Page 3 of Godsbane
They don’t stifle their groans at this command, however. It’s not like a dinner in my honor is ever high on their list of fun activities, but it’s dropped even lower after spending all day sitting in this room.
“Dinner isn’t necessary, Father. I’d be fine to spend time with just you.”
“Nonsense, Ivy,” he says, taking my hand in his as the last of his advisors exit the room. “It’s your birthday. We can’t have the ball you deserve, but we can toast to you and the future that awaits.”
“A dead king does suck the merriment out of a good ball,” I joke.
I don’t much care for noble balls, but they bring him joy and there’s nothing I wouldn’t endure for him. Especially when we only have hours left together.
Tomorrow, I’ll set out for Amale, the heart of the Diamond Region and the capital city of Corinth. But it’s not just the LordGeneral and his band of angry governors who await me at the palace.
No, something tells me that the Dark God of Death waits for me too.
The nightmares, left behind by the creature who must have been his creation, have gotten so frequent that I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night. The visions have only gotten darker—bottomless pools of blood, the Amethyst Throne on fire, and a name my soul knows that I can never recall when I wake. Whatever waits for me there may very well be the end of me.
“Did you see the physician today?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
I’ve summoned every doctor, naturopath, and spiritual healer that tried to save my mother and they’ve all had the same answer. There’s nothing to do but make him comfortable, and he refuses every tonic they offer.
A violent coughing fit seizes him. We both pretend not to notice the blood that leaks from his mouth before he quickly swipes it away. Fragments of my foreboding dreams flash through my mind again at the sight of the crimson liquid. Snippets that I have been trying to forget all day.
“Say a prayer for your father, will you?”
He jokes as he dismisses me, but his humor is misplaced. The gods never heard our prayers when my mother lay dying, and they’ve done little for us since.
Neither of us are pious, but in a country that claims to be the favorite of the gods, nonbelievers are shunned or killed. So we attend temple services and erect statues in their honor despite holding no love for the gods who abandoned us long ago.
False devotees for false gods.
I scoff at their stone effigies that adorn the courtyard gardens as I avoid the dining room. The ground is barren around them,just like Corinth under their watchful eyes. Their prized jeweled nation battered and scarred in the wake of a holy war. Our determination to convert the people of Synal and the island nations found us on the receiving end of an invasion—something entirely avoidable and entirely orchestrated by the Lord General.
My magic is primed, itching to be used after hours of sitting in an uncomfortable chair while listening to minuscule men debate my ability to sway a vote. Here, away from prying eyes, I can finally release it.
No one will notice a little more ivy mingled amongst the already thick vines that crawl up the stone tower or a few more blades of grass along the flagstone path. I’d like to disappear deep into the Godswood and use my magic until it’s depleted and I fall asleep under the stars, but there’s no time.
A quick detour through the garden to my favorite patch won’t be the same, but it’ll satisfy my magic for now. A right past the fountain, a left at the bust of the God King Nobus, and another right past the holly bushes leads me to my destination.
The gardeners planted the seeds of godsbane at my insistence. Their hesitance to add something poisonous amongst the wholesome blossoms further fueled my attachment to the flower. If it wasn’t crucial that everything be intentionally placed by them first in order to hide my powers, I would cover every square inch of this garden in the death plant I’ve become so fond of.
I pick a small bundle of the deep-purple, nearly black blooms, carefully regrowing the missing flowers that surround the northern base of the faceless statue of the Goddess of Light. Her name and likeness are both lost to history. There’s barely a mention of her in the sacred scriptures and holy texts, and not a single portrait in the temples depicts her certain beauty. All that remains of her is a stony, featureless face and a lithe, marble body draped in flowing cloth resting across a crescent moon.
A sliver of light from the setting sun peaks through the graying dusk illuminating the statue’s outline on the still pool at its base. I kneel, pausing at my own reflection on the water’s glassy surface. Pushing the tangle of brown waves from my forehead, I scrutinize the green eyes that stare back at me. Eyes that mirror the color of a region that holds barely any love for me. Eyes that don’t match my mother’s no matter how much I wish they did.
A spark snakes down my spine at the memory of her, magic emanating from the tattooed bloom between my shoulder blades. Ink painstakingly added to hide the ghostly patch of skin left behind by the primordial sea beast who simultaneously saved my life and damned me, leaving me with strange power and even stranger dreams.
Ripples disturb the smooth surface as I trail my fingers through the water. I linger here, wishing to hear her long silenced voice but nothing comes. The dead don’t talk and the gods don’t grant wishes. Magic that shouldn’t exist in this world sings within me, always drawn to the water since that day.
There is no explanation for the secret power that I possess. The more my magic has grown, the further inward I’ve retreated. I use my anger-fueled words to distract people from looking too closely, staring too long. Even the few people I’ve let behind my defenses don’t know what runs in my veins.
“IVY!”
Eileen’s voice echoes through the garden, snapping me from my introspection and causing me to drop the flowers into the pool. The sky opens as the matronly woman rounds the corner, fat raindrops pelting her head as she swats them away.
“There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Dinner is starting and you look like something a cat would drag in from the Godswood.”
“Please, we both know cats hate me,” I joke, ducking under the now open umbrella in her outstretched hand. “And I look fine.”
“You’d look better in a dress. You would have had time to change into the special one laid out for you if you hadn’t wasted so much time in the garden. I swear, sometimes I think you prefer plants to people.”
