Page 30 of Gods of Prey
Sienna shakes her head, her ghostly white hair moving in a breeze I can’t feel. She traded her usual ominous attire and crown for more casual clothing when we stepped through the veil. I still don’t understand why she’s bothered, given that no one can see her anyway. I think the dramatics of the gown and that gruesome bone corset suit her better.
“No. You wanted to understand. So I’m going to show you.”
She stops about halfway down the industrial street, hovering above a specific spot on the dirty pavement. Nothing marks it as special, but her eyes are focused on it with such intensity that I almost expect the concrete to crack.
“I was coming home after a brutal exam,” she begins, her voice distant. “I cared so much about passing my classes. About my future.” A bitter smile touches her lips. “Decades of buildinga life, gaining knowledge, forming connections—all to be wiped away in minutes.”
I lean against the wall, trying to appear casual despite the heaviness settling in my chest. “Did you know they were coming for you?”
“I suspected something,” she admits. “There were...incidents. Minor things my ‘friends’ did that pointed to them retaliating against Bash.” She uses her fingers as air quotes around the word friends. So, she was familiar with the people who did it. “A feeling of being watched. Bash wasn’t threatened, though. He hated them just as much as they hated him.”
She drifts in a slow circle around the spot, like a moth around a flame. “I cut through here as a shortcut. Stupid, really. Med school teaches you better than that. But I was tired. Thinking about my bed, about the research paper I needed to finish. Normal things. I should have called an Uber.”
I watch her, this spectral goddess recounting her mortal death with such detachment. But I can see through it now, after weeks of living with her. The slight tremor in her voice. The way her form becomes less distinct when emotion threatens to overwhelm her.
“How many were there?” I ask quietly, just to keep her talking so I don’t do something stupid, like try to comfort her.
“Three at first. Then, too many to count. I couldn’t recognize all of them, but they each had the serpent tattoos on their biceps. Cocky trash.” She gestures to her own slender arm. “One grabbed me from behind. I fought. Just like I always do when my mortal deaths come. Broke one’s nose. But the second had a knife.”
She touches her side absently. “First strike was here. Not fatal, but it hurt enough to make me drop my bag. The third man...” She pauses. “He had a gun. Used it to threaten meat first. They wanted information about Sebastian. They were offended that he viewed himself as being so far above them.”
“If they only knew,” I mutter.
Sienna gives a ghost of a laugh. “Right? Ironic to be killed by cultists when you’re actually a deity they’d probably worship.” Her expression darkens. “Our father was a serpent. Our grandfather was one of their leaders. They groomed Bash from a young age to join, but he saw through all the smoke and mirrors. He knew they were evil and rejected them. They didn’t believe I didn’t know anything special. Thought I was protecting my brother’s secrets.”
Their own mortal family did this. Whether they physically assaulted her is irrelevant. Her blood is still on their hands as leaders of the despicable cult who organized her ambush.
The thought has me seeing red.
Sienna doesn’t seem to notice my reaction. She drifts lower, nearly touching the ground. “They stripped me down. Ripped all my clothing off like it was nothing. The knife went in four more times. Here.” She points to her chest. “Here.” Her abdomen. “Here and here.” Her back. “But I didn’t die right away. They flipped me over and took their turns with me as I bled out.”
My throat tightens, anger taking hold of my chest with a flood of hot flames. No one should experience such despicable things. No one should endure such torture, and then have to live to remember them for millennia. All of it was senseless. Brutal. And mysteriously tied to Sebastian. It’s a wonder she doesn't hate him for it.
What games are the Fates playing with them? The Divine Council? They talk about balance and then create these scenarios setting them up to resent each other and disrupt it.
“Sienna . . . ”
“No. You wanted to know.” Her eyes meet mine, fierce and bright with ghostly tears that will never fall. “I lay here as theyused me. Naked. Bleeding out. Trying to find a way to call Bash. Knowing if I died, we’d have to start all over again. Another life. Another near-thirty years of building connections, only to lose them.”
She spreads her arms, indicating the alley around us. “I died right here. Surrounded by people, yet utterly alone. Thinking about how I’d never see my parents again. Never finish my research. Never tell my best friend that I was the one who accidentally killed her plant.”
I push off from the wall, moving closer to her. “Why are you telling me all this?”
I had expected her to show me where it happened. Possibly explain her death in a cold, medical fashion. She’d play it off like it was nothing and I’d have to read between the lines to get any real information.
What I didn’t expect was for her to let me in. For so much emotion to still be attached.
“Because you still don’t get it.” Sienna’s voice rises slightly. “Thirty-threetimes, Revel. Thirty-threelives. Do you have any idea what that’s like? To build a complete existence from scratch, to create an identity, relationships, a purpose, only to have it violently ripped away? Over and over and over?”
“I can’t imagine,” I admit quietly, shaking my head.
I’ve been wallowing in my own self-pity, lamenting about being nothing more than a placeholder for the God of Life while they’ve been repeatedly living the same nightmare.
“No. You can’t.” She moves suddenly, her spectral form passing through me, sending a chill down my spine. I’ve truly set her off now. “And neither can the Divine Council or the Council of Elders. Neither can yourmother. They sit in their ivory towers, passing judgment, thinking fifty mortal lifetimes is a fair punishment for our transgression.”
I turn to face her. “What exactly did you two do?”
In all these years, Sebastian has never admitted what his crimes were. He’s never explained why all of us have been serving this punishment and I’ve been hesitant to pry. I was summoned to the Divine Council’s chambers one day by my mother and watched my friend receive his sentence, but no details were given. At the time, all that mattered was that my friend and my mother needed me to serve a role. But as the years have gone on, curiosity has eaten away at me.
