Page 34 of The Immortal's Trick
One blonde male meets my gaze and shoots me a flirtatious wink. That’s all it takes to wash away my curiosity. I return my concentration to the safety of Thane’s back and beyond.
We approach an altar. Behind it, tall pillars loom, wrapped in vines and flowers that mimic those from our wedding, but any comfort they might offer shrivels under the weight of the moment.
A figure steps out from behind one of the pillars, robes pooling like shadows around his feet. He moves slowly, deliberately, as though every step costs him something. Though I can’t see his face beneath the heavy hood, I know he is old, not just in the way mortals age, but ancient in the way stone crumbles under centuries of wind.
Something about him is wrong. Off. The air itself seems to shift away from him, and I fight the instinct to do the same.
Des and Thane fall into place at his sides, silent sentinels. Des no longer wears the warm smile he so often offered me. His face is a mask now—stoic, unreadable. He won’t even look at me.
Lome taps my hand, grounding me. “Ready?”
I’m not ready. I will never be ready. But what does that matter?
I force a nod.
Lome guides me up the steps, my legs barely holding me steady.
At the top, the hooded man lifts his arms. The motion is fluid, graceful even, and somehow all the more terrifying for it. Then he begins to speak.
No,chant.
The sound curls through the air like smoke. The words are unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Ancient. Hollowed out with age, yet pulsing with power. They scrape against my bones, dredging up some primal fear buried deep in my blood.
He raises one palm over my head.
The temperature drops. My skin prickles. Every hair on my body lifts like I’m standing in the heart of a storm. His voice grows stronger, deeper, inhuman. Each syllable sinks into my chest and coils around my lungs.
And then the pressure starts.
Not physical—no, this is something else. A force I can’t see begins to press down on me, like invisible hands pushing on myshoulders, shoving my spirit out of place. The air thickens. My vision blurs. I try to suck in a breath, but it’s like inhaling fog. It clings, it chokes?—
And then, everything stops.
The voice. The pressure. The cold.
Silence folds around me like a feathered blanket.
And I drift away from the altar, away from the hooded man and the ceremony I barely understand—falling weightlessly into a hush as deep and endless as the void.
Into darkness.
14
Singing.
I hearsinging.
My legs move before I can think, and I run out the back door and sprint around the clay walls of our home, rocks scraping my soles. I stumble, almost fall, but I don’t stop. I won’t miss this. Ican’t.
Mama rarely sings.
I round the corner and crouch behind a cart, heart thudding. There she is, arms full of wet linen, lifting them onto a sunlit line one by one. Her voice dances through the air like chimes. The words are Greek.
My breath catches.
Since the scandal, she stopped using her lover’s tongue. It became a dead language in our house. Nebet and I still whisper Greek when no one’s listening, keeping the language alive in secret. But hearing it like this—from mama’s musical lips—it sounds heavenly.
I close my eyes and let the song carry me.
