Twilight of the Gods

Their souls and bodies were made for each other. She realizes this as he holds her closely, enveloping her with his warmth as they watch the tide meet the shore in a foamy embrace. Hues of orange and pink melt into purple on the horizon as the twin suns descend into the sea. She liked to think they were like those two shining orbs, so utterly intertwined that their movements were in sync.

That was how it was supposed to be. He was her soulmate, her other half. It was a miracle that she found him. Too bad her family disapproved of his low birth.

She knew they only entertained him because she begged them to. It didn’t matter that the Gods marked them for each other or that she felt complete in his presence. They saw him as the very thing that would bring their family to ruin.

She dreaded the day they would force them apart. It was inevitable given the way they bickered.

As she pressed her lips to his, she savored the moment, carving it into memory. If they wouldn’t accept him, she would make plans to elope. Nothing mattered more than he did.

Daeva wakes up carrying that warm feeling in her heart. For a while she sits there, wrapped in her sheets, paralyzed by that emotion. Then she turns her wrist over, staring at the blank skin where her soulmate mark was supposed to be.

She feels hollow. By becoming a God, she had left a life that was rich. She had a lover and a family. She had problems that she would kill to ruminate over. More importantly, she had passion, a love that burned hotter than Iris’s flames on her flesh.

The person who stabbed her in the first memory had done more than kill her. He had robbed her of the life she deserved. If he still lived, it was her duty to do the same to him.

That was what replaced the good in her past life. Pure revenge. She lets it consume her, allows it to turn her into a killer, and twists herself into whatever shape it desires.

Rogue of the Night. Child Killer. Blood Spiller. Her gory badges of dishonor. Behind those titles were hundreds of bodies, souls that no doubt clamored for her demise.

She was the last person anyone should expect to limit the death toll of the upcoming war between the Myranians and Ylivians. But she wasn’t inherently evil. The Elysians had made her that way, poisoning her with their cruelty. Even so, she couldn’t blame them entirely for her bloodthirsty nature.

She wished that she was pure. Maybe then she would be worthy of using the Board. But there was nothing redeemable about her. She was as polluted as her blood.

The thought lingers as she gets ready for the morning. Uriel runs her bath, pouring buckets of steaming water into a copper tub. He scrubs her body with lilac soap, carefully tending to her skin like the dutiful servant that he was. He oils her hair, massaging her scalp. He gently takes her curls and deftly braids her hair into two coils that resemble sleeping snakes. But no matter how pretty and neat he made her, she was still corrupted.

“Something’s bothering you,” Uriel said. He massages her shoulders, using his metal hand to rub out most of the tension.

“Nothing to worry about,” she said, dismissing his consideration. They needed to prepare to meet Nyx again so that the Board would give her the next task.

“You’ve been quiet the entire morning,” he replied. “It’s unlike you.”

There was something in his tone that irked her. It was the way he spoke to her as if he knew her better than she did. She turns around to get a look at his face. His expression was blank, but there was something playful in his eyes.

“I have feelings for you. Romantic feelings,” she said. “Do you have those feelings for me?”

He pulls his hands away from her, taken aback. His reaction pleases her. The words had the exact effect that she intended.

“Do … Do you want me to have those feelings for you?”

She laughs, throwing her head back. His lack of free will made him act like a child. Did he really need to be told how to feel?

“I want you to kiss me,” she said. Cross that line between an angel and a God. Then I will know what you feel for me even if you don’t.

He leans in, filling her nostrils with the scent of jasmine hair oil. His lips were a mere centimeter away from touching hers. She cranes her neck, closing her eyes.

“Daeva!”

Uriel’s lips graze hers in a half kiss before she pulls away. Haydn enters the room, out of breath.

“I was calling your name,” he said. “Didn’t you hear me?” He registers the pair in front of him. “Did I interrupt something?”

“No,” she said, clearing her throat. “Uriel was just helping me get ready.”

“It looks like he was doing more than that,” Haydn mumbled.

“What did you say?” Her red eyes challenged him to repeat himself.

“Nothing,” he said hastily. “I wanted to speak with you.” He side-eyes Uriel. “Alone.”

The angel doesn’t move. It’s only when Daeva commands him to leave that he exits the room, giving them the privacy that Haydn requested.

“What did you want to speak about?” Her voice is harsh and impatient. He makes note of her crossed arms.

“I want to talk about Ezra. Did you know about his habit of bedding and killing mortal women?” Hayn stares at Daeva intently, not caring that it seemed like he was interrogating her. If that had been Evelyn’s fate when she arrived at Otherworld, he would never forgive himself for parting from her.

“Excuse me? Bedding women? Are we talking about the same Ezra?” Even as Daeva asked this, she knew what Haydn was saying was entirely possible.

The phantom of an old memory appears before her eyes. Ezra holds a gloved hand out, beckoning her to his carriage. He’s promising safety and shelter, a respite from her cruel reality. She follows him in, none the wiser to all the events that would befall her later. She doesn’t remember what happens after stepping into the carriage. Her brain won’t allow her to.

“Why do you ask this question?”

“So you do know,” he said. “You know the kind of monster he is.”

“I only know what he did to me,” she said. “I don’t know what he does to others or that there were even others.” She meets his dark, troubled eyes. “What happened?”

Maybe it was the sorrow in her eyes or the slight tremor in her hands, but Haydn felt the need to tell her the truth. So he did, not omitting a single detail about what he saw through Ezra’s windows and taking care not to exaggerate any events. At the end of his recollection, Daeva was silent.

“You think this all happened to your soulmate,” she said, finally speaking.

He looks down at his hands, unable to meet her eyes. “I’m hoping none of it did.”

Fragments of the morning’s dream come to her. She wonders if the soulmate from her past life misses her as much as Haydn missed his Evelyn. She struggles to picture his face, conjuring up a blur where a set of eyes, nose, and mouth should be. The endeavor, combined with Haydn’s news, makes her feel miserable.

At the dining table, she waits with Haydn and the Elysians for Nyx to show up, her feet tapping impatiently against the marble. The number of Elysians had dwindled to five thanks to the tasks that the Board had assigned Daeva. Julia was still imprisoned behind the bars of the cage and Iris stayed fastened in her shackles. Both maintained their claims of sickness. Uneasy conversation sprinkles in through the ranks of the Elysians. Whispers of a “Godly plague” reach Daeva’s ears.

If only they knew that one of their own was a God, she thought. But she wasn’t concerned with the petty words of the Elysians. What really bothered her were their innumerable sins.

While she was in no place to claim the moral high ground, she never pretended that she was a good person. She made no illusion that she was holy by any means despite being a literal God and never tried to amass followers. Yet the Elysians, who committed countless crimes as she did, still pretended they were better. Their hypocrisy irritated her.

Her eyes darted to Ezra, who was speaking in hushed tones to his brethren. He was the biggest hypocrite of them all. She catches Haydn shooting glares at him and smiles smugly. Finally, there was somebody who saw the Elysian as she did.

For a second, their eyes meet in mutual understanding. Then Matthius enters the room and they look away. She had a feeling Nyx wouldn’t approve of a friendship between them. They were supposed to be fighting for control of the coveted Board.

Nyx regains possession of Matthius, his eyes turning black. He no longer convulsed in her presence; his body was finally used to sharing two souls. She wonders if their relationship is like the one she had with Anhel, though she hadn’t heard from the God in ages. It worried her more than she’d like to admit.

The Lady of the Night greeted them, silence falling over the table. She congratulates Haydn and Daeva for completing their tasks and beckons them to place their hands on the Board for their next “game.” The Board comes to life beneath their fingers once more, wood softening to flesh, and a slip of paper materializes beneath their palms.

Daeva tucks the paper in a pocket of her dress, not bothering to read the latest task. Instead, she examines the Elysians, taking stock of the five who were left.

There was Ezra, with his sickening blue eyes and pristine appearance. He stared back at her defiantly, a scathing critique no doubt ready on his tongue. To his left were Sabine and Hubert, the Elysian power couple that rarely did anything without each other. And to his right were Vivian and Tristan, two of the cleverest Elysians in the group. Each had hurt her in their own unique way. It was from them that she knew that sadism took at least seven different forms.

Judging by the two tasks given to her by the Board already, she knew that the slip of paper tucked in her pocket would involve one of the Elysians. For whatever reason, it assumed that the best way to weigh her character was to force her to interact with her tormentors. She was instructed to deal some form of revenge on each of them and in turn, revisit her trauma without killing any of them.

If her theory was correct, there were only five tasks left, one for each Elysian.

Across from her, Haydn was rereading his task. An expression of pure confusion was etched into his face. It occurred to her that she didn’t know what his tasks were. She never bothered to ask because she assumed he wanted the Board more than she did.

She approaches him, muttering a low greeting. He gives a nod, still reading his paper.

“What task did the Board assign you?” She peers over his shoulder, trying to read along with him.

He snatches the paper away, crumpling it in his hand. He grabs her shoulder, making a show of being rough with her.

“Ask me later,” he whispered. “If you want to work together, it can’t be in front of Nyx.”

She pulls out of his grasp, giving him the barest hint of a nod. He was right. If they wanted to do anything not involving the Board, it needed to be in secret. Heaven forbid the Elysians suspected any collusion.

Later, in the privacy of their suite, they huddled on floor mats and exchanged their slips.

“They say the exact same thing,” he said incredulously. Daeva couldn’t believe her eyes. Written in cursive script on both of their papers was the same task.

Steal from Sabine what she took from others.

“Do you know what this means? I don’t have the slightest clue,” he said. Unfortunately, Daeva didn’t have any leads either. She only knew what the Elysians did to her, not what they did to others. What they subjected her to was unique because she was a God.

In a twisted way, their torture served a purpose. As the only living God that they could find after the war, she was the perfect test subject for their experiments. She was the answer to what made the Gods tick, why they were strong, and how much they could endure.

They strongly emphasized the latter, putting her under severe physical and mental trials. Under Julia and Iris’s hands, she proved that her flesh resisted blade and fire at the cost of excruciating pain. She came out of the ordeal with her body whole.

That was not the case with Sabine.

She was craftier than Iris and Julia, seeking out permanent ways to hurt her. With a following that was double Ezra’s and the support of Hubert, she did eventually succeed.

She had no qualms about violating Daeva. She was even proud of going to lengths that the other Elysians dare not venture to.

Daeva dreaded the thought of confronting her. While the very sight of Ezra boiled her blood, Sabine had been the first to frighten her. And if Sabine had committed the same crimes to others, she wasn’t sure if she could bear to face her.

If Anhel were with her, he would tell her to steel her nerves. Toughen up and summon your courage, he’d say. You’re already in hell.

She takes a deep breath. “I have a plan,” Daeva said.