Okay, then.

Curious and a bit wary, I stepped into the shadows of the building next door. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t a little afraid of what could be in a box given to me by some random god. I found the seam of the lid and lifted it.

I gasped as a tremor of shock rippled through me. The box wobbled in my hand. I steadied myself, unable to believe what I was looking at.

Nestled against cream velvet was a dagger. Not just any dagger, though.

The corners of my lips tipped up, and a smile stretched across my face as I freed the blade from its soft nest. The dagger was…it was a magnificent creation. A piece of art. The hilt was made of some kind of smooth, white, surprisingly lightweight material. Perhaps stone of some sort? The pommel of the hilt was carved into the shape of a crescent moon. I gripped the hilt and pulled the dagger free. The dagger…gods, it was delicate yet strong.

Beautiful and powerful.

The blade itself was at least seven inches long and shaped like a thin hourglass—deadly sharp on both sides. Someone had etched an elaborate design into the dagger—a spiked tail on the blade, and the muscular, scaled body and head of a dragon carved into the hilt, its powerful jaws open and breathing fire.

The dagger was made of shadowstone.

The polished black blade blurred. I blinked away the sudden wetness and swallowed, but the messy knot still clogged my throat. The emotion had nothing to do with the shadowstone. It didn’t even have to do with who I knew must have given it to me. It was just…

I’d never been gifted anything in my life.

Not on the Rites when gifts were often exchanged among family and friends. Not on my birthday.

But I had been given a gift now—a beautiful, useful, and wholly unexpected one. And it had been a god who’d given it to me.

Ash.

Chapter 17

Odetta passed into the Vale in the early morning hours of the following day.

I’d only learned this because when I went to check on her before training with Sir Holland, I had discovered a servant in her chamber, stripping the linens from the bed.

And I knew what had happened before I even spoke—before I asked where she was. The sudden tightening in my chest and the knot in my throat told me that the moment Odetta had warned was approaching had come and gone.

I hadn’t gone to the tower. Instead, I’d traveled to Stonehill, where I knew she had family who still lived, arriving just as the services began. I wondered if that was why I often found myself in this district and spent time at the Temple of Phanos—if I thought of Odetta as family, and that was why it drew me.

I stayed near the back of the small cluster of mourners, surprised when I felt the presence of others coming to stand beside me. It was Sir Holland and Ezra. Neither said anything as the pyre Odetta had been laid upon was raised, the slender linen-wrapped body coming into view. They stood quietly beside me, their presence lessening some of the pressure in my chest.

I didn’t cry as torches were carried forward and placed on the oil-soaked wood. Not because I couldn’t, but because I knew that Odetta wouldn’t have wanted me to. She’d told me that I had to be ready. So, I was as ready as I could ever be as the flames slowly crawled over the wood, stirred by the salty breeze coming off the sea until I could no longer see the pale linens behind the fire.

I turned and left then, knowing that nothing of the cranky woman was left in this realm. She had entered the Shadowlands, passing through the Pillars of Asphodel that Ash had spoken about. I walked the coast, confident that Odetta had been welcomed into the Vale and was likely already complaining about something.

I woke the morning before the Rite with a throbbing headache that didn’t go away, no matter how much water I forced myself to drink throughout the morning.

Training was sheer torture as the headache managed to spread into an ache that settled in my jaw and brought queasiness to my stomach. The stifling heat of the tower room didn’t help.

Sir Holland circled me, sweat glistening off the dark skin of his forehead. I tracked him wearily. He lunged at me, and I should’ve easily blocked his kick, but my movements were slow. His bare foot connected with my shin. A pained breath punched out of my lungs as I hobbled back on one leg.

“You okay?” Sir Holland demanded.

“Yeah.” I bent over, rubbing my shin.

“You sure?” He came to my side, dragging the back of his hand over his forehead. “You’ve been sloppy all afternoon.”

“I feel sloppy,” I muttered, straightening.

Concern pinched Sir Holland’s face as his gaze swept over me. “You look a little pale.” He planted his hands on his waist. “What’s going on? Is it Odetta?”

I shook my head as sadness flickered through me. It had been two days since Odetta had passed, and I’d caught myself heading to her floor to check in on her at least a dozen times before realizing there was no reason to do so. “I just have a bad headache, and my stomach feels a bit off.”

“Does your jaw hurt?”

I frowned. “How do you know?”

“Because you’re rubbing your face,” he pointed out.

Oh, I totally was. I stopped doing that. “My jaw hurts a little,” I admitted. “Maybe I caught something, or a tooth has gone bad.”

“Maybe,” he murmured, and my frown increased. “Go ahead and take the rest of the day off. Get some rest.”

Normally, I would’ve protested and trained through whatever discomfort I felt, but all I wanted to do was sit down. Or lay down. “I think I’ll do that.”

Sir Holland nodded, and after giving him an awkward wave goodbye, I turned for the door. He spoke out. “I’ll bring something up for you that I think will help.”

“I don’t want a sleeping potion,” I told him, reaching the door.

“It won’t be that.”

The throbbing and gnawing ache in the pit of my stomach had intensified by the time I made it back to my chambers. I barely managed to peel off my clothing and change into an old men’s shirt that had been left behind in the laundry. As oversized as it was, the hem reached my knees. It wasn’t as light as my night rail, but it was all I had the effort for.

A knock sounded on my bedchamber door a little while later. It was Sir Holland, and as promised, he carried a tankard and a pouch.

“What is this?” I asked as he handed the items to me, and I looked down at the steaming, dark liquid.

“A little bit of chasteberry, chamomile, fennel, willow, and peppermint,” he said, lingering at the doorway. “It’ll help.”

I sniffed the liquid, brows lifting as I sat at the foot of my bed. The scent was sweet, minty, and earthy. “It smells…unique.”

“That it does. But you need to drink all of it, and you should drink it fast. Okay? You don’t want the potion to cool any more than it already has.”

I nodded, taking a long drink. It didn’t taste bad but wasn’t particularly easy to swallow either.

Sir Holland sat on the edge of the bed, his gaze fixed on the sunlight drifting through the small window. “You know what I was thinking about? The conversation we had a while back when I asked you what you were.”

“Yeah.” My brow scrunched. “You said I was a warrior.”

Smiling faintly, he nodded. “I did. I’ve been thinking about that. About who you remind me of.”

I was half afraid to hear this. “Who?”

“Sotoria.”

It took me a moment to remember who that was. “The girl so frightened by a god that she fell to her death from the Cliffs of Sorrow?” I wasn’t sure if Sotoria was more myth than reality, but I was kind of offended. “What about me makes you think I’d run off the side of a cliff?”

“Sotoria wasn’t weak, Sera. Her being frightened by the god was only a part of her story.”