Page 50 of Lies Among Gods

She scrambled to her feet, stumbling on a broken, rusted shield, her thin dress utterly out of place amidst the carnage. The stark white, a beacon that pulsed with an almost tangible brightness. It felt like a declaration, a banner unfurled in the quiet air, undeniably calling out. She looked around, her heart hammering against her ribs like a frantic, trapped bird.

The ground was littered with bodies—not fully formed men, but fractured figures. They lay contorted in poses of final agony, frozen mid-lunge or mid-scream. The sky above was a violent canvas of churning black and bruised purple, spitting jagged bolts of lightning that struck the ground, sending geysers of stone and earth high into the air.

Twenty feet away, two figures, one massive and armored in black iron, the other smaller and a sharp, blue-white lightradiating from their broadsword, were locked in a desperate clash. The clang of their weapons sent shivers through the air.

She spun around, her eyes wide with shock and horror, taking in the full, brutal scope of the battle. Everywhere she looked, figures engaged in desperate, vicious conflict; their movements a horrifying blend of grace and lethal intent. Males and females, clad in mismatched, blood-spattered armor, fought with grim intensity, their faces masks of rage or agonizing fear.

In a swirl of a dark, tattered cloak, a figure, clearly female by her height and the streamlined armor, faced a larger male opponent. The air between them crackled with residual lightning, and their swords—hers, a thin, silver rapier; his, a massive, jagged cleaver—clashed with a high, tearing shriek. Lyra watched, frozen, as the male parried a desperate lunge, then brought his heavy weapon down in a swift, brutal arc. The female’s rapier snapped, the tip flying off, and her eyes went wide, not with fear, but with a terrible, instantaneous acceptance. A spear tip suddenly and sickeningly erupted from her chest, driven forward by an unseen combatant from behind, as the male’s cleaver sliced down and stopped just short of her neck. The moment the steel found its mark, her body seized, her scream cut short, and she collapsed, a silent testament to the merciless speed of this war.

Lyra recoiled, a choked sob catching in her throat, the vivid crimson of the fresh kill staining her vision. This wasn’t a skirmish; it was an annihilation, and she was standing directly in its path. The violence was indiscriminate, born of a conflict she did not understand, yet was now irrevocably a part of.

Lyra’s breath hitched. She was not observing a scene; she was in the epicenter of a war zone. She was the only unarmored, clean thing in a field of death and blood, and the knowledge of her vulnerability was a cold, sick weight in her stomach. The goal was to command the storm, but all she felt was thestorm commanding her, threatening to tear her apart. The raw, terrifying violence was unbound, uncontrolled, and desperate.

Chapter forty-one

CHAPTER 35

As generations passed, devotion became an inheritance rather than a choice. Children are given the privilege on their sixteenth birthday to register for one of the Gods, their futures sealed in ink and blessing alike. Approval from the divine became not merely sacred, but necessary—governing labor, marriage, shelter, and worth. To be favored was to be seen; to be denied was to fade quietly from society’s edges.

Snippet from “The Book of Natural History” By Priestess Antonella Killoran

It had been ninety-one days since Lyra had vanished, the day the fanatic’s knife had pierced Lyra’s heart and the trials had claimed her. Ninety-one days of agonizing silence, and Alaios was unraveling. The granite facade he wore for the world was fracturing under the relentless internal pressure of fear, guilt, and a god’s-sized inability to do anything about it.

He paced the marble floor of his office, every step doing nothing to quiet his internal struggles. The Strife Temple itself seemed to mirror his mood; the air was heavy with contained volatility, oppressed darkness, and the faint scent of ozoneclinging to the ancient stone. His priests and priestesses seemed to be avoiding him, so as not to face his wrath. He hadn’t slept or eaten properly, subsisting instead on a diet of unchecked worry. The fear that Lyra had failed—that she was gone for all eternity, erased by the ascension process–was a cold, crushing weight.

I should have made her stay with me.The thought was a cruel, endless loop of self-recrimination.I should have broken every protocol, locked her in the sanctum, and filled her with so much of my own strength that the knife wouldn’t have even scratched her. Once the media knew, I should have hired guards to watch and keep her safe. I should have acted instead of just letting her be out there on her own.His hand clenched into a fist, the memory of the white silk dress and the blooming red stain a vivid, brutal image. When he closed his eyes at night, he could see her falling with the dagger piercing her heart; it fueled his nightmares and kept him awake. He had been so focused on the future, on preparing her for the inevitable war and the fire he felt for her, that he had forgotten to shield her from the simple, ugly violence of a life as a deity.

He was a blur as he ran out of his office, his only destination, the one place that held any possible information. The only place that held any bit of hope he could grasp onto.

The Goddess of Peace’s temple, a bastion of aggressive serenity, offered no comfort as he walked straight through to Seren’s office, ignoring the protests of her priestess. Alaios stood before Seren’s desk, the soft lavender walls and murmuring fountain doing nothing to soothe his internal storm.

"Seren," he demanded, his voice low and tight with desperation. “It has been three months. I need a sign. I need you toseesomething."

Seren looked up, her soft gray eyes full of an almost unbearable sympathy. “Alaios, you know I can’t. I’ve told you—"

"Tell me again!” he interrupted, slamming his palm on her desk, the sound a sharp, startling crack in the tranquil space as objects bounced on the surface. “Please, tell me she is still there. Tell me she hasn’t failed! I just need to know she is still fighting."

She sighed, a sound heavy with resignation, and slowly pushed a crystal-clear glass of water across the desk toward him. “Take a breath, Alaios. She is still fighting. The threads of her fate are still taut in Aetherfall; they have not broken. That is all I know. The lack of a conclusion is her current success."

He stared at the ceiling, then at her. “‘Take a breath’? You expect me to find peace when the only mortal I have ever cared for is facing a trial designed to break the strongest of our kind, alone, because I failed to protect her?"

Seren leaned forward, her voice soft but firm. “Your guilt is a storm of your own making, Alaios. This was always to be her fate, not something for you to fight. Lyra’s trial is hers alone to battle. If she is to command any of this chaos in Elyndra, she must commandherself. She is not failing. She is being challenged. Breathe. Things will work out as they were meant to."

His jaw tightened, the words hitting him with the cold indifference of divine law. He wasn’t looking for a prophecy; he was looking for an anchor. And Seren, with her gentle wisdom, could only offer faith. He pushed the glass of water back, the movement short and sharp, and turned to leave.

"May you find peace, Alaios,” Seren called after him.

"I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I found it,” he grumbled, blurring out of the office and back toward the familiarity of his own domain.

When he arrived back at the Strife Temple, the sight that greeted him in the reception area was both inevitable and deeply irritating.

Lyra’s parents, Pollo and Diane, sat stiffly on one of the benches, their anxiety a palpable, oppressive weight. Pollo’s face was etched with worry, and Diane was clutching a crumpled handkerchief. Flanking them, their two older sons—polished and utterly useless—stood nearby, their expressions a mix of concern and boredom. They had been coming to his temple two or three times a week for the last month, a constant, agonizing reminder of the silence from Aetherfall.

Alaios huffed a breath, the sound heavy with martyr-like long-suffering. He forced the granite mask back into place, smoothing the worry lines from his forehead.

"God Alaios,” Diane began, rising quickly, her voice high-pitched and strained.

He cut her off with a curt nod toward the door. “My office. Now."