You should not be here.
No, the realm did not welcome the gods. It rebelled at their very presence.
Aya raised an arm against the wind, her eyes squinting against the dust and rock whipping through the air as she looked upon the faces of the three gods. Their beauty was bright and terrifying and painful to see.
“I told you from the very beginning we should have ended them,” Sage remarked. Aya felt the deep echoes of her voice in her chest. In hersoul.
Will’s hold on her waist tightened, his body firm against her back as he dragged her against him.
“A kinder mercy indeed.” It was Evie who spoke, and it had Aya whipping her head to see the demigod pushing unsteadily to her feet. Aya’s dagger still protruded from her chest, and blood still seeped from the corner of her lips, but Evie paid it no mind as she fixed her gaze on the gods.
“Grandmother,” she greeted Saudra, her voice weak but steady. She nodded next to Pathos. “Grandfather.”
Aya tried to stand, tried to reach the demigod, but Will held her firm, anchoring her to the ground.
“The veil,” Aya urged him. “We have to mend the veil.”
But Saudra was speaking, her voice lilting and smooth as she cut a nervous glance at the goddess of wisdom. “Sage,” she pleaded.
“Silence,” Sage snapped. “We have suffered for your mistakes long enough. I should have never hidden your children. And I certainly should have never stood by while you sparedher.”
Sage looked at the demigod with disdain, but Evie merely fixed the goddess with a sinister smile.
“Spared?” she rasped with a cock of her head, her body swaying as if she were a mere breath away from collapse. “You let me rot in the veil for all eternity.” Her gaze darted between the Divine, that grin sharpening despite the way her face continued to pale. “Let me thank you for your generosity.”
Aya knew exactly what was coming. Evie was no longer an enigma. She was vengeance incarnate, and she would die before ceding to a god ever again.
“No,” Aya gasped as she reached for the demigod.
But Evie flung her arms wide, shadows and light bursting to life between her splayed palms. And Sage…
Sage was too fast, toostrong.
In the blink of an eye, she was before Evie, her hand curled around the handle of the dagger.
“No!” Aya screamed, lunging across the ground.
Sage yanked the dagger from Evie’s chest. A gasp tangledin the demigod’s throat, her eyes wide as she glanced down at the blood seeping from her wound.
She swayed once before she collapsed to the ground.
An ant before a human—that was the fate of a demigod before a god.
“Goodbye, Evie,” Sage muttered as she tossed the dagger at Evie’s feet.
Aya scrambled across the grass, her hands shaking as she pressed them uselessly against Evie’s wound.
“You have to heal the veil,” she panted, the flow of healing light and persuasion no match for the way death rushed in to claim the demigod.“You have to heal the veil!”
Evie’s mouth moved soundlessly as her eyes roved across Aya’s face, as if trying to find something to focus on. She paused when she met Aya’s gaze, her hand gripping the front of Aya’s fighting leathers.
“Y avai…ti…” Evie began, her words a mere whisper against the wind and the screaming in Aya’s own mind, “dynami a…ton…diag…”
I have the power of the gods…
She blinked once, the remainder of her claim lost on her lips as her eyes went vacant. Her head fell back, her grip going slack as her gaze fixed unseeingly at the swirling sky.
She was dead.
