Twilight of the Gods

Daeva looked at the piece of paper in her hands and groaned inwardly. Not again, she thought. The Board had given her another task involved with an Elysian, this time Iris.

She looked over at her, observing her round baby-face devour the dinner as a deceptive halo of curls bounced on her head. Iris was … special. Julia had been cruel as the rest of the Elysians, but Iris possessed an enthusiasm in her torture that none of the others did.

While Julia may have been motivated by necessity to hurt Daeva, Iris took pleasure in her pain. She was the embodiment of a pure sadist, willing to inflict pain for hours, even days. The other Elysians had to physically restrain her from further torturing Daeva because it was simply too much fun for her.

It was no wonder the mortals called her the “Patient One,” with many of them paying homage to her in order to endure life’s hardest trials. The ones who ascended to serve her were known for their mental toughness. They were fiercely loyal warriors who completed impossible tasks and fought in wars. Consequently, they were the reason why Iris was one of the most difficult Elysians to access. Completing the latest task from the Board would not be easy.

She read over the script on the paper again. Find Iris’s secret. The instruction was hopelessly vague. Everyone kept secrets. The question was, what was Iris hiding and who was she hiding it from?

The Elysians were subdued at the dining table, eating quietly while sharing the occasional whisper, a stark contrast from the celebratory mood they displayed when she first arrived in Otherworld. Maybe it had to do with Julia’s disappearance, but none of them seemed to question it, at least not in Nyx’s presence.

She recalled Matthius’s dark eyes burning into her when Nyx inquired about her missing presence. It was as if the Lady of the Night knew Daeva still kept her in the cage down by the empty Glade. She touched her neck, feeling a slight tinge of guilt. Julia had held up her end of the bargain and broke one of the seven links on the Binding Chains. And while Daeva had promised to release Julia in return, she never specified when.

Besides, all Julia had asked for was to stay alive. That, Daeva had no trouble doing. She wasn’t a complete monster. She may have learned cruelty from the Elysians, but something held her back from truly mimicking their savagery. She liked to think it was a moral code that kept her in check because it certainly wasn’t a soft heart that held her back. She had rules when it came to killing, especially down in the Mortal Realm.

The main criterion was that the mortals served Ezra. The fewer worshippers he had, the less power he held. Originally, she held herself to a higher standard. They couldn’t be women or children and they had to have committed heinous crimes so that her blades and bullets would balance the scales of cruelty.

But the Elysians were never fair. They saw what she was doing and resented her for trying to outwit them. So they sharpened their cunning and forced her hand, using the very people she would never kill against her. They despised her for trying to exist outside their control and made sure that she felt the consequences of her defiance.

Her mind wandered back to her escape from Otherworld for the second time. She was lucky that day. The Elysians were drunk, more focused on partying than keeping her captive. Her mind, which was usually in shreds from enduring unspeakable acts of violence, had settled into some semblance of sanity. And that was when she first heard Anhel’s voice.

Back then, she didn’t know that she had made a deal with the old God, forgetting everything about herself between being in Limbo and constantly tortured. She had no name and no past, reduced to a pathetic childlike state. So when she heard his voice, her first instinct should’ve been to run away. But she had always known that he was there, even if they never spoke. He was the darkness that pressed at the edge of her vision, the force that dragged her into consciousness every time she felt herself slipping away.

So when she did hear him speak, it was like listening to the voice of an old friend. She obeyed his instructions without hesitation, snapping the chains of her imprisonment and crossing the Celestial Road on her bare feet. His voice echoed through every part of her body, an experience so intense that she hadn’t noticed Ezra trailing after her. By the time she felt him grab her arm, it was too late. She pulled away from his grasp and took the leap that changed her life.

But even down in the Mortal Realm, she wasn’t free from the prying eyes of the Elysians. They sent warriors after her, well-trained soldiers and powerful mages to track her every move. She couldn’t find a quiet moment to herself, spending every second of her liberation killing mortals and indulging Anhel’s never-ending appetite for violence.

She kept a tally of every person she killed, drawing lines on the old temple’s walls until there wasn’t an empty surface left. She would’ve continued if they hadn’t sent children after her.

They were always too young, freshly plucked from their mother’s arms and sent to serve a higher purpose on behalf of the Elysian their family worshiped. It was another great honor, another useless way to lose their lives.

And she told them as much. Some listened and ran back to their families, but others stayed, heavily indoctrinated into their worship.

The first one she killed was by accident. She had lost control of her strength and quite literally punched the life out of the child.

It had all happened so fast. She only meant to give the whiny kid a push, something small to scare him off. She never expected her hand to go right through him.

From then on, Daeva had reached a point of no return. Despite how thoroughly broken she was, she had tried her best to avoid becoming a monster. But the Elysians hadn’t even given her a choice in that matter.

The next six kids that turned up dead on her doorstep were no accident. While she had no recollection of the violent frenzy that led to their untimely ends or the wicked way in which she hung their small bodies from trees, she did remember the endless guilt afterward.

The mortals wouldn’t let her forget either, rightfully calling her the Rogue of the Night, Child Killer, and Blood Spiller.

No amount of drinking could help her erase the image of those bodies dangling from the trees. If there was any bright side to the homicide, it was that the Elysians left her alone for one whole year.

If she fully caved into Anhel’s bloodlust, she was certain that there would be no one left in the land of living, mortal or not. She would be worse than the monster the Elysians made her out to be because she’d have no remorse.

Speaking of Anhel, the old God’s voice had been absent from her head recently. She had the unfamiliar luxury of thinking without restraint and acting without the usual aggressive urges. Nonetheless, his disappearance unsettled her. She wanted to chalk it up to the Binding Chains, but given Julia’s help, his voice should have returned.

Despite their frequent disputes, she missed his guidance. She’d even go as far as to say that she needed it. Without it, she was a mortal piloting an immortal vessel, a danger to the world.

But maybe she worried about nothing. Between the Binding Chains and her stay in Otherworld, the volatility of her existence was contained, although she wasn’t sure she enjoyed it.

She looked across the table at Haydn, who seemed happy with his task. She had seen very little of him since the game started, a game that seemed unfairly more difficult for her. He met her eyes, giving her a small smile in greeting. She gave him a cold stare in return. It was his fault that she was here.

She cuts into the meat on her plate, slicing quickly with her knife. Briefly, the image of Julia cutting up her flesh and distributing it to the starving Elysians flashed through her mind. The utensils clattered to the table, catching the attention of Uriel, who paused mid-bite.

“I’m fine,” she said, reassuring him. He resumes eating, but he doesn’t take his eyes off of her.

“You don’t have to worry,” she continued. She picked up her utensils and continued cutting into the meat. He looked away, but not before side-eyeing her.

They both knew she wasn’t fine. Being in Otherworld was giving her frequent flashbacks to her traumatic past, visions that entered her mind and left her body cold. If she looked at the Elysians for too long, she’d remember all the ways she suffered at their hands.

A part of her despised the way she had to avoid eye contact at the table. It made her look meek, shy, and demure, three things she knew to be the opposite of her character. But it was either that or allow the presence of her tormentors trigger a trauma response. That would humiliate her more than looking soft.

She could feel the eyes of the Elysians skim over her form. Their attention made her itch for the knives that were still on her body. She imagined stabbing every one of them, relishing the sensation of their painful shudders. They were mortal. They could die so easily.

She directed her attention to the flame dancing on the candle near her, watching the fire flicker. Her revenge could wait. As violent as she was, she knew herself to be capable of iron restraint. Once her chains were off, nothing would stop her, not even Nyx.

Someone to her left snickered, interrupting her reverie. Her head whips toward the direction of the noise, forgetting her mission to avoid eye contact as she saw Iris’s impish grin.

“Are you deaf? We’ve been calling your name for the past ten minutes,” the Elysian said. Her friendly tone grated at Daeva’s ears.

Daeva’s heart skips a beat as she takes in Iris’s entire face. She is immediately transported back to the memory of the first time she suffered under the curly-haired woman’s hands.

They had just discovered the regenerative abilities of her flesh. Julia had breached her skin with a rusty blade, desperate to feed on Daeva when Iris had suggested the brilliant idea of cooking her meat.

“We’re not savages,” she had said. With that, she had summoned her magic, the gift of fire, and burned the entire length of Daeva’s arm. It was the worst pain she had ever experienced at the time, to say the least.

Cooking her flesh had proven to be efficient in more ways than one. Not only did it make her more edible, but the meat was easier to cut.

Daeva had heard of pouring salt on an open wound, but she wondered if the person who coined the phrase knew the feeling of fire on a fresh cut. The sensation was akin to burning in the pits of hell, only she was sure she didn’t deserve it then. She had been sinless before meeting them, purified by her rebirth only to be re-polluted by her tormentors.

She feels that fire on her arms as she continues to stare silently at Iris. The imaginary flames licked at every pore of her body, mentally scalding her. She gets up from the table abruptly, making a loud noise as she pushes back her chair.

“Is there something wrong?” Iris’s tone had become teasing, almost malicious.

“I … I’m not feeling so well,” she said. With that, she dashed out of the room, desperately trying to escape her memories of being burned.

Out in the cool, dark hallway, Daeva found herself able to relax slightly, but not enough to rid herself of the image of the smoldering flames. The fire was all over her, surrounding her senses. She smelled her burning hair and tasted the ashes of her crisp flesh. Her fingers grazed her warm skin and she imagined that Iris had ignited fires within her too, turning the blood in her veins to lava.

She fell to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest. She was the flame, summoned to and fro, and completely and utterly at Iris’s mercy. Her body contorted to whichever shape she was pulled in, only knowing the language of pain and the few seconds of relief in between.

She thought she had forgotten the pain and erased the torture from her limbs. But alas, here she was, huddled in the dark and doomed to live in the past. She really was a pathetic excuse for a God.

Where was her might, the unending immortal fury of a celestial creature who created the stars and shaped the world with their bare hands? Where did she go and why did she abandon Daeva now when she was trapped in an isolated world with her tormentors?

A cold, metal hand rested on her shoulder, causing her to jump in surprise. Uriel.

“You should be eating with the others,” she said, schooling her features into an expression of indifference in an attempt to compose herself.

“I can’t,” he said, crouching down to her level. “You’re unwell.”

“How do you –”

“The Blood Bond,” he answered, cutting her off. “I feel everything that you feel and you feel what I feel. We can’t hide that from each other.”

Ah, how could she forget? It was the very thing that made him obedient to her. She would have his company and service at the cost of his free will.

But in the same vein, she could order him to go away. If she truly wanted to suffer alone, he would obey and leave her be. Too bad she was feeling selfish.

She looked at him, holding his innocent golden gaze. He had witnessed all of her sins in the Mortal Realm, making him an unwilling partner in her crimes. Yet he stayed by her side, becoming polluted with her. Not by choice, of course, but there was never any resentment in his actions. He was the epitome of the happy servant.

So what was wrong with asking him to serve her? The command rested on the tip of Daeva’s tongue, pressed against her lips. She should just say it. It was her right to own him.

“Would you please make me feel better?” She heard herself speak as if she were outside her body eavesdropping on their conversation.

“As you wish,” he said. She found herself swept off her feet and in his arms within seconds.

They had been in this position several times before when she had called upon him to fly her places. She was used to being pressed against his chest, to listening to the familiar sound of his mechanical heart ticking beneath his skin. But this time, things felt different.

Being held by him was intimate.

She leans into the crook of his, resting her chin on his shoulder. His scent fills her nostrils, clean and comforting. If she could, she’d bury herself in his smell, wrap it around her body like a blanket.

That was the pleasure of touching him. It was the sensation of immediate comfort, relief so intoxicating that she would replay her trauma to feel it for the first time again. Already she could feel Iris’s fires die down, flames ebbing from her soul.

He gently sets her down on her bed, taking care to rest her head on one of the softer pillows. Then he turns his back toward her, digging through the wardrobe before returning to the bed with a nightgown. He eases Daeva into a sitting position before proceeding to undress her.

Uriel had seen her in various states of nudity countless times. But, just like when he held her, things were different this time. As she felt his fingers unbutton the dress, her heart pounded. Even as he peeled the clothes from her body and unstrapped her weapons, there was a nervous air about her that hadn’t been there all those times before. She couldn’t help but look at his face, to see if there was any reaction to her raw form. She was surprised to see that he kept his eyes averted, looking only when he had to.

He raises his arms, ready to drape the nightgown over her. She grabs his wrist, stopping him.

“Why won’t you look at me?” The question comes out more indignant than she intended.

His eyes meet hers. “I am looking at you.”

“I meant before. You wouldn’t look at my body. Why?” The question hangs in the air, thickening the tension between them.

“Because I know how you feel about me,” he said. She releases her grip and he slides the gown over her.

That’s right, she thought. I feel what you feel. You feel what I feel. But then why don’t I know how you feel about me? And more importantly, how did he feel about her feelings, if that was something he thought about at all?

She didn’t ask him this, but she knew she very well could. She had a nose for lies so she would know the truth once he answered her questions. Not like it mattered, considering his lack of free will.

“Sleep with me,” she said, patting the spot on the bed next to her. Confusion rises to his eyes, but he obeys, reclining next to her. She rests her head on his chest and orders him to hold her as she closes her eyes.

“Do you enjoy serving me?”

“I don’t have a choice,” he said, his voice vibrating through his chest.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

He sighs, running his hands through her hair, a gesture that felt positively electric to Daeva. She wanted to ask him to do it again, but she knew she had to stay focused on his words.

“I care for you,” he said. “And I know that doesn’t answer your question, but I do. I feel pain when you feel pain and it hurts twice as much to see you suffer here.” He says that last part softly and draws her closer to him.

His words warm her like a hearty bowl of soup and tingle her cheeks. Only Uriel could simultaneously comfort and excite her. Which is why it pained her to say her next words.

“I need your help to get revenge on the Elysians,” she said. “I want you to help me kill them. It’s murder and I know you usually don’t kill people –”

“I’ll do it,” he said. “They murdered my people and they hurt you in ways I cannot begin to imagine. But you need to tell me how.”

And she did, all while knowing that she would be further corrupting her innocent angel.