Sacrifice (13 page)

Stone’s eyes widened in surprise, and he rose in one motion to his feet. “No. It is not possible, lady. I had made certain—”

“Do not argue with me.” The Goddess of Accord’s voice had dropped—softer, yet somehow, more threatening. The goddess gave no scent that Skybright could detect with her heightened senses, but tension wavered in the air around the Immortal. Wrath manifested in a way she had never felt before.

Skybright resisted the urge to shift into serpent form. She felt safer—stronger—as her demonic self, but she was too frightened over how her monstrosity would be received by the goddess. What would happen if the Goddess of Accord hurt Stone? Or even killed him? What then, would be her fate? She held very still, not wanting to draw the attention of the angry goddess. She didn’t want to die here in the heavens.

Stone’s dark gaze flickered toward where Skybright crouched, and she saw him give the smallest twitch of his finger. Then he continued to speak, and the goddess answered him, but Skybright couldn’t hear the conversation. It was as if Stone had robbed her of her hearing. But she caught the rustle of bird feathers behind her, and Skybright knew that Stone had used sorcery to make the conversation between himself and the goddess private.

Fascinated despite herself, she watched as the goddess and Stone continued to argue, if one could call it that, as both their faces were impassive as statues. But finally, Stone curled his fingers ever so slightly, the equivalent of fists clenching for any mortal man, and dropped his chin in submission to the goddess. The goddess let her hand fall, and Skybright heard a whoosh like wind and rain.

“Do not presume to work your small magic in my own palace, Stone,” she said. “The half-demon child can hear what I have to say; she will bear witness to your punishment.”

Stone’s hands did clench then.

“Your sole job is to manage the covenant between the mortals and the underworld—to be certain that when hell breaches, the monks are ready to fight the demons, then to close that breach with a sacrifice. Yet it remains open after the last Great Battle. You have failed in this simple task.” The Goddess of Accord glided closer to Stone so they stood but a hand’s width apart. “For your disobedience and overstepping your station, I am stripping you of your status.”

Stone’s head snapped up, and he stared at the goddess in disbelief. “Please. I will amend this, lady.”

“If so, it will not be with any aid from the gods. You have ten days to close the breach, or you die.” She swept both arms up in a dramatic arc. “I will leave you with enough magic to help you in your tasks—and remind you of all that you have lost.” The goddess’s words thundered powerfully against the walls of the palace, and Skybright cowered further, even as the goddess pressed her fingers to Stone’s temples.

He stood frozen, stunned, as he gazed helplessly into the goddess’s eyes.

Brilliant white light began to flow from her fingertips, suffusing Stone’s face in bright beams. He gasped, and his body began to shudder, first rocking gently, then as if invisible hands had seized him by the shoulders and were shaking him like a boneless puppet.

The light was so searing it burned her eyes, but Skybright couldn’t turn away from the vision. The goddess tilted her head and said, “Look away, child.” If Stone could speak in Skybright’s inner ear from afar, the goddess seemed to speak from
within
Skybright herself. Then, as if in afterthought, the goddess said, “You will lose your sight permanently if you continue to gaze upon him.”

Terrified, Skybright snapped her eyes shut, hearing nothing but her own ragged breathing as the room pulsed with immortal power. When the vibrations ebbed within the hall and the whiteness slowly disappeared from behind her tightly closed lids, she mustered enough courage to slit one eye open.

The goddess and Stone stood exactly as they were, except Stone was clothed in a frayed tunic and trousers in a muddied tan color like the peasants wore.

“You are no longer powerful as you were, Stone.” The goddess said it as if it were a sentencing, and Skybright realized that it was. “Perhaps this will teach you not to overstep your bounds,
farm boy
.” The goddess turned toward Skybright in one fluid motion, her liquid gown rippling with her movement. Skybright scrambled back on her hands and knees, away from the Immortal. “He is vulnerable to your venom now, little one. Do with him what you will.” And with that, she evaporated from view, as a dew drop on a leaf in the sunlight.

Stone had held still until the goddess disappeared, then began swaying on his feet. In a heartbeat, Skybright morphed into her serpentine form. He crumpled to the ground a moment after, gracelessly, and she lashed her serpent coil out to cushion his head from striking the hard ground.

She slithered to him. His eyelids fluttered; then he focused on her face. His eyes were a lighter shade than they had been—rich brown like camphor wood.

“Goddess,” he whispered.

Skybright didn’t know if it was an invocation, or if Stone was actually calling for the Goddess of Accord.

“She has abandoned you,” Skybright rasped as his eyes rolled toward the back of his head and he fell unconscious.

Skybright

Skybright sat with Stone for hours. No one else magically entered the palace hall. The song bird began its trilling again after the goddess left, singing its song of loss. Of betrayal. She knew it was the song of Stone’s heart. She studied his face to her contentment, curious over his transformation. Was he something in between now, as she was, not immortal but not fully mortal?

The planes of his face had softened, his jawline and cheekbones less chiseled. A sprinkling of freckles dabbled across his cheeks, and there were faint lines near the edges of his eyes that had never been there before. She picked up his hand, feeling the rough calluses near the top of his palm. The nails were cut short with a hint of dirt beneath. His skin was tanned golden, dark against her own pale complexion. Stone had been attiring himself as a regal warrior from the past, when he was instead a farm boy who had been plucked from the fields by some god on a whim. Why had he been chosen? Because he was handsome? Or simply because he was there?

He let out a low moan, and she leaned in close. His breathing was steady, as was the thrumming of his heart. She could gauge it all with her heightened serpentine senses. He still smelled of forest and earth, but it was muted, like fragrance that had been worn on the skin an entire day. She drew nearer, breathing him in, enjoying this freedom while he was knocked out. Stone had always been the one in control, who had the upper hand in all their interactions. How would it be now?

“What are you doing?” Stone croaked.

She had had her face pressed near his neck and jerked back in surprise. “Nothing. I was making sure you hadn’t died.” She winced at the monstrous grating sound of her voice.

He let out a small breath that might have been a laugh, then grimaced. “Have you finally sunk your fangs into me, then?”

“The goddess did say my venom can kill you now,” she ground out.

“Is that why my head hurts so much?” He winced in pain, then closed his eyes again.

“I did not use my venom on you—”

“Why not?” He opened one eye to peer at her, looking so boyish she was taken aback. “You can be rid of me once and for all.”

“I cushioned your head when you fell. It’d probably be split open like a melon otherwise.” Skybright arched her back and hissed deep. “I do not kill people for sport.”

“Thank you, Skybright, for saving my skull.” He shifted his head and seemed to realize that he was resting against her thick serpentine body. Stone then lifted his gaze, his eyes following the curve of her hip covered in crimson scales, then lingered at her bare breasts. He blushed a deep red, something she had never seen him do, as he scrambled to rise. Her nudity had never elicited any reaction from him before. “Ah!” Stone touched his temple with a hand. “My head. It certainly feels like a split melon.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t suffering more.”

He doubled over, his hands pressed against his thighs, and swayed like a drunkard.

She gathered her coils. “Perhaps you need more rest.”

“Water,” he replied.

“There is the creek behind you.” The waters had calmed since the goddess’s dramatic entrance, and the creek flowed smoothly now, its surface glimmering.

He gave a shake of his head and muttered under his breath. A ceramic jug of water appeared at his feet. Stone drank deep from it before drying his mouth with the swipe of a hand. “I have not thirsted in over two thousand years.” He gazed into the empty jug, then held his arm out in front of him, before glancing down at himself. “I look like a peasant.”

“I think you were one.”

Stone ran his hands over the dusty tunic in disbelief. “Goddess,” he said again, then considered her. “Why are you still here?”

“Where am I to go? There’s no exit, and I have no notion as to how to get off this Immortals’ peak. Besides, I couldn’t leave without you.”

“You couldn’t?” He half smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. It made him look entirely different than the Stone she had known a few hours before.

Skybright snorted. “Don’t be foolish. I don’t know the way back.”

“You’re magnificent in serpent form, you realize?”

She didn’t respond. Only Stone could ever think her demonic representation was
magnificent
.

He said another incantation in a low voice and slashed his arm to open a portal. Nothing happened. He tried again, then a third time. He cursed, loud enough that the jeweled bird shrilled in complaint. “I cannot summon the portal any longer.” But despite the statement, he kept trying, uttering the ancient spell loudly now, making the motion of his arm more emphatic, his dark brows drawn together in frustration. “Damn the gods,” he finally muttered beneath his breath.

“Stop, Stone,” she said. His feelings of anger and impotence tasted like bitter medicine against her tongue. “We’re trapped here then?”

“No. Not unless the goddess willed it. And I don’t think she intended for us to remain here.” He bowed his head. “You place your fingertips on the wall and command it to open for you.”

“Let’s go then,” she rasped.

But instead, Stone slouched to the floor. His sense of desolation was so acute, it felt like something physical was shrouded over him.

“I thought you told the goddess you would fix this,” Skybright said.

His broad shoulders shook, and for one terrible moment, she thought he was sobbing. But he lifted his face and she realized he had actually been laughing. “How? I can’t even make portals any longer.” He continued to laugh, verging on hysteria.

She crossed her arms, human skin brushing against the smooth scales of her torso, and tried to reconcile this young man so full of angst with the powerful and assured one she’d been forced to accompany. It was almost as startling as seeing a goddess with her own eyes. “You begin by returning to the mortal realm. You cannot close the breach from the heavens.”

His mouth twisted, and he wiped his eyes. “That seems practical.” He rose unsteadily to his feet. “Have you always been so practical, Skybright?”

“Yes,” she replied and touched her fingers against the gold wall, which again appeared to be normal and solid after the goddess’s departure. “Come. There’s no time for this.”

The wall undulated like water, as the goddess’s flowing dress had; then all four walls disappeared. The grand jade columns remained, holding up the arched roof, but spectacular views of The Mountain of Heavenly Peace spanned before them. From this higher vantage point, they appeared to be floating in the sky. Cloud wisps drifted by, so near it felt as if she could rise on her serpent coil and touch them. The small stream that had curved its way through the palace continued on, growing wider into the lush gardens beyond.

A grand six-story pagoda glinted in the distance, its roof tiles golden in the sunlight. Several pavilions dotted the expansive garden; the closest had an eruption of wisteria hanging from its eaves. Its peppery fragrance carried to her on a gentle breeze, potent even from a distance.