Page 127 of Courting War
“I don’t want to rush you, but you must act now. Once a river is crossed, it cannot be undone without intense trials.” Havyn spoke in riddles and insinuated that Theo needed to bring Kellyn back from the dead.
But that was impossible.
Theo could pull Kellyn’s soul back herself. With the ability to control matter and energy, she could do nearly anything. But gods couldn’t interfere in another’s domain. It was possible to do almost everything, but certain things weren’t done because disrupting the order of things would lead to anarchy. It would lead to desolation and, most likely, the apocalypse—a war of all the gods. It would cause billions of deaths, if not all of humanity’s annihilation.
Not even Andromache tried to intervene when Devereux died.
Theo wouldn’t do it now.
“Have you ever pondered weaving as a companion in your grief? It can be quite restorative,” Havyn said. “An art form, you know.”
Theo’s eyes glowered at her sister. “Enough with your nonsense.” Havyn and her stupid obsession with crafts that entwine things. First it was braids, and now weaving.
“Go away.”
“Don’t give up,” Havyn said gently. “You’re the Goddess of War.”
Theo wouldn’t give up, but she wasn’t Death, she didn’t know its secrets. She was one of the death triplets, true, but she didn’t rule over death, not like Havyn. Yet there had to be a way to defy death because Erety existed. She was once human, and she should have met Devereaux and Kellyn’s fate, but she didn’t.
There was a way.
But what was it?
Havyn had made a bargain with Erety thousands of years ago. Erety’s human lover died, and she traversed the underworld torescue him. Death gave her a bargain that if she served the goddess in perpetuity Death would give the boy’s soul back. That bargain bound them together and gave Erety an immortal life. But the bargain didn’t make her a god.
So how?
Gods were born or sprung from nature organically. They weren’t made.
Theo couldn’t make a deal with Kellyn like Havyn had because he was already dead and even if she did it wouldn’t protect him from Nefeli.
He would only be protected if he, too, were a god.
But that was an impossibility because humans only had three strings of life. Only Demigods grew strings of life, but they started with nine, just not nine fully formed ones.
“How many strings of life does Erety have?” Theo drew her voice so low only Havyn could hear.
“Hmm,” she rubbed her chin. “Nine plus three equals?”
“Twelve, how?”
“Now that’s a fascinating question.”
“How many strings do you have?”
“And that is a better question.” Havyn wiggled her brows. “Twelve.”
Shit. Holy shit. There was only one way to get twelve. “Oh,” Theo breathed.The answer.
Havyn nodded, a vicious smile coating her porcelain face.
The hairs rose on Theo’s arms, and her stomach hardened. “Braids.”
“Yes.”
Chapter Forty-Three
KELLYN
