Page 28 of Kissed By the Gods
Only Ryot watches the king with something akin to suspicion.
But the king isn’t finished. His gaze shifts, lifting from me to the archons at my back.
“You ask this insolent, ignorant peasant girl what she wants? As if she is worthy of a choice?” His voice hardens. “She’s no Altor. She cannot be. There has never been a female Altor. She must be an abomination, sent by the goddess Kheris herself, the mother of the Kher’zenn, of ruin and chaos, to infiltrate the Synod and corrupt your judgment. Consider her timing yesterday. She arrived on your watchtower only one day after a full attack on Carrisfal Island. And then, mere minutes after she landed, the Kher’zenn launched their first assault on Faraengardian shores in four decades. You believe that to be a coincidence?”
I know I’m no puppet of an evil goddess. By the Veil, I don’t even believe the gods exist, but even I hesitate—what if? Howcould I know for certain? My eyes find the archons. How could any of them? There’s a grim, twisted logic in his words.
Across the room, Nile is practically gleeful, his smile sharp as a dagger.
“The king makes excellent points—many excellent points. There’s only one way to settle this. The gods must decide,” Nile says.
Hilian is slightly less sure, but he nods, considering. Lyathin and Robias exchange glances, their agreement reluctant, but they both nod, too.
Let the gods decide? How?
Ryot curls his hands into fists. “This isn’t—” he starts, but the Elder raises his hands, and he stops. My pulse pounds in my ears.
The Elder’s gaze sweeps across the room, taking in the reluctant nods from the archons. At last, he speaks.
“So be it,” he finally says. “Leina Haverlyn, you will prove yourself in a Trial of Last Blood. Or you will not, and your soul will be cast out by the True Gods, condemned to Lako.”
Ryot’s fists clench at his sides. Even the archons who nodded in agreement look grim, as if they, too, understand the weight of what has just been decreed.
“May the gods bear witness,” the Elder finishes.
The True Gods are many, each holding dominion over a piece of the mortal and immortal worlds. Lako rules the Seven Hells. Serephelle smiles on fortune and chance. Brighara guards the hearth; Zepharion commands the storm. Gramnir gives strength to the righteous and fury to the fallen. Amarielle stirs love and longing; Iryssia breathes renewal into dying things; Rene teaches patience against all odds.
But chaos birthed a traitor—Kheris, goddess of ruin—who shattered the balance and unleashed the Eternal Wars. Now, it is Thayana, goddess of war and justice, who holds the divine order together. It is her will that guards existence from falling into ruin and chaos.
The Litany of the Divine Accord, preserved at the Temple at Elandors Veil
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Thayana’s templeis down that corridor,” Thalric, Leif’s master, tells me, pointing toward a hallway enclosed in darkness. There are no windows to let in the white glow of the moonlight, no lanterns to cast shadows along the walls.
I take my first halting step, but Thalric—holding our one candle—turns in the opposite direction.
“You’re not coming with me?” I ask him.
He turns back around, his serious, intense green eyes on me. His face is a challenge. “If you need help walking down a dark corridor, Leina Haverlyn, you’re not going to last long here.”
I scowl back at him. “Aren’t you worried I’ll escape?”
He kind of scoffs. “Not at all.”
“I heard Archon Robias. You’re not supposed to leave me alone.”
Thalric sighs, but he takes a step backward.
“I’m more worried about angering a goddess than an archon. Prayers are a private thing, whatever Robias may say.” His lips tip up at the corner, by the smallest fraction. “Besides, there’s nothing but stone and adamas from here on out. You can’t escape. Silent skies upon you, Leina Haverlyn.”
He takes the candle with him when he walks away, leaving me to the darkness. And the gods.
I hate the darkness. It always tries to suffocate me in my sleep.
