Page 69 of Courting War
What if staying away was the reason all her champions died?
Guilt steeped in her stomach. Theo never wanted to harm her champions. She stayed away out of principle. Her throat grew dry again, and bitterness seeped into her mouth as exhaustion claimed her body.
When Theo woke up the next time, Cecile was holding vigil by her bed, her brow creasing her pretty porcelain features.
“How are you feeling?” Cecile asked, sitting in the chair next to the cot.
“Much better,” Theo said, throat raw.
That sentiment was primarily true, her body felt much better, but her mind crawled with torment. Theo couldn’t get over what Andromache said. She even dreamed of Theoden’s champions dying over and over again in the Sacrifice.
Her mind was plagued by it.
“Cecile, do you think the Theoden champions have died for the last 500 years because I haven’t shown up?”
Theo expected the girl to pull her punches, at least a bit, but she didn’t. Not at all. “Yes, I think that’s exactly why they died.”
Theo gulped. “You must think of me as a villain.” Theo didn’t realize that, through her apathy, she’d condemned every Theoden champion . . . every single one.
Cecile didn’t say anything. Instead, she watched Theo’s expressions like a hawk.
“Are the games unwinnable without a god’s help?”
“Yes,” Cecile said again. “Kellyn, the champion you so aptly refused to help, nursed you back to health.” The tone was biting but not bitter. Cecile was proving a point. “He could have, and maybe should have, left you to your sickness after you sabotaged him.”
Theo didn’t necessarily qualify refusing to help as sabotage, but she understood the girl’s point and fused her lips, absorbing the wrath.
One of the things War admired about her Godmarked was thefire and lack of fear to speak her mind—even to a god. It was a trait that would get Cecile in trouble in the future, but not with the War Goddess.
“I’m sorry about poisoning you.” Cecile sucked in a breath and bit her lip, her fingers straightening out the wrinkles in the sheets. The girl hated the mess and had compulsions to clean it up. Almost as if she thought if she could keep the things surrounding her tidy, she could also control her life—keep it tidy, too.
Theo shrugged. “It’s the Sacrifice. These things are bound to happen.”
“I don’t understand. You’re the Goddess of War; shouldn’t you be angry? Isn’t wrath your driving emotion?”
“No.”Not wrath, sorrow,but Theo didn’t want to say that. “I cannot fault you for your actions in a game designed to make you betray the things you hold most dear.” Theo rolled her sheet between her fingers. “Though I’d prefer it if you didn’t poison me again.”
Cecile laughed.
“It wasn’t a pleasant experience.”
“Oh no?” Cecile raised a taunting brow, a smirk painting her soft face. She opened her mouth to add something else but got distracted by the mirrors replaying a moment from her Death Challenge.
Cecile, twelve years of age, was in chains and being handled by a giant bruiser of a man. Little Cecile fought and kicked, trying to escape, but it was useless. Despite being strong for her age, the man was triple her height and weight.
“Let me go.” Cecile kicked him in the shin. “I want to go home to my parents.”
With a fierce crack, the man backhanded her, sending her flying like a rag doll. “Your parents are the ones who sold you, girl.” The man spat at her feet.
“That’s not true,” Cecile said, her voice coated with the sadness of a banshee’s tears. “It can’t be.”
“It is.”
The low, sinister voice echoed all around the real Cecile and Theo, the man’s face appearing in every mirror, mocking with its cruelty.
“Oh, Cecile,” Theo breathed, sitting up in the cot and pulling the girl into a hug. It was utterly out of character for the goddess to hug anyone, but she sensed Cecile needed to be held. And if there was any human Theo could stomach trying to care about, it was her human servant. “I’m so sorry.”
The mirror shifted to a scene of the Simark priest fighting a hydra.
