Page 144 of Between Wrath and Mercy

“Well, I can’t prove the harrowing, and you didn’t exactly do any of yours on purpose. You need to do it on command; we can’t exactly repeat last night in front of the novice.” I shot him a glare to counter his crooked smile. “I mean, we could if you’d like, but I thought you weren’t alright with people watching. Or is it only if Dewalt is the one watching? Because if it is, I un—”

I cut him off, knowing he wouldn’t stop unless I made him, though I couldn’t help the small smile on my face. “You first. Cut your hand.”

Rain glowered at me before reaching for his dagger, slicing his arm open.

“I said hand!”

“I’m right-handed. It was either here or my palm, and I don’t want to ruin whatever the divine blade did.” He was talking about the mark from our handfasting. I didn’t argue with him, realizing he had a point. My own cut was still open, though no blood flowed. How had that only been a day ago? So much had happened since then.

“Putting your hand over it may help you, but all you have to do is will your divinity toward the wound. Imagine the skin mending from the inside—” I started to walk him through the process, but Rain cut me off.

“There.”

I gaped down at his arm in surprise. His skin was unmarked and fully healed. “Well, that was fast.” I gave a nervous laugh, worried I wouldn’t be able to master his divinity as easily. It had taken me years to learn how to heal a simple cut like he just did in only a moment. He shrugged.

“It’s easier to learn now that we’re familiar with our divinity. You should try to rift.”

“Fat chance. I’m not falling off a cliff this morning.”

He snorted before rolling his eyes. “Just open a rift by the fire. And don’t walk through it if it seems dangerous.” The second half of his instruction had a tone attached to it which earned him a glare.

I turned my back, spreading my hands apart as I’d seen him do, and closed my eyes, picturing the fireplace in front of me. When I heard the telltale sound, my eyes popped open. There in front of me was a rift, the grate with the roaring fire behind it in plain sight. I glanced over my shoulder to Rain, watching a grin spread across his face, and I caught the glimmer of the rift out of the corner of my eye from across the room.

“Looks safe to me, Em. Go on through.”

I gave a soft smile and took a tentative step toward the folding in reality before stepping through it. I realized a moment too late it wasn’t quite perfect—the two floors didn’t mesh together, causing me to have to step up as I went through. An ideal rift was seamless, but this was pretty close, especially for my first one. I let it close behind me, and I turned to face Rain from across the room. His grin turned into a beaming smile as he crossed the distance and picked me up, arms wrapped tightly around my waist. It made me a bit giddy when he hoisted me up like that as if I were still the young girl from our past.

“I told you. We’ll practice a bit on our way to the Seat.” Placing me back on my feet, he stole a quick kiss.

“Are we going to tell them about me? That I may be the Beloved? I don’t want Elora to be a target anymore.”

“I think until we have her back, we shouldn’t say anything. She is more valuable to Folterra as the Beloved. If our plan goes awry, Declan won’t kill her. He’ll still want to use her. If he finds outyouare the Beloved, not her, it would only endanger you both. Not to mention, we aren’t prepared to protect you from whatever Filenti is up to.” He rubbed a hand over his tired face, exhaling slowly. “Let’s just make it out of this next week alive and see what happens.”

I agreed with him, knowing as long as Declan thought she was the Beloved, she was safer. A part of me worried, though, that perhaps Cyran knew Elora wasn’t what we thought. What Faxon had said to me had come from the prince’s seer, and surely they would have told him what they’d seen. I hoped if the boy did know, he’d have the sense to keep it to himself. I hoped his feelings for Elora were true, and he’d try to keep her safe. He had chosen to work with us, a risk in itself, to keep her away from Declan.

Could Elora know? The only one who seemed to doubt her status as the Beloved was Ismene. Had Cyran been acting to keep Elora from knowing the truth? Perhaps I was giving him too much credit for deciphering the information from the seer. I didn’t understand what Faxon had meant until my divinity proved to be much stronger than we thought. Maybe Cyran hadn’t figured it out yet, either. I supposed it didn’t matter, though. Once we got her back, we’d have a lot to discuss, and I thought, perhaps, she’d care a bit less about that than she would about the identity of her true father.

After we proved our divinity had passed through our bond, the novice who waited in the hallway scampered away, and we finally made our way to the kitchens. Saving his abilities for the trip, Rain led us through corridor after corridor and down countless stairs to get there. At one point, he even attempted to take us on a shortcut behind a tapestry before he realized it hadn’t been used in ages and was full of cobwebs neither of us felt like dealing with. When we finally reached our destination, Rain rapped a knuckle on the door, and a frazzled woman answered it, frustration across her features. From the sounds emanating from within, they were well into breakfast preparations for the rest of the palace, and we were an interruption. But when her eyes met Rain’s face, the cook gave him a tired smile before grabbing a basket from inside and shoving it into his arms. He thanked her with his crooked grin before turning and opening a rift. Through it, I saw an open field with one, single apple tree in sight. We walked through, and Rain pushed the basket into my arms before promptly climbing into the branches. The air was chilly, and I was thankful he’d reminded me to bring my cloak as I wrapped it tight around me. I could see the Alsors far off in the distance, and I determined we were a few hours west of Astana.

“What are you doing?”

“The animals have gotten the ones down low.” He grunted and heaved his body further up into the tree, his feet disappearing in its branches. The tree itself was about fifteen meters tall, and its branches spread almost as wide. It was a giant of an apple tree and all on its lonesome in this vast green openness. I watched two apples fall and bounce off the gnarled trunk before coming to rest at my feet.

“You just knocked some down, Rain. We can eat these.” I walked to the golden-green apples on the ground and gathered them, putting them in the picnic basket before looking directly above me, watching him carefully pick his way across a thick branch.

“I want the sweeter ones, the ones that ripen in the sun.” He caught me watching him and smiled before plucking a few apples and tossing them down. I caught them easily as he swung down from the branch like he’d done it a thousand times before. He grabbed one of the apples out of my hands and took a bite, a grin on his face as he offered it to me. I couldn’t help but smile before I opened my mouth, waiting for him to bring it to my lips. After the last day, something as simple as eating an apple was a comfort I didn’t know I needed. The fruit was sweeter than I anticipated and tender—the juice dripping from my lips. Reaching up to swipe the mess off my face, Rain slid his thumb into my mouth, and I sucked the nectar from it. When he tilted my chin up and kissed me, the sweet taste of apple on our tongues, I wondered if I had finally started to understand the meaning of contentment.

We ate our breakfast the cook had packed away, goat cheese and pumpkin bread with a drizzle topping which tasted like coffee—a perfect compliment to the apples—and Rain explained where we were. There were several points he had set up over the years that made rifting to the Cascade easier. The points he spoke of were areas he could rift to, tasking someone in the vicinity to keep the locations relatively unchanged and cared for. This apple tree was the biggest in all of Vesta, and there was a lone farmer who cared for the area, ensuring Rain’s mental image always aligned with what was actually there. There were several more points along the path that had the same treatment; an abandoned watchtower, the personal well of a tanner who used to be part of Rain’s guard, a small footbridge, and a few more he didn’t bother describing. Nara’s Cove, named for the birthplace of Aonara, was the last rifting point on Vestian soil before we would have to cut southwest across the Mahowin Strait to get to the Cascade. Luckily for us, Nara’s Cove was just a few hours east of Lamera. In the coming days, we’d be traveling this same path on our way to the fortress. But today, we’d stop at Nara’s Cove, staying on the continent, and head northwest instead, toward the Seat of the Myriad.

After we finished breakfast and Rain felt properly rested, we rifted to the next point. During the breaks between each location, I practiced, bringing myself to different areas around where we stood. He bade me pay close attention so I’d be able to visualize each one on our way to the Cascade, hoping I’d be able to make bigger jumps with more practice. I did my best, trying to memorize as much of each location as possible, down to how many boards there were on the footbridge. Rain made it sound like that was a bit excessive, but I thought it would be better to be too detailed. It had taken him a long time to learn how to travel this far, but my handle on my divinity was much more advanced than his was when he began learning. Not to mention since the Body ritual, my divinity felt different. The light thrum was no more, and instead, I almost felt my entire being vibrating. It was unnerving almost, getting used to this much louder feeling, not quite on the edge of consciousness. But with that change came confidence I’d never imagined. I knew what I felt was unfettered divinity. Rain was extremely powerful, so was it his divinity merging with mine that made me feel this way? Was this what all bonded conduits felt? Or did it have something to do with our suspicion? With seeing Aonara the night before? Had her presence been her blessing me?

When I briefly mentioned the feeling, Rain didn’t seem to know what I was talking about, and I concluded it must have been because of what we had begun to suspect. The longer I sat with it, the power, the more certain I was that we were right. I was the Beloved. I had been goddess blessed. Not just by Aonara, but Rhia as well. I wanted to hear the original prophecy from the Supreme if he’d give it. As I had heard it, the Beloved was blessed with gifts from Aonara, but I didn’t feel like I was particularly burdened with something from the Goddess of Light. I believed the glowing, as Rain had described it, would have been from her. But what I felt didn’t exactly feel like light, but instead felt like straight, tingling power—overwhelming and barely controlled.

When we finally landed on the docks at Nara’s Cove, I felt nervous. I didn’t have the appetite for lunch, though it was past afternoon, but I accompanied Rain through the fish market as he led us to his favorite vendor. The graying and weather-hardened old man was familiar with Rain, not bothering to bow to his prince, but still offered me a small one—a barely perceptible bend at the waist. The man, aptly nicknamed Grizz, fried a fresh cut of salmon, adding thyme and dill, chives and lemon juice until it was seared to perfection. Rain practically inhaled it, offering me his last bite as an afterthought, and I declined with a smile before he finished it. Grizz didn’t have much to say, but I could tell he was proud he’d caught the favor of the prince.

Because he had just traveled to Lamera a few days ago and his memory was fresh, we were able to rift there, only having to make one stop along the coast in between. My feet were sinking in the sand at our last stop when he opened the final rift, and peering through, all I could see was stars, easily a hundred of them. I heaved a breath, grasping Rain’s hand before we stepped through, trying to remain calm, not allowing myself to panic. We were here to drink from the font, and that was it. With my task out of the way, there should be no reason for the Supreme to look further into my divinity. Besides, what Filenti was up to in the capital might have no relation to the Supreme. He could be an ally for all we knew. I doubted it, but the thought helped put my mind at ease.

That is, until I saw the giant cathedral in front of us. I had forgotten. Facts learned about the Seat of the Myriad during childhood tutoring had long since trickled out of my memory. Made entirely of lava-stone, the building was impenetrable by divinity. Even the intricately designed stained-glass windows were made from the thinnest obsidian glass. The twin spires reached into the heavens, black and threatening, casting an almost evil shadow on the ground behind us though it was barely past midday. Even if I knew the purpose of the basalt stones was to add a layer of protection to the font within the cathedral, there was something almost sinister about the building. The effect of the mineral’s dampening force repelled my divinity, the harsh thrum inside of me turning into a staccato, itching to break away from me and the building I stood in front of. I was reminded of the dagger during the Mind ceremony and the opposite effect it had on me, almost begging for me to touch it. I’d never held obsidian before, but something told me this visceral reaction I was having had more to do withmydivinity than divinity in general. Rain’s expression wasn’t one of nausea like mine surely was.

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