Page 29 of The Blood of Gods and Monsters

My heart thuds a rapid beat in my chest as I wait for one of them to speak again. Thankfully, I don’t have to wait long.

“How did you say you found her again, Caedmon?” the man at the opposite end inquires, those gold eyes of his roving over me.

“She’s been a Terra at the Academy for several months,” Caedmon replies with a cool tone. “Serving your sons, in fact, Azai.”

Shock slams into me. Azai. This man is Azai, God of Strength and Virility and he is the Darkhavens’ father. My eyes snap to his face and delve over his features with a renewed intensity. The familiarity I see becomes all the more consuming. His eyes are the same gold as Theos’. His cut jawline is similar to Ruen’s and the shape of his lips and nose … they’re all Kalix.

By the Gods … how had I not seen it before?

Azai barks out a laugh, but it sounds nothing like any of his sons. Then again, I can’t currently recall if I’ve ever heard Ruen laugh. Is this man part of the reason for that? Azai turns those burning sunset eyes back on me, assessing. “She’s been my sons’ servant for months, you say?” He eyes me. “Perhaps her survival for so long is a true testament to her heritage.”

The implication has me narrowing my gaze on him, but I keep my lips pressed together.

The woman next to Azai is the next to speak. “This is a unique situation, Tryphone,” she comments, her tone light and airy, almost too soft for me to hear. Yet, it rings in my head with all of the bells of a perfect symphony. Pinpricks of awareness dart down my spine. Her voice is the kind that would cause ships to crash straight into cliffs just for the chance to get closer to its bearer. I find myself unintentionally swaying with the sound of it tinkling in my ears like the wind chimes I’d seen women place in their gardens. The music of nature slips over my senses like a gentle caress.

“That’s putting it mildly, Makeda,” Azai snorts.

Ignoring him, Makeda—the soft-spoken Goddess—turns her honey gaze on me. “Tell us of your background, child,” she orders. “Who are your parents?”

“I …” My eyes span to Caedmon briefly. He nods for me to continue and I take in a deep breath. “I’m an orphan,” I admit, biting down on the words even as my father’s face springs to my mind.

“How long have you been an orphan?” Makeda inquires.

“Ten years, ma’am.” As I answer her question, I decide to stick as close to the truth as possible. “My father and I lived in the Hinterlands, but our cabin was attacked by bandits and he died. Our home was burned to the ground.”

She taps her chin with one nail. “So you entered society then? Your father never told you of your mother?”

I shake my head, wincing as I realize how tricky it will be to stick to the truth from here on out. Carefully, I lift my eyes to meet hers. “I don’t remember my mother,” I admit. “It was always just my father and me until he died. After he was gone, I needed to work to pay for myself.” Every word is a truth, though it paints what I went through in a far different light than my mind recalls.

“How pitiable,” the woman next to Caedmon murmurs.

“There is a way for us to determine her bloodline,” Tryphone announces. “She is obviously a Mortal God—I can feel her power from here.”

Danai nods. “As can I. It’s quite strong. Her God parent must be the upper echelon.”

“If her father was human,” Makeda says, her voice sending those tendrils of pleasure rippling over my ears once more, “then there is a Goddess out there that gave birth and did not report her child.”

“What of her punishment?” Azai leans forward in his seat and even as his question makes my muscles clench, his expression turns dark in an instant. “It is against our laws for Mortal Gods to be hidden.”

“And how was she to know?” the woman next to Caedmon speaks again, irritation flashing in her eyes as she turns them on Azai.

Azai sneers at her. “Ignorance has never been a reason before, Gygaea,” he snaps. “I was forced to kill one of my own lovers for hiding my son.”

“If you’ll recall, the mother was punished, not your son,” Caedmon says quietly, cutting in without ever moving from his seat.

Azai glares over Gygaea’s head to the man. “He was punished.”

Who? My mind searches over all that I know of the Darkhavens. Which of his sons did he have to punish? Which of their mothers died by his hands? The questions circling my mind make me realize just how much I don’t know about them still. The realization sits on my chest like a heavy weight. My fingers ball into fists at my sides and I bury them in the folds of my dress.

Caedmon releases a slow and almost sad sounding breath. “That was for attacking you, Azai,” Caedmon reminds him. The God of Prophecy lifts his ebony eyes to mine and holds my stare as he continues. “Ruen was protecting the parent he knew. Despite that, he knew that attacking a God is against our laws. He was not punished for keeping his own existence a secret.”

Ruen. My heart slams into my ribcage with this information. It was Ruen’s mother that Azai had slaughtered. Had he done so in front of him? My mind supplies a horrible image—a younger Ruen in a child’s body, with a child’s strength viciously climbing onto the strong looking man sitting before me now, biting, fighting, and pounding little fists into the man as he cut down the mortal woman that had birthed and raised Ruen Darkhaven.

In that small image, I don’t picture Ruen with the scar that now marks the side of his face, over his brow, and down his upper cheekbone. Had that been given to him as punishment from his own father?

“With the girl’s father gone,” Makeda states, dragging all of the Gods’ attention back to her, “he cannot be punished for her existence. As for the girl’s mother—we will perform the ceremony to find her bloodline and then whoever she is, we will call her here and she will be punished.” She turns her gaze to Tryphone. “Is that decision acceptable, my King?”

Tryphone looks her over before turning dark eyes on me once again. I freeze, ice coating my bones to hold me in place as his power rolls over me for the second time, heavy and … a bit curious, I think. I blink at that. Yes, I realize a moment later. The power that reaches out to me from the man seated in the center of the Council is oppressive, but it’s also inquisitive. Is that heaviness on purpose as I’d suspected it had been earlier? Or is it just a natural weight to his power like that of Dolos’?

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