Page 126 of Realm of Thieves

Lemi stops barking.

Instead he sits down and starts wagging his tail.

I’m too shocked to think, too confused to even be scared anymore.

“Who are you?” I whisper.

And why do I know you?I think.

Why do Iknowyou?

“Brynla,” the woman says.

And her voice turns me inside out.

Brings me to my knees.

I collapse to the ground, hand at my heart, afraid that if I let go it will burst from my chest.

“No,” I whisper. “It can’t be you.”

Her face contorts for a second, the hardened rock crumbling away to reveal the flowing lava underneath, magma rising and falling to create a face. High cheekbones, low-set brow, a doll’s nose. And if her eyes had any color other than red and orange, they would be a bright blue. The same as the dragon. The same eyes I never inherited because I got my father’s brown ones.

“It’s taken you so long to find me,” she says, her voice sounding far away, like I’m hearing it from another room, but hers all the same. “I was starting to think maybe you never would.”

“Mama,” I say, my voice cracking. I try to say more but I can’t, because how can I?

How is this my mother? A woman made of lava.

Voldansa, Sae Balek had said.The unworshipped goddess of the Midlands.

“You’re a goddess?” I ask. “How?”

How? What does this mean?

No, I tell myself, closing my eyes and pressing the heel of my hand into my forehead.No, none of this is real. You died, Brynla. You died out there and none of this is real.

“It’s real, my sweet dear,” my mother says. “And I wish more than anything I could hold you and tell you that you’ll be all right. I think then you would know. But I am real, darling, I promise you.”

I shake my head, daring to look at her. “How? The goddesses aren’t real.”

“They are,” she says.

“You’re dead,” I say simply, staring down at the pool. “I’m seeing ghosts.”

“I never died, Bryn,” she says to me, my old nickname jarring tohear. “They sent me away on purpose because they were afraid of what I could do. They had theories about my blood. But that was their biggest mistake.”

“I don’t understand,” I mutter. Everything hurts, including my head but especially my heart.

“You will. But right now, we don’t have a lot of time, do we?” She looks over her shoulder at Andor’s lifeless body. “Not if you want to save him.”

My head snaps up. “What?”

“This man here,” she says. “He is with you, isn’t he?”

“Andor,” I tell her, trying to tamp down the hope in my chest, flaring like a star. “His name is Andor. If you were a goddess you would know that.”

Her lava face smiles. “It doesn’t work like that. But I can still help you, in the way that a goddess can.”

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