AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Youwanted the mortals to believe,” Nyx replied mildly. “I want them to suffer. Why stop now?”
“There won’t be any lefttosuffer—”
“So much the better. You may care for prayers and offerings, but I do not. I have no need for mortals.”
This… This wasn’t going well.
I’d always known Nyx was ambivalent about mortals, but this was a lot harsher than ambivalence. It didn’t make sense though—I’d seen futures for Grace and the others, seen futures for all kinds of people. I’d seen things that made me think the world wasn’t quite the same place in the future as it was in the past, but there had definitely beenpeople.
Were those visions wrong? Had Nyx planted them in my mind just to mess with me? Had she planned on wiping us out all along?
No. No, I couldn’t believe that.
I had to believe that everything we’d been through hadn’t been for nothing. That the waiting and the struggling and the suffering hadmeantsomething.
Gaia let out a growl of frustration that made us all jump. It sounded like two boulders scraping against one another. “Enough of this, Nyx.”
“It’s not as though you can undo what you did,” Nyx pointed out cheerfully. “And if your punishment stands, why shouldn’t mine?”
“Mine was not so severe!”
“An oversight on your part.”
“What do you want?” Grace’s voice was so soft compared to the goddesses’, but there was power behind it. She was scared and shaking, but Grace was strong too. “Goddess of Night, I am begging you on behalf of humanity to lift this darkness. If there’s something you want in exchange, then tell us,please.”
Grace was playing a dangerous game. There was nothing Nyx would want from us, and no guarantee Gaia would cooperate, even if it gave her what she claimed she wanted. Not if it was at the expense of her pride.
“You know what I want,” Nyx replied, but she was looking at Gaia.
“You have your little Prophêtis for that,” Gaia snarled.
Oh shit, maybe Nyx was on our side after all? Was she playing 4d Chess while we were playing Checkers? Or had she just seen an opportunity and taken it?
“My little Prophêtis with her impossible task,” Nyx shot back. “One that you could make far easier, were you not so determined to hold on to a power you don’t even exercise. You want the mortals to live? Give them back the gods that kept them in check.”
“You think the Olympians will thank you for begging and scraping on their behalf? They’re selfish and greedy, and no amount of time in Tartarus will change that.”
Nyx scoffed. “I don’t need them to thank me. They fear me, which is far more useful. So do you, whether you admit it or not. It seems that your precious earth doesn’t do so well without sunlight.”
There was that terrifying grinding, growling sound again, and I knew Nyx had her, but at what cost?
Gaia turned her coal black eyes on Grace, and my girl did her best to hide her shiver. “You are a foolish little girl, did you know that? The product of a foolish mother, whose hubris and arrogant prayers got you into this situation in the first place.”
Wait, Grace had inherited this mantle of responsibility because of hermother?
“What is that supposed to mean?” Riot asked coolly, not a shred of respect in his tone.Cool, cool, going to add fearing for Riot’s life to my list of worries. “What about her mother?”
“Hermother,” Gaia continued, not acknowledging Riot at all. “Her mother, mid-ungrateful prayer requesting a son instead of a daughter, complained to herself that one day her daughter would know what it was like to have her words ignored by the gods. How fortunate for you, that I am generous. That your voice reaches the ears of the gods when others don’t,Prophêtis.”
Grace was stunned, and I felt her indecision. She’d been conditioned her entire life to be grateful for divine gifts, and instinctually, she wondered if she was meant to be grateful now. If Gaia’s claim of generosity was a genuine one.
It wasn’t.
I’d interacted with goddesses enough to know that Gaia had been offended by Faith’s complaining and rashly given Grace a voice that carried to the heavens and down to the underworld out of pure spite.
“You are the Fates’ little experiment—one of many—but the only one stupid enough to tie yourself to a prophecy by praying to a goddess you were meant to hate. The only one lonely enough to actually go through with bonding a daimon. The only one cursed with a mother ungrateful enough to wish you extra divine attention.”
Each insult landed like an arrow, piercing Grace’s most vulnerable side. Every doubt she’d ever had about herself, every question about why she was different and what it meant, Gaia was validating them all.
