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‘So the battle drums are beating, and I assume the war chest they’ve amassed at the armory is designed toward this end,’ Ki’Remi concluded.

‘Naam. As I said, the gods make decisions while drunk on power and can only be assuaged with more.’

A guttural cry rose from Issa’s soul, rage and grief clashing in her heart.

Her father’s years of agony, her family’s suffering and exile, and the slow death he faced were all calculated.

All part of a divine betrayal.

Ki’Remi reached for her, and she bit her lip and shook her head, not wanting to lose control, not now.

Their eyes locked, and he raised his chin, receiving her message.

Later.

He clenched his jaw and crossed his hands over his chest, his gaze now canting to Zenas. ‘You’re saying Somayeh and Zavei have been playing us all along?’

‘Tis right,’ Zenas replied. ‘I swear to you, I knew nothing of it. If I had, I would have never let it happen.’

Issa twisted to him, the devastation in her eyes near unbearable. ‘Those two damned my father with a soulstone and transformed him into a daemon. Turned us into Sullied?’

Zenas’s jaw tightened. ‘Naam. They cast the Vyri’el shackles and curses. Manipulated the Divine Immortal’s authority and masked their treachery beneath a sacred decree. They are the most unscrupulous of deities.’

Issa stood still, her whole body taut with fury. Her breath was shallow, controlled only by sheer will.

Ki’Remi’s mouth twisted. ‘They engineered this and dragged us into their gods-forsaken coup.’

Zenas exhaled in a bitter rush of air. ‘Now you stand in the center of it, both of you. Not by your choosing, but by fate’s long hand.’

Issa’s voice was a whisper. ‘What are we supposed to do?’

‘You may have to slay the betrayers when the time is right. After which, you run. You flee Sivania and never look back.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Kill Somayeh and Zavei? Never!?’

‘You might have to,’ her cousin implored. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘I won’t kill an immortal, a deity,’ Issa growled. ‘It goes against everything I learned.’

‘You destroyed the Ssigis hunters,’ her lover said in a low murmur.

She swiveled to the Rider. ‘They were demi-gods like me, also soldiers whose lives are forfeit in war.’

Zenas leaned in, his face hard as stone. ‘You must. You’re our only hope. You’re ex-Saatifa; you’re in the palace and can use all you know about it and them to rid us of their scheming forever.’

Issa blinked at her cousin, stunned. ‘I don’t think I can.’

‘You have to, lest you become complicit in not stopping what’s coming.’

Ki’Remi interjected in a timbred rasp. ‘What do you mean?’

Zenas’ expression darkened. ‘This.’

With a flick of his fingers, the space around them shimmered, the molecules bending into a vision of blinding gold and fractured silver.

The scene that unfolded was chaos, war writ in gold motes of godblood and ruin.

Celestial beings clashed in the skies above Sivania. Spears of burning starlight pierced through armors forged in collapsed stars’ hearts.