67. Xül
Xül
The temple doors exploded inward. My father and I burst through, death magic already coiling around our hands?—
And froze.
"Stop!" My father's voice carried the weight of mountains, but it came too late.
Thais stood over Olinthar's prone form, a blade of pure starlight slamming through his chest. Blood spurted and pooled beneath the King of Gods, spreading across dark, cracked stone. The air still simmered with residual power.
Thais's eyes found mine across that blood-soaked distance. Empty. Not cold, not defiant—simply empty, as if she'd poured out everything inside her. The star blade flickered once, then dissolved, leaving only the wound it had carved through divinity itself.
She swayed on her feet. I moved before thought, shadows carrying me across the temple in an instant. I caught her as her knees buckled, pulling her against my chest, my hand cradling the back of her head.
"I've got you," I murmured against her hair. "I'm here, starling. I've got you. "
"Thatcher." The word came out flat, empty. "He took Thatcher."
“Who?” I asked.
Her fingers curled into my shirt, mechanical, like she was going through motions she'd forgotten the meaning of. Olinthar's blood stained her hands, already drying to rust.
I pressed my lips to her temple, tasting salt and ash. "Tell me what happened. All of it."
She didn't respond.
My father approached Olinthar's body. He knelt, pressing two fingers to the fallen god's throat.
The gesture was purely ceremonial—we could all feel the absence where Olinthar's divine presence should have been.
That particular flavor of power that had dominated the pantheon for eons, snuffed out like a candle.
"Dead," Morthus confirmed, his voice grave. "Truly and completely dead." He surveyed the carnage—Elysia's body in a pool of blood, the destroyed temple pillars. "What happened here?"
Thais didn't react at first. She stared at the blood on her hands like she didn't recognize it. When she finally spoke, the word came out hollow. "Moros."
The name hit the air like a thunderclap. My father went completely still, the color draining from his face. I felt my own blood turn to ice.
My father spoke. "That's impossible. Moros died in the Sundering. We all felt him die."
Silence. Then, barely audible: "He was inside Olinthar."
"No," my father said. "We would have known."
"How long?" I demanded, my mind racing through every interaction with Olinthar in recent memory, seeing them all in a horrifying new light.
Thais blinked slowly, like even that small movement took enormous effort. "Centuries."
My father sank to his knees beside Olinthar's corpse. "You speak of Primordial possession. It cannot be. He was obliterated." His hands shook as he examined the body with new eyes .
"Tell us everything," I urged gently, trying to keep my voice steady. "Thais, please. We need to know."
She stared at nothing for so long I thought she wouldn't answer. When she finally spoke, each word came out carefully, like she was afraid they might shatter. "Thatcher disappeared. I followed him and Olinthar here. He was trying to open Thatcher’s chest—then Elysia showed up and stabbed me."
I glanced towards the dead goddess. “Where is Thatcher now? Moros?”
“Gone.” It was all she said.
"Vivros's power," my father murmured, understanding and horror mixing in his tone. "If what she says is true, then that’s something Moros would want to absorb. The ability to unmake matter itself—in his hands, he would be unstoppable."
Thais's expression didn't change. "We fought him. Thatcher ripped him out." Her voice went even flatter. "Then Moros opened a hole. To nothing. He pulled Thatcher in."
My father's head snapped up. "He opened a passage to the Abyss?"
She turned to look at him, and the emptiness in her eyes was terrifying. "I held his hand. I held on. But he slipped away." Her gaze drifted back to nothing. "Just... slipped away."
The silence stretched, broken only by her breathing—too steady, too controlled, like she was manually remembering how to do it. “He said he’d find Thatcher in there.”
The implications crashed over us. Moros alive. Moros having controlled the pantheon's highest seat for years. Moros with knowledge of all our secrets, our weaknesses, our plans. And now Thatcher—with power that could rival a Primordial's—lost in the ether where Moros could reach him.
"Fuck," I exhaled.
"That's one way to put it," my father agreed, still looking shaken. "We need to—" He stopped, gathering himself with visible effort. " First things first. Olinthar. The power transfer. Then we deal with the rest."
"Can we get him back?" The question came out toneless, like she already knew the answer but had to ask anyway.
My father's silence stretched too long. When he finally spoke, his voice was careful. "Opening a passage to such an Abyss requires... specific conditions. Extreme conditions."
"Tell me."
"The tear Moros created—it only happened because two Primordial forces were tearing at reality's fabric.
Vivros's power and Moros's essence, ancient enemies locked in direct conflict.
" He shook his head slowly. "We could gather all twelve Aesymar and still not generate that level of paradox.
It requires powers that predate the pantheon itself, violently opposed, creating an anomaly so severe that existence gives up. "
She absorbed this information without expression.
"We'll find another way," I said fiercely, though I had no idea how. "There has to be?—"
"There isn't," Morthus cut me off. "The expanse between realms isn't some door you can unlock. It's the absence of everything. Only a fundamental break in reality itself can bridge that gap."
Thais looked at me then, and the absence in her eyes was worse than tears. "He's gone."
"Thais—"
"And Olinthar?" Morthus asked carefully. “What did he do after?”
She blinked. “He’s dead.”
Her words were empty of the vengeance she'd craved for so long. Even killing him meant nothing without Thatcher.
"And Elysia?" I asked gently. "How does she fit into this?"
Thais's gaze drifted to the body in its pool of blood. "She was with him." A pause. "With Moros."
“There is something the two of you are failing to understand here.” My father stood slowly, his expression darker than I'd ever seen it. "You struck the killing blow, Thais. Olinthar's domain, his responsibilities, his very essence—it will all flow to you."
She looked down at where the divine power was seeping into her. "No."
"Want has nothing to do with it," Morthus said quietly. "It's already beginning. Can't you feel it?"
She could. I saw it in the way she swayed, the way her breathing changed. Divine power beginning its inexorable flow from the cooling corpse to its killer.
"I need to find Thatcher," she said, as if she hadn't heard him. As if nothing else existed. "I need to get him back."
"Thais, listen to me?—"
"He's gone," she repeated, staring through me. "I let go. I let him fall."
"You didn't let him go," I said fiercely, cupping her face in my hands. "You fought a Primordial. You survived. You?—"
"I let go." Her voice broke on the words, the first real emotion I'd heard since she'd said Thatcher's name. Then the numbness settled back over her like a shroud. "I need to find him."
She kept repeating it, a broken mantra, even as tears ran down her face. She didn't seem to notice them, didn't sob or shake—just stood there leaking grief while her mind stayed locked on that single, impossible goal.
I'd never seen her like this. Never imagined she could look like this.
My Thais—who burned with starlight and fury, who'd faced down gods with her chin raised—reduced to this empty shell.
I couldn't reconcile the woman who'd driven a blade through Olinthar's heart minutes ago with this hollow-eyed stranger in my arms.
She’d been so strong. Unbreakable. Even in her darkest moments, there'd been that core of fire, that refusal to yield. But losing Thatcher had done what no god could—it had extinguished her light. And I had no idea how to reignite it.
"We need to move quickly," my father said, but even his voice held a note of uncertainty as he watched Thais's vacant stare. "The others will have felt Olinthar's death. They'll come to investigate."
"Let them come," I growled, death magic sparking around my free hand. "Anyone who steps foot in here?—”
"Will see opportunity.” Morthus cut me off with a look that could kill. "Think, Xül. She's newly ascended, grief-stricken, inexperienced. To the Twelve, she's not Olinthar's killer—she's Olinthar's crown, waiting to be claimed."
The implications slammed through me. Every member of the Twelve would see Thais as the key to ultimate power. Not a person, not even a rival—just a stepping stone to the throne that had been denied to them for millennia.
"We protect her," I said, the words coming out more plea than statement. "The reformists?—"
"Are outnumbered." My father's expression softened fractionally. "Syrena would stand with us, but Vorinar? He’s an unknown now. Axora? Terralith? Pyralia? They've hungered for power. They'll tear the pantheon apart for a chance at it."
Thais had gone quiet in my arms, that terrible emptiness returning. She stared at nothing, tears still flowing. “Vorinar is not himself.”
“What?” Morthus asked.
“Moros. He corrupted him during the trial.” Thais’ voice was almost inaudible.
“So we have even less support then.” Morthus turned, running a hand through his hair.
“What do we do?”
"There is... another option," Morthus said carefully.
I cut my gaze up. "What option?"
"I claim credit for the kill."
The words hung in the air between us, heavy with implication. Thais didn't react—I wasn't even sure she'd heard. But I understood immediately what my father was suggesting, and anger flared hot in my chest.