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Chapter 19
“You!Howdareyouuse a mortal’s body!” Tempest slipped away from the wall to give herself room to flee if needed.
Aiden took a step forward, arms outstretched, and she took a step back.
“Please let me explain, Tempest. It’s not what you think!”
“It’s against the rules to use a mortal’s body. You may be the god of the dead, but that does not give you the right to do whatever you please.”
She mentally kicked herself for not making the connection sooner. Aiden’s current name was only a slight variation of the one he typically used.
He sighed. “It’s not like that! Will you just listen? I don’t have much time. I don’t know why I can speak to you, but it shouldn’t be possible.”
“Why not?”
“This is my trial.”
She swallowed. “This... this is your mortal trial?”
Aiden nodded. “It is. My godly consciousness should be locked away until it’s over, but something happened when I met you. You know our memories are erased when we’re born into a mortal body and a spell is cast so other gods can’t recognize us. Maybe Vesper messed up, or—”
“Wait, what does Vesper have to do with this?”
“You don’t know? Of course not. You’ve been gone so long you wouldn’t know. He took over the mortal trials. He’s now the one who plans what will happen. We go to him and tell him the level we want to ascend to, and he sets up the mortal trial with, well, for lack of a better word, trials to reach that point. If we fail here, we don’t get to ascend.”
Tempest’s mind raced with the implications. Vesper was the god of stars and time. Sylvia was his representative. If he chose her for Aiden’s Dei Electi, did that mean Vesper had chosen her for him?
“You rarely do mortal trials. Why now?”
Aiden ran a hand across his face. “Something has the dead uneasy. I went to Vesper in secret to try and ascend several levels at once. The other gods don’t know I’m gone. I haven’t trusted them since they drove you out of the land of the gods.”
Tempest ran a hand through her hair as she processed what he was saying. Maybe Vesper had intentionally made her find him. She just didn’t understand why.
“How many mortal souls do you have behind your power right now?” she asked.
“Four.”
Her jaw dropped. “That’s it? I know being god of the dead makes you much more powerful than most gods with just your own soul, but those other gods usually have at least ten!”
“Which would be why I snuck away to do one now! I’m not strong enough to take on multiple gods on my own.”
“You have Vesper.”
Aiden rolled his eyes. “He’s been busy.”
Tempest crossed her arms. “Doing what?”
“It’s not my place to tell,” Aiden said, shaking his head. “All I can say is that several of the gods have been doing mortal trials. They’ve built up large reserves to draw power from. I can’t compete with that.”
A pang of guilt hit Tempest. Aiden and Vesper were the only two gods who hadn’t used her when she was there. While the rest manipulated her into solving their petty fights, they never did. She hadn’t said goodbye or told them that she was leaving.
“Are you mad?” Tempest whispered.
He didn’t ask what she meant. “I was at first, but not anymore. I understand what your life was like there.” Aiden shifted his body weight and looked at the ground. “Are you happy?”
Tempest was tempted to approach him but stayed where she was instead. “Somewhat. I don’t regret leaving. It gets lonely, though.”
Aiden nodded and looked into her eyes. “Are you coming back?”
