Chapter 5 The Gods Do Not Forget
Death does not hurt the way living did.
That is the first thing I realize.
There is no pain. No hunger. No ache in my bones. I am light too light. Untethered. I exist without weight, without breath, without the constant burn that had become my companion in that cell.
I am sitting in a tree.
The thought is strange, distant, as if it belongs to someone else. A wide-limbed oak rises beneath me, its branches stretching toward a sky washed pale with dusk. Leaves rustle softly, stirred by a breeze I cannot feel. My feet dangle through bark and air alike, insubstantial, translucent.
A spirit.
Below me, the world continues.
And it is cruel enough to keep going without me.
I watch them drag my body across the dirt.
Not carry.
Drag.
My limbs knock uselessly against stones. Blood has dried dark against my skin, my dress stiff and ruined. The cloak is gone. So is any pretense of dignity.
The crowd from earlier is nowhere to be seen. No cheers now. No smiles. No righteous fury.
Just men doing a job they do not want to remember.
They dump me into a shallow pit at the edge of the city, beyond the walls. No marker. No prayer. No pause. My body lands hard, crooked, as if I were nothing more than refuse.
Two body lay beside
My mother.
My father.
My breath catches even though I no longer breathe.
Their bodies are thinner than I remember. Smaller. As if grief had been starving them long before death finished the job. My mother's hands are still folded together, as if she died praying. My father's jaw is clenched, teeth bared in silent defiance even now.
They are thrown in beside me.
Together.
Finally.
I scream.
No sound comes out.
I clutch at my chest, folding in on myself in the branches. I can feel everything and nothing all at once. Grief splits through me, sharper than any blade, because this this is what we were reduced to.
An unmarked grave.
Three lives erased like they never mattered.
The dirt is shoveled in quickly. Carelessly. Boots stamp it down. A guard spits into the pit before turning away.
I sob, soundless and violent, my spirit shaking as if it might tear apart completely.
And then
Something worse.
The world shifts.
I am no longer in the tree.
I am standing in an office.
His office.
Sunlight filters through tall windows, warm and obscene in its normalcy. Shelves line the walls, stacked with trophies of rule documents, relics, weapons taken from conquered lands.
And there, on the highest shelf, sits a row of glass jars.
I know before I see.
I know before my eyes lift.
My head is in one of them.
Preserved. Cleaned. Arranged like a curiosity. My hair has been brushed back from my face. My expression is peaceful, almost serene, as if death softened me into something palatable.
Beside me
My mother.
My father.
Three jars.
Three heads.
Lined up neatly like symbols of victory.
My knees buckle. I drop to the floor, though the ground offers no resistance, my spirit collapsing into itself as a scream finally rips free not from my mouth, but from the deepest, most broken part of me.
This is what they did.
This is what love bought me.
This is what devotion earned my family.
I curl inward, sobbing, grief tearing through me with a violence I did not know was possible beyond death. I clutch at my hair, at my face, at my heart anything to ground me but there is nothing solid left.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, over and over. "I'm so sorry. I should have seen it. I should have protected you. I should have—"
"Should have could have would have."
The voice comes from beside me.
Casual.
Amused.
Entirely unbothered by my unraveling.
I look up sharply.
Someone is sitting on the branch next to me.
A woman.
She swings her legs lightly, bare feet kicking through the air, completely at ease. Her hair is dark and wild, threaded with stars like they got tangled there accidentally. She wears no crown, no armor, no flowing robes—just a simple dress that looks far too comfortable for a divine being.
She watches the scene below with a frown.
"Well," she says, tilting her head, "that ending was... aggressively terrible."
I stare at her, stunned.
"Who—" My voice shakes. "Who are you?"
She blinks at me.
"Oh. Right." She winces. "Yeah, that's on me."
I wipe at my eyes, furious tears sliding uselessly through my fingers. "What do you mean, that's on you?"
She points at herself with a thumb. "Goddess. Minor, technically, but still very much divine. I handle... second chances. Time loops. Regret. That sort of thing." She squints at me. "You should remember me by now."
My stomach drops.
"Remember you?"
Her face softens. "Ah."
She exhales slowly. "Yeah. I definitely forgot something."
I push myself to my feet, my spirit crackling with something dangerously close to rage. "What did you forget?"
She looks sheepish.
"I forgot to give you back your memories."
The world tilts.
"What memories?" I whisper.
Her gaze meets mine gentle now, serious beneath the humor. "All of them."
And suddenly
It hits.
Not like a wave.
Like a flood.
Poison on my tongue.
The first death.
The burning in my veins.
The way I laughed it off, convinced it was an illness, convinced love could not betray me. The way I thanked him for staying by my bedside. The way I smiled at my sister and apologized for worrying her.
I remember begging.
I remember dying.
I remember waking up again.
The cell.
The blindness.
The devotion.
The execution.
I stagger, clutching my head as memory slams into me from every direction.
"This isn't my first time," I breathe.
The goddess grimaces. "Nope."
"You've watched me die before."
"Yep."
"You sent me back."
"I did."
"And you didn't tell me?"
She shrugs. "You were... very pure."
I laugh then a sharp, broken sound. "Pure?"
"You genuinely believed the poison was an accident," she says softly. "You loved him. You trusted him. You thought fate was just cruel, not deliberate."
My chest tightens.
"So you let me forget."
"I didn't let you," she corrects. "I chose not to interfere. Memory changes people. And I thought—" She pauses, rubbing the back of her neck. "I thought maybe you could change the ending without becoming something darker."
I look back at the jars on the shelf.
At my family.
At myself.
"And look how that turned out."
She follows my gaze, expression sobering. "Yeah."
Silence stretches between us.
Finally, she sighs and hops down from the branch, landing with an easy grace that feels insultingly casual for someone who just watched my life collapse twice.
"I hate bad endings," she admits. "They're messy. Unsatisfying. And yours?" She winces. "Yours is a tragedy with no payoff."
I wipe my face, anger bleeding into exhaustion. "Why are you here?"
She looks at me.
"Because I feel bad."
I blink. "You feel bad?"
"Yeah," she says easily. "I'm not heartless."
I gesture wildly toward the world below. "They butchered my family."
"I noticed."
"My head is on a shelf!"
"Very tacky choice, honestly."
I stare at her in disbelief.
She raises her hands. "Okay, okay. Too soon."
I sink back against the tree, my spirit heavy with grief and fury and something rawer still regret sharpened by knowledge.
"Why didn't I remember the first time?" I ask quietly.
She sits beside me again, knees pulled up to her chest. "Because if you had, you wouldn't have loved anyone the same way. You would've gone straight to survival. And I wasn't sure you were ready to become that person."
I laugh bitterly. "Ready or not, I became her anyway."
She nods. "Yeah. Execution speeches will do that."
I stare out at the horizon, at a world that no longer belongs to me. "What happens now?"
She hesitates.
"Normally?" she says. "You move on. Your story ends. The timeline locks."
My chest tightens.
"But," she continues, "this one feels... unfinished."
I turn to her slowly.
She meets my gaze, eyes bright with mischief and something almost kind. "I can grant you one final wish."
My breath catches.
"One."
"Out of pity," she adds quickly. "And because I genuinely messed up."
My heart pounds even without a heart.
I don't hesitate.
"My only wish," I say, voice steady despite the storm inside me, "that I could go back and fix everything. If I knew what I know now if I remembered my story would have ended differently."
The goddess studies me.
"Are you sure?" she asks.
I think of my parents.
Of the jars.
Of the crowd cheering.
"Yes," I whisper.
She smiles, wide and delighted. "Wish granted."
The world yanks violently.
A force grabs me not gently, not ceremoniously and rips me downward. The sky flips. The tree vanishes. The goddess's laughter echoes as I fall.
"Good luck!" she calls cheerfully. "Try not to die this time!"
I slam back into my body with a violent jolt.
I gasp, sucking in air like I've been drowning.
I bolt upright in bed, sheets tangled around my legs, heart hammering, sweat slick on my skin. My room is dark, quiet, untouched by blood or chains or screaming crowds.
Alive.
For now.
Somewhere, far above and far away, a goddess laughs.