Page 29 of Kissed By the Gods
But I hate the gods more, because they’ve done nothing. Nothing at all.
Still, I make my way to the Temple of Thayana without stumbling once, my fingers gliding along the cool stones. My steps are calm and confident, but my thoughts are altogether less calm. They jump from one thread to another, jittery and confused.
Appeal to the gods, the Elder told me, after he explained the rules of the Trial of Last Blood. In a matter of hours, I’m supposed to face a trained, experienced Altor in the arena in a fight to the death. The winner is considered blessed by the gods.
I’m not an idiot. I know I don’t stand a chance. My all too brief “battle” with Ryot when he kidnapped me leaves no room for doubt in my mind—the death tomorrow will be mine.
Appeal to the gods.
I snort. I know exactly how effective prayers are, after watching my mother and my people pray for mercy, for relief, for a godsdamn break every day of my life. The effectiveness of their combined efforts over the course of nearly 1,000 years? Nil. So why I’m here, following directions to pray to a goddess I’m not even sure exists, I couldn’t say.
Except … except I want this. I ache for it. For a life where I’m the strong one, the feared one. Where I wield power as my right, where my words carry weight, where my very existence outranks the godsdamn king.
To finally, gods finally, protect my family. To change things—if not everything, then at leastenough.
I slow my pace when a soft glow of light comes into view ahead.
I expected something grand. The temples in Lalica, where we bring our crops after the harvest, are constructed of the purest marble, with priests guarding the entrance to demand offerings before peasants can enter even the outer rim, never mind the innermost chamber.
But this temple is surprisingly simple. It’s made from the same stone as the fortress. There are no statues or renderings of Thayana. No epic scenes decorate the walls. No priest refuses me entrance. I hesitate, wondering if I made a wrong turn. Surely, this isn’t the temple of the great goddess of war.
I step into the room and freeze, goosebumps covering my flesh.
In the center of the circular room, a single candle burns. Mirrors adorn the stone walls from floor to ceiling, reflecting the light from the candle evenly and warmly.
The only sound in the room is the wax dripping down the candle and splattering on the stone table below, just like in my dreams. But here, the wax remains white, even when it melts and slides to the table. There’s no black wax. And the room doesn’t smell of blood, but of incense. I want to find that reassuring, but I don’t. Not quite.
I have no idea what to do here.
My gaze lands on the kneeling bench cut out of stone and adorned with a red, tasseled cushion. I brush my hands across the fabric. The plush give of the cushion makes me think its stuffed with only the finest of down feathers.
I lower myself to the kneeling bench, but I wonder if the goddess is annoyed by that cushion, by the audacity of humanity to make worship comfortable. So, I pull the cushion out from under my knees, and the bite of hard stone against my joints is comforting. The pain is real, not something distorted and out of a dream.
“Umm, dear Thayana …” I start hesitantly, but immediately trail off. That doesn’t sound right. It needs to be grander, I think.
“Oh mighty goddess!” My voice booms out, echoing against the mirrors and the stone. I wince. Yeah, that didn’t sound right either.
I clear my throat, and try again, keeping my voice more even this time.
“Goddess Thayana.”
Yes! That’s a good start. What next?
“I beseech thee …” Nope, nope, nope.
“Ugh,” I slap my hands against the stone in frustration. “Why is this so damn hard?”
Because I don’t believe she exists.
And if Thayana does exist … if she does exist, that’s even worse. It means the goddess of justice has ignored the plight of my people, the prayers of my mother.
My mother believed. She prayed to Serephelle, the goddess of luck and good fortune, for Levvi and Alden to come home. Every day. For years. And when they didn’t come, she prayed every day to Thayana for justice. She would prostrate herself in front of her home-made altar at our hearth, the heart of our home, and she’d plead. Grovel. Her knees would pop when she rose after hours spent on the floor, her arms and her face slightly smudged with ash from the fire.
There are a handful of votive offerings on the table with the candle—several precious stones, a few arrowheads, someone’s chainmail. A hysterical laugh rising in the back of my throat. Because I have nothing to offer. Even the clothes on my back aren’t mine.
I have nothing to offer. Damn if that isn’t infuriating.
After all my family’s sacrifices, after all our prayers, after hours upon hours spent with our faces in the dirt in prayer … wehave nothing. I’m still in Ryot’s too-large shirt that I’ve cinched with a belt.
