Chapter 39
Calista’s eyes—Peonica’s eyes—flash with fury as she stares at her trembling hands, fingers flexing like they can’t quite hold onto the power that once obeyed her. Her lip curls, twisting Peonica’s features.
“This body,” she spits. “This wrong body. Why am I in it, Kaelzar?” Her voice scrapes the air like glass dragging across stone.
My head snaps toward my Godbeast. He doesn’t flinch. He only stares at his Goddess from beneath furrowed brows.
“She tricked your Champion into offering her the ring,” he says, his voice steady.
“Raylane has given it without my knowledge. There was nothing I could have done to stop it. The terms of our bargain remain unbroken.” He straightens, jaw tight.
“I did everything required of me. Now it’s your turn to fulfill your part. ”
My stomach lurches. The pieces fall into place, jagged and far too late.
He offered me the ring during the most chaotic moment of my life, claiming it would help me contain the magic.
I accepted without a second thought, desperate to make it stop.
Then he told me it was meant to call for him when I was in danger, and again I believed him, because why wouldn’t I?
He was supposed to be there to help me. We were supposed to be on the same side. I trusted him. Completely.
“The ring you gave me to protect me… It was a trap?” I whisper, disbelief cracking my voice.
He doesn’t answer immediately. His gaze drops to my arm, to the shard of his shadow inked into my skin. “This,” he murmurs, voice fraying, “was supposed to block her from possessing you. My life was supposed to be enough to keep her out.”
“Oh, how noble,” she coos, tilting Peonica’s head with mocking grace.
“You agreed to be her dutiful Godbeast. You handed her victory so I could claim a body strong enough to contain all of my magic.” Her smile sharpens.
“I would walk the earth as a god again, something no other deity has been capable of since the Skyburn War. All in exchange for freeing yourself and your friend.”
Then she turns her attention to me, her eyes rake up and down my form. “And yet… you faltered. Guilt, was it? Or did you simply lack the spine to finish what you started?” Her mouth twists. “So instead, you left me trapped in this useless body.”
Useless.
A spark of rage flares amid the rubble of my ruined heart at the word. My hand moves on instinct, reaching for my whip, only to close on empty air. I left it behind in the arena, I realize.
Calista’s glare snaps to my inked arm. “You even tried to sacrifice yourself for her. What did you think you’d gain by crossing me?” the Goddess hisses.
“The pleasure of taking one thing from you,” he replies hoarsely, his voice steeped in a hatred so deep it makes my own feel pale by comparison. “The way you took everything from me.”
She fixes him with a hard glare. “It’s been a century, Kaelzar. How long can one hold a grudge?”
I let out a derisive huff. “You’re the one to talk,” I snap. “A thousand years since your husband’s betrayal and still you refuse to free my people from your curse.”
Calista shrugs her shoulders at my words, like centuries of suffering are a petty price for wounded pride. Then her attention shifts to me again, slow and disdainful, as if she’s peeling back my skin to see what could possibly justify such betrayal.
“Well,” she purrs, “here we are. All of us deceived. And the bargain is still fulfilled despite your sabotage because of this little cockroach.” Her eyes lock onto mine as she gestures over Peonica’s body.
“You’ve won,” she addressed me now. “I possess the body of the ring’s bearer. Your Godbeast and his friend are free.” Her smile sharpens. “And yet none of us seems to have truly received what we bargained for.”
“Leave Peonica’s body,” I say. My voice is quiet, but it doesn’t shake.
Inside, though, something tears loose. The grief cuts deep, but it’s the betrayal that scorches my soul.
Peonica, who tricked me into letting her sacrifice herself.
Kaelzar, who held my hand like it meant something, even as he delivered me to Calista.
I want to scream. I want to claw the truth from both of them and bury it beneath the earth.
“Gladly,” she replies, the smile on her face sickening. “Would you take this ring?” She lifts Peonica’s hand. The gold band gleams in the thin light seeping through the shrine’s cracked stone. A perfect circle. My perfect failure. “It’s yours.”
My fingers twitch and I feel myself lean forward when a memory surges.
Would you take this ring?
Kaelzar’s calm, persuasive voice spoke those words. I remember the press of his fingers around mine as he slid it on.
You’d have to ask nicely.
Peonica’s voice was sweet and casual when she tricked me. I remember the way she watched me, guiding me toward asking her the right question.
I should have paid more attention to her intense, unblinking stare.
That must have been why she broke into Mael’s library—to search for the truth about the artifact, not nearly as convinced as Eva was that it was safe.
And that question, that one specific question worded just right, must have been the key to shifting the target of divine possession.
Peonica had warned me. She never trusted Kaelzar. She was always wary of that ring, obsessed with it, even. It’s what got her caught by Mael in the first place. And I… I defended him. Every single time.
The reply sits at the back of my throat. Yes. One syllable. If I said it, I’d take the ring, take Peonica’s place. Yes. That’s all it would take. But then I see the truth behind the offer.
As a Godbound, my body could hold more magic than any ordinary human ever could.
All of Calista’s magic, if she chose to channel it into me.
If Calista takes my body, she won’t just return to the world.
She’ll rule untouched and unchallenged, fueled by all the magic waiting to transfer from her true form into this one.
And she knows it. Her eyes skim over me like a predator sizing up a feast. Her smile sharpens with hunger. “So much power tucked inside a clueless human,” she murmurs. “You were always meant to be a gateway, nothing more.”
“Why do this if you’ve already won?” The words burst out before I can fully process them. “You’d get all the prayers, all the power. If standing up to the other gods in Elysium is what you want, you’ll have enough now. So why come here in person?”
She grins. “There’s something I need here. And I knew I couldn’t trust my loyal subject”—she cuts a glare toward Kaelzar—“with such a delicate task.”
“What?” I ask, knowing even as I say it that the question is useless.
Calista only chuckles, but the wicked curl of her expression tells me everything: whatever she wants, she believes it’s already hers.
My voice comes out low and ragged. “Whatever you’re planning, I won’t let it happen. I’ll kill you before I let you hurt anyone else.”
But Calista only smiles wider, stretching Peonica’s face into a hideously smug grin. “No,” she croons. “You won’t. We both know you won’t lift a finger against this girl.”
She lifts Peonica’s hand, stroking the fingers. “I can feel it, her love for you woven through every tendon, every breath. She aches for your approval. And that, sweet thing, makes you weak.”
A cold sweat slides down my spine. The truth of it coils around my ribs like hooked tendrils, squeezing.
“I may not have all my magic yet,” she muses, “but you’ve won, which makes me the Sovereign Goddess now.”
Peonica’s arms lift, wide and triumphant.
“This body,” she murmurs, “fragile as it is, will drink in all their new prayers.” She studies Peonica’s hands. “It isn’t strong enough to hold my full power for long. I know that. But it only needs to endure until I finish what I came here to do.”
Her smile blooms, slow and wicked.
“And no one will suspect a thing. They’ll pray harder, cling tighter, desperate for me to lift the Crimson Tether curse. I’ll tell them I might—if they worship a little more, beg a little longer.” A soft, pleased sigh leaves her. “Perhaps one day I’ll even grant it.”
A sticky dread coils through my bones.
“But you,” she whispers, voice slipping into silk, “I can’t have you wandering this realm with the truth.”
Her merciless expression sharpens.
“And once their worship fills me…” Her voice gains an edge. “I’ll have power. Real power. Enough to tear this world apart.”
Beside me, Kaelzar goes rigid. “Don’t do this, Calista.” His voice is rough. “Don’t punish these people. They’ve done nothing to you.”
She turns to him, saccharine and smug. “You should die for your treachery, Kaelzar, but our arrangement is fulfilled.” She flicks her hand with theatrical flair.
That’s when I see it.
The chains across his chest melt—dripping like candlewax, dissolving into shadow. His arms are exposed, the mysterious sigil etched along his forearm shifting. The circle of black fire contracts to a single ember, and the chains wrapped around it slide free, their links disintegrating as they fall.
Calista watches me watching him, basking in the horror spreading across my face.
“The shadows he tore from himself and marked your arm with,” she says, tilting Peonica’s head to point at the ink wrapped around my forearm, “are a promise. He and I had one of our own, made when I sent him to be your Godbeast.”
My blood turns to ice.
“We struck a deal,” she continues calmly. “He would make you win, deliver me your body, and in return, I’d unshackle him. Set him free and give him his friend.” She leans closer, as if sharing a sweet secret. “Both our obligations have now been fulfilled.”
Kaelzar’s voice drops to a growl. “Where is she?”
Her smile doesn’t falter. “We agreed I’d release her into this world.”
A beat.
“We never agreed where she’d land.”