Chapter 56: The Robe

No one in the round chamber spoke for a long while, because there just wasn’t a right thing to say to a goddess who had been trapped inside a golden sun for forty years.

Kai was the one who finally spoke first, and nobody was the least bit surprised by that.

"Hi, I’m Kai," Kai said. "I’m the one you were aiming at. By accident, I’m assuming."

"I know who you are, little god," the Mother said, and her voice was barely loud enough to carry across the room, but it was warm and kind, like sunlight shining through a window on a cold day. "I felt every one of your failures. They were the only warmth I have felt in a very long time."

Kai didn’t know what to say to that, so he just stood there blushing, and beside him, Garrick coughed very loudly.

[Kai, I have 7 minutes left]

"Mother," Syraphim said, with her forehead still pressed against the gold. "Are you dying?"

The white light inside the sun flickered, and for a moment, Kai was scared that it was going to go out completely.

"I am starving," the Mother said. "That is different. Faith that is given willingly is what gods live on, and for forty years, the only thing that has reached me down here is what they have taken from me to make their blessings. But I am not gone yet, daughter. If I were free, and if even a few people believed in me of their own will, I could recover."

Liora let out a small whimper, as if she had been punched in the stomach.

"Then I was wrong," Liora said quietly. "I always told myself that if the chains came off, you would die. That we were the ones keeping you alive."

"You were keeping yourself alive, child," the Mother said softly. "I do not blame you for that. You were put in a cage at a young age, and no one ever told you that you were allowed to set it down."

Liora covered her mouth with her bandaged hand and began to cry, and Celestine reached up from her chair and took hold of her daughter’s other hand, the way she must have done when Liora was a little girl.

[6 minutes and 30 seconds]

Kai’s brain was going a million miles an hour, the way it always did whenever he was stuck in a situation with no way out and a timer counting down, and he found himself staring at the white and gold robe Liora was wearing. He was remembering what Celestine had told them only a few minutes ago, and what Elowen had taught him back in Millbrook, when she had told him that she would not lie for him and he had found a loophole around her anyway.

"If someone puts on that robe, she becomes the High Priestess," Kai said slowly. "Correct me if I’m wrong, Celestine. Whoever is wearing that robe is wearing the chains."

"Yes, that is correct," Celestine said.

"So what if nobody was wearing it?" Kai asked.

Everyone in the room went silent, and Elowen turned her head towards him so quickly that her blindfold nearly slipped.

"It’s a loophole," Kai said, grinning slightly in spite of everything. "Elowen taught me that. Whoever is wearing the robe is the High Priestess. So if Liora took that robe off and gave it up for good, nobody would be wearing the chains anymore."

"Then the oath would have no one to bind itself to," Celestine whispered, and her pale eyes went wide. "The chains would have nothing left to hold on to."

"And no one would have to die to break them," Kai said.

Every person in the room turned to look at Liora, who was standing beside the golden sun with her hand still over her mouth, staring down at the white and gold robe she had worn for forty years.

"If I take this off," Liora whispered, "I will no longer be the High Priestess. I will be nothing. There will be no Church, no blessings, and no light. Everything I have worked for my entire life will be lost."

"Yes, it will," the Mother said. "And perhaps something better can grow in its place."

[6 minutes]

Liora looked at her mother, and Celestine looked back at her with tears streaming down her wrinkled face, and slowly, she nodded.

"I gave it to you because I was a coward," Celestine said. "Please do not hold on to it out of fear."

Liora stood there for what seemed like an eternity, while the torches flickered along the walls and the white light flickered inside the sun, and Kai could feel Syraphim in the back of his mind, counting down every second. Then, with shaking hands, Liora reached up and began to unfasten the golden buckles that held her robe together.

She had to stop twice, because her bandaged hand wouldn’t move the way it was supposed to, and the second time, Celestine came over and helped her undo the buckles one by one. Once the last buckle was undone, Liora let the robe slip off her shoulders and fall to the floor at her feet.

The moment it hit the ground, every torch in the room flickered at once, as if a gust of wind had blown through the chamber, and Kai felt the warmth in his chest flutter. Underneath the robe, Liora was wearing a simple gray dress, and without the robe on, she looked small and frail and very old.

"I release it," Liora said quietly. "I am no longer the High Priestess."

For a moment, nothing happened at all. Then the chains wrapped around the sun began to shake, quietly at first, and then louder and louder, until they were rattling against the hammered gold.

[Kai, the chains are starting to break, but not all the way. Something is still holding them]

Kai looked down at the robe lying on the floor, and he saw that it was still glowing with the same sickly gold color as the chains, and all at once, he understood.

"It’s the robe," Kai said. "Nobody’s wearing it, but it’s still here. The oath can still tie itself to it."

"Then destroy it," Elowen said.

Kai raised his hand and pointed it straight at the chains wrapped around the sun. He knew exactly where his spell was going to go this time, and for the first time in his entire life, he was putting his faith in it.

"Minor Smite," Kai said.

A blast of golden light shot out of his finger and flew towards the chains, and at the very last second, it swerved sharply downward and hit the pile of white and gold silk lying on the ground. The robe burst into bright white flames.

Liora stumbled backwards, and Celestine caught her by the arm, and the two of them stood together and watched the robe burn. Neither of them looked away from it, not even when the smoke made their eyes water, as if they both needed to see the very last thread of it turn to ash.

The fire climbed from the robe up into the chains, racing along every link like a lit fuse, and wherever the fire touched them, the sickly gold light turned white and began to crack. One by one, the chains split apart and fell clattering to the ground, until there was nothing left holding the Silent Heart at all.

Then the golden sun split straight down the middle, and white light spilled out of it.

It wasn’t blinding, and it wasn’t hot. It was soft and warm, like the sun rising in the morning, and it filled the entire round chamber and flowed out into the tunnels and up the spiral staircase towards the Cathedral far above them. Kai felt the warmth pass right through him, and he heard Garrick start laughing and Mira gasp, and Sunny fell to his knees with tears running down his face.

"Oh," the Mother said, and her voice was a little bit louder now, not by much, but enough. "I had forgotten what it felt like to breathe."

[Kai, I have 1 minute left]

Syraphim turned around to face him, and she was crying and smiling at the same time, and Kai had never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

"Go back to him, daughter," the Mother said gently. "He needs you more than I do at the moment. I will still be here."

"You promise?" Syraphim asked.

"I promise you," the Mother said. "I will not leave. For the first time in forty years, I am free to stay."

Syraphim’s light began to fade as she drifted back towards Kai, and she sank into his chest like snow falling upward, and he felt a new kind of warmth settle in behind his ribs.

Then the chime rang through Kai’s mind so loudly that he almost fell over.

[Faith gained. New follower: The Radiant Mother. Faith: 100%. Status: True Believer.]

[True believers: 2/100.]

Kai read the message for a long time, and then he began to laugh, and he couldn’t stop. Mira was looking at him like he had lost his mind, and Garrick was grinning without even knowing why, and Princess Seris had finally started writing again, so fast that her charcoal snapped in half and she just kept going with the broken piece.

"I just gained a goddess," Kai whispered. "A goddess believes in me."

[She is my mother. She wants you to know that she believed in you before I did]

"That can’t be right," Kai whispered. "You were the first."

[She told me that she aimed me at you on purpose, Kai. She believed in you before you ever climbed out of that bathroom window]

[345 days. 4 days until the Conclave]