Chapter 74
“It doesn’t matter,” Maryam snarled. “It doesn’t matter.”
Hooks spoke not a word, only staring at her seemingly stuck halfway between terror and astonishment. That made it worse, in a way. Maryam’s nav still held her and she could feel every fluttering thought, like bird wings against her fingers. She looked at the pale girl in the pale dress, and though she tried not to see it there was no denying the obvious: the cheekbones and the eyes, the lips and even the shade of hair.
How could she ignore she was staring at her sister when Hooks’ looks were so close to her own? She had been able to resist the resemblance before, deem it just another thing her enemy had stolen from her, but now that she knew it was rightly hers? Now she could not help but find Mother in the harsher cast of Hooks’ chin, in the way the thinner lips found a sneer easier than Maryam’s own.
“I – I didn’t know,” Hooks said. “I didn’t remember. I thought I was…”
The aether around them rang out like a bell, a titan’s knock on a box. The currents blew through them both unkindly, but neither broke the stare binding them. Blue on blue, neither daring to blink. Maryam’s hand tightened around her nav, all ten rake-rings biting into the aether.
“It’s too late,” Maryam said. “I called on the Threefold Crowns to bless these grounds for the purpose of contest between us. It’s begun, Hooks. Even if one of us stops-”
She swallowed. Whoever gave in would be at the other’s mercy, fully and utterly. Victor takes all, that was what she had carved into this moment.
“And if we both stop,” Hooks quietly said,” it burns us both.”
It wouldn’t be a draw, if they both gave up. That wasn’t the taint that would be released into the aether, that would be fed to the gods of the Threefold Crowns through the chalk marks that had consecrated these grounds. It would be taken as two defeats, running against the very purpose of the ritual, and that made backlash certain. Maryam licked her lips.