Page 84 of The Blood of Gods and Monsters

I can’t deny that I want to know, that the craving to understand the reason for my birth is a hot iron in my core. Muscles jump up and down the arm I have stretched out over the brimstone embedded chalice that sits front and center. The eyes of the Gods are on me and though Caedmon’s presence is a minor safety net, I feel utterly alone in this room.

Caedmon may be kind, but he, too, is a God. A liar. A deceiver.

This blood of mine—whether it be the blood of a God or a monster—will not define me, I decide. I am still Kiera. Assassin of the Underworld. Daughter of a Mortal God who died protecting his only child. I am nothing if not resilient even in the face of the darkest of beings.

Fighting against the instinctive need to protect myself and keep my gaze away from the God King’s, I lift my head. Inch by painstaking inch, the veins in my neck straining as I battle against my primordial inclination to bow before a stronger power, I raise my gaze to meet Tryphone’s.

His shock is a violent reward. My lips twitch as I set my eyes on his and stare, daring him to castigate me for the action. He doesn’t. Instead, he tilts his head to the side as if examining a creature he’s never seen before. Then he brings the blade down a second time, searing across my flesh in a fast motion that leaves me gasping, yet again, for air that’s not there.

More blood spills into the chalice.

No one speaks.

Taboo. Taboo. Taboo. My head screams the word over and over again. Is this it? Is this what Caedmon tried to warn me about? I try to look at him, but my body is not my own. Was it ever truly?

A third strike, so fast that I don’t see it coming, leaves me gasping for breath. Then, there are finally three straight lines cut across my forearm and wrist where blood bubbles up and spills to collect at the bottom of the chalice. Tryphone squeezes either side of my wrist as if urging the blood to flow faster before my natural healing takes effect and closes the otherwise clean cuts. They won’t heal as fast though. The brimstone made sure of it. I can only imagine that the harsh grip is little more than a minor punishment for daring to look him in the eye.

“Danai.” It takes me a moment to realize that Tryphone is speaking again. Our gazes are so locked that I have to pour nearly all of my energy into holding his stare without breaking.

The God Queen steps forward at her name and ascends to the stand next to the God King at the chalice. “Begin the ceremony,” he orders.

Danai glances from him to me before she dips her head in acknowledgment of his order. My arm is throbbing as more blood pours out—more, I think, than should be possible from three single cuts.

Soft, with a voice that holds a thousand years of experience and more lives than I can bear to count, Danai begins to speak. The words that spill forth from between her lips are of a language I don’t recognize, one that is too old for my young mind to comprehend. As she speaks, I feel my skin begin to heat.

Her eyes are on mine, the flames of her emotions still swirling within them. Hold on, my child … I blink, unsure if that was her voice I heard. It can’t be. Her lips are parted, her mouth moving as she chants whatever Divine spell is creating this hailstorm of fire in my veins.

Reaching forward with my free hand, I grip the edge of the chalice as fire blazes a path over the wounds Tryphone inflicted. Gritting my teeth against the agonizing pain, I step back into my head—into that place I devised years ago under Ophelia’s tutelage.

It doesn’t hurt, I tell myself. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt.

Tell a child a lie enough times, they’ll start to believe it until the lie is more fact than any truth.

Another body moves up to the chalice. I cut my eyes away from Tryphone to see Makeda. Her smooth earthy skin is like a beacon for my stinging eyes as I fight against the urge to scream. At her side, Gygaea appears. Her long dark hair is pulled away from the perfect features of a face that is both ultimately feminine and jaggedly androgyne.

Shadows are all around me. Invading my nostrils, my eyes, my very being.

Caedmon appears. Azai. They surround me. All of the Gods at the lip of the brimstone basin. Their voices collide with Danai’s as they speak that strange tongue that sounds all at once like a million screams of agony and a million cries of bliss. My head spins. Around and around, the room spins until I see nothing and no one anymore. The forms of the Gods become nothing but a blur. My arm is released and the smell of more blood—fresh blood that isn’t my own—hits my senses.

I blink and the room appears once more, all six Gods holding their own arms over the basin with thin lines of blood welling from their own wrists and slipping over to mix with my own.

Caedmon. Gygaea. Azai. Tryphone. Danai. Makeda.

The blood of the Gods falls into the collection of my own, swirling into the dark liquid with the force of six powerful Divine Beings. Rot. Decay. Death. It coalesces into one forbidden combination that should never be.

I’m going to throw up. The thought is a sudden knowing in my mind and yet, when I gag, nothing comes forth.

My arms are shaking as I hold myself up with nothing short of sheer will. My legs tremble so harshly that I know if I release my grip on the chalice, I’ll fall. Six pairs of eyes gaze down into the frothing mixture at the bottom of the basin. The blood congeals and bubbles as if it’s being heated up from within. No, not from the chalice itself, but from the ancient chant they partook in.

I wait and I pray—for quite possibly the first time in my life, I pray to a deity I’m not sure even exists. I pray to the Goddess that gave birth to me and I hope she can hear me. Because something tells me that if this works—that if this ceremony succeeds—it will mean nothing good for anyone.

Seconds pass. Then minutes. Time stretches and shortens in such a way that I know I must be under some sort of spell. There’s no possible way that hours can become mere breaths. Yet, it does.

“Well?” Azai is the first to speak, his tone full of frustration. “Where is the answer?”

Tryphone doesn’t respond. I’m still trying not to vomit my guts up onto the stone floor beneath my feet. My insides have liquefied. My eyes lock onto the concoction of blood in the chalice. A bubble pops and steam rises, smelling of something so old that it can only be described as decay.

The crimson color of the blend of bloods has turned it black. There is nothing but corrosion beyond, a darkness so dense that it threatens the existence of light itself. I am mesmerized by it, drawn into that darkness because of its familiarity. As if it holds a secret that only I know. Unperturbed by the presence of the inky black of the blood blend, I reach for it. No one says a word as I dip the fingers of my wounded arm into the mixture. The blood sticks to my skin and despite the bubbling of its liquid, it isn’t hot to the touch.

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