suspected most of those present would have been fine with leaving things in this unsettled silence—they’d shown up and had a discussion, and that was doing enough work for one day, as far as they were concerned.

Before anyone could start any dramatic exits, however, Armaros, the God of Healing, broke the stalemate.

“We’ve heard all there is to hear about the matter,” he said, in his predictably pontifical tone. “We could dissect and discuss the evidence for a millennium, but it won’t change any of it. Let us make a decision about our next move; I’m growing weary of this conversation, and more weary, still, of doingnothingwhile the situation continues to escalate.”

“We are meant to watch over human-kind from afar—not to hold their hands through every moment of their existence,” Kelas, the God of the Ocean, countered. “I say we let them work it out among themselves.”

“The only thing they will work out is a massacre,” the Sky Goddess replied, bluntly. “The weapons the Velkyn threaten them with are not natural. They wield an alarming amount of power against our divine energy, if you’ve forgotten—so even the humans we’ve blessed with magic will struggle against them, I fear.”

“Yes; those weapons they’re creating are vile, even by my standards,” agreed the God of Storms, sparks flashing in the air around him, accompanying the words.

Karys shifted in her seat. A barely perceptible movement, but I was too aware of her not to notice it. I pretended to sip from the wine-filled chalice I’d yet to actually drink from, letting my gaze slide toward her. Waiting for her to raise an argument in favor of her former allies.

She didn’t say a word.

And that concerned me more. It meant she was calculating, continuing whatever plotting she’d started last night.

I had a sudden, desperate urge to bring an end to this meeting.

“The evidence we have isn’t sufficient,” Mairu said, with a meaningful glance at Armaros. “However much we dissect and discuss it, it doesn’t matter if we’re working from incomplete information.”

The Goddess of Stars looked her direction, her silver eyes flashing with their usual contempt; the two of them rarely got along.

But, to my surprise, Cepheid slowly nodded in agreement with Mairu, adding, “We can’t be sure of their numbers. We’ve collected rumors—nothing more—about what’s happening in those so-called Hollowlands and the cities within. There’s a haze over these places that makes even my magical sight murky. Unless one of us is willing to venture into the depths for ourselves and see what’s happening there, we’ll be making any decision blindly.”

The words settled darkly over our gathering, like a sudden cloud overtaking the sun. One heavy with an oncoming storm.

Then Karys rose to her feet, her chair scraping over the stone with a sound like a distant crack of thunder.

“I am going to Ederis,” she said. Loudly. Clearly. “So I…I will be able to see for myself what is happening underneath that haze.”

A horrible silence followed this proclamation. The others all looked to her, and then several of them looked to me as well, assuming I must have been aware that she had planned this trip into the heart of such a dangerous place.

Which was almost certainly what she was hoping they would think—that we’d been scheming this together all along, just waiting for the opportunity to announce it.

I am going to Ederis.

NotI would goorI could go.

She had already made up her mind, likely before this meeting ever started.

And she knew I couldn’t—wouldn’t—deny her right in front of them. It would be dangerous to let the divine beings around us think that she and I were not on the same team. EitherI supported her or I left her vulnerable to their attacks and criticism.

She’d forced my hand.

I was annoyed, but not surprised, even though sometimes I forgot who she’d been before I found her: A dangerous, manipulative rebel who had done whatever she needed to in order to carry out her missions.

She continued speaking before I could calm myself enough to add anything to the conversation—not that I knew what I would say.

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