Page 40 of Once Written in Gilded Blood

I hold the flower up, stem down, and part my lips. Cold drops of gold fall onto my tongue, and the metallic taste burns through my senses. It feels as though lightning is shooting through my bones and charring my marrow. Splintering every thought and hope and fear I’ve ever had.

The shock of the sensation makes me drop the flower, and I recoil backward as if I’m choking. My hands fly to my throat, liquid fire burning its way into my system and making my entire body convulse.

Minerva watches with no surprise in her features and merely lifts the skull to the sky—to the veil. “Come back to what once was yours,” she says with a smooth voice that instantly settles the burning inside me like a cooling mist. “Come home.”

My breaths are staggered as I stare up at the veil. It responds to her call and shatters like a spiderweb of glass. The entire orb-like structure bursts into gilded dust and falls like snow.

Minerva kneels before me and dips her fingers in the skull’s eye sockets that are now filled and overflowing with liquid gold. She runs one finger down from my brow, over my eye, and to my jaw on each side. They feel like tears.

“Once upon a demon’s heart, it was done.” She recites words that carve hollows into every cavity of my heart. My eyes widen at them. “Only written in gilded blood can it be undone.”

Minerva stares into my eyes, thoughts flickering across her gaze as if she might say more. Then she’s gone—disappearing into the night as if she had never been here to begin with.

“Wait, Minerva. What does that mean?” I call out, standing and feeling a zing of power rush through my limbs. Energy collects at my fingertips and coils as my emotions do. They hold a rhythm together, balance.

I look back at the flower beds and find the visions of the dead that Minerva showed me. They no longer have faces, but I can feel their relief in the air like morning dew collecting on leaves as they finally dissipate.

On their way to Mortem to rest, I pray.

The peonies wither, turning from pink to black within a few short breaths. The petals are dry and infested with mold. Rot from this wretched place.

My eyes catch on snowflakes as they slowly fall and hit the ground. The veil really is gone. Devicit, the kingdom that couldn’t be found, kept safe from the gods, has now been revealed to the world once more.

Civilians start to scream in horror as all the lavishness from the power of the demigods turns into soot and unfruitful ground. Trumpets and warning horns are blown and church bells ring to signal the locations of safe havens.

For war is coming.

It is already here.

I am the inevitable harbinger of ruin.

The gravel crunches behind me. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly as I shut my eyes. Just a few weeks ago, I heard his steps, thinking how I’d cherish them forever. I’d know the sound of them through the crash of many boots upon the ground.

But there’s nothing left in my heart anymore.

Not for the Blood Knight.

Chapter 16

Kalel

Ember-like fragments of the veil fall like ash around us. Did the Alzhorian knights break through somehow? My heart races as I stumble into the gardens. A townsperson said they thought they saw Alira heading this way, and I didn’t think it could be true, but here she is.

My precious godling stands in the center of my gardens with her shoulders slumped in a defeated stance.

She hears me approach and lets her head tilt down. Her fists are clenched tightly at her sides, and for a moment I think she’s injured because she’s covered in gold. But the torn-up flowers scattered around her tell a different story. One of the long-kept brutal secrets and horrors of our past.

My chest tightens as I reach out my hand. I stop myself before I can set it on her shoulder and bite my lower lip, retracting my hand and forming it into a tight fist.

The sound of the kingdom in hysterics is the tune of our sorrow as we stand on the graves of hundreds of demigods.

It was only a matter of time before she found out. She was drawn to them like magnets. My fears grew every night that she would find them. It was so foolish of me to even bring her here. Were we cursed from the beginning? From the moment we met in Florum Forest that fateful night? There was never a real chance for us, was there…

“You’ve created something darker than death, Kalel,” Alira says grimly as she turns to face me. My muscles tense at the shadows in her eyes.

She has a line of gold running down both sides of her face from her brows to her jawline. The gold liquid makes it look like she’s crying stars, but the hatred in her stare is unmatched. Perhaps only by my own rage when she led the attack on my hometown village.

What I’ve done is unforgivable. I don’t know what to say…there’s nothing that can amend this.