Page 10 of As Above, So Below

Moonfire: The Moon Goddess’ Sagathe title across the top of the page reads. My face pinches with confusion. This is a book about my mother? Netharis had all books on Celesta removed from this library before I was born and has made it clear questions about her would not be answered.

Curiosity and wariness breed in my chest as I read over the page. Only four chapters it seems. Odd considering the thickness of the book.

The Contract.

The Sacred Births.

The Ascension.

The Harbinger of Chaos.

Flipping to chapter one, I begin to read.

CHAPTER TWO

Snapping the bookshut, I stare at the fire, my mind reeling.

Lies.

All of it.

It has to be. Netharis cannot be powerful enough to createandcontrol a goddess. The book confirmed Celesta as my mother. She had given birth to Vaelyn and me as a mortal, a winged fae. Not because she fell in love with the god of death. No, nothing quite so romantic. She signed a contract in which she was required to give Netharis an heir.

Making Vaelyn and Ihalf-demon. Not the agreed upon creations between two gods I’d assumed we were. For nearly twelve centuries I’ve existed believing myself to be the abandoned construct between the moon goddess and the god of death.

Half-demon, half winged fae.

The fact alone rattled my entire world, but as I read on, it got worse.

Celesta and her mate were some of the last of their kind, living in Erus. At some point, her mate fell ill. Details in the book were vague surrounding this, but did mention the rapid spread of a sickness partly responsible for the decline in winged fae populations.

In her desperation to save her mate, Celesta appealed to multiple gods—Gaia, Nektos, Indui, Atia, Helias… None answered.

But Netharis swooped in, primed to feed on her misery and despair. My father is the only god known to answer the prayers of mortals and only when they’re hopeless enough to sign a contract with little regard to the terms of the agreement.

Celesta did exactly that.

She became one of the damned souls I’m sent to collect.

Netharis promised to grant her the power to save her mate, but she failed to read the fine print of what Netharis would gain in return. Unsurprisingly, Celesta grew angry, refusing to be a host, a vessel to grow and birth demons. In that time, her mate grew sicker.

The contract outlined she would not ascend until she had delivered on her half of the agreement first. She watched her mate grow closer to death with each passing day until finally she relented. The day Celesta delivered, the day Vaelyn and I were born, her mate died.

Whether their death was due to the sickness or Netharis’ influence, the book doesn’t clarify. But honestly, knowing Netharis, the mate’s death is because of him. Netharis is a spiteful god.

She gave him his heir and he took her mate anyway.

I couldn’t bring myself to read the last two chapters.

Not after all of that.

Resisting the urge to hurl the book into the fire, I toss it, face down onto the table beside me and sigh. Fighting sharp waves of nausea, my jaw tightens.

If Vaelyn and I had been born in the living realm, we should have been given the opportunity to live. I’d occasionally wondered why Celesta never made herself known in the hells when so many other gods had—and now it makes sense. I wouldn’t want to see or acknowledge children I’d been forced to have either.

Netharis’ preference for Vaelyn makes sense in the context of the hells, a patriarchal hierarchy. But I fail to understand why he would pullmeinto the hells when he has no use for a daughter.

I could have had a life.