Page 111 of Courting War
Havyn would drown them unless they spoke the truth to each other. Perfect.
Blood poured down the glass and twisted into a question.
Always reading.
But Theo rescued him and read the question aloud, “You’re fighting. Is there anything you would like to say to each other?” Theo rolled her eyes and glared at her sister. “What are you, our therapist?”
Havyn’s feral smile widened. “Yes, of course I am.” Her eyes slid to the water, skating around their feet. “I would get to it; these chambers fill up faster than you would think.”
Theo’s eyes darted to Kellyn and then to the statues watching the room. “Kel, the statues.” One by one, she smashed the four stone gods in her room and turned to Kellyn, expecting him to do the same. “Please.”
“I will still hear you,” Havyn threatened.
Theo pinched her lips together before saying, “I know.” Her voice was fragile. “So be it.”
Kellyn tapped his fingers on his legs. He wasn’t sure if he should give into Theo’s wants, especially since he was still so angry with her . . . but she had shown up. Also, she was right. If he were going to bare his soul, he didn’t want the gods or his parents to hear, so he smashed his statues too.
“Thank you,” Theo said softly. “Kellyn, I don’t know what to say. I'm not good with humans. I never know what to say or do.”
Theo rubbed a finger along her bag as if she were deciding something, and then she plunged her hand into the pouch and pulled out a handful of well-crafted lovespoons. She held them out as if she wanted to hand them over, but the glass prevented it. Her eyes were a bit desperate and crazed. “They’re yours, all the spoons you carved for me.” She dug her hand into the bag full ofhundreds of carved spoons. “You matter to me, Kel. You’ve always mattered to me, even before I knew you.”
Kellyn gulped. He didn’t know what to say to this—to the fact that she kept every spoon he’d ever carved . . . even the one he broke, the one he didn’t offer to her. Theo held out that one now.
“I never believed in fate before, but as I look at all these, I wonder . . .” Her mouth twitched. “I’m sorry, Kel.”
“Sorry for what?” His tone was gentle despite the fury still churning his stomach.
“Everything,” she blew out a breath, “Everything, but mostly for lying to you.” She gulped. “I'm the villain in most stories, but I don’t want to be the villain in yours.”
“And tricking me into getting the spell for you?”
“Yes.” She stepped closer to the glass as if she wanted to reach out and touch him but couldn’t. “I know it means nothing, but I didn’t do it.”
“The spell?”
She dipped her chin. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t stay to help you if I took my divinity back.” She touched the glass, splaying out her palm. “I know I’m a monster, but I want to change. I don’t want to be so . . .”
He cocked his head, examining her. Her eyes were nearly the violet of her god form, and they were swimming with regret. “Godly?”
“If godliness is synonymous with trickery and cruelty . . . then yes.” Her nose flared, and a tear curled down her elegant features. “I’m so sorry, Kellyn. I’ve been terrible to everyone, but I hate myself for how I treated you.”
The water was at her waist, and her skirt flowed weightlessly around her legs. Kellyn wanted to believe her, but her betrayal had its claws deep in his heart, and he didn’t know how to let go of it.
“If you didn’t take your divinity back, does that mean you can die in this challenge?” He needed to know because the water was slowly crawling up their bodies, and even in his hurt, he didn’t want her to die. An asp coiled in his stomach at the thought.
“Yes.” Theo bit the inside of her cheek. “I’m mortal.”
Havyn clapped from the darkness, drawing their attention back to her. “Wonderful, now for your second question.”
Blood poured down every surface of the glass, encasing them into a tomb of red. It clotted together into more words. Theo read, “Do you forgive your priestess?” Her eyes were liquid remorse like she was sorry he even had to answer the question.
Kellyn’s lungs collapsed as he glanced at his priestess. The water was up to Theo’s chest. She had the expression of a wet cat, yet she was still alluring in that way of hers. All ferocity and hidden vulnerability. She was light, the brightest star in the sky. Luminescent yet incinerating if you got too close. And he had gotten too close.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I want to forgive her, but I feel like my entire life was rattled, the ground-breaking out from underneath me, and I don’t know how to process it.” He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “How does one process that you’re a god?” he asked her, his eyes stinging with the emotions the question brought up. “Humans aren’t supposed to—”
