Page 51 of Lies Among Gods

They filed into his office, the four mortals standing awkwardly before his desk. Alaios didn’t bother to sit as he gestured his hand towards the chairs around his office.

"I have just returned from the Temple of Peace,” he stated, his voice flat and impersonal. “The Goddess Seren confirmed Lyra is still fighting in the trials. Since the veil remained closed, nothing else was seen. That is all the information I possess."

Diane’s face crumpled immediately, and her husband put a hand on her arm.

Pollo nodded, those green eyes locking with his. “But... what does that mean? She is fighting? She has been fighting for so long already. Is she hurt?"

"It means she is not done fighting,” Alaios replied, meeting their gaze with a cold finality that discouraged further questions. “As I have stated every time you have come here, I will inform you the moment I have news. Until then, you will simply have to wait. There is nothing more to discuss."

“Is there anything we can do?” Orin asked, his shoulders straightening as he put on a brave face.

“Are there any sacrifices we can make?” Cadence queried, his shoulders slumping.

“Who would you offer a sacrifice to?” Alaios grunted, frowning. “Me? One of the other gods? We aren’t the ones who decide the outcome. Lyra must choose her path now.”

Cadence nodded, looking down at his feet. “We all just feel so useless. The history books never told us anything about…” He waved a hand.

“The books never told you mortals any more than you needed to know,” Alaios growled. “So coming here constantly and asking the same questions and getting the same answers is all that will happen until her trials are over. All any of us, including me, can do is wait.”

He watched as the small hope in their eyes dissolved into disappointment and fresh fear. The guilt was still there, but the frustration of having to repeat the same empty, comforting words quickly overshadowed it. They were Lyra’s family, and he owed them the truth, but the truth was a razor-sharp silence he couldn’t break.

“Let me show you out,” he grumbled, standing up.

Diane enveloped him in a tight, warm embrace, her arms squeezing him like a bear’s hug. “Thank you for talking to us.”

He gently patted her back; the rhythmic thud of his hand was a small sound in the quiet room. He offered her the small bit of comfort he could. Diane pulled away and smiled up at him.

Pollo stepped up, offering his hand. “I know you are busy and providing reassurances isn’t what you do, but we truly are thankful for whatever you can tell us.”

Alaios nodded, having no further words to offer.

Chapter forty-two

CHAPTER 36

Choosing a god was no longer an act of wonder, but of alignment. Each deity governed not only faith but function. With function came a life worth living, designed by the favor of the gods.

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

Lyra scrambled backward, adrenaline screaming through her veins, a frantic, unthinking motion to get out of the epicenter of the slaughter. The fear that had been cold and distant was now a hot, suffocating presence, urging her forward. She darted through a narrow gap next to a pair of clashing figures, the raw, metallic clang of their swords a thunderous sound to her ears. She couldn’t distinguish one combatant from the next; they were all just swirling blurs of desperate, lethal intent. To her left, a male in battered bronze armor let out a chilling, guttural roar as he was driven back by a figure wreathed in shadows. Lyra leaped over a tangle of broken limbs and twisted metal, her thin silk dress snagging and tearing on the debris.

The battlefield seemed to defy logic, stretching endlessly in every direction. Every desperate sprint she made, every corner she turned, only led her deeper into the thick of the conflict. The horizon was obscured by a constant, shifting curtain of black smoke and raining ash, and the perimeter—the edge she so desperately sought—remained an impossible, unreachable illusion. She felt like a trapped animal in a collapsing maze, running in a sickening loop of violence and death.

Her breath hitched, a ragged sound in the roar of battle as her wide eyes scanned the chaos. The acrid smell of smoke stung her nostrils, and the jarring clang of steel on steel echoed around her. Her skin prickled with desperate fear. She had no weapons, no armor, and no skills to keep her safe.

Lyra dodged a wild swing from a combatant in rusty armor; the male’s grunt of effort echoed like a war drum through the chaos. She stumbled backward over a discarded shield, her feet tangling in the leather straps. She hit the pulverized earth hard; the impact jarring her teeth. For a sickening moment, she lay sprawled, the sounds of battle roaring inches from her head—the thud of boots, the clash of steel, the raw, terrified screams. Before she could process the pain, she rolled onto her hands and knees, scrambling to rise.

She pushed herself back into a shaky run, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. She was low to the ground, weaving through a chaos that had no pattern. As she sprinted past a large, armored soldier who was trading blows with a cloaked figure, a dark, feathered streak flashed past her face, the sound a sharp, lethal hiss in the air. Lyra instinctively flinched, the wind of its passage snapping at her hair. The arrow found its mark with a wet, sickening thwack just ten feet away, burying itself deep in the soldier’s throat. The man dropped his sword with a clatter, clawing uselessly at the shaft protruding from his neck as he gurgled, collapsing into a heap of dead weight. Bile rose up,threatening to explode from her. She swallowed hard, turning her eyes away from the horror; the brutal finality of the death was a fresh, terrifying force to keep moving.

Lyra stumbled forward, her movements clumsy and uncoordinated, driven solely by a frantic need to escape the immediate periphery of the slaughter. The chilling crimson sliding down his armor, though no longer before her eyes, was etched in them forever. Her stomach churned violently, threatening to betray the iron will she was trying to impose on herself. She kept her gaze fixed on the ground immediately in front of her feet, trying desperately to avoid looking too closely at the horrors that littered the battlefield: the fractured bodies, the sickening pools of drying gore, the twisted wreckage of metal and flesh. Tears burned at the back of her eyes, a sharp, physical pain that threatened to spill over and blind her if she stopped moving, but she kept stumbling forward. Every ragged breath was a silent, desperate plea for distance from the absolute, unbridled savagery.

Her dress snagged with a sharp tearing sound as it caught on debris. The sudden resistance yanked her backward with an abrupt jolt; she crashed onto the ground; the impact jarring through her bones.

Metal boots came into her vision, causing her eyes to drift up. A massive figure, towering and broad-shouldered, burst from the smoke directly in front of her. She rolled over with a grunt; she pushed herself upright, her muscles protesting the movement. He was clad in heavy, spiked iron, and in his hands was a brutal, broad-bladed sword, easily as wide as Lyra’s torso. His gaze, sharp and unwavering, fixed on her with an icy, detached focus. He didn’t see her as a person, but as an obstacle, a piece of flesh to be cleaved.

The massive sword swung in a swift, horizontal arc. Lyra dove, a desperate, instinctive move that brought her crashing ontothe pulverized earth. The wind from the blade’s passage was a physical pressure above her that caused her hair to flutter. A second swing of the blade caused a searing, white-hot line of agony as it ripped across her right forearm. She cried out; the sound lost in the cacophony, and scrambled backward, her free left hand immediately pressing against the gash, trying to staunch the sudden, alarming flow of hot blood that seeped instantly. It flowed past her fingers as she desperately tried to stop it.

The male didn’t pause. He followed her down, hacking the broadsword wildly at the spot where she had been. Splinters of pulverized rock and gore flew up around her as she desperately tried to push herself away, her good arm straining, her injured one uselessly pinned to her chest.