Kellan paused, his eyes flicking to Drystan’s to ensure he understood. My friend nodded and blinked once, his hand covering his mouth.
“My power, the Conduit ability,” Kellan continued, “was passed down through Sintarrak. My power ishispower.”
“Meaning Sintarrak can also transfer power,” Drystan explained. “So if he’s killed these other Embodied, he’s alsotaken their power, which means…”
Bile rose to my throat, and my head began to shake.
“Not only is Sintarrak an Embodied,” Isla said quietly, her hand movements reserved. “But he holds the power offour other gods.”
The air in the room stilled as the gravity of the threat sank in. My powers bucked at the phantom blasts of magic streaming from Renova and Ganmira, their invisible wounds still festering. The Bellators’ powers were but asliverof what the Embodied held…
We were outmatched.
Kellan’s hand appeared on my shoulder, and his finger drew a soft line against the back of my bare arm. My skin pebbled in its wake, but my heart calmed.
“So this Sintarrak can read people’s minds, transfer power, what else now?” Aeriden asked.
I wiped my hand over my face as I scanned the names once more.
“If we assume he’s killed these others,” I murmured. “Then he has the Soleia, the power of the sun, the Ramadiel, so he can heal or undo healing… He can transport place to place with the Advetis. The Aeterna, so he’s essentially immortal…”
“Wait,” Isla cut in, her head snapping up. “If he can transfer power, that explains where the Aeterna Bone went after the gate was opened. He had to have taken it after he took his power back from Olienna.”
I nodded. “That leaves one…” I trailed off, looking up at Kellan whose dark eyes had narrowed in on the power he’d been searching for his entire life.
“The Celestyn. He can move or break worlds.”
My brows furrowed, and something nagged at the back of my mind. Something didn’t seem right.
“If he had the Celestyn power…” I began, shaking my head. “Wouldn’t he have been able to break through the gate?”
Drystan pushed his spectacles further up his nose as he leaned forward. “Maybe he doesn’t. We know Lelyth used the power to close the last gate, but we also know the original Bellators locked it with a spell, so that only the gathering of the eight could open it,” he signed.
“Yes, but if Lelyth had just a small amount of the Celestyn power, don’t you think the full force could have broken it down from the other side?”
Silence stretched through the room when no one answered my question.
“Fuck,” Aeriden breathed, shaking his head and pointing back at the hide. “What about the others? Ganmira, Renova, and Tynan… We think they’re coming for us as well?”
“Ganmira and Renova, yes,” Kellan murmured. “Tynan?” He turned and looked at me, arching a dark brow.
“I don’t know what Tynan’s endgame is, other than to see Sintarrak defeated and be free of the death realm,” I replied. “But Sintarrak is after the other gods, not just the Bellators.”
“Doesn’t quite even the odds,” Aeriden murmured.
Isla rubbed her hands against her face before she tilted her head and drew our attention back to the hide.
“Look at this section here,” she said calmly, pointing to a paragraph of script. “This looks like an accounting of how the Starlings rebelled against the gods, about how they protected themselves.”
“Poison testers to combat the Ramadiel. Water whisperers to fight against Aelius. That makes sense… Rubelline weapons, we know this already…” She paused as her brows drew together.
Kellan leaned forward as he murmured, “Múritinne.”
“Mind armor,” I read the translated word below. “Like a mental shield?”
Isla’s head shook. “Something more than that, I think,” she replied as she scanned the text. “Bellators use a mental shield to block each other’s emotions. From my understanding, you could also block Olienna from speaking into your mind.”
I frowned, nodding, though I hadn’t had much success with that.
