Seren Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 13 of 26

The petition sat on the record, but Seren felt the half of her that was still witch. Her ribs held the seat like a chair with one leg missing. The eldest god was already whispering to the god on his left. She had minutes before someone called for the seconding to formalize, and a compelled second could still be struck down if the candidate was ruled unfit at the moment of seating. Half a god was unfit. She needed to finish the rite here, in the hall, before the vote closed. Amber and Ganzie stepped back to the outer arch to watch the door. Seren turned from the six and found Kida already at the shrine wall, small and steady, star-crown catching the crystal light. Kida had come the way Kida always came, without being called. "You're leaking," Kida said. "I can see the seat. It's cracked on the left." "I know." "Then finish it now." "I need a seated god to close it. Isaiah is spent." Kida opened her palm. In it lay a weathered skeleton key, dark iron, worn smooth at the bit. "I kept this for you. It opens the old law. The one before their law." Seren took the key. The gods' tongue rose off it like heat. It named a rite older than the six seats: a candidate could seat herself if she offered a living heart-token, wore the binding veil, and named a witness the record already trusted. Ganzie ran back with a bundle under his apron. He unrolled it on the floor. Black cloth edged in purple. A veil. And beside it, a heavy carved thing shaped like a heart, ridged and runed, warm to the touch. "From your line's crypt," he said. "Amber grabbed them on the way." Seren pulled the veil over her hair. The purple edge settled at her collarbones. The mohawk pressed flat under the cloth and she did not care. She knelt and set the stone heart on the shrine floor. She placed the key on top of the heart. She spoke the closing three lines of the rite, the ones Isaiah had not reached, in the gods' tongue. "Witness," she said. "Kida," Kida said. "Virgo. Seated. I stand for her." The record took it. Kida had just spent her seat the way Cassidy had spent hers, and she had done it without a pause. The crack in Seren's chest closed. The seat filled. The nectar's hour did not matter anymore; the tongue was hers now by right. The eldest god turned. His face went white. He had been ready to strike down a half-god. He was not ready for a whole one. Seren stood. The veil settled. Behind her, the six were no longer six against one. They were six against two, and one of the two had just walked out of their own ranks to stand beside her.