Seren Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 11 of 26

The pegasus landed hard on the court's stone floor. Six faces turned. Seren's staff stood planted between them, sigil bright in the gray dawn. She opened her mouth to name her claim and felt the half-seating in her ribs stall against her tongue. Her voice would come out mortal here. In this hall, a mortal voice was noise. She knew the rule. Gods answered only the gods' tongue. Half a godhood would not carry the syllables. She had studied the shapes once at the hidden conservatory, tracing sigils on tiered stone until her hands cramped, but studying was not speaking. If she tried and failed, they would rule her a pretender before the sun cleared the ridge. One of the six stepped forward. A small figure in white and blue robes, black hair loose past her waist, bare feet on the cold stone. Cassidy Lunaris. The twin moon goddess had the face of a child and eyes older than the hall. She had helped Seren bind Trump in the crypt. Seren had not been sure until this moment whether that help would follow her here. Cassidy walked past her sisters and brothers without looking at them. She stopped at the pegasus's shoulder and reached up. In her small hand was a golden vessel, wide-bellied, dripping. "Drink," Cassidy said. "Once. It lasts an hour." Seren took the vessel. The nectar smelled like hot metal and honey. "They'll know." "They'll know I brought it. That's mine to answer." Cassidy's baby mouth did not smile. "Speak from the shrine, not the floor. The stone under the black crystals carries any voice as divine. It's older than this court. They have to hear you there." Seren looked past the six gods. Behind the planted staff, a doorway opened into deeper rock. Black crystals lined the arch, catching the gray light in hard facets. A shrine cut into the mountain the court was built over. The gods had built their hall on top of an older mouth and forgotten what it did. She drank. The nectar went down like sunlight. Her throat changed. She felt syllables she had never owned settle into the back of her tongue, weighted, ready. She stepped down from the pegasus and walked past the six. None of them stopped her. Two looked at Cassidy with open anger. Cassidy did not move. Seren crossed the threshold into the crystal shrine. She spoke her claim in the gods' tongue. Her voice left the stone and came back doubled, tripled, folded into something none of them could refuse to hear. The six turned toward the door. She had one hour. She had their ears. And she had made Cassidy an enemy of half her own kind by taking the cup.