Page 37 of Once Written in Gilded Blood

Minerva.

She’s dressed in warrior armor; the metal practically glows even though it’s dark down here. It’s hard to look at; she practically illuminates the dungeon. Beneath her armor, she wears a creamy ivory robe that falls behind her shoulders and casts all the shadows away with each step she takes.

A god in the flesh. I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until my head starts to feel dizzy.

“You can get out of there if you really want to,” she says simply, as if I haven’t been thinking about it this entire time.

“Minerva, I do not have the type of power that is used for breaking metal like this. I can turn demons into flowers, and I have gilded blood that I can heal myself with. But I cannot break these bars; they hum with devilstone somewhere deep within them.” I turn away and press my back against the bars, sliding until my butt hits the ground and curl into myself, staring at the stone wall on the other side of my cell.

Minerva lets out a soft laugh. “Fine, I suppose you have a point.”

I hear the bars bend, and I quickly stand and turn to face her. She has bent one of them enough for me to slip through the gap.

“Take me outside the castle. I need to get back to the palace.” I don’t leave room for discussion. I have to unearth a skull with my bare hands to see the truth of what Kalel and his kingdom have done.

“You demigods really are stubborn, you know that?” She says it with a smile and a gentle voice. I wonder how long it’s been since she’s spoken to a demigod herself. She seems quite curious about what will become of us. Mercury did tell me that the gods are playing games. I wonder which side she is on—what ending she is anticipating for the demigods.

“We are stubborn because we are not gods like you. We die, we bleed, we suffer.” I let my eyes move over the prisoners in King Achill’s cells. How hopeless they are, and quiet. Even in the presence of a goddess, they hardly seem aware enough to even notice. I wish to end their pain.

“I was going to have you go back to the garden anyway,” she says, heading up the stairs.

“You were? I thought you wanted me to get out of Devicit and take down the veil.” I move as swiftly as I can up the stairs behind her, keeping close in case we run into trouble. I’m not exactly sure what she plans on doing with Tessa, but we’ll have to deal with that when we get there. “Why are you helping me? What do you gain from this?” I ask warily.

“How do you think you’re supposed to accomplish that? It has to be from within. I have my reasons. Aiding an old friend, you could say.” Her voice doesn’t falter once.

My legs stop moving and my heart twists. “I can’t bring down the veil. Everyone in the kingdom…in Devicit, they will all perish without its safety. I can’t have all their blood on my hands. Even if they survive the war, what about the gods? Isn’t their wrath for them the very reason the demons erected the veil to begin with?” Just talking about it brings me back to the bloodshed in the time loops. I’d never seen such massacre and ruin.

“You will understand once we get to the palace, demigod. You would be surprised at the things we do when the truth is revealed. When we are pushed into a corner,” she says knowingly. I half wonder if she’s on a timeline because she seems to be walking at a quick pace, as if she needs me to be somewhere at a certain time. I didn’t know the gods worked on timetables as we did. But maybe the Fates aren’t kind to them either.

We reach the top of the stairs, and Minerva waits for thirty seconds before opening the door slowly. She pokes her head out and then steps into the hallway in one fluid motion. I’m shocked when she does, but I realize there’s no one standing there anymore. Tessa is gone and the corridor is oddly vacant, although voices echo from other areas of the castle.

“How did you know she wouldn’t be there?” I whisper, glancing both ways before quickly following behind Minerva.

“I am wise. And I have seen this day many, many times with the help of the Fates. It’s all based on keeping the time.” She winks at me.

Her saying that reminds me of the time loops and how I got used to everything that would happen at certain times. Each axe thrown and every sword swung. The opponents I faced were the same at different time points, but no matter what I did to change the events, the outcome was always the same.

We quickly make it out of the castle unseen, using the same passageway that Nikolai brought me through. Everyone seems to be so busy running around. Knights are preparing the castle for sheltering civilians, laying down blankets in some of the halls and barricading some of the side doors leading to the gardens in the east wing. Maids are trying to get food rationed out into boxes and stored in different rooms. It’s so chaotic that nobody even notices us as we slip into the night.

Minerva goes with me to the edge of King Achill’s property and then stops abruptly. She looks down at me, her eyes smooth with knowledge beyond all reason. “You must go the rest of the way yourself. I will be waiting for you at the Blood Knight’s palace, in the gardens. There you will have your proof, and you must make your decision, Alira.”

“Wait,” I whisper, grabbing her wrist. She turns and gives me a curious look. “How are you able to be inside the veil? I thought it protected them against the gods.”

She smiles and lifts the laurel leaf from her pocket. “You brought me in with you. Now go, there’s not much time.”

Her words linger with me long after she fades into the evening air. The trees above shake with an ominous chill chattering through their leaves.

I try not to linger, and I make quick work of moving through the alleyways, trying to stick to the back routes so that I don’t bump into anybody. Luckily, it’s just as it was when I was taken to the castle; the streets are practically empty.

The veil crackles above and draws my eyes upward, stopping me dead in my tracks. What was that? My heart races. Are the demigods attacking the veil and actually damaging it?

I take a turn down another alley, where voices approach and catch me off guard. The voices are coming from around a brick corner between two small workshops. A tinkerer and a blacksmith. Rain dribbles down on the people speaking in hushed tones from the small roofs overhead, but they pay no mind.

I manage to get close enough and hide without them seeing me. The blacksmith shop has plenty of barrels and tables out front to hide behind. I kneel and ignore the dirty water soaking into my beautiful dress. It’s already ruined, but keeping it nice is the last thing on my mind.

“Nik, before we go any farther, I have to confess to you what I’ve done. I can’t set her free without you knowing, because it’s something I must tell her too. It’s bad. Really fucking bad. She will never forgive me.”

Kalel?