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Chapter fifty-six

Adelyna

A delyna was tired. So tired.

Everything hurt. Her wrists. Her back. Her feet. She was cold. Too cold. But she couldn’t find it within her to care. She just wanted to sleep.

Light entered her vision. And the light shifted, revealing a scene.

She was watching a dinner. At the table were several men, well dressed in flowing ancient garb, crowns of branches on their heads. They sat at a long table, on which were the remnants of several roasts.

Not roasts. Not animals, at any rate.

People.

Heads with hair rested on several platters over beds of greens. Torsos were carved open, filled with stuffing and herbs. Limbs rested askew in piles, drenched in a bright red sauce. She was watching the five gods be consumed. Where the curse began, so many centuries ago.

When her ancestors betrayed the divine.

The men were laughing, cutting into the various bodies, passing around plates of meat. The men ate, gold-and-silver-streamed blood dripping out of their mouths. Onto their clothes. As the men ate a light covered them, and then disappeared. As one, the men stopped eating and frowned.

What was stolen must be retrieved. Flesh for flesh.

Adelyna remembered no more.