His stomach twisted.
A thousand years of worship, of lore, of holy texts — and not one mention that the sigil was a weapon.
They’d painted her power as an accident. A gift. A rare spark in a mortal girl.
But it wasn’t rare.
It was designed.
She had been toyed with. Lied to. Pushed toward death times over and still she’d risen.
He looked to Kael.
The other male’s gaze never left Maris.
She was not theirs to hold. She never had been. She was the reckoning. The weapon made to sever an ancient curse and strike down a goddess too twisted by heartbreak to let go.
And Alarik, for all his strategy and poise,felt helpless.
All this time, they had prepared for war. But none of them were ready for this.
-Kael-
He didn’t know how he got to her.
One moment, Maris was standing in the space between him and Alarik, caught between love and ruin and the next, she was falling.
She seized.
Her body arched unnaturally — eyes flared white — and her mouth opening not with her voice.
“She was never your chosen, Dreammaker. She is your undoing.”
A threat from the four gods to the one had weaved a land of nightmares.
And then she dropped like a marionette cut from its strings.
Kael caught her before she hit the floor.
Now he knelt there, stone cold marble beneath his knees, her limp form in his arms.
The air around her still shimmered faintly. Like magic had stained her skin.
But her eyes were closed.
Her breath was shallow.
And Kael could do nothing but hold her.
“Maris,” he whispered, brushing the damp hair from her brow. “Gods please.”
But even as he said it, he realized how useless the plea was.
The gods were already here.
They had done this to her, they had spoken. Unleashed truth like a blade meant to cleave through everything they thought they knew. He looked down at the sigil on her palm no longer glowing, but etched with new meaning now.
A curse forged to end a curse. The irony choked him.
