Page 67 of Vanquished Gods

“No, I didn’t eat it. But you have no idea how much it meant to me that you tried. You might be the first person who’s ever really tried looking after me.”

He reached into his cloak and pulled out something small. When he handed it to me, I saw it was a delicate wood carving, intricately worked with the designs of poppies and stars. The craftsmanship was so fine, so detailed, that I sighed.

“You made this?” My fingertips brushed over it. “You know I love white poppies. I had no idea you were an artist, though.”

He shrugged. “Well, I’m not. But maybe you inspired something in me, and there’s fuck all to do out here, isn’t there?”

I felt myself glowing in the firelight.

I didn’t want to ask the next question, but it slipped out before I could stop myself. “Are you well enough now to return to your family?”

His eyes darkened, and he held my gaze. “Yes…maybe. Maybe I should go soon. But strangely, I’ve started to like it out here, living in my cave in the woods.”

Hope sparked. “You can always return.”

The vision slipped away again, leaving me in the cold darkness of the pit, and the pain and hunger came slamming back into me.

Was I losing my mind, or had that vision felt likemorethan a vision? Was it a fantasy—an incredibly vivid fantasy—or a memory returning to me?

I shifted my body, trying to lean more comfortably against the cage.

I desperately wanted to explain things to Sion in person, to tell him the truth, to make him understand. But how much of a chance did anyone really give another person when it came to the murder of someone they loved?

I closed my eyes, desperate for someone, anyone, to come down. Why was I even still alive? I could already imagine my future—dragged out to the morning light, arms bound.

Maybe they’d let me burn in the sun.

Bran was probably well-beloved here, based on the stories I’d heard, and they’d surely delight in seeing his murderer punished.

I didn’t want Leo to be there for that.

The thought twisted my stomach, and a wave of nausea rose.

Just outside my cage, I could see a rough, ancient set of stairs that led up to the temple. Panic struck, and I gripped the iron bars, trying to push the door open, but I couldn’t budge it an inch. I grunted, rattling at the bars of the cage until my fingers ached.

How long until Sion came down to confront me? To scream at me in person for what I’d done? Centuries of friendship he’d shared with Bran…

Centuries.

I hadn’t even been alive half a century. What was I to that kind of bond?

What had made me think that coming there was an option at all? Maybe I hadn’t had much choice at the time. I’d been desperate to keep Leo away from the Order.

Now, I was starting to see how this option had been doomed from the start.

Pain flared through my body from my shoulder. My fingers curled into fists, the iron cuffs cutting into my wrists as I flexed against them. The metal was cold, unforgiving, just like that place. Just like him.

I couldn’t rememberhow long I’d been in that cage. Hours? Days? Time had become meaningless down there, where the only company was the skull carvings etched into the walls. I’d named them: Tybalt, Ysualt, Baldwin…

They were not amazing conversationalists.

I lay slumped on my side, too weak to move, staring at the ancient stairs that curved up to the temple. The hunger had passed from an unbearable ache to something worse—a hollow emptiness that seeped into my bones. My blood felt like poison, burning through my veins, and the darkness inside me churned like a storm.

And as the world around me started to grow lighter, fear wrapped its icy fingers around my heart, forcing me to find some way to stand. Dawn was breaking—and there, in the pit, I was directly beneath the oculus, with only a small roof to protect me.

The first rays of dawn crept over the sky above, a sliver of light piercing the gloom. It crawled across the stones, slowly washing them in gold. It slipped down over the intricate skull carvings, making it seem as if they were coming to life. Tybalt’s hollow eyes caught the dawn light first, his empty gaze staring at me.

With every inch of light that shifted across the wall, I managed to scramble farther back to the center of the cage, dragging my body across the cold iron, shrinking into myself.