Page 48 of Courting War
“Are you here to see the fruits of your labor?” Kellyn asked.
“Oh, absolutely,” Gallagher said in a soft sprite-like voice, her silver-blonde hair bouncing with her words. “I always enjoy your suffering.”
Kellyn simply grunted. He wasn’t nearly as good at handling her presence as Cecile was. He never knew what to say.
“And who is this?” Gallagher turned her gentle yet vicious expression to Kellyn’s priestess.
“Morrigan,” his priestess smiled through her teeth. “Nice to meet you.”
If Gallagher was a thorn, Morrigan was an entire briar patch. The girl did not like social interactions. He wasn’t sure who would devour the other . . . if it came down to it.
“Oh, it is a pleasure tomeetyou, too.” Gallagher smiled back, an eyebrow raising.
But their interaction was cut off by Death’s arrival. She strolled over as if floating on shadows. “Miss Morrigan, can I have a word?”
“I—” Morrigan’s eyes tracked to Gallagher. “I need—” but Death grasped her wrist, cutting off the words.
The goddess and two girls stood next to each other, looking like a funhouse mirror’s reflection of a single smile, distorting more and more with each new mirror. Morrigan’s was false and dangerous. Gallagher’s was laced with naughty intentions, and Death’s was dripping with wicked delight.
“Shall we?” Death asked the priestess.
Morrigan held up her chained wrist to the god in response.
“Ah, no worries, you can have a longer leash for our conversation.” Death snapped her fingers, and the chain vibrated before loosening a bit. “We have so much to discuss.”
Dark tendrils coiled around Morrigan, crawling up her body and consuming her whole. In a blink, both her and Death were gone.
“Don’t worry about Morrigan,” Gallagher said. “She’ll be fine. Worry about yourself and your new riddle.” She laughed like a deranged fairy and skipped away.
Kellyn glared down at his arm, his eyebrows crunched together, and his brow furrowed. The letters danced and blurred together. Oh, how he hated written scripts. Always impossible to decipher.
“A Theoden prince in the Sacrifice,” the Goddess of Poison said, slinking up beside him and causing Kellyn to flinch both from the words and the surprise.
Kellyn felt like he was in a revolving door of torture. One person after the other. It could only get worse if hisparentsvisited next. But the goddess’s words were bad enough. “It seems readingis hard for you.” Her umber skin glistened under the soft ballroom light as her eyes touched the riddle etched into his arm, her smile mocking him.
Kellyn stiffened and held his breath.She knew. She had to. There was no other reason for her to say such a thing. After all, she was a god with every resource in the world. Since the gods were motivated to kill as many champions as possible, it stood to reason that they would thoroughly research their prey.
They would discover every champion’s weakness.
They would know.
This was bad. The world couldn’t find out about his affliction. Even the peasant class of Theoden knew how to read. It would ruin him forever if people found out. Destroy his life, but more importantly, it’d ruin his honor and glory.
No one could know.
No one.
Kellyn’s heart jumped into his throat, and his mouth grew dry, but Poison wasn’t finished playing with her prey before she devoured it. “It would be such a pity if more challenges involved reading, wouldn’t it?”
Her lips curled into a cruel promise, and she turned on her heel, walking away. Apparently, she had no interest in sticking around now that her threat was sufficiently delivered.
Poison would torture him with a reading challenge at some point during the games. The only question was when. The worst part about it was that knowing changed nothing. He couldn’t defend against a reading attack. No amount of effort could prepare him for words he didn’t know and penmanship he couldn’t translate.
Chapter Sixteen
THEODRA
Extremely Enraged Ex-God
