Page 90 of The Curse of Gods (The Curse of Saints #3)

The realm did not welcome the gods.

Aya braced her hands on the ground, the rock trembling beneath her. She struggled to push up on to her knees, Will’s hold tight around her waist as he moved with her. The sky swirled overhead, an angry mix of gray and brown and black, with flecks of light arcing toward the earth like warped stars.

And beneath it all, the wind. It howled and raged, as if Eteryium had witnessed the arrival of the three gods and was screaming its disapproval.

You should not be here.

No, the realm did not welcome the gods. It rebelled at their very presence.

Aya raised an arm against the wind, her eyes squinting against the dust and rock whipping through the air as she looked upon the faces of the three gods. Their beauty was bright and terrifying and painful to see.

“I told you from the very beginning we should have ended them,” Sage remarked. Aya felt the deep echoes of her voice in her chest. In her soul .

Will’s hold on her waist tightened, his body firm against her back as he dragged her against him.

“A kinder mercy indeed.” It was Evie who spoke, and it had Aya whipping her head to see the demigod pushing unsteadily to her feet. Aya’s dagger still protruded from her chest, and blood still seeped from the corner of her lips, but Evie paid it no mind as she fixed her gaze on the gods.

“Grandmother,” she greeted Saudra, her voice weak but steady. She nodded next to Pathos. “Grandfather.”

Aya tried to stand, tried to reach the demigod, but Will held her firm, anchoring her to the ground.

“ The veil ,” Aya urged him. “We have to mend the veil.”

But Saudra was speaking, her voice lilting and smooth as she cut a nervous glance at the goddess of wisdom. “Sage,” she pleaded.

“Silence,” Sage snapped. “We have suffered for your mistakes long enough. I should have never hidden your children. And I certainly should have never stood by while you spared her .”

Sage looked at the demigod with disdain, but Evie merely fixed the goddess with a sinister smile.

“Spared?” she rasped with a cock of her head, her body swaying as if she were a mere breath away from collapse. “You let me rot in the veil for all eternity.” Her gaze darted between the Divine, that grin sharpening despite the way her face continued to pale. “Let me thank you for your generosity.”

Aya knew exactly what was coming. Evie was no longer an enigma. She was vengeance incarnate, and she would die before ceding to a god ever again.

“No,” Aya gasped as she reached for the demigod.

But Evie flung her arms wide, shadows and light bursting to life between her splayed palms. And Sage…

Sage was too fast, too strong .

In the blink of an eye, she was before Evie, her hand curled around the handle of the dagger.

“No!” Aya screamed, lunging across the ground.

Sage yanked the dagger from Evie’s chest. A gasp tangled in the demigod’s throat, her eyes wide as she glanced down at the blood seeping from her wound.

She swayed once before she collapsed to the ground.

An ant before a human—that was the fate of a demigod before a god.

“Goodbye, Evie,” Sage muttered as she tossed the dagger at Evie’s feet.

Aya scrambled across the grass, her hands shaking as she pressed them uselessly against Evie’s wound.

“You have to heal the veil,” she panted, the flow of healing light and persuasion no match for the way death rushed in to claim the demigod. “You have to heal the veil!”

Evie’s mouth moved soundlessly as her eyes roved across Aya’s face, as if trying to find something to focus on. She paused when she met Aya’s gaze, her hand gripping the front of Aya’s fighting leathers.

“ Y avai…ti… ” Evie began, her words a mere whisper against the wind and the screaming in Aya’s own mind, “ dynami a…ton…diag… ”

I have the power of the gods…

She blinked once, the remainder of her claim lost on her lips as her eyes went vacant. Her head fell back, her grip going slack as her gaze fixed unseeingly at the swirling sky.

She was dead.

Aya let out a breathless sob, her head bowing over Evie’s lifeless body.

Evie had died, and now…

Now the realm would die, too.

Aya looked up at the sky, at the veil, which continued to sink toward the earth.

I have the power of the gods…

She pushed to her feet. Will was at her side instantly, his arm hooking around her waist as he held her back, as if he was terrified she’d get too close to the gods. Tyr and Akeeta flanked them, their ears pinned back as they stared at the gods.

“Please,” Aya rasped.

Slowly, Sage turned her attention to Aya. “You dare to speak to your goddess?”

But Sage…Sage was not her goddess.

Aya’s gaze settled on Saudra.

“Saudra. I beg you. Let me heal the veil.”

“Aya,” Will breathed in her ear.

“Impudent human,” Sage snarled, her finger flicking in Aya’s direction. Will dropped to his knees, a scream wrenching from him as he bowed over in pain. Aya crouched beside him, her hands searching frantically for some way to help. But Will just screamed and screamed.

Sage moved her attention to the wolves, and they, too, whimpered as she forced their backs to bend in a bow.

“Leave them, Sage,” Pathos commanded. “She weakened the demigod for you!”

Sage did not release them from her power.

“Leave him alone!” Aya begged, still searching desperately for a way to ease Will’s pain. Even her power was useless against this attack.

“You see how they make demands of us?” Sage asked.

“Creating them was a mistake. This entire realm exists solely to hide your offspring and look what came of them.” She rounded on Pathos and Saudra.

“You begged me to give them their second chance last time, but now…now I will make up for the mistake I made in helping you.”

Sage flung her hands toward the other two gods. And though knowledge was Sage’s most powerful affinity, it did not stop the earth from responding to her call. Vines burst from the ground and wrapped around Saudra and Pathos’s legs, anchoring them in place.

“You will watch as I destroy this tainted place,” Sage snarled. “And if you’re lucky, I’ll let you live to see the remains.”

Will had stopped screaming, but his body was convulsing, his eyes rolled back in his head as he twitched on the ground.

“Please,” Aya begged again, turning back to Sage. She crawled forward on her knees, Evie’s blood soaking through her leathers.

I have the power of the gods…

“Please, let me fix it. I can heal the veil; I can make it so you never have to think of us again.”

Sage’s eyes flicked to Aya, a bitter smile twisting her lips. “Oh, child,” she murmured in that deep voice that trembled the mountains. “Your power would not be enough.”

“No,” Aya said breathlessly as she pushed to her feet, her hand snatching the discarded dagger from the ground. “But yours would.”

Sage’s eyes went wide as Aya slammed the dagger into her chest, her scream devastating as it burst from her. Aya held tight to the goddess’s shoulder, her hand aching as it held the dagger in place.

She thrust her power into Sage at the same moment that she reached for one of those tatters of the veil. And then she pulled, bridging the two, a conduit between the goddess and the gods-made barrier.

A weapon, and its wielder.

***

The first touch of godly power brought agony, the weight of realms, of universes, of beginnings and endings and life and death and…

And…

And…

And Aya was going to die.

Slowly.

Painfully.

Brutally.

The goddess of wisdom was screaming, a shrieking, keening sort of sound that could shatter the skies. Perhaps it was doing just that. Aya couldn’t tell. There was nothing beyond the agony of that power and the way it blurred her vision until all she could see was everything and nothing.

Colors, tastes, smells.

Kingdoms, realms, universes.

Things made and unmade.

Oh, to be a god.

It was hells.

And yet Aya persisted. She tugged, and ripped, and stole until that power was a steady flow through her, until she couldn’t separate herself from the goddess or the veil or the very world.

Until she could feel herself unraveling, becoming something more.

For Will.

For her family.

For her friends.

For Eteryium.

There was a hand on her shoulder. A whisper in her ear. My sweet Aya. Hold on, mi couera . Hold on.

Her mother’s voice was still like sunshine given life, even in the midst of death. Aya wondered if they would be together soon, or if this would cost Aya not just her life, but her soul, too.

Erased entirely from the realm and the Beyond.

I’m sorry, Ma.

For before. For now. For everything.

That hand on her shoulder tightened its grip to the point of pain, and suddenly Aya was falling. She landed hard on the earth, the fall knocking the wind from her.

There were hands on her face, a broken voice calling her name again and again.

Will.

His strands were clotted with blood, his face streaked with tears as he bowed over her, released from the hold of Sage’s power. Her blade lay in the grass beside them.

Aya looked to where Sage stood, a spot of red blooming against her robes. Her eyes glinted with rage, her power flowing from her in ripples, as if she couldn’t control it.

It would destroy them all.

“No,” Aya rasped, the sound broken. The taste of iron flooded her mouth, blood thick on her tongue as she shoved herself up, her arm weakly trying to push Will out of the way.

But that hand at her shoulder was back, forcing her down.

Her mother was at her side, her brown hair blowing in the vicious wind that howled as the realm rebuked the gods’ presence. And yet her voice was soft, gentle, as she said, “It is not your sacrifice to make, mi couera .”

A shadow fell over Aya and Will—Pathos and Saudra, hand in hand. They stood united before the goddess of wisdom, cut free by Will’s sword, which lay abandoned on the ground.

“For what you took from us,” Saudra said, her voice echoing across the mountains.

“For what we allowed,” Pathos said, the earth trembling with his anger.

They latched onto the goddess, their power rallying around them.

The wind howled its rage, the very earth groaning beneath the weight of it all. But Aya was still anchored to the veil—still caught in a tangle of gods and power and life and death.

She didn’t know how to undo it.

She didn’t know how to control it.

“Aya,” Will breathed. His eyes were searching hers frantically, his body still bowed over her, ready to stand between her and the unmaking of the world.

It’s okay, mi couera . You can let go .

“Fight with me,” Will begged.

Let go, Aya.

She raised a trembling, blood-slick hand to Will’s cheek.

“No matter how far the fall,” she rasped.

Let go.

She did.

A deafening roar ripped across the mountains.

The last thing Aya saw was Will, haloed in light.