Page 50 of Kissed By the Gods
I turn back to the archons.
“Without your support, a rebellion is almost certainly doomed to failure. But with your support?” I pause, knowing that their minds are stumbling over a rising rebellion they didn’t even know about before now. “With your support, a rebellion isn’t even necessary.”
Lyathin’s gaze sharpens. Even the Elder sits with his hands clasped together, his thumbs drawing measured circles against each other. His cloudy eyes haven’t left mine.
“You think Selencia’s suffering will stay contained, but it won't. The gods are already moving pieces you can't see.” I hold my scythe with its silvery, twirly text out for them to see it. “You can either stand with them. Or you can stand against them.”
Lyathin takes a moment to look at each of the council members, and they communicate with more than words. It’s with shifts in their eyes and taps of their fingers against the stone table and a subtle jerk of the chin.
Archon Lyathin leans forward. “King Agis,” he calls. The king stands in his regal black robes. “There’s clearly been neglect in Selencia. And Leina makes a valid point —the gods wouldn’t have sent her if they didn’t want us to do something about it. We expect the crown to address the situation, to rectify the wrongs, and to ensure that Selencia can produce able-bodied Altor for the gods.”
King Agis inclines his head stiffly to the council, ignoring me entirely. “I will organize with the overlords.” His voice is smooth, almost bored. “I will investigate the situation myself.”
“Excellent.” Lyathin settles back into his chair like a shopkeeper closing his ledger. “Now, Leina, your training?—”
“That’s it?” I interrupt, aghast. "You expect me to believe the royal family will fix centuries of cruelty because you asked himnicely?"
I shake my head hard enough that my battered body protests.
“No,” I say, my voice cracking under the stress of it. “I won’t train. If you think I’ll play the obedient soldier while Selencia is forgotten again, you’re wrong. Whatever the gods wanted from me will rot with me before I stand by and let this be the end of it.”
A heavy silence falls across the room. Archon Lyathin’s expression hardens. When he speaks again, his voice is awhipcrack of fury. “You cannot keep bucking authority, Leina Haverlyn,” he says, each word measured and sharp. “This is war. There must be structure. Discipline. Without it, everything collapses.” He rises from his chair fully now, hands braced on the table. “If you refuse to learn discipline and respect on your own,” he says coldly, “I will beat it into you.”
The threat hangs there, pulsing between us.
But doesn’t he see? Can’t they allsee?
I’ve nothing else to lose.
I take another step forward, until I can brace my hands on that stone table that separates us. I lean in until there’s no more room for pretense, until our breaths mingle.
“You want to know what happened that day? The first day my powers manifested?” I ask him, and I swear to the gods, this is a voice from someone else, as if someone—or something—has seized the broken pieces of me and woven them into something harder, sharper, unstoppable. There’s a flicker in Lyathin’s eyes—the briefest flash of uncertainty—as if he recognizes it too. I don’t wait for him to answer.
“On the day my powers awakened, I wasn’t battling soldiers or Kher’zenn. I was at my older brother’s wedding.” His eyes narrow on me, as he tries to fit that truth with my emotions from that day—crippling grief and unrelenting guilt.
“And then the king’s soldiers came. They camethatday for the sport of it. They tied my brother’s 18-year-old bride to her cottage and set her on fire. She burned alive in her wedding dress while we watched. I can still smell the burning lace.”
I expect my voice to crack here, but it doesn’t. It’s Ryot who cracks. A rough involuntary noise—half a breath, half a curse—drags out of him, as if my words landed a physical blow. My gaze jerks to him, to find his hands fisted at his sides, his face carved in fury. It steadies me.Hesteadies me.
I turn back to the council, my voice stronger now. “Do you know what burned lace smells like? It’s fragile and sweet, as if paper and dust caught fire, like old memories turning to ash before you can hold them.”
I make sure I look each of the archons in the eyes, even the Elder, before I continue.
“I was hollow long before a death demon ever touched me. You think you can beat fear into me? You can threaten me with whips, with death, with the gods’ own wrath—but I’ve walked through Lako’s hells with nothing and I’ve come out with less. I have no fear left to give you.”
Like stones cast into a still pond, my words make waves. Across the chamber, King Agis is outwardly calm, but a muscle ticks sharply in his cheek. Princess Rissa is far less composed. She sits rigidly, her hands clasped too tightly in her lap. Her mouth is drawn in a thin, bloodless line, but worse than her anger is her disdain. She doesn’t believe me.
Ryot, though … he believes me. There’s an apology in his eyes that’s just for me.
But I don’t want his apology.
I want things tofucking change.
The archons—so experienced at masking their emotions behind a mental wall—are harder to read. Finally, Archon Lyathin leans forward, breaking the taut silence. The sound of his fingers drumming lightly against the stone table brings every gaze back to him.
“The Synod will assign an Altor to oversee the investigation into Selencia and form our own report, but we cannot spare anyone before winter,” Lyathin says. “We have three months before the cold weather will pause the Kher’zenn attacks and until then, the war stretches every resource we have. We need every body on patrol.”
I wait for the condition. There’s always a condition with people like this—people with power. I don’t have to wait long.
