Twilight of the Gods

Hubert gazes at Sabine’s face through the glass coffin. She sleeps serenely, neither dead nor alive. Little did he know that she was soulless, lost in Limbo between the land of the living and the land of the dead.

Just a few moments ago, Daeva and Haydn were scrambling to stuff her soul back into her body. Despite the fact that taking Sabine’s soul was a part of the Board’s task, they knew how suspicious it would look to have another Elysian mysteriously fall ill. Yet the body refused to accept the soul, rejecting it as if it were a parasite. After a few tries, with Daeva attempting to use the Conductor to siphon Haydn’s magic, they give up and use his glamour to sneak out. But not before trying to clean up Sabine’s body.

They hastily wipe off the blood from her face and carry the body to a bedroom. She fixes Sabine’s hair and closes her eyes, hiding the woman’s dead glassy stare. Haydn straightens her dress and pulls the covers up to the woman’s neck.

“It’s like she’s taking a nap,” he said.

If only that had truly been the case. Daeva tucks Sabine’s soul into the folds of her dress, feeling the heat of her life force. She examines the Mage’s soul again, reading the inscriptions carefully.

Sabine was sworn to the God Eris, a deity that Anhel once told her wielded fire magic. Considering Iris’s enthusiasm for flaying her skin and the friendship she had with Sabine, the story made sense. What didn’t make sense was Sabine’s abilities. She clearly wielded a form of magic, an allure that forced mortals to do her bidding. But her abilities, like the abilities of all mages, were supposed to mirror her God’s powers. And those powers couldn’t be accessed without Conductors, hand instruments that channeled the magic of a God, instruments that were missing from Sabine’s palms.

But she was no ordinary Mage. There was a reason why she had a seat on the Elysian Council. If Iris betrayed the Gods to earn her seat, then Sabine most certainly did worse.

Daeva touches an inscription on the soul, narrowing her eyes. She wasn’t familiar with this mark. Upon pressing it, a red thread appeared, trailing out of the room. Just as she was about to follow it, a bell rang in the distance.

Nyx had returned, no doubt with new tasks from the Board. She makes eye contact with Haydn, who sighs in resignation. They hadn’t expected the Lady of the Night to show up so soon.

As they walk into the dining room, the rest of the Elysians file in. Iris and Julia had returned, both with their respective wounds healed. They carried themselves stiffly, occasionally glancing at Daeva with fear in their eyes. Hubert is the next to arrive and Daeva notices that the red line she saw before ended at him, with the thread connected to his chest.

They’re soulmates, she realized. Sabine and Hubert were from the old generation of mortals, sculpted by Gods and shaped for one another. It meant when they died, they would be reincarnated as lovers for many generations to come.

For some reason, that angered Daeva. They had killed the very Gods that bestowed them this gift, the gift of eternal companionship through several life cycles. Yet here they sat, pretending to be Elysian, Otherworldly, and deserving of their place above the Mortal Realm. Her terrible mood is slightly assuaged by the fact that Sabine is the only Elysian not to show up at the table. Hubert’s anxiety in her absence almost makes her smile. She never thought that she would see the great hulking man fidget in his seat. But her joy is diminished when she sees the last person enter the room.

Uriel arrives, eyes downcast with a haunted expression on his face. He takes his seat next to Daeva wordlessly with his hands folded before him.

“Are you alright?” She whispers the question so the Elysians wouldn’t hear.

“No,” he said, knowing better than to lie to her. “But I will be alright later.”

Before she could question Uriel further, Matthius approaches the table, eyes already dark from possession. He sets the Board down and calls the Gods forward.

Daeva and Haydn rise from their seats, making eye contact. What were the chances that they would end up with the same task again? They place their hands on the Board and wait for the scraps of paper to appear beneath their palms.

The Elysians stare at them, bored out of their minds. They never got to see their tasks and their initial anxieties over a Godly plague were gone with the reappearance of Iris and Julia. A serving girl circles the room, pouring water first for Ezra before attending to everyone else.

Daeva notices Haydn’s eyes trained on the girl. There was an expression of disbelief on his face as he watched the girl move through the room gracefully, practically dancing from one Elysian to the next. She wonders if the girl is his Evelyn, but there is no adoration in his eyes. Whoever she was, Daeva would need to ask him about her later.

She feels the Board heat up beneath her fingers. Before long, the scratch of paper reaches her ears and her new task is at hand. She flips over the paper, scanning the words on the slip.

Remove the Soulmaker’s mark.

Her eyes slid over to Hubert, who was finishing his water in a few gulps. Hubert was the Humble One, a craftsman who toiled in his workshop for days, making his goods. The goods in question were the new generation of mortal souls, each meant to reach their bodies on the Celestial Road after they were complete. Rarely anyone called him the Soulmaker, not unless they themselves dealt in the trafficking of human souls. She supposed it made sense, with Matthius being the Keeper of the Dead. Still, that brought into question Nyx’s role. She suspected that “Lady of the Night” was not her only title.

What she did know for certain was that the mark her task was referring to was Hubert’s soulmate mark. There was a matching symbol on Sabine’s body. The question was, where? She would need to sneak back into her room again to find the mark.

But before she could do so, Matthius sets a second object down on the table. It was a golden measuring scale, with one side holding a white feather and the other side’s pan being empty.

“Gods and Elysians,” Nyx said, projecting her voice from Matthius’s body. “I’ve warned you about an impending war in the Mortal Realm, one that could destroy civilization as the mortals know it. Since my announcement, the odds of the war happening have not improved. If anything, the mortals are more likely to go to war than ever. The strings of Fate won’t budge in the favor of peace.”

“I suspect that one of you has been scheming against my interests,” she continued. “But I won’t accuse anyone. These scales will decide whose intentions remain pure. I ask that the guilty party step forward. If you refuse, then I will be forced to measure everyone’s souls.”

“Well?” She looked around expectantly. “Will nobody step forward?”

“One of us is missing,” Ezra said. “She remains sick in bed. Surely you cannot judge all of us if one of us is indisposed.”

“I can,” Nyx said. “I can even measure her soul first.” She takes the scales off the table, carrying them in one hand easily.

Hubert clears his throat. “You can’t.”

“Are you questioning my abilities, Humble One? Do I need to remind you who gave you the tools to maintain control over the Mortal Realm?” The temperature of the room drops several degrees, mimicking Nyx’s icy fury.

“Forgive me, Lady of the Night,” said Hubert, bowing his head. “I did not intend for my words to be a display of insolence. I meant only to tell you that my partner, the Beloved One, is missing her soul from her body. Because of this, measuring her soul is impossible.”

“She’s missing her soul,” Nyx echoed tonelessly.

“Yes, my Lady. I can show you,” Hubert offered.

“Lead the way,” she said.

They file into Sabine’s room, gathering around her body which was encased in a glass coffin. Daeva thought it was excessive, keeping her body like that. It wasn’t like she had died. Her breath still fogged the glass. Her skin was still free from the pallor of death.

“You’re keeping her in a coffin,” Nyx said. “Did she die?” The Lady leans down, examining Sabine’s body beneath the glass.

“No,” he said quickly. “I would know if she did. The coffin is for her protection. A soulless body is vulnerable to wandering evils. The glass is enchanted to keep those demons away.”

To demonstrate, Hubert taps the glass. Instantly, an electric current shocks him, causing his hair to stick up at odd ends. Several inscriptions glow malevolently against the glass. A few of the Elysians nod their head in approval. It was a clever invention.

But for Daeva, it was another obstacle to the task that the Board had given her. Without access to Sabine’s body, finding Hubert’s soulmate mark was going to be harder than anticipated.

“How did she lose her soul?”

It’s Ezra who asks this, sounding more intrigued than worried. It was as if his colleague’s body in the coffin was an intellectual problem to be solved rather than a tragedy.

“I’m not sure,” Hubert said, frowning at his tone. “Souls can’t be untethered from their bodies. Her physical form should have been ruined by the soul’s extraction. Whoever took it was an expert in soul magic.”

“An expert? Like you,” Ezra said. “Unless there are other people who have mastered soul magic.”

“There are none like me,” Hubert said carefully. “But I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”

Ezra chuckled, amused that he had ruffled Hubert’s feathers. “I’m not insinuating anything. I’m merely stating the facts. You said only an expert could remove Sabine’s soul without damage. And the only expert we know of is you.”

“That’s enough,” Iris said, interrupting the pair. “It doesn’t matter how Sabine’s soul disappeared. What’s important is that we find it.”

Of course, the God would act fiercely protective of her Mage. A Mage’s soul belonged to their God. Sabine’s missing soul meant that Iris’s property was stolen. If it had still been the old days with the Gods still on their thrones, this would’ve been a crime punishable by hell fire. Lucky for Daeva, the Gods were mostly dead. Besides, she had already suffered enough burning for several lifetimes.

She briefly makes eye contact with Iris. They knew out of all the remaining Gods, Anhel was the only one who could take souls like this because he was the creator of most life in the Mortal Realm. But she knew Iris wouldn’t breathe a word about her abilities. If she did, it would only bring into question her own legitimacy as an Elysian.

“Sabine may be incapacitated,” Nyx said. “But the rest of you aren’t. I can still measure your souls.” She places the scales on top of the glass coffin.

“I refuse,” Hubert said. “It’s not fair to proceed with this if one of us isn’t here.” The rest of the Elysians murmur in agreement.

“I guess it really isn’t fair,” she agreed. “But the Gods aren’t exempt from this.” Her black eyes bore into Daeva from Matthius’s body.

“I haven’t been able to do anything to stop the impending war,” Daeva protested. “Measuring my soul would be useless.”

“Not quite. We’ll be able to see which God is more suited for the Board. Step in front of the scales,” Nyx commanded.

Daeva hesitates for a moment too long. The idea of doing so made her feel extremely uncomfortable. She knew her soul wasn’t pure. Her eyes flickered toward Hubert, who was still staring at Sabine beneath the glass.

If Sabine had violated her physically and mentally, then Hubert — Sabine’s alleged “better half” — had ruined her spiritually.

Before Ezra had brought her to Otherworld, there had been two souls in her body. The first soul was hers and the second was Anhel’s. Girl and God coexisted beneath her flesh in those first waking moments. Back then, the memories of her first life came easily and Anhel had little trouble exercising his powers.

But the presence of two souls in one body was unnatural, according to the Elysians. She was a threat that needed to be neutralized, an abomination to be corrected. So after Julia, Iris, and Sabine had pushed her to the limit, they had left her in Hubert’s hands. He was less experienced then, new to the art of soulmaking. It was just as much a mystery to him how he could “fix” her two souls as to the other Elysians.

Ezra suggested that he just remove Anhel’s soul. They had no business with an ordinary mortal. But they quickly found out that Hubert could only make souls, not remove them. All would have been lost if the new Soulmaker had not come up with the brilliant idea of merging their souls.

While he could not touch their souls, Hubert was able to submerge them into the waters of Limbo. He would leave her body in the river for days, only dropping by to check on the state of her souls. She grew tired of seeing his blurry visage through the ripples and couldn’t move because of the anchors attached to her limbs. But she would soon regret thinking that because one day, she couldn’t see anything at all.

Her mind was slowly in the process of leaving her body and descending to Limbo, but she hadn’t known that. The increasing detachment from her physical body and the loss of sensation in her limbs made her feel like she was dying. It didn’t matter how many times Anhel reassured her that they were still alive. She was feeling less like a person every second.

One day, when the river’s water felt like air on her skin, her mind was released into the gray walls of Limbo. There were no reflective surfaces so she couldn’t see what she looked like. She would lie on the gray floors, waiting for what seemed like an eternity for something to happen. Anhel accompanied her, taking the form of a black shadow. He didn’t seem comfortable revealing more of his true image to her, saying that he didn’t wish to overwhelm her. Considering all that the Elysians had made them suffer through up to that point, she was grateful that he still had the energy to care for her.

Some days they would make coherent conversation, using their fingers to draw images on the gray walls that would quickly vanish. But as they remained in Limbo for longer, it was not uncommon for them to speak gibberish for what felt like days. There were no suns in Limbo and the room they were stuck in was perpetually lit with the same level of lighting. They could feel bits of themselves disappearing and merging simultaneously. She was becoming more like him and he was becoming more like her.

So, when they finally left Limbo and Hubert had dragged her body out of that river, she was no longer the same. Her hair felt different. She couldn’t tell if it was coarser or smoother than before. The way she stared at herself in the mirror also changed. There was something off about the way she would look at herself. Were her eyes red before? She couldn’t tell. But somehow she knew they had shone brighter than this.

She had completely and utterly lost her sense of self, something she never thought could be taken away. Everything that there was to know about herself — personality, memories, experiences — had vanished. Her soul was transformed. If there was anything about her that stayed the same, she forgot it.

Anhel reassured her that all of those things that made up her past self were safe with him. Sadly, his words did little to soothe the gaping emptiness inside of her. All that was left were the God’s powers in her inexperienced hands.

She was tainted by the suffering she endured from the Elysians. There was not a single thing pure about her or her soul.

“Are you hiding something? Or are you a coward? Step forward and have your soul weighed,” Nyx said harshly.

Before Daeva could respond, Haydn steps in front of her.

“I’ll go first,” he said. “Measure me for my worth.”

Once again, he was sticking up for her. Nyx narrowed her eyes and he stared back, unafraid.

“How kind of you to volunteer,” the Lady of the Night said. “Step forward.”

He does as she asks and an invisible weight is placed on the other side of the scales. The scales continue to dip until the bottom of the metal pan kisses the glass coffin lid. An uneasy silence falls over the group.

“Your soul is filled with great darkness,” Nyx said. “Your spirit is heavy with sin. To possess the Board, you must cleanse yourself.”

What sins did he commit for his soul to be so heavy? As far as she was concerned, he was just a God looking for his lost soulmate.

But Haydn seemed unfazed by Nyx’s assessment. If anything, he agreed with it, nodding along with her words. A small smile tugged at the edge of his lips.

Daeva didn’t think being judged for one’s soul was a laughing matter, but she reckoned that Haydn didn’t care. As long as he ended up back in Evelyn’s arms, little else mattered.

She steps forward, dreading her turn. She felt a tugging sensation in her chest as she drew closer to the scales. The invisible weight returns to the empty pan and she watches the scales dip with bated breath. The pan was nearly at the same level as the feather on the other side, albeit a little lower. Nyx hums in approval.

“There is little to cleanse with you,” she said. “But the sins that weigh you down must be cleansed, nonetheless. Continue to follow the Board’s instructions and your soul will be lighter than the feather.” She takes the scales off of the coffin and walks out the door, leaving Daeva to the scathing glares of the Elysians.

Only Hubert doesn’t make eye contact with Daeva, still gazing at Sabine’s body with unfiltered despair. He asks one of his devotees to lift the coffin lid to give him access to his lover’s arm, which he kisses tenderly. And that’s when Daeva finally sees it.

There, on the edge of his wrist, was a tiny black star. He kisses the matching symbol on Sabine’s wrist, confirming Daeva’s suspicions that it was his soulmate mark.

Nyx was right. As long as she followed the Board’s tasks, she would be on her way to being pure. Maybe she could even be herself again.

She pulls Uriel aside, whispering her new plan to him. Daeva was finally going to get her revenge on the Soulmaker.