Twilight of the Gods ✔️

Chapter 5: Someone Fights a Few (Hundred) Nuns

Her hands shook as she lifted the delicate china teacup to her lips. She tried to take a sip of the tea, but between her jittery arm and the jostling train, the hot liquid spilled all over her lap. She yelped, quickly jumping from her seat.

An old couple nearby looked at her disapprovingly. She stared right back with the same disdain, daring them to say a word. They looked away, their cheeks red with discomfort.

That's what I thought. What a bunch of Ylivian snobs.

She dabbed her skirt with a handkerchief, trying in vain to rub off the tea stain. Daeva was not a naturally clumsy person nor was it normal for her to have the jitters about anything. But she couldn't have disobeyed Anhel without consequence. She still shared a body with him, a body that he occasionally wrestled for control of.

You're going on a fool's errand, he said. We're not going to get away with this. The Elysians certainly won't be pleased.

She rolled her eyes. Since when did he care about what the Elysians thought? Didn't they take everything from you? I thought you wanted their destruction.

They made us who we are and they're the only ones who can undo it. If we go back, we can finally be our own selves, he said. There was a weariness in his voice, an exhaustion she knew all too well. She was tired of not having her own body, but as far as she was concerned, Anhel didn't have one to go back to.

I can always find a new one. Once our bond is broken, we can go our separate ways. And she would be mortal again. No, she would be dead, a rotting corpse on the cobblestone. Far from the invincible God she had become.

And would that be such a bad thing? Yes. It would. She answered him without her usual caution.

She hadn't been alive for long, but she knew that she didn't want her life to end like this, with her disguised as a Ylivian on her way to torch a monastery. Daeva wanted revenge on the Elysians, but more than anything, she wanted those memories from her past life back. She wanted to know the girl lying on the cobblestone, to avenge the person she couldn't be anymore.

It's not useless, she said, anticipating Anhel's usual words about not looking into her past.

I wasn't going to say that. I was just going to suggest that we go back to the temple. Please, abandon this foolish plan of yours.

She gazed at her reflection in the train window. Pale skin, pale hair, and those awful pale eyes - all classic Ylivian features. She frowned. They didn't suit her face well. The lack of color washed her out, making her appear ghostly. It's like I'm already dead.

Daeva had done many little things to ruffle the feathers of the Elysians. She knew that if she did make the trek to Otherworld, Ezra would be the first of them to try to punish her for her sins. Eventually, she had to face the consequences of killing all those Hounds.

She didn't regret a single death. No amount of blood could ever be enough for the suffering she endured at their hands. It didn't matter that her victims weren't just soldiers. Sons, fathers, brothers - anyone who served or worshiped Ezra was fair game. And that included his nuns and monks.

She remembered the cold indifference of the nun that had shot her, her arm aching like the arrow was still in there. She tried to hold on to the resentment she felt from then, the anger and outrage from the pain. But it was no use. She knew the nun had no choice. Without a soulmate, she could only live as a tool of the Elysians. And that was something Daeva was all too familiar with.

Guilt reddened her cheeks. In another life, she would have been just like them. Even now she lived a life similar to theirs, serving a higher being. That was the curse of being a Solitari, of being made less than others by not having the gift of a soulmate. She was just slightly more indestructible than them.