Page 30 of Fallen Gods

This ritual’s ridiculous, yet people swear by it year after year.

I notice Reeve nearby, leaning against a giant redwood and watching all the freshmen light their candles and walk under the arch. Each time someone passes through and the candle doesn’t go out, they all cheer.

Reeve raises a brow as I approach. “It’s sad what people want to be true. There’s no God up there looking down on them, choosing whose candle stays lit.”

I shrug.

“I suppose it’s good to let them have their fun,” he muses. “Plus, most of them are probably hammered anyway.”

“Most of who are hammered?” Rey. I’d know that voice anywhere. I clench my teeth.

Reeve sighs. “All this talk of God, and Satan’s pet rears her ugly head.” He tosses her a smile over his shoulder that softens his words. “Did you need something, princess?”

Rey pauses near us. I take a step back—not out of fear, but necessity.

She’s been here less than a day, and already the tension in my body feels unfamiliar. Coiled too tightly, like I’m not entirely myself.

It’s always been that way when she was near me, though. I can’t help but notice how she walks into a space and people move without knowing why. They soften. Adjust. As if gravity itself has chosen a new center.

I’ve spent my entire life carving out room for myself within my grandfather’s world. For her, the world seems to make that room on instinct.

I don’t resent her for it, but I recognize it for what it is. She was made to draw people in. I was made to push through them.

If she ever turns that gravity toward me with intention, I don’t know what I’ll become in its pull. And I don’t think she does, either.

Even if we both pretend like it didn’t happen, I remember the real reason our families were at the beach that day two years ago. Both fathers called it a truce, but in reality, it was a transaction. Her father offered me unimaginable power—andherif I wanted. Our families would be bound by marriage, and a lifetime of bloodshed would cease.

Our parents had it all figured out. We would wed on her eighteenth birthday,ifI had wanted to accept our betrothal that day.

And I did. That’s the truth I’ve never said aloud.

I went to her on the beach to tell her I wouldn’t accept the deal. That I wouldn’t trade her future for mine. That she deserved better than to be used as leverage.

But sitting beside her, I faltered. I remember the salt air and the space between us, close enough to feel like there was something huge hanging there, something I wouldn’t come backfrom.

And then she reached for my hand.

Her fingers brushed mine—warm and unsteady—and something in me tilted off center. Then she spoke.

“You don’t have to be like him.”

She didn’t say Odin, but she didn’t need to.

I’ve thought about that moment more than I should in the last two years. Lain awake and played it in my head over and over. At the time, I told myself she didn’t know what she was saying. That she didn’t understand what she was accusing me of.

The truth is worse. She wasn’t wrong.

For one unbearable moment, I considered the deal. I imagined what it would be like to take the power her father offered—and take her with it.

I don’t know what horrified me more: the offer itself or the part of me that was tempted.

But when she spoke those soft words, I felt exposed. Judged. As if she’d seen through whatever mask I was wearing and into the man I was becoming.

So I left before I could become him, and I didn’t look back. At least not until my parents died less than a week later.

I remember how my chest felt after hearing the news—tight, raw, like something cracked from the inside out. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t speak. I just stared at the floor until my grandfather pulled the phone from my hand.

Everyone tried to convince me it was just an accident, that I wasn’t to blame. But I knew it wasn’t.Hedid this—because I rejected his daughter. And she woke something inside me that will never grow warm again.