“Why would you make something like me—something meant to destroy—even stronger?”
Theodon’s tone was gruff as he answered. “Because the trial would give you complete control. We could use you to end the attacks coming from the east, instead of leaving you to the one who made you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. My bloodline is traced back to Ures—he made me.”
Theo shook his head. “You share the War God’s blood, but it’s the Death God that cursed you.”
Helaina felt her whole body turn to ice. “What did you say?”
Manos looked to Theodon. “She doesn’t know.”
Manos turned back to her. It was like he was staring straight through her as he cleared his throat, then recited, “And with this curse I will bestow upon your world a soul eclipsed in moonlight. A forever shadow to block out the light. A forever sickness to plague the land.”
He was speaking of her prophecy. Although she had never heard it phrased quite like that before. There was only one part her people feared:a soul eclipsed in moonlight. The fae king had reminded them of that prophecy the day he came. He had told her family her eyes were a symbol of the destruction ahead, that she was that soul. Their solution was to hide her away the rest of her childhood, silently hoping none of it would come to pass.
“Those eyes of yours look strangely similar to the moon when it blocks out the sun, that one day when our realm is left in complete darkness. Whose day of praise lands on every solar eclipse, Helaina?”
Her eyes widened with realization. “The Death God.”
Valhoor.
Theo’s scowl deepened.
“It’shisprophecy. His curse lives inside you,” Manos explained.
She turned to Theodon. “Why... why did he do it?”
“When the gods created our realm, Brahm allowed the other gods and goddesses to take mortal lovers, so their bloodlines could begin to grow. The gods had agreed long ago that lying with each other was forbidden—creating a new god could be too dangerous, causing a power struggle or, worse, another immortal war. So Brahm gave them mortal companions. But Valhoor never found his. He was convinced Brahm slighted him and never made him one in the first place. He became jealous.” Theo’s eyes flickered. “He began to destroy indiscriminately. Nothing and no one in Lynor was safe. Something had to be done. Many of the gods retaliated, uniting to banish him to live alone in his hell realm.”
The Death Realm, one of the six.
Helaina huffed out a breath as she found a wall to lean on. The ache in her leg was throbbing. She had always wanted answers, what her power was, who gave it to her. Now that she knew, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know more.
“Before he could be sent away, Valhoor set his plan for revenge into motion. He found Ures’s companion, Fessa, while she was with child. He crept into their room as she slept, placing his hands on her womb and tainting Ures’s bloodline with his dark magic. He vowed that they would have many children, but one day, one child would possesshismark.” He gestured to her moon-silver eyes. “That child would signal his return, and together they would create such a massacre that no living mortal would survive. It was a curse and a promise.”
All her suffering had been for something so senseless. It could have been anyone in her family, anyone in any generation to hold this curse—but it landed on her.
Anger rumbled in her chest.
“So my choices are to wait for him to come for me... or listen to you and drive that dagger through my own heart?”
“Yes.” Theo’s tone held some odd form of misery.
“That’s not a choice at all!” she shouted. Her hands balled into fists. “One of you must have the power to undo it, to take whatever’s inside me away.”
“Undo it?” Theo grew close, far too close.
She was once again between him and a wall, but she refused to let him see her quake.
“Yes,” she hissed. “Undo it, get rid of it.”
“You could be the key to ending a divide that has lasted since the beginning of time... and you ask for a way out? To simply erase it?”
She bit her own cheek to prevent her lips from curling up in an ugly snarl. “That’s what a sensible person would do. If I have any chance of causing disaster?—”
“There’s also a chance you could prevent it,” Theo interrupted.
She was about to fire back when Manos stepped between them, forcing them apart. Clearly, he didn’t want a repeat of their previous altercation.
