Of Darkness and Crowns (Goddess Wars 2)

“People aren’t that ignorant,” I insist, even though I can imagine the fear, the powerlessness of so many during this war. People can be very ignorant when they feel threatened. “And I don’t trust anything you say, Councilor. You have your own agenda.”

She nods slowly. “Bax understood what has to happen.”

My insides flair at hearing my friend’s name leave her mouth. The charade is over; I go in for my answers. “Where did you take him? Is he alive?”

“You do know why Bax wanted you to compete in the Reckoning. Why when, after he discovered what coursed through your blood, he didn’t hand you over or kill you himself.”

She’s mad. She has to be—it’s the only logical explanation. How could the empress or any of the other councilors not see it? “Tell me that he’s alive, and I won’t end your life when I’m freed.”

Her smile widens. “So violent.” Then with a forced nod, she says, “He lives, Kaliope. He’d have been of no use to me dead.”

For now, that’s good enough. I’ll strangle Caben’s whereabouts out of her later. Violent or not. “I was kept alive because Bax needed an ally. Someone to help overthrow his father and shut down the Reckoning.” I consider for a moment, because as so much has happened over the past months, I never really allowed myself to think on it. “He wanted his family safe from Bale.”

“But why not just free you and let you take on his father at any time?” she asks. “Why make you go along with the Cage fights?”

My forehead furrows. “I don’t follow.”

She sighs, as if my ignorance is tiring. At this point, it’s tiring to me, too. “Do you know anything about the Goddess Bale before she was banished? About her powers, her works, her miracles? Most believed she was the wisest, most devoted to our kind of her sisters. She balanced good and evil. Sanity as well as madness. Peace and chaos. She harbored all of humanity within herself. She was the most diverse of the deities, and she had the most responsibility. Balancing the scales of life can weigh on one—no pun intended—even a goddess.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is, young Nactue, that it was because of her love for us that she separated from us.” Teagan’s penetrating gaze drills through me, unsettling. “She saw her sisters with powers of healing, love and compassion, wisdom, and even conflict, and knew we’d be cared for, nurtured.” She shrugs. “As much nurture as perfect beings are capable of, of course. But she could no longer balance good and evil for humanity. The strain of it began to wear on her, and she made a choice. One over the other.”

I shake my head. “That feels like a copout.”

From across the holding room, I see her eyebrows raise. “You’re saying that you haven’t struggled with this yourself? That you don’t understand the battle between your good and evil nature??

?

Backing away from the bars, I put even more distance between the councilor and me. I’ve never once spoken to her, yet she pretends to know me intimately. I’m sure the Council performed an intensive background check before I became a Nactue—that doesn’t mean Tegan knows me. But as I convince myself of this, images of the Cage—rage, hate, violence—surface. How I fought the darkness, the temptation to just let go, let it overtake me. It seemed so easy, just to give in.

As if Teagan is watching my thoughts displayed in the open air, she smiles. “You don’t have to admit anything. Not to me. But think on anyone’s struggle and multiply it by”—she flutters her hand—“infinitude. I trust you can appreciate Bale’s confliction. As she stripped herself of her powers, separating one side of herself from the other, she caved to the wicked. Madness won, and she believed the balance would be better achieved if one goddess went completely dark.”

Glancing at the floor, stone tiles scuffed with years of grime, I search myself for everything I’ve learned about Bale. Teagan’s words are contradicting. “Bale didn’t strip her own powers,” I say, looking up at her. “The goddesses did, but only after she went mad.”

The above lights buzz, echoing a low, constant hum in the room. And I realize, for the first time, that Teagan and I are alone. Surely there’re more prisoners to house here…yet none share the holding room with us. This has been done on purpose.

Councilor Teagan adjusts her robe, tugging at the sleeves. Like she’s getting ready for a meeting, not locked in a cell. “Did they? Or were they the ones to select a holding room, only much different than the one we’re in now, to store her powers?” She flicks her fingers, as if tossing her words aside. Unimportant. “But you don’t trust me. Why would I tell you any of this?”

Indeed. “Why are you telling me this? What does this have to with anything at all, Teagan?”

She tenses at my informal use of her name. “Only energy can house energy. You don’t need me to convince you of that. It’s a fact of physics. Think, young Nactue. Why are you here? Why did Bax allow you to continue in the Cage fights? Why did your father, despite being the chauvinistic male that he is, pump you full of a mineral he wouldn’t have otherwise stolen?”

Fury grips my throat, thickness lodging at the base. Words fail to leave my mouth.

Teagan nods, as if urging my thoughts along.

I never considered my father’s actions further than him being an asshole. A woman hater. But a thief, up until that night, he was not. How strange the things we accept when forced. “He was given the mercury,” I whisper.

“But was he told what to do with it?” she asks, then shrugs again. “We can never know how much of any situation is devised, pre-ordained. But one thing is clear: you are not the first to carry the divine blood inside you, Kaliope. You’re only the first to be called to use it.”

I back up a step farther. My stomach twists at her revelation, but not wanting Teagan to witness my unease, I make myself say, “But the Goddess Alyah…” I shake my head. “She was the one. She saved me. Blessed the mercury, and made it so it wouldn’t kill me. It’s her powers that I house.” My brain is fracturing as I plead my case, as futile as it is.

Lifting her hands toward the ceiling, Teagan says, “Yes, by Alyah herself, the goddess of healing, you were saved.” She dips her head, her hands still held high. She looks crazy. “But did Alyah ever once confirm that it was her power that thrums through you?” Her eyes lift to mine.

I shake my head, over and over. Denial. “But I healed Bax’s father. And my father.” And I’ve since practiced on the sick in the palace ward. Never attempting again to reverse madness to sanity—it weakened me too much. Because I’ve needed all my strength during this war. To find and help Caben.

But that’s not completely true.