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“No, when Cael asked if the godstone was underground, we got the same response that both you and Vitor gave us. There is nothing underground. Same dead tone. Same blank stare.”
“As if he’d been brainwashed,” Caelan whispered.
Davi shuddered and shifted from one foot to the other. “I can hear an echo through my head saying the same thing every time you say that word. It’s freaky, and I swear I never noticed it before.”
“Probably because no one ever talks about it,” Adrian pointed out.
Caelan cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes on Davi. “What about the Goddess of the Hunt? Have you heard of her? Has anyone ever mentioned Zyros?”
Davi immediately raised his hands as if to ward off Caelan’s questions. “Seriously, I don’t know anything about the gods. I thought they were all dead and gone. I mean, sure, the God of Wisdom is the Patron God of Ilon, just like the Goddess of Life is the patron of Erya, but as for the other gods, I haven’t paid any attention to them. There could have been a Goddess of the Hunt.”
“Interesting,” Rayne mumbled.
“What? What’s interesting?” Drayce immediately prodded. He wrapped both his arms around Caelan and rested his chin on the king’s shoulder like it belonged there. In Caelan’s opinion, it very much did.
“We mentioned the Goddess of the Hunt to Feroz, and he immediately replied in the same dead tone that he used when talking about the underground. For some reason, the God of Wisdom specifically brainwashed him to not know anything about her.”
Caelan shook his head and shuffled away from their group, part of him instantly missing the feel of Drayce’s arms. He turned toward the waist-high wall that surrounded the rooftop and lightly kicked the brick as he let random thoughts swirl in his brain. He could understand why no one was allowed to know about the location of the godstone. It was an easy layer of defense.
But why couldn’t anyone know about the Goddess of the Hunt?
The fact was, few people, other than the citizens of Zastrad, ever gave much thought to the gods, and when they did, the focus was always on the Goddess of Life. She was the only one who was actively celebrated each year. Each country had their own patron gods or goddesses, but Caspagir, Ilon, and even New Rosanthe celebrated the Goddess of Life each winter as part of the Solstice Celebrations.
The only strange one in the bunch was Zastrad—but then, the people of Zastrad were very much about making their own rules in life and death.
Why was it so important that Zyros was kept a secret from certain people?
The history of Zyros is a painful and ugly one, Caris said in his mind.
Considering that she wants all the gods dead and Thia destroyed, I wouldn’t expect her story to be a pretty one. Caelan closed his eyes and focused his entire being into his words. Please, can you tell me more about Zyros? What happened to her? Why is there such animosity?
You’re close now. And it’s not our story to tell. The Goddess of Fire’s voice had faded to near a whisper, and he struggled to hear her.
I really don’t think she’s going to be willing to talk to me, and Safa would much rather rip my head off than talk to me. There’s no way I’m ever going to find the truth of why we’re all being taken to the brink of death.
A long pause stretched into an almost suffocating silence in his head. He couldn’t remember the last time the gods and goddesses had been so quiet. Even their emotions were muffled for once. He caught hints of anger and indignation from Kaes and Tula, but Caris felt more sad to him anything. And Nyx…fuck, the Dead God was a tangled mess that he couldn’t quite decipher.
The story doesn’t belong to Zyros alone, Caris finally confessed.
Oh. Shit.
There was only one god left for him to meet with before he sought out the Goddess of the Hunt. He’d thought he was going to the God of Wisdom because he knew all the histories of Thia. Naturally, he would have the truth of what happened to the Goddess of the Hunt.
But if he was involved. More than an observer.
Where did he fall in all of this?
Tula and Kaes were murderously against the Goddess of the Hunt.
Nyx was indifferent for the most part. His main focus seemed to be that he simply didn’t want to die.
Caris felt more understanding. She didn’t want to die either and was more than happy to take down Zyros to protect herself, but she was also sympathetic for some reason.
What about Lore?
“Cael?”
He jerked around at the sound of Rayne’s voice pulling him from both Caris and his messy, fragmented thoughts. His heart was racing and a cold sweat had broken out across his skin. Meeting the God of Wisdom was starting to feel…dangerous, but he couldn’t quite explain why. All he knew was that he didn’t want his companions anywhere near the Light Stone.
