Page 106 of Throne of the Wolf Queen

The Goddess nodded, a slight incline of her head.

‘But how?’

I spun back and the empress had a new heart on a chain. Not ruby, though. This one shimmered, crystal white, veined with threads of silver.

‘Whoever possesses the heart, owns the beast,’ I whispered.

‘No,’ she said, her chest heaving. ‘To own the heart, is to possess the God.’

My breath caught. If Vyrus arrived now, she owned almost all his heart. He’d belong to her. No. I swallowed down the panic before it claimed me. He was Vyrus. Vyrus. She’d never control him.

Would she?

The empress stood, dusting down her skirts as the ground rolled beneath us.

‘You’re…’ I could barely get the words out. The magnanimity of what she wanted to achieve was beyond a nightmare. ‘You’re killing one God to summon another?’

‘Silly Asmar. No.’ She bent down, grasped my hair, tugging my head up. ‘I have no wish to summon a God. You’re. Not. Listening. Even with their hearts, the power I’ve won is not enough. My body will still succumb to the toxins I took in my desperation to avoid the inevitable monotony of destiny.’ I gripped her hand, screaming as she slammed my head back into the jagged rocks with each word. She lay her poisoned mouth against my ear. ‘I care nothing for the fate of Gods. My desire demands I become one. A new age.

‘A new God.’

Her face contorted, a fist slammed into my already thudding head and as my eyes closed and darkness claimed me for the final time, I caught the glimpse of a golden tear slipping down Evella’s fractured cheek.

CHAPTER 40

SORROW

Vyrus grew tired. Reaching within, he grasped his crimson heart, tore it apart. With his life ebbing away, he selected the most beautiful piece, set his light, his dreams, his hopes into it. Alas, the toll was great and the God descended into a fever. When he at last awoke, Evella stroked his hair. And as she smiled, he knew he would never again create anything as beautiful as the Goddess before him.

​— ​THE HISTORIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE STAR-CROSSED GODS. CHRONICLES OF VYRUS

The world cracked back into a shaky existence. A jarring scream filled with pain brought me back from blissful oblivion. Blinking, the temple, the whole fucking world, stubbornly refused to form. My trembling fingers fumbled for my damp skirts, twisting and clutching the coarse material as I fought back the panic that tore at every fibre of my being. The dark spots across my eyes had blossomed, the edges of what I could see more frayed and shattered than ever.

Blind.

I dragged cloying air into my lungs. Anything to fight the scream bursting out. My sight, my forever slipping sight, had finally waned and panic gripped me, ripped me apart with claws of Vyrium.

I couldn’t even curse the Goddess.

‘EVELLA!’

‘Vyrus?’

My question was lost as the God screamed the name of the Goddess he’d loved once more.

The empress giggled. ‘I do so love a reunion.’

The volcano roared. A mirror to the God’s agony. How had Vyrus gotten here? I blinked, desperate for my eyes to grasp something, make sense of how he’d gotten here.

Why he hadn’t simply eviscerated Delphine?

Evella whimpered next to me, and my hand scrabbled through the haze, threading my fingers with hers.

‘You’re a very scowly God,’ Delphine crooned. How did she still stand? He was a God? A God? ‘But I suppose you are prone to be a bit vengeful.’

I froze as the columns shook, rocks pattering, crumbling, braced for something to slam into me.

‘How dare you. How dare you stand in my temple and⁠—’