Twilight of the Gods ✔️

Chapter 18: Her Better Half

Hubert gazed at Sabine's face through the glass coffin. She slept 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 gave up and used his glamour to sneak out. But not before trying to clean up Sabine's body.

They hastily wiped off the blood from her face and carried the body to a bedroom. She fixed Sabine's hair and closed her eyes, hiding the woman's dead glassy stare. Haydn straightened her dress and pulled 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 tucked Sabine's soul into the folds of her dress, feeling the heat of her life force. She examined 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 touched 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 made eye contact with Haydn, who sighed in resignation. They hadn't expected the Lady of the Night to show up so soon.

As they walked into the dining room, the rest of the Elysians filed 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 was the next to arrive and Daeva noticed 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 was slightly assuaged by the fact that Sabine was the only Elysian not to show up at the table. Hubert's anxiety in her absence almost made her smile. She never thought that she would see the great hulking man fidget in his seat. But her joy was diminished when she saw the last person enter the room.

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

"Are you alright?" She whispered the question so the Elysians wouldn't hear.