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“Me three,” Selena said on my right. “Damn her and her entire House for what she did to us.”
My mothers.
Then who stood at my back? Because I could feel someone pressed against me. Arms came around me. Polished obsidian. Glittering gold nails. Lapis lazuli and diamonds and gold wrapped around Her wrist.
I smelled blowing sands mixed with precious incense. The white, delicate flowers of night-blooming jasmine. The lush spice of blue lotus. The sensual velvet of roses.
Our goddess’s arms enveloped me in Her strength and love. “I build my future—and the Great Mother’s—through you.”
The gloom lightened enough for me to look around the chamber. Rough, natural stone walls stretched upward into darkness, but the chamber was large enough I couldn’t see any ceiling. Roots protruded from the stone and arched around a dark cleft in the rock.
The Mother’s words from the dream repeated in my head. :ONLY THE ROOTS REMAIN.:
We must be standing beneath the World Tree. Or what was left of it.
A woman strode out of the cleft.
A goddess. Power shimmered around Her but I couldn’t see Her face and only the vaguest shape of Her body. She wore a long, heavy cloth over Her head obscuring the rest of Her body. Though the cloth wasn’t soft or flowing at all. It seemed stiff and hard, as if carved from cold alabaster.
:She’s known as Despoina.: Isis’ voice rumbled through my head, making my teeth vibrate in my skull. :Though her true name is known only to those inside the Eleusinian Mysteries.:
“So this is the woman who murdered my daughter, Jeanne Viennois.”
My throat tightened but I didn’t flinch. I didn’t bow my head with guilt. I wasn’t sorry. At all. Maybe that made me a monster. So be it. “Yes.”
“I demand recompense. I demand her life.”
Isis released a low, rumbling growl of laughter, and the stone shook beneath my feet. “Your daughter tried to kill three queens bound to the Great Mother’s table. Without Shara Isador, another Triune would be lost. Her life is too great a price, especially when she was doing the Mother’s will.” Her voice sharpened like a blade. “When your daughter refused.”
A deep, resonating gong rolled from the cleft. :I CALLED THIS DAUGHTER OF MY DAUGHTER, AND SHE WENT WHERE I POINTED. SHE SAVED WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN DOOMED.:
Despoina’s head bowed, the heavy veil shifting around Her body as if She brought Her hands together in supplication. “She gains too much power, Mother. She already has power over the grave and gained House Modron’s legacy through her mother. Now she’s to gain mine without any cost to her house or any diminishment of her extreme power? Who’s to stand against her?”
I couldn’t see Isis’ face but I felt Her smile in my bones. “No one.”
:THE COST IS HIGH, DAUGHTER OF MY DAUGHTER. SO YOU AGREED.:
“I did, Great Mother.” I swallowed hard but tipped my chin up. “Though I beg You not to take any of my loved ones. Please. I can’t bear to lose them.”
“If she’s to gain my Mysteries, then I wish to strip away her power over the grave. Let her carry the fear of death with her that cannot be resurrected.”
No. Please. I clenched my jaws, fighting down the words. I won’t beg this goddess for mercy.
Only the Mother, and She’d already heard my plea.
“I would not be well pleased to welcome Shara Isador home before her appointed time,” Isis retorted.
Despoina shrugged. “I could agree to her still being able to resurrect herself. But she should know a fraction of the fear my daughter suffered as she died.”
I couldn’t imagine the Dauphine fearing anything as much as I feared losing one of my Blood. Someone from my family. I’d already lost both of my mothers. The only father I’d ever known. Must I lose more of the people I loved?
My heart felt bruised and swollen, too large for my chest cavity. I couldn’t breathe through the pain just at the thought of watching any of my Blood die.
No. I won’t. I can’t.
We all go together. So I promised Coatlicue.
:There’s always a way,: Esetta whispered in my mind.
