Page 70 of The Half King
Blue whined and buried his snout beneath his paws. The odor had to be especially unbearable for a nose as sensitive as his. While Cerise bent down to stroke the back of Blue’s neck, she tasted the electric tang of magic and found Father Padron extending a palm toward the shrine. The carcass began to sizzle and smoke until all that remained of the enormous beast was a pile of ash, which Father Padron then swept off the summit with a wave of his hand. He cleared the air and then indicated that it was safe for Cerise to continue onward.
The path to the shrine consisted of nothing more than a craggy set of stones to climb, which meant she would have to go the rest of the way alone. She ordered Blue to stay with Daerick and then she peered at the group one last time in hopes that Kian would reappear. After all the effort they had made to reach the shrine, she had wanted to share this moment with him. But as it wasn’t meant to be, she patted down her pockets to ensure that her offerings were still there, and she turned to face the rocks.
Before she began her climb, she lowered to one knee and transferred a kiss from her fingertips to the ground in a show of respect for her surroundings. Shiera, the great goddess herself, had once stood on this very summit a thousand years ago when she had taken mortal form. Cerise climbed the first jagged rock and imagined what it might’ve been like to be there, to regard the goddess in a body of flesh. She pictured Shiera’s golden armor gleaming in the sun, her muscled arms folded as she surveyed her creation with dual expressions of mercy and wrath.
It gave Cerise chills.
She continued her climb, ignoring the pain of the sharp stones pressing into her palms. The fantasy of treading in Shiera’s footsteps swallowed her so completely that she didn’t notice when one of her sandal straps broke in half. The next thing she knew, her left foot slipped out of her shoe, and she was falling backward toward the rocky ground. She barely had time to gasp before she landed hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs.
There was a collective intake of breath from the group. No one spoke or made a sound, except for Blue, who whined and rushed to Cerise’s side. Blue helped nudge her into a sitting position, and the rest of the group surrounded her as she probed her body for damage. She found nothing wrong. Miraculously, she wasn’t even sore. But as she glanced behind her at the place where she had landed, she discovered a jagged stone protruding from the ground like a serrated blade. The stone should have severed her spine, or at least pierced her from behind. Instead of being impaled on the rock, she seemed to have bounced off of it.
In disbelief, she glanced at the group and found Father Padron bracing his hands on his knees in exhaustion as though he had used his energy to save her life. But he couldn’t have. She tasted no magic in the air.
“Did you…?” she asked him.
“No.” Father Padron shook his head. “I didn’t have time to act.”
“Then how are you alive?” Daerick demanded of her. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but very few things are beyond my understanding, and your ability to cheat death is quickly becoming one of them.”
Cerise felt Nina’s pendant warm beneath her shirt. Her sister’s necklace had protected her once again, but having been sworn to secrecy, Cerise couldn’t say so. “I suppose the goddess—”
“—works in mysterious ways?” Daerick finished with a hint of sarcasm that didn’t escape her notice.
“Yes. Her blessings abound,” she told him.
Though Daerick was too smart to have been fooled by her excuse, he didn’t argue with her. “As blessed as you are,” he said, “try to be more careful.”
“Perhaps this was a lesson,” Cerise said as she removed her other sandal. “I should have taken off my shoes before walking on sacred ground.” She glanced at Father Padron and asked, “Don’t you agree, Your Grace?”
Father Padron was watching her as though she were an incomplete puzzle. He gave an absent nod, but it was clear that her excuse hadn’t fooled him, either.
Before anyone could question her further, she stood and brushed off her hands. She ordered Blue to stay with Daerick, and then she resumed her climb up the rocks, now focused on her handholds and keeping her mind in the present. The craggy stones pierced her tender feet, but the contact gave her a sense of connection that allowed her to scale the ridge without any more missteps. Minutes later, Cerise stood safely at the top of the summit and approached the Blighted Shrine, its onyx surface gleaming in the sunlight despite having burned a thousand years’ worth of offerings.
The air around the shrine stood unnaturally still, as though the world held its breath in wonder. Cerise held her breath, too. It struck her that she was nearer to the goddess now than she had ever been. She planted the soles of her bare feet onto the stone and let her flesh absorb the history of this place.
For the first time, she understood the significance of the blighted peak, the reason it was deemed holy. The acts of love and betrayal that had happened on this peak represented the spectrum of light and dark, like Shiera herself. There was a balance to the mountain that Cerise never would have noticed if Nero hadn’t shown her the secret oasis in the Below. While the mountain’s surface was scorched with blight, deep down, hidden in another dimension, existed a tiny paradise that teemed with beauty.
As above, so below. The goddess embodied all things.
“Mother Shiera, mistress of worlds,” Cerise began in a voice thick with emotion, “I come to you with two humble gifts, and in return I ask for your runes to guide me to the Petros Blade.” She retrieved the titan hyena tooth and held it toward the sky. “First, I offer you a symbol of darkness, for it is the darkness that defines the light. Without suffering, joy is muted. Without pain, pleasure is meaningless. And without the promise of death, time has no value. Your darkness is a gift.”
Cerise placed the incisor atop the onyx shrine, and at once, a black flame consumed the tooth, and it was gone. Her heartbeat ticked with excitement. The goddess had heard her prayer and accepted her first sacrifice.
“Second, I offer you a symbol of light,” Cerise said, retrieving the dried lavender blossom that she had plucked from the Below. “For it is through the warmth of the sun and the beauty of your creation that we feel your love. And your love is what makes life worth living. Your light is a gift.”
She placed the flower on the shrine, and it, too, was consumed. But even though the offering had been accepted, Cerise felt called to do more, to give more. There was too much gratitude inside her to contain, so she did the first thing that came to mind, and she called out to the goddess in song. It was a simple melody she had learned as a child, but its lyrics perfectly captured the way she felt.
From the golden rays of sunshine to the blackest shade of night,
Your sacred presence fills my heart with sorrow and delight.
Your power is eternal, your hand is cruel and kind,
Your mercy has conceived my soul, and so we are entwined.
Cerise had never been proud of her singing voice, but she closed her eyes, put aside her ego, and infused each note with all of the love and faith in her heart. She finished her song and reopened her eyes.
A pair of ten-sided dice now sat atop the shrine. Each die had been carved from marble, and its stone facets bore symbols in an ancient language Cerise had yet to learn.
