Twilight of the Gods ✔️

Chapter 11: Iris the Wrathful

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.