The Broken Halo

Chapter 987 - 986: Blasphemy

Celeste couldn’t believe what she had heard.

The God of Light wanted Rowan dead?

She stood beside her father’s chair, blood drying beneath her chin, and searched his face for some sign that he had exaggerated.

”Why?” she asked. ”What has Rowan done?”

Edmund scoffed.

”I was informed that the God of Light offered that village rat the chance to become His chosen.”

Julian lowered his fork.

”His chosen?”

Isabel stopped smiling. Even Felix looked from their father to Celeste, waiting for someone to explain.

Few people in Aurelia received such an invitation. Royal blood and years of prayer did not guarantee it. If the God of Light had offered one to the boy Celeste brought home, He must have seen something useful in him.

Isabel glanced at the application beside Edmund’s cup.

”And what did the ungrateful little shit do?” the king continued. ”He refused to accept it.”

”He hasn’t chosen a Blessing yet,” Celeste said.

”Exactly! He was offered a place beneath the God of Light, and he decided he could wait for something better.”

”I don’t think-”

”I am telling you why our god is angry. You don’t need to think.”

Celeste closed her mouth.

During her own awakening, the God of Light had offered her a Blessing too. She had left it unselected, along with the other five offers, while deciding what she wanted.

No god had demanded her death.

It was the same for other people. They waited. Some took weeks or months to choose. A disappointed patron might withdraw an offer, but that was the extent of it. She had never heard of a god ordering a human killed for hesitating.

Had someone given her father a different account of last night?

She hadn’t insulted any patron. Neither had Rowan. He had been overwhelmed by the number of choices and admitted he didn’t know enough to decide.

”I was also told,” Edmund said, ”that you were the one who advised him not to accept his offer.”

Celeste looked up sharply.

”I never told him to reject the God of Light.”

”You told him to wait.”

”Until he understood what he was choosing. Father, he grew up in a village. There are things about the System he only learned last night. I told him that if he wasn’t certain, he could take time to find out.”

”And you couldn’t explain the right choice to him?” Helena asked.

Celeste turned toward her mother.

The queen’s cup had been set aside. There was nothing mild about the disgust on her face now.

”This is why we can barely stand you. You were born into this family, raised in a kingdom that worships the God of Light. His blood runs in our veins.”

Helena pointed at Celeste.

”Yet when He offers that gutter boy a Blessing, you tell him to wait?”

”I didn’t even know which offers he had received.”

”Then you should have asked whether our god had chosen him! You should have brought Him another follower. Especially a boy He has already decided is worth His attention.”

Julian gave a small nod.

Celeste watched her mother finish. Arguing about what she could or couldn’t see in Rowan’s window would accomplish nothing. Helena had already decided what advice she should have given.

She breathed out through her nose, careful of her split lip.

”I don’t serve the God of Light, Mother.”

Edmund’s fingers moved beside his plate.

Celeste continued, her voice calm.

”I serve my own God. The Supreme God.”

His hand snapped forward.

Something flashed past her eye. She felt the cut before she understood what he had thrown. A dining knife struck the wall behind her, buried almost to the handle.

Blood ran down the side of her cheek.

Celeste hadn’t even managed to lift a hand.

”ENOUGH!”

Edmund slammed his palm onto the table.

BANG!

The wood broke beneath it. A split raced down its length before the legs buckled, sending plates, dishes, and glasses crashing to the floor. Wine splashed across the documents Celeste had brought.

”My dress!” Isabel cried, scrambling out of her chair.

Julian jerked his knees away as a broken serving dish struck his boot.

Felix stood with both hands raised.

”My breakfast!”

Helena pulled her skirt clear of the wreckage. None of them looked at the knife behind Celeste.

Edmund rose, knocking his chair backward.

”No daughter of mine will serve a god who doesn’t exist!”

The privacy wards swallowed his shouting. Beyond the closed doors, nobody came.

He thrust a finger toward her face.

”I knew it. You are the reason He’s furious. Ever since you found that cursed book, you’ve done nothing but embarrass this family.”

Celeste’s hand hovered near her injured cheek, then lowered.

”That Bible,” Edmund spat. ”You read it and decided everything you were taught by us was beneath you. Now you stand in my palace naming this so-called Supreme God as though I should bow to Him too.”

She said nothing.

”And it wasn’t enough to keep that filth to yourself. You’ve been preaching it to other people. Converting followers of the God of Light to your blasphemous religion!”

The king stepped over a fallen dish.

”People raised to worship Him are repeating prayers from your book. You’re taking His followers and giving them to something that doesn’t exist.”

Celeste thought of Adrian, Sir Luke, and the remaining members of her squad who she had converted.

Edmund stopped close enough to her that she could smell the wine on his breath.

”Do you have any idea why I’ve allowed you to remain here despite everything you’ve done?”

Her eyes met his.

”Because you are useful and talented. Your healing, your skill against demons. Those are the only reasons you haven’t been thrown out of this family.”

Isabel had stopped wiping her dress. She was listening again.

”Another child would have been banished by now,” Edmund continued. ”Or crippled before she could spread any more of this nonsense.”

Celeste kept looking at him. Blood reached the corner of her mouth, and she tasted it when she swallowed.

The king mistook neither her silence nor the anger in her eyes for agreement. He simply didn’t care.

”But the God of Light has had enough. You’ve crossed the line with that boy.”

”He has only just awakened,” Celeste said.

”And you have already turned him against our god.”

”I haven’t.”

Edmund kicked a broken section of the table aside.

”You will listen. The God of Light has threatened to destroy this family unless the boy leaves Aurelia and goes where he’s ordered.”

Celeste’s lips parted in disbelief.

”The entire family?” Julian asked in disbelief and shock.

Edmund ignored him.

”Your stray is to report to the Northern Wall. That is what the God of Light demands.”

Celeste went cold.

The Northern Wall lay far to the north, well beyond Aurelia’s borders. Its rift was permanent. The armies stationed there couldn’t wait for a passage to close and declare the invasion over. They held their fortifications through one attack after another.

She had gotten and read numerous requests for healers from that battlefield.

Even experienced soldiers came back with missing limbs. Some never came back at all.

Rowan had awakened last night. He hadn’t even selected a Blessing.

”The Northern Wall...?”

The name barely escaped her.

Celeste stared at her father. She tried to ask whether he understood that Rowan was only a level 1 and a F rank, but her first breath caught painfully in her chest.

Her hand found the back of the nearest chair. She held it to steady herself, her fingers trembling against the wood.