Twilight of the Gods ✔️

Chapter 19: Soulmate Searching

Retrieve Odi's corpse.

    That was the latest hint that the Board had given Haydn on the whereabouts of Evelyn. At first, the words made little sense to him. In the grand scheme of everything he had received before, he wasn't sure where the newest slip of paper fit in.

    He knew Evelyn was in Otherworld. He also knew that Ezra was somehow involved in her disappearance. But the hint afterward, the one that told him to take retribution on Sabine, confused him. Had Sabine also done something to Evelyn?

He remembered the vacant stares of her devotees and their open heads during the brain surgeries. He could only hope that Evelyn was spared such a fate.

It's hardly anything unethical, especially compared to Ezra, Sabine had said. Haydn rolled his eyes at the memory. Just because Ezra was a monster, didn't mean he should be the standard all Elysians held themselves to. Besides, what could be worse than robbing someone of their free will?

He thought back to Ezra's servant girl pouring water for everyone in the dining room just moments before. His heart had stopped at the sight of her. It was the same woman he had found in Ezra's bed struggling against the Elysian before he killed her. He had to pinch himself to make sure he hadn't dreamt her up.

As she poured his water, he made sure that their fingers brushed. To his surprise, her skin was warm with life. He had expected the icy hands of a reanimated corpse or the vaporous ones of a ghost. But there she was, serving their water, seemingly alive and well.

She would know what Ezra did to his devotees. Out of everyone he knew, the innocent servant girl would know what was worse than losing one's free will.

So why was the Board telling him to find a dead God's corpse? He would much rather track down the girl and solve the mystery of her reincarnation.

He slipped on his glamour, taking the form of a crow. Cloaked in black feathers, he took to the skies, ignoring the Board's hint. There was no stake in following what those little pieces of paper told him to do, especially since Daeva was guaranteed ownership of the Board. Everything was rigged in her favor, from the soul weighing to the little "games" that the Board had given her, courtesy of Nyx.

He thought it was unusual how the Lady of the Night favored Daeva, a God she had never spoken to prior to her arrival in Otherworld. Come to think of it, his entire mission of bringing Daeva to Otherworld was strange in itself. Nyx said she needed Daeva to prevent a war in the Mortal Realm, but given his dealings with Nyx in the past, he was starting to suspect that the Lady of the Night was lying.

Not that he cared much about her true motives. To him, Nyx was merely a means to an end. She was only making his search for Evelyn difficult to convince him to keep up the ruse of a fair game to Daeva. It was an unnecessary hurdle, one he thought of clearing with a well-placed dagger to Matthius's throat. But he suspected that it would take more than a blade to kill the Keeper of the Dead or else the Elysians would have already tried it.

Before he could think of more ways of intimidating Nyx, he spotted a young woman dressed in a loose white gown picking herbs at the side of the palace. Servant girl.

Gotcha, Haydn thought, swooping down from the sky. He landed on the patch of grass beside her, mindlessly pecking at the grass while he observed her.

She didn't seem brainwashed. That was the first thought that came to Haydn as he watched her hum a nursery rhyme to accompany her work. He could tell that she was genuinely content as she smiled to herself, filling her woven basket easily.

He followed her back to the servants' quarters, lifting himself into the sky once again. She delivered the herbs to a chef, braids swaying as she danced through the door. From the window, he saw the chef give her a loaf of bread as repayment for her work which she graciously accepted.