Page 26 of The Ruin of Gods


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Thalia blinks in surprise. “You would?”

“You have my word. But I have no sway with her so I’m not sure it will be much help.”

“Oh, you have sway,” Thalia says knowingly, and that tells me Amell has confided in his daughter the entire history both of us share with the god of Life. Thalia motions with her hand. “It is what it is. Come, let’s go get the book for you.”

Bastien and Thalia walk side by side, hands clasped. I follow them out of the gardens and again through a maze of corridors through the great stone castle until we come to a set of doors of solid wood behind a grate of steel bars. Two guards fully armed with spears and swords stand at the ready. They don’t move a muscle as Thalia approaches, and it’s not until she says, “At ease, gentlemen” that they step to the side.

Thalia reaches into a pocket in her jeans and pulls out a set of keys. She thumbs through them before finding the one that opens the steel-barred doors. They swing outward and then another key opens the wooden doors.

They creak open and I’m shocked that this is the only protection offered—two guards and two doors.

But I’m reminded appearances aren’t always what they seem as a glistening mist appears in the open doorway. At first, I think it’s sunlight filtering through dust, and I reach my hand toward it.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Thalia warns, and I draw back. “It will melt human flesh. While it wouldn’t kill a demigod, I’d hate for you to have to regrow that hand.”

With a wave, Thalia magically makes the lethal mist disappear. “An added precaution. Not many people will risk tangling with the guards, both members of my elite force, trained not only in physical combat but magical as well.”

We enter through the doors behind Thalia. Glowing sconces hang along the walls, powered by magic, not fire. They illuminate the large room nicely. Rows of shelves hold various objects made of gold and silver, encrusted with gems. Goblets, crowns, scepters, and religious symbols. Along the walls are chests that I’m sure hold coins and probably expensive fabrics. I smell spices in the air—most likely the rarest from other dimensions, and which would be very valuable. One whole wall is covered in various paintings that must be of considerable worth.

Thalia ignores it all, walking to the third row of shelving and cutting left. Bastien and I wait, but when Thalia gives a cry of distress, we bolt that way.

Bastien reaches his wife first where she stares blankly at an empty shelf.

She turns to look at me with horror etched all over her face. “The Book of Shadows is gone.”

CHAPTER 8

Zora

The smell ofdeath and sickness shouldn’t bother me.

Yet, as I walk among the cots of diseased humans, some staring with blank eyes and others crying out in pain, my stomach rolls with nausea. It’s not a malady a god should feel, but right now, I could vomit at any time.

An old woman blinks through a haze of pain as I walk by and reaches a shaking hand out to me. I’m compelled to stop and watch her for a long time as I soak in her suffering.

Looking left, then right—noting the overworked nurses aren’t paying me any attention—I move to her bedside.

Her hand is dry and cracked as I take it in my own. She speaks in a language I wouldn’t have known when I was human but now understand clearly.

“Please… end it for me. I can’t take it anymore.”

I squeeze her hand gently, using my other palm to caress her forehead. I speak back to her in her own language. “Would you be healed if you could?”

She shakes her head weakly. “I have nothing left. My family has already died.”

Of course they have. There have been thousands of deaths in a very short time. Doctors and nurses can only treat symptoms, and people either survive or they don’t.

Most don’t.

The overwhelming sickness called to me as the god of Life. To bear witness to the extreme amount of death.

I bend over the woman and press my lips to her forehead. It’s not a move a god would make, and I’d probably be mocked if the others saw me. “Rest well, Mother,” I whisper to the woman.

When I pull back, she’s dead, and I feel peace with that decision.

I place her hand over her chest and look around. This tent alone has over fifty cots. The landscape outside is dotted with dozens more units just like this.

But there’s one that calls to me the most.

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