Seren Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 22 of 26

The sky temple held now, warm under Seren's feet. But Chris's warning gnawed at her. Every god below the world knew her face. And still she had no seat of her own. The pantheon kept a record of thrones. Until her name sat in that record, six gods could rule her unfit and unmake all she had built. She left Tim to tend the flame and flew to the place where the pantheon carved its names. The hall stood tall, its walls lined with rows of glowing names. Each name marked a god the pantheon owned. Seren's own name was nowhere. She ran her hand along the cold stone and found only the seated six, and Kida's name struck through with a line, and Cassidy's too. Enemies remembered. Friends erased. A girl sat cross-legged on the floor, a heavy book open in her lap. She had black braided hair and a small crown of gold leaves. She did not look up. "You're the witch who burned an elder's hand," she said. "Bold. Loud. Not in my book." "Payton Chronos," Seren said. She had heard the name. The muse who kept the pantheon's histories. The one hand that could write a name into the record. "You keep the record. Add mine." Payton turned a page. "I write what's true, not what's asked. Show me a seat that's yours. A place where mortals kneel to you. Then you exist." Seren set her staff against the wall. "I have two anchors. A cave with a hound at its door. A sky temple with an eternal flame. Devotees wear my rings. A first god sleeps under my ground and remembers my face." Payton finally looked up. Her dark eyes moved over the crown, the robes, the blood still crusted on Seren's palm. "A first god," she repeated. "Below the world. You fed him." "I bound his loyalty," Seren said. "Ask him." Payton rose. She walked the wall, pressed two fingers to an empty band of stone, and closed her eyes. The stone warmed. When she opened her eyes, she looked almost afraid. "He answered. He knows your name. That's proof enough for me." She dipped her finger in the blood on Seren's palm and drew a line across the empty stone. Letters rose there, glowing gold, spelling Seren Nightshade. The name held. It joined the record. "There," Payton said. "You have a seat in the writing. No god can call you unfit now. You're on the list of thrones." Seren breathed out. The stone glowed with her name at last. But Payton stepped back, her book clutched tight. "You should know what a name costs here," the muse said. "Every god who reads this wall will see you now. Not just the six. All of them. They'll come to the next council to challenge a witch who wrote herself a throne. You have your seat. Now you have to sit it before they tear it out."