He turns his back on me and walks away.
“Bax—”
Stopping mid-stride, he turns about. “I’ve only just managed to keep my wife’s and child’s minds from Bale’s manic control by using a few tricks. I am the priest’s son, after all.” His shadowed face pulls together in hard lines. “But I stand no chance fighting him. Bale has gifted him with far too much power. That is why you are here.”
My father’s angry face flashes before my eyes. I understand Bax’s fear. Our circumstances are different, but I sense the same fear in him that I lived with in my home for years. But they’ll never make it out of here alive if the priest isn’t defeated completely. He’s been the problematic factor in our shoddy plan from the start. The chaotic variable.
“You have to face him,” I say. “You don’t have to take him down—I believe I can do that. But you have to get me into his chamber to do so.”
Bax steps up to me, his illuminated eyes sweeping my face. “Do you believe your goddesses gave you the divine blood for this purpose?”
I look away. That is the question—the uncertainty I’ve lived with nearly my entire life. I can’t give him the answer he needs, the answer that will persuade him to believe. That we can defeat the dark priest and leave this hell. I can only give him what I do know. “I believe I have a purpose.”
I just don’t know what it is.
The tunnel feels ice cold against my skin as I slowly make my way back to the chamber. I had already accepted my fate before Bax told me the whole truth of the ritual. And even though I’m relieved that my friends and the empress are going to be helped, the knowledge of what I must do sits heavily on my chest.
I step into the chamber. Caben lies awake on the cot. He’s a true prince—a king. I know that my sacrifice is the right thing, as he was meant to do great things in the Three Realms.
His head turns slowly toward me as I enter. “Do we have a plan?”
I nod. “We do.”
Scooting over to the far side of the cot, he makes room for me. I lie down next to him and he wraps his strong arms around me. I never thought I’d savor the feel of a man this close—that I’d long for it. And that I’d mourn its loss.
“The dark priest is using mind control over the Otherworld—for Bale.” I explain the rest of the things Bax enlightened me on, all except the last: where I must take on the priest, and somehow defeat his dark power. The power of the moon goddess.
But Caben doesn’t need to hear this. He needs to hear that our plan will work. “Bax is preparing an escape for us,” I continue. “I need you to do everything I say tomorrow night without question.” I turn and look into his blue eyes.
His frown line deepens between his brows. “You know that I don’t take orders from a woman.”
I’m about to snap at him, but then I see the hint of a smile forming on his lips. “Caben, I’m serious.”
He sighs. “If it means that we all leave here together, then I will take your commands with pride.” He pulls me closer, careful not to jostle my injured leg.
“Promise me,” I demand.
“I promise,” he says.
With another of his oaths sworn to me, I take in a relieved breath and press my lips to his. I want to take with me the memory of the most stubborn man I have ever known, and the way his kiss invades my soul, chasing away the darkness.
The moon bathes the Cage in a white, haunting glow. The stomps of the Otherworlders grow louder, like thunder rumbling through the dark realm. Their eyes flame red like embers. Bale’s control over her subjects is near complete.
At least everything makes sense now. Why the Otherworlders attacked Perinya and Cavan, stripping us of mercury. Why they’ve been abducting outside our realms, offering their goddess sacrifices while keeping us in the dark of Bale’s existence—until her prime moment to strike.
The moon goddess corrupted and mutated her worshipers, her own followers. The goddesses had every right to banish her evil. Only one thing does not connect.
Why the goddesses are allowing Bale to do this.
If the dark priest succeeds in his ritual tonight, then the Otherworlders will follow Bale out of the Otherworld and demolish whole realms at her command.
She won’t stop until she recovers the last shard.
The key piece needed to restore her to the powerful deity she once was.
The goddesses have done nothing so far to intervene. Anger simmers in my core, boiling over as the darkness of this place strengthens its hold on me. I fight it down. No matter what happens next, I have to make sure the shard is disposed of. That it will never be found. I raise my cupped hand to my mouth and place the sliver on my tongue, then swallow.
If Bale is brought forth tonight, and I die, then the shard will go with me in death.