Page 40 of The Curse of Gods (The Curse of Saints #3)

The corner of Evie’s mouth pinched as she stared at the engraving. Then she flipped the sword easily, sheathing it back at her hip before facing Aya and asking a question of her own in lieu of answering hers.

“Did you know it is forbidden for the gods to have children? The Nine have achieved harmony, but adding another? One that could challenge their claim to the universe? They thought it too dangerous.” Evie smoothed her hands down the folds of her robes, brushing off a fleck of dirt from the cell. “Petty jealousy, I suppose.”

Aya knew the gods had never procreated, but the way Evie spoke of it…

“How do you know this?” Aya asked softly.

Evie fixed her with a small grin. “My mother told me on her deathbed.”

There was something beneath Evie’s words, something that had the hair on the back of Aya’s neck rising as she watched the saint settle on the bench. She crossed her legs daintily, her arms folding over her chest as she leaned back against the cell wall.

“She was one of two forbidden children of the gods.”

For a long moment, Aya simply stared at the woman.

“That’s impossible,” Aya breathed. Her fingers felt numb, her heart hammering as if faced with an imminent threat.

“Is it?” Evie questioned. “Why? Because the realm’s priestesses say it is so? What other lies have they fostered amongst the masses?”

Evie. Evie had been a lie.

As had Aya.

Evie’s smile was knowing as she watched Aya process.

“The priestesses have no true connection to the gods,” she continued. “They are no more than story-mongers whose tales are better fit for plays in public squares.” Evie sat up, her feet braced on the dirt-strewn floor.

“But people love their stories, don’t they?” she asked with a sharp grin. “So, let me tell you another.

“Once there were two Visya women who had grown up orphans. The twins, Rylla and Wrena, had no memory of their parents, or how they’d ended up in the village they did.

They lived happily for a time, as all naive children do.

But when they were older, circumstances drove them apart.

The first sister, Rylla, fell in love with a man.

They were married, and soon after, they joined the crusade against the gods.

The woman and her husband became leaders of the Decachiré.

The other sister, Wrena, went mad. She was sent away to some far-off place, where her erratic behavior could not endanger others.

“Some years later, Rylla had a daughter who, even at a young age, showed the same gift in her affinity as her mother. But it was not enough for her parents. And so the woman and her husband tried to shed their mortal bodies, so they might truly become gods themselves.

“You see the irony, don’t you? A forgotten god, already immortal born, killing herself to achieve what she already had.”

Aya’s throat burned as she tried to swallow.

List what you can see, mi couera.

She couldn’t. This was a truth she could not bear to witness.

But Evie was intent to tell it, and so the saint continued on with that same relaxed air.

“Of course, Rylla didn’t know. The memories of her past did not come to her until she lay dying from the wound carved by the sword her beloved shoved into her chest by her request. By then, it was too late.

And so the truth passed to her daughter, who dismissed it as the ravings of a dying woman…

“Until,” she continued as she held up a finger, “she remembered the stories of her mother’s sister, driven to madness by visions in her head. And so she went in search of her.”

Evie’s smile flickered before it faded entirely.

“Imagine her surprise when she found that her aunt was not mad. She was alive and well, with a husband and children of her own. She had simply taken in some of the power that the goddess of wisdom had imparted when she hid their memories within their own minds. A favor, I was told, paid by Sage to her dear friends Pathos and Saudra. The woman had been mistaken as mad because of those visions.”

“She was the first Seer,” Aya rasped.

Evie dipped her chin in confirmation. “Did you know it was Sage who thought to create the Visya? Stewards of the realm of Eteryium, the histories say, created to rule in the gods’ stead.

” Evie laughed, a shrill, broken sound that had goose bumps crawling down Aya’s arms. “Or was it merely a convenient way to hide two forbidden goddesses in plain sight?”

This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening.

“No,” Aya tried, the words stuck in her throat, “the gods would have known two goddesses roamed the realm—”

“You think they care for what happens in the realms they create?” Evie spat, her eyes flaring with incredulity as she stood. “Tell me, Aya, what is an ant to a human?”

Evie took a step forward. “ Nothing , if it remains unnoticed. But should it make itself known?” She pinched her fingers together. “Then it becomes something to be squashed.”

Her cheeks flushed in the firelight. “When have your gods ever— once —been the kind benefactors you mortals make them out to be?”

Aya’s body trembled, and it was not with the cold, not as the horrible truth washed over her in waves she was sure she would drown under. And yet two words broke through the screaming in her mind, two words that clicked everything into place.

You mortals.

“You’re not a saint,” Aya breathed. “You’re a demigod.”

It had been there all along, hadn’t it? Evie had told her, not just when she threatened to steal Will’s memories, but when she’d first revealed her true self to Aya in her dreams months ago.

Evie’s eyes lit with glee as she watched the realization dawn on Aya. She spread her arms wide, a wicked grin twisting her lips as she repeated those same words she’d spoken in the amphitheater in Aya’s dream.

“Y avai ti dynami a ton diag mesa mye.”

I have the power of the gods in me.