Chapter 55: The Part That Was a Lie

No one in the round chamber answered Liora’s question, and for a long moment, all that could be heard was the crackling of the torches burning along the walls.

Kai stared down at the elderly woman sitting in the wooden chair, and then up at the faint white light flickering behind the golden chains, and he felt a pit open up in the bottom of his stomach. All his life, he had been able to talk his way out of things he didn’t want to do, and this was the first time he could ever remember not being able to think of a single thing to say.

[Kai, do not answer her yet]

"Why not?" Kai whispered.

[Because Elowen has not checked the second part]

Kai turned around to look behind him. Elowen was standing at the entrance of the chamber with her sword pointed at the floor and her blindfolded face turned straight towards Liora, and she hadn’t moved an inch since the High Priestess had stopped talking.

"You said that if the chains are broken, your mother will die," Elowen said. "Repeat that."

Liora’s face went completely blank, the way a card player’s face goes blank when someone at the table tells them they’re bluffing.

"I do not have to repeat myself," Liora said. "You already know what I said."

"Then I will ask you this instead," Elowen said, lifting her sword up so that everyone in the room could see its blade. "If the chains are broken, will your mother die?"

Liora opened her mouth and then closed it again, and she let the silence stretch on for a long time before she finally answered.

"Yes," Liora said.

Elowen’s sword lit up so brightly that Garrick had to cover his eyes, and the white light washed over the golden chains and the hammered sun and every face in the room.

"Lie," Elowen said.

Liora pulled her hand away from her mother’s shoulder as if it had burned her, and for the first time since Kai had met her, the High Priestess looked scared.

Celestine let out a long sigh from her chair, and it sounded almost like a laugh.

"She was always bad at lying," Celestine said. "Even when she was little, she would look down at the floor, just like that."

"Mother, please do not," Liora said.

"The oath was never tied to me," Celestine said, ignoring her daughter and looking straight at Kai with her pale blue eyes. "It was tied to the High Priestess of the Radiant Church. Whoever puts on that robe becomes the High Priestess, and she inherits the chains along with it. When I faked my death forty years ago, my daughter became the High Priestess, and the chains became hers." She looked up at Liora with a soft, sad smile on her face. "If the chains are broken, God of Failure, it will not be my life that they take."

Everyone in the room turned to look at Liora, who was standing beside the giant golden sun with her bandaged hand pressed over her heart and a face as pale as her robes.

"You wanted us to believe it was your mother," Mira said slowly. "You wanted Kai to have to choose between killing an old woman and killing a goddess, so that he wouldn’t choose at all."

"I have spent forty years keeping this Church alive," Liora said, and her voice was trembling. "Forty years handing out blessings to priests who did not know where they came from, and smiling at a city that would rip me apart if it ever learned the truth. I never wanted any of this. I was twenty years old when my mother died and handed me a robe and a chain." She looked over at her mother with tears in her eyes. "And now you want me to die for it."

"No," Kai said.

Everyone in the room turned to look at him, even Liora, and Kai realized he had said it out loud without meaning to.

"No one is dying," Kai said, and his voice sounded calm, even though his legs were shaking. "You’re not dying, your mother isn’t dying, and neither is the Mother. I don’t care what your oath says. There’s always another way out of a room, as long as you stop staring at the door everybody tells you to use."

"There is no other way," Liora said. "The chains open with the oath, or they do not open at all."

[Kai, Elowen said that one part of Liora’s earlier speech was a lie. Ask her which part]

Kai turned back around to face Elowen, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Liora staring at him with her bandaged hand balled into a fist against her robes.

"Earlier, when Liora said that if the chains broke, the Mother would speak and then die," Kai said. "Which part was the lie?"

Elowen tilted her head, and her sword dimmed a little as she thought about it.

"That she would speak was true," Elowen said. "That she would die was not, or at least, Liora does not believe that it is."

Liora flinched as if she had been hit, and she didn’t say a single word to contradict her.

"So what happens to her?" Kai asked. "If her light gets out, where does it go?"

Liora didn’t answer him, because at that exact moment, the warmth behind Kai’s rib cage flared so hot that he fell to his knees, and when he looked down, light was pouring out of his body.

"Kai!" Mira shouted, grabbing his arm.

[It is after midnight, and I still have my ten minutes. Kai, let me out]

"Okay," Kai gasped. "Go."

The light shot out of Kai’s chest and took shape in front of the golden sun, first a hand, then an arm, then long platinum hair and a thin white dress, with two golden rings hovering above her head like a halo. Syraphim stood barefoot on the cold stone floor, glowing softly in the torchlight, and every person in the room stared at her.

Liora took a step back, and her face went even paler. Behind Kai, Mira’s grip on his arm tightened, and she let out a sharp breath, because even though she had seen Syraphim in the bathtub and on Hale’s roof, she had never seen her standing like this, calm and tall and shining like a candle in a dark room.

"The gift," Liora whispered. "That is the Mother’s gift."

"My name is Syraphim," Syraphim said, without even looking at her. "And I am not a gift. I am her daughter."

She walked up to the golden sun and stood right in front of it, and then she reached out and laid her palm flat against the hammered gold. The chains didn’t burn her or throw her back the way Kai had been afraid they would, and instead, the faint white light inside the sun grew slightly brighter, as if it knew she was there.

"The chains were made to stop her light from getting out," Syraphim said softly. "They were never made to stop her light from getting in. I am a part of her, and they do not know how to stop me."

"What are you doing?" Liora asked, and her voice was shaking.

"I am visiting my mother," Syraphim said.

Liora took a step towards her and reached out as if to pull her away, but Elowen moved into her path without a word, and the High Priestess slowly lowered her hand.

Syraphim placed both of her hands flat against the sun and closed her eyes, and the light inside it grew brighter and brighter, until it was shining out through every crack and gap between the chains. Kai could feel it in his own chest, a warm, pulling ache, as if a piece of him was being drawn towards it.

[Kai, I have 8 minutes and 30 seconds left]

It was the first time Syraphim had ever spoken in his mind while she was standing outside of his body, and it sounded strange, as if she was talking to him from two places at once.

"What do I need to do?" Kai whispered.

[Nothing. Just stay here, and do not let anyone pull me away from her]

Garrick moved first, without being asked, and he planted himself on Syraphim’s left side with his hammer glowing gold, while Sunny took his place on her right with his sword drawn and a hard, serious look on his face. Mira stood right behind her, and Elowen stayed in front of Liora with her sword raised, and nobody moved a muscle.

Princess Seris was pressed against the curving wall near the entrance with her notebook clutched in both hands, and for once in her life, she wasn’t writing anything down. Celestine had risen from her chair, and she was watching the white light shine through the golden sun with tears running down her wrinkled face.

"Oh," Celestine whispered. "I remember that light."

Then, for the first time in forty years, the Mother spoke.

Her voice didn’t come through Divine Echo, and it wasn’t only Kai who could hear her. Her voice filled the entire round chamber, soft and quiet and barely louder than a whisper, and every single person in the room heard it and froze where they stood.

"Hello, daughter," the Mother said.

Syraphim began to cry, and she leaned her forehead against the hammered gold between her hands.

"Hello, Mother," Syraphim whispered.

"You found someone," the Mother said, and there was almost a laugh in her voice. "I must have aimed you wrong, and still, you found the right one."