Now that she’d seen that world, it had lost its luster, and yet it didn’t dampen her desire to climb.

Which she did, eyes wide as her hands gripped glowing vines and gold-streaked knotholes that painted her fingertips with glistening godsblood. She expected Cintra to wait for her on the low-hanging branch, where they would sit side by side as Soraya told her story. Instead, Cintra climbed higher ahead of her, her lithe body agile as she leapt to grab the next branch, swinging her feet beneath her and using the momentum to reach the next platform.

Soraya tried to mimic her movements, but felt far clumsier, almost slipping twice before securing herself on the next branch. She made the mistake of looking down at one point, the ground hidden amongst the shadows and the sea of glittering leaves. “Coming?” Cintra called down from somewhere high above, beyond the reach of her vision.

“Yes!” she called back, hoping her leader wouldn’t be able to hear the breathlessness in her voice.

She climbed on, not trying to keep up with the Sightless, a task that was all but impossible, but simply taking it one hand- and foothold at a time. She didn’t look down again, focusing on the task at hand, until her movements felt almost like a mental rather than physical exercise, the old mind-over-matter adage coming to fruition.

And then she was there, so high up the air felt thinner, each breath less satisfying than usual, her muscles taut and quivering from the exertion. “Isn’t She beautiful?” Cintra said, lounging on her side with her head propped on her hand on one of the uppermost branches, as though falling off wasn’t a risk—at least not for her. As though if she did, she’d simply sprout wings and fly away. Maybe she would. As one of the Sightless, her Abilities were nothing short of extraordinary, though Soraya had rarely seen her use any of them, a fact that made whatever she could do feel even more mysterious and powerful.

“I can’t even put Her beauty into words,” Soraya agreed, looking out over Narcissi’s branches as they extended away, miles in every direction. They should be bowing under their own weight, snapping at the joints, but they were stronger than iron. Everything glowed gold, her blood flowing just beneath the surface. An endless supply.

Cintra nodded. “Even after all these years, I feel the same. Everything has changed, Narcissi included, but not this. Not Her beauty. This is my place of refuge from the storm that is coming.”

“What storm?”

If Cintra heard her question, she gave no sign, her golden expression like folded steel. Instead, she turned toward her and said, “I believe you’re ready to consume your first drops of pure godsblood.”

“What?” Soraya couldn’t have held back her surprise if she’d wanted to. “But I’m not Sightless.”