CHAPTER 25 #2
“So, what are you saying?” I narrowed my eyes as the puzzle pieces slotted together. “If channeling the current wasn’t the sole reason for my transition, am I distantly related to an elven? Is that how I managed to survive?”
“No. I think Lana might be, but not you. I’ve suspected for a while what you might be,” Kilian said this last part softly, like it was an admission he wasn’t fully prepared to confess yet.
The little bit of soup I had eaten churned in my stomach. “What does that mean?”
“I think it’s time we talked about the daggers.
I told you Caleb and Calendula informed me of what happened in the cave on Cosanus.
I know the fae rose when the blade touched him, because your dagger, and the one you found on him, are imbued with magic.
Magic from the gods themselves. Of course, the fae depleted whatever magic was in the blade around his neck and very nearly drained yours too.
I didn’t want to tell you straight after the third Trial…
Everything was still so fresh and you had been through so much, I didn’t want you to feel like it had been a waste, but…
The weapon you brought back is useless.”
My mouth opened. Closed. I chased different questions, finally deciding which to ask first.
“You told me the fae stole several daggers, that they’re part of a larger set of thirteen. Who did the fae steal them from?”
He looked at me like I knew the answer. In a self-explanatory tone, he said, “Thirteen daggers imbued with godly magic. Thirteen gods.”
“Don’t tell me… The daggers belonged to the gods?
” I hissed, horrified. My thoughts tripped over each other, spilling out my lips.
“Why are you searching for daggers that belonged to the gods? Do you know how dangerous this is?” If the gods were somehow involved in all this, if they were listening to this conversation we were having, there was no telling how they would retaliate over having their possessions passed around amongst thieves.
Kilian sighed. It looked like the words were eating him from the inside out. “It’s complicated, Lirah.”
“And you said you’d tell me after I made it through the Rite. Lightning tore through my body. I buried my friends just hours ago. I’ve been turned into a fucking elven. You owe me the truth, Kilian. And not the partial truth. The whole, entire thing.”
He flinched like my words had hit him and ran his hands through his hair, tugging slightly on the ends, and I wondered just how awful it could be.
“You’re right,” he said, eventually. “You need to know everything. You asked me, that day in the park, about who had taken my powers from me.”
I nodded, urging him to continue. The suspense was eating me alive.
“It was a god,” Kilian said in a rush. “Primus, the God of Curses, specifically. I did something that he didn’t like, so he exiled me to Lortan with only a kernel of my power.”
I paused, absorbing. “Kilian, what did you do?”
He grimaced. “I killed Kadax, the God of Cruelty and Malice.”
I wasn’t breathing.
“So, you can understand why the other gods would be hesitant to break the curse placed on me. It’s the highest form of treason.”
“You killed a god,” I repeated. How did one even find a god to then kill them? And why? “How do you even kill a god? They cannot be killed.”
The gods were perfectly immortal. It was what made them gods.
From everything I read at Pyxis, I knew that when the fae rose against the gods, they had tried to kill them all, only to find that while the gods’ bodies would die, their souls would remain intact.
Then once a god found a new body to host, they would simply return to their place in Tuscan, the land of the gods, and seek vengeance on those who had tried to slay them.
“That is partly true,” he said. “The only way to kill a god permanently is to destroy their soul. And there is only one being capable of wholly annihilating a god.”
My mouth went dry. “A… being?”
Kilian said nothing.
“You said… you said you were exiled.” My voice quivered. “From where?
Kilian exhaled. “From Tuscan.”
“So that means…” I blinked, and when I looked at him again, he had become an entirely new person. A stranger to me. “What are you?”
“You know what I am, Lirah.”
“No. No, no, no.” I took a step backward, crashing into the food tray. The soup bowl clattered to the ground, puréed pumpkin spilling across the floor.
Kilian stood, but made no move toward me, his arms hanging limply at his sides. “I am Azrael.”
“That’s… impossible.”
He scoffed bitterly. “Is it? I killed Kadax, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Naturally, that upset the others. But they couldn’t kill me.
No one can truly destroy another god, except for death itself.
Except for me. So Primus cursed me, stripping me of nearly all my powers, and the majority voted to exile me to Lortan to live amongst the elven and atone for my crimes. ”
“But why? Why did you do this?”
Kilian took a step toward me, and I took another back.
“I had overheard of a plot between Kadax and Primus – they wanted to eradicate humanity. They believed the mortals were growing restless and would soon stop praying to them. Stop serving them. I tried to convince the others, but there wasn’t hard evidence, and I was running out of time.
So, I killed Kadax before he could make a move.
Primus was… trickier to kill, so I planned to banish him – an imprisonment of sorts.
” He had a faraway look on his face, distant, like he was remembering a pained chain of events.
“But before I could banish Primus, he cursed me. That’s why I need my powers restored.
It’s why the fate of humanity depends on it.
They couldn’t just stop with the fae,” he said bitterly.
“I didn’t resist then and have regretted my role in it ever since, even after saving some. ”
“The thirteen fae…” I muttered. “You put them in Cosanus?”
He nodded. “I had to destroy most of them, to make it look like I had done the job of quelling the rebellion. The fae… they attacked our home. Their hatred of the gods made them too risky to keep alive, but it’s different with the mortals.
They’ve done nothing except lose interest in the gods, which shouldn’t be a crime punishable by death.
I left the most powerful fae trapped on Cosanus.
I knew the day would come when we might need every bit of help to eliminate Primus. ”
“What’s stopping Primus from destroying humanity? Why hasn’t he done it already?” I asked.
“Without Kadax, I’m sure he’s having trouble convincing the others to help him.
He won’t be able to do it on his own, he’s too weak without his dagger.
Which brings us back to the weapon you stole on Cosanus.
During their invasion of Tuscan, the fae stole several daggers.
Each of them belonged to a god, each imbued with a piece of the gods’ magic.
It amplifies a god’s abilities. And in my hand alone, each dagger is capable of killing the god it’s linked to.
I thought the one on Cosanus might belong to Primus.
I was wrong, though. On closer inspection, it appears to belong to Mahleia, Goddess of Pleasure.
We still don’t know where Primus’ dagger is. ”
I ran a hand across my face, rubbing at my eyes. “What does any of this have to do with me? With the Mortal Trials and the Rite?”
Kilian released a tense breath. “Centuries ago, after my exile, a god went missing. Aerie, the Goddess of War. It is rumored that she chose death rather than a betrothal to Primus. But I didn’t kill Aerie, and it was thought that her soul spent many years wandering Tarlor, looking for a new host to occupy.
So long that she forgot who she was. What she was.
The real purpose of the Mortal Trials is to find her, so she can break the curse placed on me by Primus.
It’s a curse that only another god can break.
Believe me, I tried to find a way around it.
We approached every single elven and still regularly conduct checks on the children being born each year on the off-chance one of them can help.
I have had to explain everything to the elven.
It took ages to convince them of Primus’ plans for the mortals – plans which I am not certain will stop only with the eradication of humanity.
The elven’s distaste for the gods is no secret, and I believe Primus intends on weeding them out once he’s done with the mortals.
But even after all that, none of the elven had the ability to break the curse.
Septimus, Syrina and I spent decades searching for an alternative solution, only to land at the conclusion that it must be another god who can break it.
The Mortal Trials were born out of necessity to find Aerie, not entertainment.
None of the elven approve of it, but they understand why it needs to exist, the repercussions if Primus is not stopped. ”
“Why didn’t you just ask one of the other gods to break the curse?” My voice fractured, disbelief coursing through me at the conversation we were having. The flippant discourse about the gods, as if they were not omnipresent, all-powerful beings.
“Aside from me killing one of our own, which fractured most of my relationships, I don’t trust any of the others to help.
They are the ones who voted for the exile, after all.
But not Aerie…” He gave me a soft, sad look like there was a secret shared only between the two of us.
One I couldn’t remember. “I trust Aerie. I have spent decades looking for her. The only way to unbind her, though, if she had chosen a mortal host, was to subject her to the Rite.”
His words struck something deep and familiar inside of me. That name… A barrage of images ran across my mind’s eye, just as they had on the summit, after the lightning had subsided from my body.