Deity. You’re not the Emperor. You can’t save everybody. So think about what’s best for yourself.”
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
“To cleanse my soul.”
She watched his retreating back and suddenly wished he hadn’t left. Silence pressed in, and it was as though the entire temple, with its walls of stone figures, watched her.
Ana ran her eyes over the wall carvings. The figures might once have been gilded in gold and silver and lapis lazuli and emerald, but those had long been pillaged by thieves as the temple fell to abandonment. Still, it was beautiful. Reverential.
As always, she shrank back beneath the Deities’ watchful gazes, all too aware of what she was. Monster. Witch. Deimhov. She heard the screams from that day long ago in the Salskoff Winter Market as she sat paralyzed in all that blood, affirming to the world that she was the demon everyone believed she was.
Yet another part of her—a small part—leaned forward, yearning for the light and rightness and goodness. It was the small flame of hope that her aunt had lit in her chest all those years back, with a single sentence.
It had been in a temple just like this, the moon weeping above snow-covered grounds and casting a cold light over Mama’s new tomb. She’d been eight years old. Ana knelt beneath the statues of the four Deities, their expressions stern and ungiving. She traced her fingers over the marble, carved in the exact features of her mother’s face, long eyelashes that cast half-moon shadows over high cheekbones, and vibrant curls that had always seemed so full of life. The only thing the marble did not capture, Ana thought as she stroked the small crook between Mama’s nose and cheeks, was the rich fawn of her mother’s skin when she had been alive; the healthy glow to her smile that seemed to light the world.
Ana’s fingers drew the same patterns over and over on the marble’s cold white face, mingling with her tears.
It had only been one moon, yet with Mama’s absence, the winter that swept over Salskoff that year was cold and stark, the snows harsh and unforgiving.
“Why?” Ana’s whisper had lingered in the air between her and the marble Deities, small and forlorn. “Why did you take her?”
Stubbornly, they remained quiet. Perhaps it was true that the Deities did not listen to an Affinite’s prayers.
A warm hand slid over her shoulders, and Ana jumped. Instinctively, she swept a hand over her face to clear it of tears before turning around.
The Grand Countess’s quiet eyes, the color of pale tea, met hers. It was a few moments before Morganya spoke. “Your mother meant the world to me,” she whispered, and Ana had no doubt that was true. It was Mama who had found Morganya all those years ago in a village, her body battered from the torturers who had kidnapped her from her orphanage and beaten her. Mama had brought Morganya to the Palace, and they’d grown closer than sisters.
“Have your prayers worked?” Even after all those years, Morganya’s voice had not lost the quiet, cautious timbre of the downtrodden.
Ana hesitated. “I’m not…They don’t…I don’t think…”
“You don’t think they listen to Affinites’ prayers.” The words were uttered softly, but they cut deeper than any blade. Ana bowed her head, shame filling the silence.
Morganya tucked Ana’s hair behind her ear in a way that reminded her so much of Mama that she wanted to cry. “I’ll tell you a secret,” the Countess continued. “They’ve never answered mine, either.”
“But you’re—” You’re not an Affinite.
Morganya gripped Ana’s chin and lifted Ana’s face to meet her eyes. “There is no difference between you and me, Anastacya,” she said softly. “The Deities have long sent me a message through their silence.” A steely glow sharpened Morganya’s gaze. “It is not their duty to grant us goodness in this world, Kolst Pryntsessa. No, Little Tigress—it is up to us to fight our battles.”
Her aunt’s use of Mama’s nickname for her brought fresh tears to her eyes. But she spoke past the aching knot in her throat. “It’s up to us to fight our battles,” she repeated, her voice tiny but a little firmer.
Morganya nodded. “Remember that. Anything you want, you have to take it for yourself. And you, Kolst Pryntsessa, were chosen by the Deities to fight the battles that they cannot in this world.”
It had been difficult to understand her mamika’s words back then. Confined to the two windows of her chambers and the four walls of her