Page 180 of The Blade in the Ashes
The awareness of my physical form came back agonizingly slow. I first felt my toes and wiggled them softly. Then I became aware of my fingers, wrists, and elbows. I felt my heart beating in my chest and my lungs growing and shrinking as I inhaled and exhaled.
When I finally found the strength to blink my eyes open, Athene was gone.
I stood alone in the Veil.
Home. It felt like home. It felt like me. The Veil and I were made of the same cosmic magic.
I didn’t fear that anymore.
I didn’t fear being a Goddess anymore.
This power had always been a part of me, even in my very first moments when I didn’t know who or what I was. It was not within my ability to wield magic—it was in the very fiber of my soul. With or without power, I was the Veil. The Veil was me.
And out of that blinding light emerged a shimmering mass of pure energy that swirled and pulsated until I stuck my hand into it without fear.
My fingers wrapped around leather, bound tightly against a stiff hilt.
I pulled the sword from that mass of magic, its blade glimmering and its hilt lined with the pearlescent Veilstones I would now recognize even in blindness.
Mine.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Clay
When the pain cleared enough that all that remained was a fog over my thoughts, I struggled up to my knees, panting and wiping a hand across my sweat-soaked brow. Even the beast inside me quivered as if he, too, struggled to regain his balance after being tortured so thoroughly.
“You...” My voice faded out as I pushed myself to turn towards Ayanna, the small movement taking far too much of my strength.
She had dropped to her knees beside me, bowing her head and pressing a single hand to her heart. With her head dipped so low, I couldn’t quite make out her facial expression, but what I saw was relaxed and...reverent.
The air shifted around us, that oppressive force of power that had radiated out of Thea retreating, and taking with it the burning heat of the flames. I looked to her, heart catching as I tilted my head back.
The fire had completely engulfed her, burning away all of her garments, but rather than searing her skin, it seemed to burnoutof her. Flames of blinding white and sparkling silver, shimmering against her pearlescent skin. She floated above us, feet dangling two feet above the ground. That beautiful hair was weightless around her, an unnatural golden shine shimmering all around it.
“Dear Gods,” I whispered, the words falling out of me.
“Not Gods,” Ayanna corrected, her head still bowed respectfully. “Goddess.”
I stared at her. I watched her stare at Thea.
And I realized she wasn’t a traitor at all.
No, there was no mistaking the devotion in her features or the wide-eyed veneration. Ayanna hadn’t betrayed us. She had just stopped me from interfering with whatever Thea had needed to go through on her own.
Ayanna might be the first of Thea’s true worshippers.
With her eyes still completely white and glossed over, Thea lowered to the ground, and I lurched to my feet, catching her as she touched down and instantly stumbled.
She thrashed in my arms, blinking wildly as her head darted from side to side.
“Where am I?" she demanded. “Where am I?”
“Shh,” I brushed her hair out of her face, helping her find her footing before tearing the shirt off my back to slide it over her naked form. “It’s okay. We’re in the cavern. It’s over.”
She shook her head insistently, eyes wide with fear. “No. No, it’s not.”
I slid her arms into my shirt sleeves as she continued to make sense of her new surroundings. The tunic only reached to about her mid-thigh, leaving her legs bare. Even her boots had burned away.
