I ended up on the ledge, just a step or two from the goddess’s former throne. In a way, it seemed to encapsulate everything else wrong with the inner valleys. Unnatural and artificial. Something that didn’t match its surroundings, the craggy basin walls, the ever present fog, the trails of lava, just like the inner valleys themselves were so strange compared to the goddess’s surrounding territory. Heat and light might be a theme of the inner valleys, but the chair was too…angular to fit in with the nature around it, like the village’s buildings made of cut wood.

Perhaps that was why the goddesses had their falling out. Perhaps it had been inevitable. Our goddess seemed perfectly content with Her storms and snow, darkness and pine trees, but from what I had learned of Her sister, Azabel, didn’t seem content to leave things as they were. She always seemed to be changing things, creating them. Most of the relics Mishtaw had taken us to and the harp that had caused such trouble at the Rookery had her touch on them. And, of course, there was us. The humans she had created and betrayed her sister for. Our goddess was far from easy to live under, but, perhaps, if the sisters had been more alike everything might be less of struggle.

The Lady Blue might not exist to terrorize the shores. The spying and fighting that I was sure happened on both sides of the border between territories wouldn’t be necessary. Of course, humans wouldn’t exist either but they might have made something else together. The thought made something in my stomach feel like I was about go into free fall, so I focused back on reality.

A goddess had once sat in the chair in front of me. If I reached out I could touch it. Part of me had expected it to be like the goddess’s nest in the Seedling Palace. Ever present, but just out of reach. A reminder that the goddess was a power unto Herself and we were at the mercy of Her summons and whim.

In contrast, all it taken to reach this throne was walking across the basin and up a set of wide, slightly crumbling stairs. I couldn’t imagine the goddess allowing anything of Hers to crumble, much less abandoning it. From what Nine Claws had said, our goddess should have pockets like the inner valleys in Her sister’s territory, but I couldn’t picture it. Not with how She reacted to even one pine tree being damaged.

Of course, I had no way to know for sure. Even if I did meet another of Azabel’s Envoys, like the one who had stolen the harp, we wouldn’t be able to understand each other, and the thought of traveling deep enough into the other goddess’s territory to find out on my own was absurd. That sounded like something the Hundred Eyes would be in charge of and I had enough bad blood with multiple members of that sect that I knew I’d never rise above their bottom ranks if I joined them. Nor was I likely to do well with the blending in such a task likely required.

I had always stood out for one bad reason or another.

“Thinking about destroying something else you shouldn’t?”

I rolled my eyes before I turned to face my accuser. Deamar.

“I’m thinking that in all the times I’ve heard you say one inane thing after another you should have been able to not put your foot in your mouth at least once.”

He stopped hovering at the top of the stairs to step full onto the platform. “You only got away from the fire dancers because of me. I should have let you burn.”

I scoffed. “Perhaps I should have let you be trampled then.” I let that sink in a moment before I continued, “There’s two things you need to understand: I will survive any and everything you might think of to punish me for your own failings, and two, if you need to blame someone, blame your precious Master. The lizard is the one who exiled you.”

I came up to his chest, at most, but I was confident there was little he could do to truly hurt me. He had been so confident when we first met him, the arrogant heir pretending to already be one of the villager’s leaders. But all he had to prop him up was bluster and others’ indulgence. That had been clear the moment his fathers sent him to the side of the meeting chamber like a scolded puppy. Compared to Tike, he barely knew anything about his own home and even when he had an idea he didn’t seem to make it all the way to considering its consequences.

I might not agree with being lumped in with him, but I couldn’t fault the Dawn Crawler for sending him away. I didn’t want to deal with him either.

“Go away. It’s your own fault no one wants you around.”

He shoved me. It was juvenile and just unexpected enough that I tripped over my feet and onto the throne.

The world disappeared.

I couldn’t focus on it as I felt something foreign digging at my insides, grasping and coming up empty as it tried to connect with…my life? My blessing? There was a moment where it seemed to pause at my bless mark before whatever power was in the throne slipped around it, unable to grab hold.

I bolted off the throne. And grabbed Deamar’s wrist so I could smack his hand against the throne’s warm glass. He was too startled to resist me in time but nothing happened that I could see before he snatched his hand back.

“What was that?” he hissed.

An experiment and a punishment so he could know what I just felt. Not that I bothered to tell him that.

The throne was full of longing, a yearning that grasped for anything made of heat and light. Fire. But somehow I knew dumping a bucket full of lava from the veins down below wouldn’t do a thing. That yearning had ignored my body heat. It had grasped for my blessing but my blessing was all wrong for it. I had thought it might like whatever Deamar had to offer but I had forgotten that anyone who lived in the valley for more than a year had their common blessing sealed off.

I cast my eyes about the basin before I found who I was looking for. I rushed past Deamar and back about halfway around the basin before I reached where Nine Claws and Malady were examining one of the fire dancers.

I pointed. “The throne does something. I accidentally touched it and it felt like it was trying to draw fire out of me. Like the common blessing.”

Nine Claws straightened from her crouch while Malady and her shared a look that seemed like a whole conversation in a moment. “The Other is know for imbuing objects with power. You think the throne is one of them?”

I fought not to shudder. “I was there when the harp was stolen from the statue by the Rookery. I never felt anything when I touched it, and the harp managed to put the whole camp to sleep with a handful of notes. That chair was trying to suck power from me on its own.”

“Malady.” All Nine Claws had to say was her name and the fire starter understood. She strode back the way I had come while we followed a few steps behind.

Deamar was still on the throne’s platform when we returned to it. I would have said that was more bravery than I expected of him, but I wasn’t sure if he had simply forgotten how to work his legs. He babbled at Nine Claws about how I forced his hand onto the throne but she cut him off with a word before she gestured for Malady to continue towards the throne.

Malady placed her hand on the throne…

…And crumpled.

Nine Claws pulled her away from the throne before rousing her. Malady bolted upright as soon as the splash of water hit her face but her voice was hoarser than it should have been.

“It wanted too much. I felt it suck my blessing away and it wanted so much more.” Malady paled and she snapped her fingers. There was no flicker of flame.

Nine Claws covered her hand with her own before she turned them so the dot on the inside of Malady’s wrist showed. It was still dark black. “Your blessing will return.” She glanced back at the throne. “Fit for a goddess indeed. If they found a way inside this fog…I need to inform Mishtaw.”

The others had noticed our antics by now and they all hurried over while Nine Claws found a better spot to speak on the wind.

Malady uncharacteristically stayed sitting, but her glare stopped the group from crowding the ledge. “No one touches the throne.”

Deamar filled his fathers in on the rest—with more complaints than necessary and an accusation or two leveled at me—while everyone else listened in. Prevna gave me a sharp look before she cut her gaze away. Jika seemed concerned that someone would tell her to touch the throne next while Kuma’s expression didn’t change. I wasn’t sure if that was because she thought it was obvious that a goddess’s throne would be special or if she thought it didn’t concern her.

As for the village leaders, Logar took in the information stoically while his partner was shocked by the sudden turn of events.

Morn accused me as easily as his son had. “You dared to touch the throne?”

I looked down on him from my place on the platform. “Your son didn’t give me much choice.”

Morn visibly took a moment to bring his emotions back under control. “Apologies. But this is a place that should be respected.”

Malady broke into the conversation, “We have no reason to respect what belonged to the sister, except for our goddess’s whim. It is on Her word that we will leave this place alone or uncover its secrets. Did you know about the throne’s…hunger?”

Logar shook his head. “It is common knowledge not to disturb the throne or the dancers in case that ruined the year’s dance.”

“And that’s all?”

“That’s all,” he said.

We waited for Nine Claws to let us know what would happen next. If nothing else, this place, the throne, it likely was the relic Mishtaw had been seeking. And even if the the song that pushed us to explore these mountains had been about the lake of fire, this wasn’t something we could ignore.

From what I gleaned over my time with Mishtaw’s group, the Envoys of the other goddess had been getting bolder in recent years. The harp was just one example. Other relics that had been scattered across Heliquat’s territory for decades, possibly centuries, were being pilfered and smuggled back across the border. Which was why Mishtaw made frequent rounds of the ones she knew about and hunted down whispers of others so the whisper women could be better prepared to stop the thieves.

With the power this throne seemed to hold, there was little doubt the thieves would want it, if they could learn how to navigate the fog and somehow dislodge the throne from where it was fixed to the ledge. Likely those difficulties were what had protected the throne this long from theft, but if we could wrangle the truth for the resistance mixture from the Pickers then it wasn’t impossible for the Envoys to learn of it as well.

Nine Claws returned from where she been speaking privately to announce that we would be meeting Mishtaw outside the fog in two days time and then leading her here to see the throne. I could tell the village leaders wanted to protest another whisper woman entering their valleys but they held their tongues. Deamar wasn’t quite as smart and Logar had to hush his protest. In the meantime, a watch would be set. We would trade out so Nine Claws and Malady could take care of whatever preparations needed to made in the village and we could sleep in the relatively more comfortable lodgings there, and whoever was on watch could make sure that the throne wasn’t stolen out from under our noses like the harp had been.