I smiled, then remembered that Moric would never get the chance to try it. Fresh grief cut through my chest once more, and I set the spoon down with a clatter. “Are you ready to talk about how I survived the Rite?”
Kilian took a seat on the corner of his bed and ran a hand down his face. “Septimus is speaking to Lana about it now. I thought it best we do this separately.”
He was being cagey. I noted how his eyes did not meet mine; they were fixed on a spot on the floor. Anxiety settled in the pit of my stomach.
“You told me Augustine didn’t explain much about the Rite to you. He didn’t tell you why his body was able to process the current when no one else could?” Kilian asked.
“Yeah, that’s right. I just assumed he used one of the channeling methods.”
“No… we didn’t understand it at the time, but we later found out that somewhere along his family tree, his bloodline had been mixed with that of an elven. Though very distantly related, Augustine was of elven descent. And when the power of the Rite surged through his body, it was that ancient elven blood that stirred awake to protect him.”
“But then…” My eyes grew wide. “He was not fully mortal?”
Kilian nodded. “He had mortal parents and grandparents. Even his great grandparents had been mortal. But, yes, there was some part of him that was elven.”
“So, what are you saying?” I narrowed my eyes as the puzzle pieces slotted together. “If channeling the current wasn’t the sole reason for my transition, am I distantly related to an elven? Is that how I managed to survive?”
“No. I think Lana might be, but not you. I’ve suspected for a while what you might be,” Kilian said this last part softly, like it was an admission he wasn’t fully prepared to confess yet.
The little bit of soup I had eaten churned in my stomach. “What does that mean?”
“I think it’s time we talked about the daggers. I told you Caleb and Calendula informed me of what happened in the cave on Cosanus. I know the fae rose when the blade touched him, because your dagger, and the one you found on him, are imbued with magic. Magic from the gods themselves. Of course, the fae depleted whatever magic was in the blade around his neck and very nearly drained yours too. I didn’t want to tell you straight after the third Trial… Everything was still so fresh and you had been through so much, I didn’t want you to feel like it had been a waste, but… The weapon you brought back is useless.”
My mouth opened. Closed. I chased different questions, finally deciding which to ask first.
“You told me the fae stole several daggers, that they’re part of a larger set of thirteen. Who did the fae steal them from?”
He looked at me like I knew the answer. In a self-explanatory tone, he said, “Thirteen daggers imbued with godly magic. Thirteen gods.”
“Don’t tell me… The daggers belonged to thegods?” I hissed, horrified. My thoughts tripped over each other, spilling out my lips. “Why are you searching for daggers that belonged to the gods? Do you know how dangerous this is?” If the gods were somehow involved in all this, if they were listening to this conversation we were having, there was no telling how they would retaliate over having their possessions passed around amongst thieves.
Kilian sighed. It looked like the words were eating him from the inside out. “It’s complicated, Lirah.”
“And you said you’d tell me after I made it through the Rite. Lightning tore through my body. I buried my friends justhours ago. I’ve been turned into a fuckingelven. You owe me the truth, Kilian. And not the partial truth. The whole, entire thing.”
He flinched like my words had hit him and ran his hands through his hair, tugging slightly on the ends, and I wondered just how awful it could be.
“You’re right,” he said, eventually. “You need to know everything. You asked me, that day in the park, about who had taken my powers from me.”
I nodded, urging him to continue. The suspense was eating me alive.
“It was a god,” Kilian said in a rush. “Primus, the God of Curses, specifically. I did something that he didn’t like, so he exiled me to Lortan with only a kernel of my power.”
I paused, absorbing. “Kilian, what did you do?”
He grimaced. “I killed Kadax, the God of Cruelty and Malice.”
I wasn’t breathing.
“So, you can understand why the other gods would be hesitant to break the curse placed on me. It’s the highest form of treason.”
“You killed a god,” I repeated. How did one evenfinda god to then kill them? Andwhy? “How do you even kill a god? They cannot be killed.”
The gods were perfectly immortal. It was what made them gods. From everything I read at Pyxis, I knew that when the fae rose against the gods, they had tried to kill them all, only to find that while the gods’ bodies would die, their souls would remain intact. Then once a god found a new body to host, they would simply return to their place in Tuscan, the land of the gods, and seek vengeance on those who had tried to slay them.
“That is partly true,” he said. “The only way to kill a god permanently is to destroy their soul. And there is only one being capable of wholly annihilating a god.”
My mouth went dry. “A… being?”
