Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Barely restrained rage courses through me as Lark shares our discoveries with our small circle of allies.
Agnar, Rafe, Leesa, and Bastian grow grimmer with every sentence.
The breakfast splayed out in our sitting room sits mostly untouched, with fruit turning brown at the edges, pastries cooling in their baskets, and sausages abandoned in congealed puddles of grease.
No one retained much of an appetite after hearing that the gods arranged for us to fight each other to the death. Not that I can fault them for that.
The gods have manipulated us, giving with one hand while taking with the other. Despite how the priests try to spin things, that’s what deities do.
Lark finishes speaking, and the silence that follows is thick enough to cut with a knife.
“Let me get this straight.” A leather band holds Agnar’s coppery hair back today, emphasizing the angles of his battle-scarred face.
“The gods want you two to fight to the death as their champions, and if you refuse, Rivlan will sink Tirene beneath the sea? But if Lark refuses, the kingdom will burn?”
Another wave of fury rolls through me when I consider Agnar’s words. “That’s about the size of it.”
From her seat beside Bastian, Leesa raises a hand to her throat as if trying not to vomit. “But that’s…monstrous! They can’t expect you to—”
“They’re gods.” Bastian grabs her hand and draws soothing circles with his thumb. “They can expect whatever they want.”
With both his and Lark’s jaws set at that same stubborn angle, the resemblance between them is especially pronounced.
Rafe props an elbow on his leg and rests his chin into his open palm. “So what you’re saying is, we’re fucked.” His eyebrows push together in a single bristling line.
My gaze slides to Lark, and I draw hope from the sheer resolve in her beautiful profile. Instead of defeat, she hums with an air of almost palpable energy.
She’s incredible.
“We’re not fucked.” Her steely determination prompts everyone to sit up straighter. “We’re backed into a corner, yes, but that just means we need to get creative.”
“So what’s your game plan?” Agnar braces his forearms on the table. “How do we turn this death match into a victory?”
Rafe scoffs. “Let’s start with what we have, which is a whole lot of nothing. No leverage, no power, and a divine war descending on us.” He reaches for a pastry, breaking off a piece and popping it into his mouth with a defiant gesture. “We should just enjoy what we have now while we still can.”
“How do you fight an enemy who’s already won?” Leesa’s soft but steady manner of speaking reminds me a lot of her sister. “Who holds all the cards?”
“Isn’t that a given?” Agnar’s eyes sweep over the group as if we’re all missing something obvious. “You cheat.”
He declares this without even a hint of uncertainty while spearing a sausage.
Lark bolts up, her focus trained on Agnar. “How? What do you have in mind?”
Agnar shrugs with a sheepish grin. “No clue. I just like the idea of cheating.”
My head begins to throb, and I bite out a harsher response than intended. “Then why make a suggestion if it was just a shot in the dark?”
The what the hells is your problem glare Larks shoots me reminds me of our Flighthaven days.
“I’m morale. Keeping you guys going when things look bad.” Agnar shakes the other half of his sausage at me, clearly unoffended. “Important job.”
A huge part of me wants to rip Agnar a new one. Now’s not the time for his asinine jokes. But something he said sticks with me. “Maybe it’s not about cheating exactly. Maybe we need to change the rules of the game.”
A subtle realignment occurs in the room, as if the air itself is changing its chemistry. I can see the shift embodied in their expressions. A glimmer of energy, of hope.
Rafe nods, straightening in his seat. “You divide their forces.”
“Or their focus.” There must be something we can exploit. “You make them look this way…” I gesture with my left hand.
“When they should be looking that way.” Agnar points in the opposite direction.
Bastian brightens too. “Then you hit them hard.”
“Precisely.” A slow, evil smile curls Lark’s lips. One that, given the situation, affects my dick a little too much for comfort. “From behind.”
Leesa’s hand drifts to her pregnant belly. “You make them think you’re complying.” Her eyes meet Lark’s from across the table. “But you never, ever comply. If you’re not allowed to go out the door, you go out the window. And never explain how the goat got in the storage room on the third floor.”
That last bit throws me off, but Lark laughs. An inside joke between sisters, I suppose. Yet something still nags at me. A missing piece in our evaluation.
Rafe’s eyes widen. “You use what they wanted to hide against them. I’ll be right back.”
We all stare, confusion evident on every face as he leaps to his feet and bolts from the room. The rest of us exchange puzzled glances.
Agnar frowns, pushing around an uneaten pastry on his plate. “What the hells was that about?”
Lark shrugs, just as bewildered as the rest of us. “Rafe has his…moments.”
A few minutes later, Rafe returns, arms loaded with a stack of old, stained books.
“The Devoted,” he drops the heavy tomes onto the table, “are acting according to Zeru’s plan, right?”
Nods all around.
“So ask yourselves,” Rafe brushes his hands on his tunic, “why did Zeru want to get rid of the scientist-priests? Even the ones from his own order?”
The question lingers for a moment before something clicks into place.
“Because they knew something.” Bastian stands up to inspect the books. “Something he didn’t want discovered.”
Lark’s lips part, and she snaps her fingers. “The crypt under Cyphero’s temple.”
A knock at the door interrupts us.
Agnar strides over to answer it, his hand resting casually on the pommel of his sword as befits his training.
He opens the door to Helene, who’s flanked by two scribes carrying more journals bound in leather and stained with a dark substance that might be blood.
“I brought what you asked for, Councilor Bennett.”
Agnar shifts aside so they can enter.
The scribes deposit their burdens on the table and leave without a word, dismissed by Helene’s imperious nod.
She ventures farther into the room. “The journals of the murdered scientist-priests. We’ve been translating them.”
Lark gestures to an empty chair. “Join us. Please.”
Helene sinks into the seat, and one by one, we reach for the journals, spreading them open and scanning their bloodstained pages for anything useful.
Agnar squints at the cramped script. “Gods, this handwriting.”
“Well,” Lark flips a page, not bothering to look up, “they were scientists, not calligraphers.”
I scan pages of diagrams, equations, and observations. The scientist-priests recorded changes in prayer-response patterns, documented the growth of crystalline formations, and noted fluctuations in magical energy during religious ceremonies.
“Look at this.” Bastian points to a detailed illustration of what appears to be a crystal growth. “These formations that appeared in the temples grew in specific patterns based on the type of prayers offered.”
A memory flashes through my mind. The diamond waterfall that Rivlan sent to us as a wedding gift. The cold emanating from the frozen structure.
Something about that visual bothers me, though I can’t pinpoint why.
When Lark speaks, I almost believe she read my mind. She sits up and rolls her neck from side to side, her eyes distant. “The diamond waterfall gift. That thing was frozen and had to stay cold. Why? What does freezing do?”
We glance at each other in shared confusion.
“Holds things in place?” Leesa suggests.
Bastian gestures to the breakfast spread on the table. “Preserves food.”
My head snaps up as the connection forms. “Preservation.”
Lark frowns, tilting her head to stare at the books and journals. “ What are these formations preserving? And for whom?”
Bastian shuffles through more of the scientist-priests’ notes, using his finger to keep his place. “They grow during prayers and ceremonies.”
Rafe’s expression darkens. “When people are most devout.”
Agnar frowns. “Most connected to the gods? They pulsed in the portal.” He opens and closes his hands. “Like little heartbeats.”
“Listen to this.” Helene reads a passage aloud. “‘The gods aren’t helping us.’”
“We couldn’t figure out the end of that part.” Lark drums her fingers on the table before stopping abruptly. “Wait…what if that last line is something like ‘they’re feeding on us’?”
The reaction is immediate and visceral.
Everyone recoils as if the journals themselves are diseased, contaminated by the awful truth they contain…one even worse than the blood soaked into the pages. Leesa’s olive skin pales, and her hand flies to her mouth while Agnar curses under his breath.
“That’s what the Guardian said at the portal.” Lark turns to me. “‘If you’re so fed up with the gods, stop giving them so much power.’”
“‘And they won’t have so much power.’” I remember the moment with perfect clarity. “It wasn’t metaphorical.”
“Fed. Up. The bastard even gave us a clue.” Agnar shifts his shoulders. “If we’re right about this, at least.”
“The Devoted aren’t just spreading fear.” Leesa stares at her sister. “They’re creating intense emotions that lead to more prayers, more offerings—”
“More food for the gods.” Disgust laces Bastian’s tone.
Agnar whistles. “Imagine the flow of devotion at a Champions Match where each side’s praying to their favorite’s patron god. Or praying for a swift and merciful victory, or any of the other things humans pray for while loved ones fight, especially when lives depend on the outcome.”
Another realization spears me as I mull over Rivlan’s warning about humans being worse off than puppets with new perspective.
The elemental god came so close to divulging the truth to me—perhaps even wanted to—but in the end, he withheld crucial details.
A bitter sense of betrayal flays my chest. The intensity surprises me. Somewhere along the way, I started to trust Rivlan, began liking him on a personal level.
Meanwhile, the prick’s been using me all along.
He may not be as manipulative as the other gods, but a spade’s still a spade. “Rivlan wanted to keep the match quiet. He said it was to avoid distractions and attention.”
Bastian considers this. “Maybe there was another reason. The only way that counsel makes sense is if Rivlan actually wanted to rein in the gods.”
“Bullshit.” Agnar folds his arms over his chest. “He’s one of them.”
“Think about it.” Bastian continues to flip pages. “When people witness divine power, what do they do? They pray, they make offerings…”
I see where he’s going with this. “And if they witness that divine presence in person, as they would at the match with the gods in attendance, imagine how many prayers would be offered. How much devotion could be harvested.” The pieces fall into place.
“Definitely explains why Rivlan wanted to limit witnesses.”
“Which is exactly why we shouldn’t.” The expression of absolute disgust distorting Lark’s features mirrors my own.
“We need to push the gods to reveal who they truly are. I don’t know what will happen, but in either case, everyone needs to see what these assholes are capable of.
How predatory they can be.” Her fierce, resolute eyes meet mine.
“If people see how the gods obtain their energy, they might question feeding the deities their devotion.”
Agnar pounds his fist on the table and hoots. “That’s the answer! We starve those fuckers.”
Damn, do I like the sound of that. “Exactly. Those asshole deities hit us with everything from floods to fires to crop destruction to tolls on bridges. They starve our people in order to get fat off our prayers. Drive us mad. Kill. The time’s come to flip the script on them.”
I examine the faces of our small council.
Lark with her fiery determination, Leesa with her quiet strength, Bastian with his thoughtful resolve, Rafe with his calculating intensity, Helene with her reluctant alliance, and Agnar with his fighting spirit.
For the first time since my conversation with Rivlan on the cliffs, I truly believe we have a chance.
The gods twisted our lives into a game, used our devotion as fuel, and forced us into positions where only sacrifice could save everything we hold dear.
But in this new version of the game, the gods are no longer the masters.
They’re each merely another piece on the board.