The council chamber came into focus and a blonde woman, wrapped in multiple auras, looked up at me. Everything about her, from her features to her movements, was soft. She turned her head towards her husband. “I love you,” she told him. “Forgive me.”
She turned her attention back to me and nodded her head. My aura wrapped around her ponytail and pulled her head back, forcing her mouth open.
“Stop wasting our time, Grayson,” Hunter barked from behind me.
There was the sound of glass tinkling against the stone of the council chamber as the top of the vial popped off and fell to the ground.
“No! No!” Archer roared while multiple auras kept him held in place. Elite and minor Gods who understood the cause we fought for.
Carefully, I dripped a mixture into Elara’s mouth, not wasting a drop. A mixture that would taint her divinity.
When my aura fell away from around her, she swayed, and Elva’s aura replaced mine. It constricted Elara’s lithe form until it crumbled to dust in the centre of the room.
Archer fled from the chambers onto the streets of upper Elysia, promptly vomiting onto the grass. The pure chaos that unfolded had been my element, and it continued to rage on the outside.
* * *
The memory falteredas my living room came back into focus around us. Archer’s eyes were glassy from emotion and his aura slowly unwrapped itself from around Quentin.
I’d been running from that memory from the moment I’d found out about Quen’s divinity. The moment she left my side, it plagued me. How was I meant to tell her about my past without destroying our future?
“That,” Archer said, voice thick with emotion, “is what the God you love does to people like you. Repulsed him so much that he murdered them.”
Something warm and wet ran down my face as I stumbled away from Archer. Gray’s hand reached out to steady me, but I recoiled from his touch.
“Quentin,” he breathed.
“Is that true?” I asked. “Did you kill her?”
“You need to listen to me.”
“Did you?”
My aura burst into life around me, flexing and pulsing as it radiated my anger and pain. I needed answers from him. I needed him to tell me that Archer had manipulated a memory. Falsified it.
But the look on Gray’s face told me there was no mistake.
“You,” I said, feeling my chest tighten. “Just because she was half mortal?”
“It was a different time back then, Quentin. I’d never let anything happen to you.”
“What? Because it’s me? Because you love me?” I raged. My throat was raw from the effort of screaming the words. “He loved someone, Gray!” I pointed at Archer, finger trembling. “He loved someone, and you saw fit to take that away from him!”
Gray flinched but straightened his spine, staring down at me. “You have no idea what was happening back then,” he repeated. “You didn’t exist. There are politics here that—"
“Maybe I should leave you both to have this discussion alone,” Archer said, stepping away from behind me.
Gray’s gaze followed him, irises turning dark.
“Don’t even think about it, Grayson!” I warned him.
He turned his attention to me. “Quentin, do not judge me on my past.”
“A past you conveniently forgot to tell me about.”
“I would have told you.”
“You lied to me. Again.”
