Page 55 of Crown of Betrayal and Blood

Right?

I have to be alive.

The weight of the dark still presses against my skin, along with the vibrations of the goddess’s words. The warmth of her presence. Fear swells in my heart, and sweat trickles down my spine.

I’m surrounded by Nyc.

This darkness is neither a thing, nor an absence of a thing. The darkness is the sacred made solid?

Panic knots my stomach as I grapple with the reality of a deity speaking to me. What divine transgression have I committed to warrant this encounter? Did the priestess ever stand where I stand now, cloaked in celestial twilight?

Don’t freak out. Do. Not. Freak. Out.

Fuck, I might be freaking out.

“Dragoncaller.” The whispery, omnipresent voice billows around me. “Daughter of flame.”

“Forgive me, Goddess.” The realization hits that I’ve neglected the courtesy of a proper greeting. How exactly does one even greet a god? With a deep inhale, I muster all the decorum forged from a life among nobility. Eyes closed—though I’m not sure why I bother when the inky void is absolute—I bow my head. “Great Nyc, eternal shroud of the heavens, I greet you with reverence and awe.”

Am I doing it right? Laying on the formality too thick?

Laughter echoes, not mocking but light, like moonbeams dancing on water. “Daughter of fire, in my darkness, there is no need for closed eyes. You are already peering into the heart of my being. You need not seek me in the small spaces within you where light does not reach. I am in your heart, your mind, your blood, and currently all around you as well.”

The words send me spiraling anew.

They’re literal.

I currently exist within the essence of Nyc?

While I had guessed as much, hearing her say the words solidifies this new reality. A vast, unknowable entity. No up or down anchors me. I have no horizon to reckon myself against. I am adrift, untethered from the world I know, floating in Nyc’s sea of shadows.

That’s more than a little disturbing. “Oh. I see.”

“Do you, mortal? Even here, in the bosom of oblivion, the world persists, cradled in my embrace.” Nyc’s velvet murmur caresses my mind, proving she does in fact exist within the darkness of my skull. “The darkness in you, the darkness beneath us. It lives as I live. It connects all things. You are not untethered. You are anchored to all of reality within me.”

Thoughts come to me unbidden.

I think of Dame, the dragon whose instincts drove her to tunnel through the earth’s blackened veins, seeking solace for her unborn. The same darkness that urged her onward wraps around me now, a cosmic womb safeguarding life until its emergence.

“Your darkness…it is home to dragons, to magic, to life itself.” I bite my lip, awe drenching my words.

“Indeed, Dragoncaller.” Nyc’s presence, I understand suddenly, is a soothing blanket woven from the threads of primordial night. “And within it, all things find their beginning and their end.”

A shiver of connection roots me to the dark, a lifeline in the void.

It’s warm, this darkness. Warm like a living body, like the first safe haven every soul knows before breath meets air. I’m floating, but not lost. This shadow is a sanctuary, an umbilical cord binding me to existence itself.

I don’t know how to respond, so for now, I remain silent.

“Darkness cradles all life before it appears into the fleeting caress of light.” Nyc’s tone resonates with an ancient melancholy I can almost touch. “And to darkness, all lifemustreturn. No matter how long that might take.”

I clutch at the warmth, at the solace it brings, yet the sorrow in her tone unsettles me. Gods aren’t supposed to suffer from loss, are they? Could it be that even divine hearts know the ache of absence?

“Your time nears, Dragoncaller.” Nyc’s whisper drifts over me, and my heart stutters. “You will be buried in the earth, only to arise anew and to die.”

Icy fingers of fear curl around my spine. My time? Buried and reborn only to perish? The prophecy…I’d dared to hope it was just a story, but Nyc’s words carve reality from myth. A pit forms in my stomach as the weight of destiny presses down on me.

My breath catches. “I’m sorry. What? Are you saying my end is predetermined?”

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