70. THE LIES OF MORTALS
The sun hung low in the sky, casting out a blanket of fire over the horizon and bathing the stone steps in a wash of orange.
The eleven of us emerged from the mountain pass where the statues of Calledan’s founding brothers stood immortalized in stone.
What was about to occur was unprecedented. Never in any of the previous wars had the fallen god offered terms. Perhaps this time was different because I was here. I was the real threat—the thing he wanted the most. And perhaps he was truly worried about what I was capable of.
We descended the steps and approached the wall of iridescence that rose from the dirt. The Veil. On the other side, a group of figures were waiting.
Lyceius stood in the center, surrounded by a few creatures of his making. Skadi was to his left, wearing a frown, her gray eyes cutting across the distance between us like knives.
Remic’s wing brushed against my shoulder—a gentle touch, but a firm reminder. “No negotiations,” he murmured.
He didn’t need to worry about that. I would not be negotiating anything.
We would face this head-on, together. And we would prevail.
The prophecy would be fulfilled; I would make sure of it.
If I had to give everything in my well, then so be it.
But I would not give myself or anyone else to Lyceius.
We came to a stop a few feet from the magical barrier.
Remic and Silas flanked me on either side, with Nivelle beside her brother, and Vanir bringing up the end, next to her.
Niall stepped beyond the line we had formed, leaving Roirdan, Aremis, Maeson, Fallon, and Laurent to his back left. He slid his hands into his pockets and widened his stance, keeping his shadows tucked away—for now.
Lyceius remained where he was, watching us, picking us apart one by one, like if he stared long enough, he could see what we were made of, what power each of us held.
I wanted to blast a beam of my light at his smug face.
Skadi’s voice cut across the space between us. “Quite the entourage.”
“If you have terms, we’ll hear them now,” Niall said.
Lyceius pinned his stare on my mate. “Not one to waste time, I see. Well then, I assume you all know who stands here with me. I have no doubt your little spy spilled all my greatest secrets.” He gestured toward the goddess.
“When she arrived on my doorstep, I knew the odds of all of my endeavors had shifted. Her creations are masterful. They make mine look timid in nature.” Behind him, the goddess smirked.
“There is an entire army of them, waiting to flood your cities and help me claim what I seek. But we need not resort to that if you simply surrender yourself and the amulet you carry.”
“And then what?” Niall asked. “You expect us all to bend the knee?”
“That would suffice, for now.”
Niall chuckled, dark and menacing. “No.”
Lyceius tilted his head with amusement. “I admire your resolve, but it will be your undoing.” He turned his attention to me next. “If you submit to me, I can give you what you seek.”
I scoffed. “And what’s that?”
“An eternal life with your mate.”
My breath caught in my chest.
Impossible. How did he—
“Isn’t that what you want most? To never see the day when you will have to say goodbye to your dearly beloved?”
I choked on my words. There was no way he could have known what I feared.
Lyceius lifted his chin. “I saw what troubles that mind of yours the last time I summoned you. I didn’t even need to break through your wall to sense it.
Your essence was drenched in fear. Fear of losing the ones you love.
Fear of failing and letting so many others down.
Think of this as an answer to all of that.
You need not lose the ones you love. All you have to do is surrender your power to me. ”
“He’s lying,” Remic growled from beside me. “He has no ability to extend life.”
Remic was right. This was all a game. Lyceius was trying to tear me down, just as he tried to do when he summoned me in that dream.
“Liar,” I hissed at the fallen god.
He laughed. “Oh the lies go much further back than you can even fathom, my dear. You have been led astray since the day you were born.”
Beside me, Remic shifted on his feet, making me slightly nervous.
“What are you talking about?” Niall asked, his voice deepening to a threatening tone.
Lyceius shook his hair back, a smirk spreading across his face.
“I suppose there’s no better time to reveal the true corruption that brought all of this about, is there?
” A dark laugh rumbled in his throat. “Shall we start with the king? As we speak, he’s suffering a very intense punishment for going against his word. ”
I started. “If you hurt the king—”
“Easy now,” Lyceius tutted. “You have not heard the full story.”
“What story?”
“The one where an ancient king broke an ancient oath. It was a bargain, really—between King Emmeric and I. You see, Emmeric pleaded to the fae for protection during the second war. They denied him, and he suddenly fell ill. You know of this; your history teaches it. But what it does not teach is that he came to me, afterward, begging for me to spare him. He promised me his life, and the devotion of every king after him, if I would only cure him of his illness and spare the humans from my wrath. He promised he would work toward ensuring that the realm would one day submit to my rule. So I struck that bargain with him, and when he recovered, he began turning humans away from the gods they knew and loved.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe you. You are not the god of healing. You do not have that power.”
“That is correct. Emmeric was a fool. He was so focused on saving himself that he neglected to take into account that I had no ability to save him. The fact that he recovered was simply fate. But he saw it as a bargain well struck, and went to work, following through on his part.”
“I don’t believe you,” I repeated.
“Why do you think there are no more temples in the human lands? Why are there no images or statues of the gods? ‘The gods turned their back on humans long ago.’ Is that not what you were taught growing up? Your kind suffered through the first war because none of the other gods came to your aid, isn’t that right?
Where is your dear Karios? Hmm? In all this time, has he ever shown his face to you? ”
“He stripped you of your talisman, and created me. That was his intervention,” I said in the god-king’s defense.
Karios had tried to help. It was just that no one knew it. That fact had been stricken from the records, lost to lies and time.
Lyceius’s face hardened, irritated at the reminder that Karios was still always one step ahead of him.
“Yes, yes. But have you ever stopped to think about how the mere mention of talismans was removed from your history entirely? That was all thanks to Emmeric. Your lineage, your very birth, is something no one in the human realm is even aware of. It was all a part of my plan. Don’t you see?
“What do all men want, deep down? Power. Control. Status and wealth. These are the things that men’s hearts covet.
They are also man’s downfall. It was the king who bargained for human safety, not Karios.
It was the king, who pledged fealty to me, and instilled an entire system of ideologies that ensured every generation thereafter was stripped of hope and the old ways, so that when I rose to power, there would be no objection.
All because he wanted to live. He wanted power and all the things that came with it.
“He told your kind that the fae were the enemy, making my legions seem like less of a direct threat. If humans would have sided with the fae, they would have been less likely to fall away from the gods and take up this new ideology. Emmeric knew that division creates weakness. He capitalized on it, just as I instructed him to.”
“That was your plan all along? To get us to lose our faith?”
He smiled. “A great ‘falling away,’ as I like to call it.”
I already knew the truth of this. The fae had been made to look like the enemy.
But hearing it from the fallen god himself was like a slap to the face.
We humans had allowed it to happen. The separation, the hatred, the avoidance, it was all to keep us in line.
Submissive to a god who was never truly on our side.
And when the humans attacked the fae, it had been out of anger and greed—both incited by Lyceius’s ploy to turn us against each other and make us weak.
Humans had already begun to lose faith in the gods when none of them, not even Karios, had intervened. So the fallen god capitalized on it. He saw the opportunity arise with Emmeric’s plea, and used it—used him.
“You’ve been conditioned,” Lyceius continued, still smiling like he’d just won this war before it had even started.
“Over thousands of years, kings have thrived, each of them sworn into this secret order that was loyal to my agenda. Each of them slowly breaking down human morale and resolve, little by little. Pulling them away from everything they were taught. The lies have been spun so perfectly for so long, and no one thought to question them.”
I narrowed my eyes at the fallen god. “I will ensure everyone else knows the truth when this is done.”
“See, that is the ideology that will get you in trouble. It is the very reason why the king is in shackles, enduring his punishment.”
Beside us, Roirdan and some of the others stirred anxiously.
“Broderick started asking questions. And when someone begins to wonder, the action spreads like a weed, until dozens are thinking for themselves and questioning the truth. Thankfully, I had a loyal servant keeping an eye on him.”
“Where is the king?” I demanded.
Lyceius cocked his head. “You don’t stop, do you?” A smug laugh crawled up his throat. “Dare I say you get that from me?”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Niall said, his shadows spilling out around him and whipping at the air.
At the sight of them, Skadi’s eyes sparked to life. “What a delightful start,” she said, her tongue dripping with disdain. “Now, shall we move on to the next pressing matter?”
“Yes,” Niall said, matching her sarcasm. “Tell us how a goddess from another world was able to come into this one unnoticed, when her sister was intercepted upon arrival.”
Skadi huffed a laugh. “It’s rather simple, really. Turns out, it’s all about location. I just so happened to land here, in The Wastelands, which, Lyceius tells me, is a place Karios no longer keeps tabs over.”
“Mmm. How fortunate.”
Niall’s false sense of amusement only stirred the goddess’s ire. Her expression darkened, and her voice turned deep as she said, “My amulet. Bring it to me. Now.”
Movement caught my eye from where Niall began fidgeting with his hand inside his pocket, almost as if he was . . . nervous.
“I told you before, we do not have what you seek,” he said.
“Do not play those games with me. It is here. I can sense it.”
Niall’s fidgeting halted. “What you are sensing is me.”
I whipped my head to him, having not expected him to say anything that would clue her in as to where his power came from.
“We’ve been over this, High Lord. Your power—”
“Came from the amulet, yes. But I do not have it—nor does anyone in this territory. It has only ever been in the hands of your sister and her kind.”
A look of concern crossed Skadi’s face. “Well, that truly is a problem then, seeing as my sister is not here at the present moment.”
“If you’re patient, you might just see her on the battlefield.”
She lifted a brow. “Making deals with the gods for help? Didn’t take you to be the desperate type.”
“I’m just utilizing all the available resources.” He had the audacity to toss her a smirk, and she bared her teeth at him in return.
“Enough of this,” Lyceius hissed. “Surrender yourself now, Auren, along with the amulet, or subject everyone you know and love to the same fate as the king.”
Everyone I know and love.
Instead of my parents’ dead bodies, it would be the bodies of those that stood around me now lying in the dirt. Suffering. Bleeding out.
Try as I might, I could not shake that fear.
“You have the opportunity to save thousands,” Lyceius continued. “You can end this war before it even begins.”
Niall’s shadows tightened around my arm, pulling me from my thoughts. I glanced down at them, and they curled, as if peering up at me. Begging me not to give in.
If I surrendered, everyone would be doomed to a world worse off than before, under the rule of a god who valued power and corruption over all else.
If I faced him, if I defeated him and fulfilled the prophecy, then all the wrongs would be righted, and perhaps the humans and the fae could live in harmony once more.
And if for some reason I failed . . . well, at least I tried.
“No,” I finally said.
“No?” Lyceius echoed.
A long pause ensued.
Something dark crossed the fallen god’s face as his lips hardened to a thin line. “If words will not persuade you, perhaps actions will. I will give you some time to reconsider. If we do not have what we seek in two days’ time, I’ll assume you used the interim to prepare for your deaths.”
I didn’t object. None of us did. Two days would provide vital time for the rest of the armies to show up. We could not risk that.
Without another word, Lyceius’s inky darkness swirled up from the earth, encompassing the creatures, Skadi, and himself, and they vanished into a swirl of dust and darkness.