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She gasped.
Where only moments ago there had been nothing but straw and stone and the symbol of a golden dragon fixed to the wall, there was now a field of vibrant green moss. As she watched, flowers sprung from the moss, bursting from the ground before her nose and creating a meadow of brilliant blues and yellows. Ethereal butterflies danced through the flowers and spun through the air, grouping together to form a silhouette.
She blinked as that shape resolved into a woman of green and gold.
“Holy gods.” She lurched off the straw and threw her hands onto the moss-covered floor, bowing until her forehead touched her wrist. The Chastry might focus solely on resurrecting the fallen golden dragons, might discourage the people from following the old ways, but they still knew the old gods.
Especially those who governed the earth.
“Oh Great and Powerful Goddess Ceres.” She didn’t dare look up. “Whatever I have done to displease you, I am sorry. I beg you—”
“Hush, my child.” The goddess’s voice was like the fall of clear water on a winter morning, pure and soft, with the power to turn into a deadly frost at the slightest hint of disrespect. “I am not here to punish you.”
At her words, pain slammed into Maren.
Air rushed from her lungs, and she collapsed on the stone floor. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she struggled to breathe. Only…somehow the pain wasn’t hers. She knew it, just as she knew the truth of her visions. And this pain didn’t stem from her. It radiated from the goddess in a burning arc, like the edge of the sun on the hottest summer day.
Her children.
Her children hurt, and so she hurts.
She pushed herself onto an elbow and looked at the goddess. “My…my lady?”
“They killed my golden children.” The goddess’s face was a beautiful mask of plants, shaped with the fury of a deadly storm.
The floor trembled.
A tear ran down the goddess’s cheek, and that single drop was an ocean that would drown Maren. She should be frightened, instead, she sat back on her calves and tipped her race toward the water. After years of being trapped in this tower, being forced to drink that tincture and speak what she saw, Maren would welcome the release of death.
Hands of green cupped her chin. “Do not give up. This is not the end, child.”
“Why not?” Maren stared into eyes that were at once pools of deep water and the heart of every flower. “I am tired, oh Goddess. Why should my suffering not end? I ache from everything I’ve seen.”
“Because you are not done.” Lips of rose petals curved into a sad smile, and she pulled Maren to her feet. “You have been called.”
“I am always called.” A scoff escaped Maren before she could stop it. “I am of the Nameless. Those who can only hope to serve. All seek to use my powers, and shun me for them in turn. What does it matter when everything I see and feel is suffering?”
“Perhaps it depends on who is suffering,” the goddess said quietly.
The moss beneath their feet lifted from the floor in a wave of green, the flowers rising to spin around them, creating a vortex of gold and blue. Faster and faster it spun, until the tower room vanished into the blur. Then it stopped abruptly, and all the flowers fell to the earth.
Only instead of familiar walls of stone, Maren found herself standing in the middle of a battlefield.
No. She scrubbed a hand over her eyes. A village.
Or the remains of it. Everything was grey and red. Ash swirled through the air, rolling in thick waves. Charred skeletons of houses listed atop a ruined earth. And mere steps away lay the burnt husk of a horse.
“Gods.” Maren covered her mouth to muffle her cry and stared in horror at the goddess.
Ceres’s luminous green figure was almost obscene against such a setting. It couldn’t be real, yet Maren could smell burnt wood and flesh, could taste the soot and feel the cinders sizzle against her exposed skin. After all the visions she’d endured, this place felt even more real—and even more horrible for it.
“Why?” she choked. “Why would you bring me to such a cruel place?”
“Though nature can be harsh, it is not without purpose. I am not cruel, though the land we stand upon is seeped with it.” Ceres’s features spoke of sadness, flowers falling from her hair to meld with the ash upon the ground. “I bring you to this place, my dear child, to offer you a gift. A chance to see beyond the pain and suffering before you.”
Maren took a step away from the goddess. “I do not understand…”
Ash whipped around them. In the distance, the shadows of men fought in the firelight. The shapes of weapons struck, and screams rang out. The desperate cries of the dying and defeated.
