Then a handful of them entered, all masked like he was, floating down into the space, holding trays and various glasses of liquid, distributing them amongst each god, before exiting as quickly as they arrived.
The doors sealed behind them with a hollow boom.
Vivianna turned back to Zeki.“What can we do?”
His eyes swirled, mist curling, collapsing, fate itself already unraveling in his sockets. “The mark may already have chosen its vessel,” he whispered. “They may walk among us. Perhaps unaware. Perhaps already unraveling. We will not see them until they strike.”A pause. “By then it will be too late.”
Vivianna’s eyes didn’t revolve at that but evolved.Sage bled to ember, then to frost, shifting with every pull she drew. “Who created it?”
“You mean it wasn’t you?” Orion’s jab landed with bite.
Her gaze dimmed, turning the dusk-blue of a dying horizon.
“Deimos,” Zeki answered.
Orion scoffed, rising to his full, ruinous height. “Deimos can’t be so bored in his pit that he’s nothing better to do than fashion new torments.” He prowled to the edge of the dais, boots echoing like thunder. The chamber opened wide behind him, vast and unreal. He let out a sharp whistle as a winged horse swept past the arching void, white mane aflame in the light. “On second thought,” he chuckled. “This view? Can’t really blame him.”
“What else would he want?” Callisto’s fingers still tangled with Aelia’s, knuckles whitening. Starlight glittered in the indigo folds of her gown, galaxies woven into its seams.
Vivianna answered before the question could settle. “To end me, I would assume.”
She hadn’t looked at me, not once. Was I a disregarded shadow? A misplaced soul? A forgotten guard? I couldn’t move. Couldn’t blink. Could only stare ahead and watch.
“To finish what the first war could not,” Zeki added. “To drag us all into the dark and leave no solace behind.”
“We need to leave, Primus,” Aelia pleaded. “If we stay, surely we will all perish if the claim lies true.”
Vivianna lifted her hand, just a gesture, yet Aelia’s breath faltered. “We cannot abandon those we protect.”
“They are not in danger,” Aelia snapped, surging to her feet. Golden silks tangled at her ankles as Callisto caught her arm, dragging her back.
“They will be,” Zeki whispered, stroking the owl’s head with a finger.
Aelia broke from Callisto’s grip, storming forward, fury in her steps and desperation in her eyes. “Deimos wants to destroyus. If we leave, maybe he will terminate the curse. There would be no point in it any longer.”
The doors banged open again when a woman roamed through, onyx-feathered wings flaring wide behind her. Armor gleamed, iridescent in the chamber’s light, a Pegasus crest stamped across her breastplate.
A Valkara.The legendary elite women of Angelic war.
Her eyes burned as they locked on Vivianna, the hue of gold rimmed with an even deeper fire.
Orion straightened, shoulders broad. “We are Gods,” he rumbled. “We do not flee from a lick of danger.”
She didn’t spare him so much as a glance as she passed.
“Thank you for coming,” Vivianna lifted her chin. The Valkara returned the gesture, something unspoken stirring in her gaze, fierce, foreign, like fire tasting salt.
Ophielle shifted uneasily as her hands folded, clutched together. “Selvarra cannot endure another war, Primus. If we stay and fight again, it will be catastrophic.”
Vivianna gestured outward with her hand. “That is why I have asked her to join us.”
The Gods murmured, voices like a hive in disarray. The Valkara only smiled, lips curling.
“First, I will create kingdoms,” Vivianna declared. “To rule in unison. As we have.”
The Valkara’s skin began to glow, faintly at first, like light striking steel.
Zeki surged upright, eyes burning with what fate hadn’t shown him. “You didn’t—”
