Twilight of the Gods

A God’s Favorite was not always the most obedient angel of the pack. This was something Ezra knew too well when Anhel declared that he would possess the honor of being the best.

He wasn’t chosen for being the tamest out of all the demons they domesticated. Perhaps that was the Pantheon’s first mistake, a perilous one that would inevitably lead to their demise. No, he was chosen because he was intelligent, a highly unusual trait for a demon even after their domestication changed them into an angel.

But Ezra was nothing like his brethren. He still retained demonic traits after the transformation, such as his blue eyes and sharp teeth. And, even though it wasn’t obvious, he also kept his free will.

People, whether they be mortals, angels, demons, or Gods, feared what was different. At first, Ezra relished the feeling of being unique, delighting in the way his appearance frightened his brethren. But as Anhel’s Favorite, he had duties, specific responsibilities that required his fellow angels to like him. So, despite what he wanted, he took painstaking efforts to blend in with the pack. After all, his God commanded him to do so. And who was he to deny his master’s wishes?

His sharp teeth were the first to go, filed down by serrated strips of iron. It was painful, having his bits of calcium shaped into an unnatural form. He was annoyed at how it made tearing at pieces of meat difficult. He was no longer able to eat with the same gusto as before, an inconvenience that bothered him less over time when he reminded himself that he needed to deal with multiple annoyances daily to convince his God that he was fully stripped of his free will. “What his master wanted, he desired” was a mantra he repeated to himself often. If he didn’t have that mental cue, he would’ve gone mad from the first day of his domestication.

His eyes were the next thing his master wanted him to change. Anhel said that their “hateful blue” shade bothered him and often requested that Ezra kept his eyes downcast so that he would be more physically pleasing to look at. His God had offered to pluck out his insolent blue eyeballs in exchange for docile gold ones, but he ultimately granted Ezra a minor glamour that fooled the other angels into believing that the effects of his domestication had fully kicked in.

“A cosmetic procedure shouldn’t have to be so gruesome,” Anhel had said. “Blood should have a greater reason to be spilled.”

Ezra didn’t care what his master’s justification was. As long as he got to keep his real eyes, he had nothing to fear beyond the usual cruelties his God subjected him to. And as long as he remained at the top of the celestial food chain, the pain was meaningless. Power was the only thing that mattered. If it didn’t, all of his sufferings would be meaningless.

Of course, this made concealing his free will difficult. He always walked the fine line between doing what his God wanted and following his own path. It made his position as the Favorite precarious, up for grabs at the whims of his master if he misbehaved.

Which is why Ezra shouldn’t have been devastated when Anhel declared Uriel to be his new Favorite. He saw the news coming from a mile away, but the announcement still crushed his soul. He wanted to murder his replacement where he stood and gouge out his eyes just as Anhel threatened to do to him.

Instead, he kept a complacent smile on his face. Let the Gods still think he was their obedient angel. Even if Anhel doubted his abilities now, he would change his mind in no time. Being a celestial servant taught him patience that rivaled that of a monk.

So he bided his time, redoubling his efforts to hide any sign of his free will. He obeyed every order, suppressing any form of protest within. He knew that waiting would yield rewards greater than he could ever imagine.

As cracks started to appear in the Gods’ hold over their universe, he saw those very rewards unfold before him.

Predictably, unrest had started with Odi’s angels. He was always the crueler one of the two Chaos Gods, letting himself be dominated by his violent impulsiveness. He claimed that it made him more in tune with the strands of fate that bound all Gods to their singular universe. Ezra thought it was a poor excuse for his abusive behavior.

After personally ripping off the wings of two of his Favorites, Odi’s angels were feeling anxious. There was no justification for their fall, a wrongness that penetrated their cloudy, compliant heads. Vivian and Tristan were well-loved even if they had to do things no ordinary angel could do. Ezra suspected they were punished because they were like him, still stuck with the gift of free will. It was a pleasant surprise that the weight of their own thoughts didn’t burn them alive, keeping them intact as he was.

But then there was also turmoil among the Chosen Ones, something Ezra hadn’t anticipated. Those mortal lap dogs were rarely dissatisfied with their Gods, coddled and treated like prized pets in addition to their fellow mortals worshiping them. But fate had made soulmates out of two Chosen Ones of two Gods who had a special hatred for each other. It was a recipe for disaster better than anything Ezra could’ve concocted. So while Sabine and Hubert played star-crossed lovers trapped in a feud between two eternal enemies, he began to look for more flaws in the Gods’ “perfect” order.

Strangely enough, the next disruption came from one of the Gods themselves. While Iris, who was called Eris by the mortals at the time, never considered herself a traitor to the Pantheon, the growing empathy she had for the angels and the disgust she felt towards the cruelty of the domestication process was weakening her resolve. Her ability to perform her duties as a fire deity faltered the bigger her heart grew.

That was excusable, according to the Gods. Her weakness was temporary, or so they told themselves. She always returned to proper Godhood after her insane bouts of empathy.

But not this time. This time, Eris’s madness stayed, lingering long enough for her to set all her celestial servants free. Demons once again tormented the people of the Mortal Realm, a consequence she had been fully aware of.

Thus, the first God was exiled from the Pantheon.

Ezra was impressed. The twin suns were smiling upon him as the power of the Gods slowly crumbled. He didn’t think fate could side with him once more, but it did again in the form of an anomaly.

On the surface, Julia the Cannibal was no different than the average psychopath who rotted in Myrania’s prison cells. Although her ramblings about being Elysian and coming from another dimension made her more unhinged than her fellow criminals, physically she ate, slept, and shat like all the other mortals. No, what truly set her apart from everyone else beyond her unusual appetite for human flesh was her ability to access Elysia.

She couldn’t control the strange magic she had, the spontaneous generation of portals to her home universe. If she could, she would’ve left their dimension already and escaped the painful reality of her flesh cravings. She was scared and isolated in a foreign land with not a single kind soul willing to listen to her.

Ezra thought that she was the perfect pawn.

It would take years of scheming and manipulation, but eventually, he managed to gather the seven of them in a single room to form the Elysian Council and start a war with the Gods. With the help of Eris’s former angels, demons from Underworld, several mortals who were growing displeased with the Gods, and Julia’s portal magic, they were able to bring the immortals to their knees.

But still, it wasn’t enough until Nyx came and granted them seven wishes that finally killed the Gods. Arming them with Boards that gave them infinite armies, they finally conquered Otherworld and gained power beyond their wildest dreams.

Ezra should’ve been satisfied with his accomplishments like the other Elysians. Yet, his centuries of servitude under Anhel left a bitter taste in his mouth that he couldn’t seem to get rid of. He wanted personal retribution against his former master, to have him suffer as he did.

He fantasized about his revenge constantly as he scoured the land for any trace of Anhel. Because the twin suns still rose and set like clockwork, he knew the Chaos God was alive albeit weakened by the war. He kept an eye on his former master’s Chosen One, Evelyn, waiting to see if the God would hide within her. It was not uncommon for immortals to possess those they’d gifted with magic, but it was frequently done by lesser Gods, not someone as ancient as Anhel.

But any creature pushed to its limits will stoop to lows they think themselves too respectable for. Gods were no exception.

When poor Evelyn was murdered by her soulmate, Anhel had already wandered the Mortal Realm for far longer than any God should have. He had no choice but to strike a bargain with his dying Chosen One and possess her. It was too easy for Ezra to swoop in and offer them sanctuary, pretending to be his loyal celestial servant who had miraculously survived the war.

Getting Evelyn into that carriage and onto the Celestial Road was so simple that he struggled to conceal his glee over the sheer luck of it all. It was torturing her that was truly difficult.

What punishment could he give his God when the immortal had become as harmless as a lamb?

Ezra decided that the answer to that was a homemade domestication process, one specifically made to drive Anhel and his Chosen One to insanity. Let him finally understand what he did to the angels. Let him finally feel what it was like to completely forget his identity and be accustomed to the pains of subjugation. Let him suffer.

The first step was taking away Evelyn’s name. That was, after all, what they did to him when they first found him as an innocent demon in the pits of Underworld. He christened her “Daeva,” after the malevolent spirits that would haunt the demon children before bed. To him, the name was more than appropriate.

The second step was owning her – mind, body, and soul. She became his first servant, forced to fulfill his every whim. He got to play God properly, enjoying the defiance he saw in Anhel’s eyes as he degraded and humiliated his precious Chosen One. He did things to her that even Gods would never do to their angels, fully spiraling down the rabbit hole of cruelty. But still, it wasn’t enough.

The final step was the torture, applying enough pain to drive Anhel out of her body. He let all of the Elysians have their way with her, knowing that each of them needed to release the resentment they felt toward the Pantheon somewhere. Surely even an immortal, ancient being such as Anhel couldn’t stand those levels of pain, especially in a mortal body. Once the God finally gave up, Ezra would be there, waiting to absorb his powers.

But then, things went wrong. Somehow, Daeva managed to escape, making it as far as the Celestial Road before he was able to catch up to her. He tried to coax her back into his arms, talking to her as one might to a frightened animal.

Of course, that didn’t work. She leaped into the Mortal Realm, escaping his grasp.

Unfortunately for the Elysians, her absence from Otherworld destabilized their new home. The structure began falling apart and the magical abilities that came so easily to them were no longer as reliable.

He had to rebuild it all in the one place that he thought he’d never return to: Underworld.

Then he waited for the opportunity to gain power again. Patience was a virtue he could always rely on. If he sat long enough and cast his net wide into the vast sea of magic, he was sure to catch some fish.

There were three within grasp. The first fish was Daeva, who returned to play Nyx’s game. The second was Haydn, on the hunt for his lost soulmate. To think that there were two Gods under his roof, two wells of magic that he could draw from!

But the third fish was Nyx, wish granter and Board maker. He was nearly certain that she was an endless fountain of magic. As she returned to the palace and started the last round of her game, he waited once more for the chance to catch all of his fish.

Daeva was unaware of Ezra’s scheming, but she could feel his cold, blue eyes scan over her body. She avoided his gaze, not wanting to play his mind games. He already had the trust of her only friend, Uriel, and years of her suffering under his belt. She would not give him her attention as well.

As she approached the Board for her final task, she could feel yet another pair of eyes watching her every move. She looked up, facing Haydn.

There was a softness in his eyes that she hadn’t seen before, almost as if he was concerned for her well-being. She had expected the harsh, competitive expression of a rival. The effect completely disarmed her, making him appear attractive. She scanned his face for the telltale glitter of glamour, but there was none.

Haydn simply looked good.

Focus on the game, Anhel said. If we win, you get your revenge and your memories back. And if you so desire, you can also get all the handsome men you want in the world.

Daeva scoffed at the God’s words, but she still muttered her mental thanks for the reminder. She mustn’t get led astray by good-looking dark-haired men. They were charlatans, each and every one of them.

She places her hands on the Board, pulling away once she receives her tasks. She reads her slip of paper, her eyes unconsciously darting to Ezra.

It was just as she feared. For the final round of Nyx’s game, she would need to face her worst tormentor.

Destroy Ezra’s puppet, read the gold script. Whatever that meant.

Haydn was staring at his slip, unblinking. She couldn’t tell if he was happy about his task either. So, she decided to ask.

He hesitates, choosing his words carefully. “It’s something that I may need your help with. But please, don’t worry about it. Just try to win.”

He touches her shoulder gently, the warmth of his hand seeping through her dress. She notices the black snake curled up on his arm watching them, its tongue darting out to taste the air ever so often.

“New pet?”

“Something like that,” he said, a mysterious smile coming to his face.

That’s Odi, Anhel informed her. Back from the dead. He shouldn’t get in our way. He’s so weak he can’t even possess a human anymore.

“Good luck on your task,” Haydn said, flashing her a warm smile. “There’s no one else I would rather play these games with.” For a moment, her heart skipped a beat. He really was quite handsome. It honestly shouldn’t have taken her so long to notice. But why did he look so sad?

Before she could think about it, he left the room. She was stuck with Nyx and Uriel as the Elysians slowly filed out.

“Why do I need to do this?” Daeva stared at Nyx, holding up her slip of paper. “I don’t think I can face him.”

“Have faith, dear child,” the Lady of the Night said. “I know it’s difficult, but everything you desire is at hand. This is merely a minor obstacle.”

She blinks in surprise, not expecting kindness from the game master. “Truly?”

“Yes.” With that, Nyx faded into the darkness.

Uriel stood toward the side awkwardly, watching their interaction. She directed her red gaze to him, regarding him warily.

She still felt the sting of his betrayal whenever she looked at his gold form. It was like Uriel, her best friend and trusted servant, was no longer the same person anymore.

“My fair angel,” she said, suddenly coming up with an idea. “Do you want to prove your loyalty to me?”

He nodded eagerly.

“Good. It’s time that you carry out my bidding once again.”