Page 35

When I left Ardella, I immediately went to the home of Avesh, the God of Knowledge. The building was too white for my liking, blending in with the cloud that it sat on, hovering over Elloryon. I needed to hide that I was a God of Hell, so I glamoured my face to look more like a regular fae. If anyone had answers about getting my siblings and I out of Hell, it was him.

He was surprised to see me when he opened the door. Avesh was shorter than me by a few feet.

“Can I help you?” His voice was timid.

“I was sent here to look into curses for a king and wondered if you had time to help me.”

His dark eyes traced over me, slowly, and I worried that he could see through my glamour. To him, I should appear as a servant with poor clothing and long hair.

“I will never turn down someone wanting to learn.” He opened his door, and I walked in. The space was vast, but Avesh quickly walked past me, and I hurried to catch up. We walked up the left side of a split staircase. My gaze swept across the ungodly amount of space in the foyer.

Avesh led me down a hallway that seemed to go on forever. My fucking gods, how long would we be walking for?

“It’s quite the workout.” Avesh looked at me over his shoulder and smiled.

After a few more minutes we came into a vast room that must have had a million books in it. Books flew past our heads, maps floated around the space, and globes spun around.

“Damn.” I sighed as I took in the overwhelming space filled with mahogany shelving and ladders.

“It is incredible,” Avesh said, like this was his first time seeing it too. “What kinds of curses did your king wish to learn about?”

I hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to get him to bring up my parents’ curse.

“He said he wanted to learn about the oldest curses to exist.” I shrugged.

Avesh nodded. “Then we should discuss Malamay and Diath.”

Thank fucking gods, that was simpler than I thought. I nodded, nonchalantly, like I wasn’t dying of excitement inside.

Avesh held his hand out and muttered something I could not hear before a loud whooshing noise started in one of the lower levels of the library. It only took a few moments before the book landed in his hand. He led me to a cozy sitting area, and I took the chair opposite him.

He flipped open the book, and I stared at the picture of my parentsin the book. Disgust filled me about what the heavens and their gods made my father do.

“This curse is the longest-lasting curse in history,” he stated.

I sat forward. It was about damn time. I wanted to ask him where he got this book, but I couldn’t ask too many questions without being suspicious.

“I heard about this, but I thought it was a rumor,” I lied. “Didn’t they have a bunch of children that were sent to Hell?”

Avesh smiled like he did every time I asked a question. He was too fucking eager to talk about this, so I knew he would spill something about the curse with hardly any input from me. I wasn’t sure how much he was allowed to share about it, but if he knew the answer for how it could be broken, then I would get it.He had to know something; otherwise, I was fucked.

“Seven. The seven cardinal sins, which are now the Gods of Hell.”

“So, they are real.”

“Of course.” He nodded as he looked at the picture of my parents. “Most stories are rooted in truth.”

“Why don’t they just leave Hell?” Playing dumb was the best way to get him to overshare.

“They can’t,” he sighed. “When the stars sent them there, they made sure their souls were tied to it, so they cannot leave for long periods of time or sometimes at all. The old godsworried that they would cause havoc after what their mother did—they felt that they couldn’t be trusted. But sometimes, I wonder why they are not trying to break their curse.”

Praise this little naive heavenly god in front of me.

“Break the curse?” I watched Avesh closely as I asked him about it.

He nodded with a dramatic sigh. “Every curse has a key—a way to break it. Curses are not permanent, and there must always be a solution to end them. Even if the stars, heavens, or gods are the ones to cast it.”

“How could they ever break a curse like this, though?”

Avesh smiled, and it made my heart beat faster. He knew how to break it. Behind meeting Ardella, this was becoming the second-best thing to happen to me.

“The answer to the curse must be where the cursed can find it. Call it…universal laws. So, the heavens and old gods gave me the answer, knowing that I would never give it to a God of Hell.”

Fuck, I felt bad for him because he was the worst secret keeper I had ever fucking met.

“Smart,” I agreed. “So, what do they have to do?”

His gaze met mine, and I saw the suspicion in his eyes. Don’t make me force you, prick; just tell me. I leaned back and grabbed one of the pastries his cook brought in. I tried to make myself as unassuming as I could, but I felt like I might explode.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Well, honestly, I came here for the king, but I find this story absolutely intriguing. I always thought the tales we heard growing up were meant to scare us, but now you’re saying they are true. I’m curious about what the stars would make them do to break a curse of this magnitude.”

Avesh nodded and leaned back. I knew I had him.

“Well, honestly, it wasn’t just the stars that decided the punishment; it was the old gods that determined the key to breaking the curse. And they made it practically impossible.”

Well, that didn’t sound very fucking good. He watched me for a moment before sighing.

“The whole argument was that gods are inherently good, but obviously that was not the case with Diath because she was born from a dead star. Diath argued with the stars that nobody was born a particular way and that anyone could become good or bad, to which they disagreed.

“They believed that gods and goddesses that were born from a normal star would never do what she did. They would never trick their mates into creating life in a forbidden way—like from a dead star. They would never disrupt the balance of the realm for selfish reasons. So that is what her children must do.”

Was I stupid because I did not understand what that meant? “Do what?”

“Corrupt a god of good nature.”

How the fuck was I supposed to do that?

“Well, how do they do that if they are stuck in Hell?”

“They can leave Hell for a short time, but they must always return before too long. To leave Hell, they can be temporarily reborn as a fae, which gives them one lifetime to complete their try. However, they are mortal in this form and can die. If that happens, they return to Hell, and their turn is done. Then one of the other siblings can try.”

“How do they get reborn?”

“Tell the heavens they wish to use their turn.”

Simple.

I nodded and ate my pastry; my mind was racing with this news. There was no way in hell I was telling my siblings about this. They had no idea I was here talking to Avesh today. I couldn’t believe that there was a way to leave Hell for good.

My mind went to Ardella, and I knew that she could be my ticket out. Dare I ask questions about her?

It would be risky, but I wanted to know everything I could. Was there a way to change the fate of this goddess and make her mine? The idea that she would feel something for another man made me feel sick. I wanted to be what made her happy, and I would do a damn good job at it.

“Can I ask a personal question?”

“Sure.” Avesh nodded.

“How do gods know when they meet their mates? I heard the king discussing it, and the whole idea of fated mates is so odd to me.”

Avesh looked surprised by my question. I took a bite of my pastry and watched him.

“A bond forms between the two; usually they can see it floating between them.”

“How long does that take?”

“Sometimes it is instant, and sometimes it may take a few interactions. No one knows. Gods and goddesses have to wait lifetimes for their mates to come, but the heavens always pick the best mate for us.”

I nodded. Well, that was a lie if I did not end up with Ardella. No man would treat her better than I would.

“Do the cursed gods in Hell get mates?”

“No, the heavensdid not think that they should be mated to anybody. Maybe that will change if they break their curse, but until then...”

Avesh watched me oddly.

“Do gods bond together?”

“No.” Avesh looked at me. “Not since Malamay and Diath.”

Well, that answer pissed me off. My eyes burned with my wrath, and I looked down so Avesh couldn’t see.

“What goddess is Ardella?”

“You know Ardella?” His tone was suspicious.

“I met her before I came here.”

I looked up at him and saw that he was beginning to question my motives for being there.

“The Goddess of Life, the stars' favorite.” I raised my eyebrow at him questioningly. “Do you think they would give that title to just anyone after what happened with Malamay? Ardella was created specifically for that title, and she has been exceptional at it.”

Hmm, my little crush just happened to be with the woman who took my father’s role. What better way to break my curse than to corrupt the stars' favorite goddess? Della would turn bad, and we would rule together; that would be the only way I could protect her from my siblings. It was the only way I could keep her.

“What king did you say you are doing this for?” Avesh stood up. Shit, he was onto me. I didn’t want to waste my energy with another lie, so I smiled at him.

“I didn’t say, because I didn’t come for a king. But you already pieced that together, didn’t you, Avesh?”

He paled as he stared at me. “Who are you?”

I stood, dropping my glamour. “Haden Vale.” My eyes flashed red. “God of Wrath.”

“I can hurtyou without lifting a finger.” He glared. But there was fear in his eyes. Avesh was too small to take me on in a physical fight, and I was honestly in no mood to fight him with magic. I stepped toward him, and Avesh let out a shaky breath and backed away. I took pity on him.

“Do you really want to fight, or can we just part ways?” I asked.

His eyes narrowed on me with defiance, but I knew he wouldn’t fight me.

“Don’t worry, Avesh, I will scrub away the memory of you helping the Gods of Hell escape, since you have been helpful to me today. But I want you to answer one more question.”

“Fuck you.”

I grinned at his sudden burst of confidence.

“Can a mate bond be changed? Can it be transferred?”

“Why?”

“Because Ardella and I can’t be fated, according to you, but I don’t like that answer, so how do I change it?”

His eyes widened, and he became a defensive little prick.

“She would never give a God of Hell the time of day,” he hissed. “Ardella is too good for you.”

I glared at him and took a step forward, but he let out a startled cry and moved backward. It was actually making me extremely uncomfortable to see him crying.

“I didn’t say she wasn’t. Now tell me.”

“Bonds can’t be broken or transferred. We get one mate, and that is it. She will never belong to you.”

I was instantly pissed off at his snarky-ass comments. My wrath took control as I jumped into his mind and scrubbed away the conversation we just had. In fact, I scrubbed the entire day from him.

Once I was convinced that his memory was scrubbed away of any hints that I came and saw him today, I started to pull out of his mind. I moved Avesh to his chair and manipulated him to go to sleep. Before I could leave, though, a vision suddenly exploded into my mind, causing me to fall to my knees. I closed my eyes as images of Ardella ran rampant through my thoughts.

In the vision, her back was turned toward me, her shoulders rising and falling with angry breaths.

“Storm?” I called out to her. Gods, I felt terrified, but not of her. I felt it for her.

She turned to me, and I lost my ability to breathe when I saw her eyes burning red with wrath. The realm all around her was destroyed. My eyes fell on her forearm. Seven broken stars marked her, one for each of the stars that had made her.

When I looked up at her face, she began crying. Her tears no longer glowed like the stars, as with most gods, but were now as black as the depths of Hell.

She had already fallen from the grace of the stars.

“Della?” I stepped toward her with my hands up.

As soon as she saw my face, she stopped crying. Her head tilted as she studied me with red eyes.

When she began to smile, I stopped moving toward her. My heart squeezed at the sight of her, but there was no recognition in those eyes. Only evil lurked in their depths.

“Storm?”

Her gaze traveled over me.

“You should probably keep your distance from me,” she warned, her voice full of nothing but indifference.

I stopped immediately and realized that I was looking at a version of Della that I never wanted to see.

“You won’t hurt me,” I said to her softly.

“Yes, I will.” Her eyes flashed with concern for only a moment before they lost all emotion again. Then she stepped toward me, and everything went black.