“You’ve been given no time to heal,” she said. “Held prisoner, without a proper funeral or chance to grieve over what you lost. Once free, you were dragged here, to be shaped and molded. The pain you feel, it is normal, Cyrus. It is cruel, and sharp, but it will one day fade. Until then, you must be strong.”

“Strong,” he bitterly echoed. He snapped back to the present, and his wounds bled into his voice. His words were sharp, his eyes weeping. “Strong? Like you? Like Stasia? I try. I always try. I want nothing more than to be what your father asks. Then I fall asleep, and I’m a helpless boy watching his parents die. Who in any god’s name am I to be Thanet’s savior?”

Mari stood from her chair. At least in this, she felt confident. She was a god-whisperer. Though much of her gifts now involved killing, that had not been her first purpose. Her kind were meant to remember, and to heal. She knelt before Cyrus, and she offered her hands to him.

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

He met her gaze, and Mari’s heart broke. There was such a kind boy locked inside this shell her father had crafted, someone intelligent and forgiving, who wanted to read and learn and tell jokes with friends. His soul was as bruised as his body, and she feared the day it perfectly molded with the killer he needed to become. Would that kind boy be lost forever, lost like the Stasia who sang nursery rhymes, or the frightened little Mari who needed them so desperately to sleep?

“I’m scared to trust anyone,” he said. “But I will try, Mari. For you, I will try.”

“Then close your eyes.”

Mari took Cyrus’s hands into hers. She clutched them tightly, her own eyes closed, and silently spoke to the divine presence that had coexisted within her for the past two years.

Your prince needs you.

The change struck immediately. The essence of the slain deity gathered inside her, dwelling within the offered vessel that was her body. A need to hunt and kill struck her, brief but savage. The rage of the Lion. The fury of one whose chosen people lay with their necks crushed beneath the bootheel of an empire.

“The stench of doubt hovers over you,” Mari spoke. Her voice was deeper, and not her own. The words came of their own accord, and she need only relinquish control to allow them passage. She opened her eyes, the dark library now brightly lit to her changing pupils. She smelled grass, and felt a wind that should not have touched her through the building’s walls.

“If you know the path set before me, then you know why I doubt,” Cyrus said, stammering in his defense. “How could I not?”

“You are of Lythan blood. You are my anointed, my caretakers, my chosen heirs.”