Zara’s taller, stronger, and her sword finds me twice more – once against my ribs, once along my thigh. Both wounds burn, but I can still move, still breathe. I use one of my throwing daggers. Given the nature of the previous trials, it feels like it’s been too long since I had a chance to truly test my ability with the weapon, but the moment it leaves my hand, I know the throw is good. With brutal precision it strikes her in her sword hand. As a shocked gasp flies from her lungs, the weapon drops from her fingers and I kick it away.

‘I can kill you with my bare hands!’ she snarls, but I barely listen. She has tried to kill me time and time again, and yet here I am, a finalist in the Ofur.

And. She. Doesn’t. Deserve. To. Win.

I slam into her, deliberately kicking that wounded leg. As she cries out in pain, satisfaction sparks within me. She’s hurt and she’s angry and I just got in another good hit. But I’m not getting complacent. Using my hands, I grab her shoulders, grappling and pushing her down as blood pours from the wound in her leg. I’m close enough to smell it.

Her knees bend, and I’m certain that any second they’re going to buckle, but instead, she strikes out, kicking my feet from under me. The impact robs me of my breath, and that single moment is all she needs. She wraps her arm around my throat, pulling me down into her. As her knees drop, she squeezes tight, restricting the air that my lungs so desperately crave. Within seconds my head is swimming. She is choking me. Killing me. But it’s not fast enough for her.

While her left arm continues to crush my airway, her other hand rakes my body for my dagger. But I know she won’t find it. Because I already have it in my hand.

Perhaps it’s the lack of air or maybe it’s the Goddess’s doing, but either way I feel my heartbeat slow, the surge of adrenaline replaced with the steadiness of certainty.

Now is the time I finally find out what Dinah’s dagger will do. Reading through dusty tomes has left me none the wiser, but books don’t always hold the answer. Sometimes you have to raise your head above the parapet and do.

Pulling in the deepest breath I can muster, I clutch Zara’s forearm. It’s hardly a lethal place to strike, but maybe I don’t need a mortal blow, not if what happened at the inauguration vows was anything to go by. Picturing Jai and the way the blood gushed from that single wound in his hand, I slice the dagger right across that choking forearm.

Zara grunts in pain as the metal tears through the top layers of skin, but remarkably, her hold on me doesn’t loosen. Fearing I misjudged the blade, I struggle to angle my neck down to look at the arm slowly killing me.

Tears prick my eyes as relief washes through me. It’s not just a trickle of blood seeping from the small wound, but a torrent. It’s pouring, gushing red and hot out of her arm and onto my fighting leathers.

‘What?’ Zara says, her voice now woozy. ‘What have you done, you fucking runt?’

Her grip on me loosens only slightly, but it’s enough for me to kick back and push her away from me. I scramble forward on my knees as I breathe deeply, gratefully choking in lungfuls of air. The dagger is warm in my hand, blood sticky between my fingers.

Once my head has stopped spinning, I slowly twist around and face her.

I should feel triumphant. I should feel relief. Instead, a hollowness opens under my ribs as I see the exact moment Zara’s chest stills and her face slackens into something softer, a gentle expression that she never wore in life.

‘Is she…?’ Jonas whispers.

I swallow. ‘Yeah.’

‘You still have to kill me, Rose.’ Jonas’s voice trembles. ‘That’s what the Goddess said. The person who kills me will get the gifting.’

A smile curls my lips. ‘I don’t think I do. Do I, Goddess?’

My heart flutters as I hold my breath, and for the first time since I laid eyes on her, the Goddess’s mouth turns upwards and a glinting smile enhances those abyssal eyes.

‘No, you do not. It is yours,’ she says in a voice that doesn’t belong with Dinah’s body. ‘Rose Kultavaris, the gifting is yours.’

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Chapter 72

Ishould be feeling elated, but a strange numbness fills me instead. I fear it’s not over, that there’s still a sting in the tail to come.

Zara thought she had won, too. She reached the Goddess first, the way we thought we had to do to win this. Now she’s lying dead on the ground, her blood seeping into the worn stones beneath her.

‘Why me?’ I ask the only question I can. ‘Why, when Zara reached you first?’

Dinah’s lips don’t move as the voice echoes in my head. ‘I am the Goddess of Life, and she had no respect for that.’

‘But she won,’ I argue aloud.

‘No, she completed the trials and arrived here first.’ The Goddess’s voice is melodic and patient. ‘Some Rettlings use the trials to grow, and I hoped she would be one to do so. Pain, loss, community – they can bring out the best in so many. But in others, they only deepen the darkness. She turned away from love and friendship at every stage, every opportunity. She is one who has spent a life of being, not living. I will not gift the unworthy.’

I tried more than once to be civil to Zara. If she had reciprocated, would it be her standing here instead of me? Quite possibly. The thought chills me. My compassion could truly have led to my downfall, just like Kyor warned me.

‘Has this happened before?’ I ask curiously. ‘Have there been others who reached you first but did not win?’

Her smile rises on one side, with a definite coyness to it. ‘The correct person has always won,’ is all she says.

The smile remains fixed, and I know she’s given me all the answers I’m going to get. It shouldn’t surprise me. The Retterheld is ultimately about worthiness. And the fact that the Goddess finds me worthy …

As I stand there, struggling to believe what is happening, I sense movement behind me. Jonas is on his knees, looking at me. Tears fill his eyes, but are they because he’s pleased for me or just relieved that I didn’t have to kill him? Or maybe they’re not for me at all. Maybe they’re because he didn’t win?

The presence of one friend reminds me of another, and I twist back to the Goddess.

‘Benny. Did he make it? Did he get out?’

‘Is the gift you want from me the answer to that question?’ The deity arches a single eyebrow in an expression that is as alien to Dinah as the voice is. ‘It seems a waste, but if that is your desire …’

‘No, no! I just …’

As the smile tugs at her lips, I realise she’s toying with me. Great, the Gods have a sense of humour. I’ll try to remember that when I think of all the crap they’ve put me through.

Her expression flickers and the knowledge that she can hear my thoughts hits again. Oh shit.

‘Goddess, I wasn’t thinking straight. I … I …’ I bow low, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye, but she shakes her head.

‘No need to apologise. It is a bad habit of mine. You humans so rarely share the truth, so I find it far easier to understand your workings in this manner. But rest assured, from now on, your thoughts will be yours and yours alone.’

A tremble of relief rises within me, though it’s hard to believe it fully. After all, it’s not as though I can feel when she enters my head.

‘Rose Kultavaris,’ she begins, tone brimming with pride. ‘You came to me knowing what gift you would ask for. Wishing for everything that was taken from you and your family to be returned. Is that still your desire?’

I nod. ‘I know you cannot return lives, and that my parents’ powers have been passed to Mortidem, but for myself and my sister, I wish for our magic, our titles, our home. I wish for our lives to be as they should have been. For Kay’s life to be as it should have been. That will be enough.’