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“Right,” I said, pouring lots of sarcasm into that one word.
“You shouldn’t believe everything people say about me. I’m not the person they say I am.” She gave her hand an airy wave. “I am not looking to kill the angels. I’m trying to save us all. The Guardians are the real threat. Everything that’s happening right now is playing right into their hands.”
“So the Guardians are behind this?” I asked. “They’re playing us?”
“The Guardians have been playing us all for millennia.”
That wasn’t exactly the answer to my question.
“But right now?” I asked her. “Everything that’s going on with Bella and Stash, the Nectar and the Venom, the killings? You’re saying the Guardians are behind that? Why? What are they trying to do? Create conflict between the gods and demons so this alliance fails?”
“This is about so much more than the alliance,” Coralia told me. “It’s about our very existence.”
I frowned. “What does that even mean?”
Coralia shook her head. “That’s all I’ll say. Until…”
“Until?”
“Until you publicly pledge your support for me to join the gods’ council,” she said smugly, as though she knew that I was going to do exactly what she wanted.
“Me?”
“Yes, you, Leda Pandora. You are our King Faris’s daughter, the princess of the gods.”
“Ok, you know that Faris doesn’t see me that way.”
Coralia ignored my comment. “You’ve saved the Earth countless times. You brokered an alliance between gods and demons. You accomplished what no one has been able to do in thousands of years: you ripped open the Guardians’ Sanctuary and sent them scattering. You are a hero, and people listen to what you say. When you act, they take note. And they follow.”
“You think if I support you, the gods will follow,” I realized.
“I do.”
I wasn’t so sure. I was half-demon. I had light and dark magic. Most gods and demons considered the very idea of such a person to be the height of blasphemy.
“So, what do you say?” Coralia asked me.
“If you truly only want to join the council in order to protect us all,” I said, “then you’ll tell me everything you know about what’s going on.”
Coralia’s smile was too sweet to be genuine. “I never said that’s the only reason I want to join the council.”
“I see. You want power.”
She shrugged. “So does every self-respecting god.”
I scowled at her.
“Everything has a price, Leda Pandora, and this is mine.” Something ferocious shone in her eyes: a killer instinct.
And that was what worried me most of all. “I’ll think about it,” I told her.
“You do that. But think fast, or it will be too late to save us all.” And with that dramatic line delivered, she turned and walked away.
As I made my way toward the gods’ hall of mirrors—the transit point to countless other worlds—my brain was chewing on how incredibly, terrifyingly crazy the gods were. Coralia was willing to risk the fate of the universe and everyone in it, all in her relentless pursuit of power. Maybe she was bluffing. Maybe she thought I would fold first, that to save everyone, I would give her everything that she desired. And maybe she was right.
But what was Coralia really offering? Just the knowledge of the Guardians’ plan? The great plan that threatened our very existence? What did that even mean? What could give the Guardians the power to destroy the gods and the demons?
I certainly had no idea.
