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All of them.
In the sudden silence, a warm laugh bubbles up from somewhere near the arena wall, followed by the enthusiastic clapping of small hands. “I knew you’d be happy!” Rose’s voice carries clearly across the field, innocent and delighted.
She’s standing beside a section of collapsed seating, Kin hovering above her shoulder. Her blond hair is tangled, her face smudged with dirt, but her smile is radiant as she watches the phoenixes circle overhead. She claps again and again, completely unconcerned by the battlefield around her, the monsters retreating from the phoenixes’ light, or the recovering fighters struggling to their feet.
Rose raises her arms to the sky as if greeting old friends, and the phoenixes respond, dipping lower in acknowledgment. As I watch this child—this remarkable, precious child who somehow called creatures of legend back into our world through nothing more than song and belief—my heart swells with a hope I thought long extinguished.
But the battle isn’t over.
The booming sounds from above continue, the rifts still stand open around the arena’s edge, and a few of the divine creatures, though cowering now in the shadows, remain. But in this moment, as the phoenixes soar above a battlefield where minutes ago we faced certain death, I allow myself to believe that, perhaps, we haven’t failed.
Perhaps we’ve only just begun to fight.
Chapter Sixty-One
The fabric of reality shifts as the gods materialize once more, their forms condensing from nothing into something.
First comes Zeru. He’s different. Calmer, with his starlight dimmed enough to identify his features. The constellation across his chest is a faded map rather than a burning declaration of power. His eyes, once swirling galaxies, now hold the dull gleam of distant stars viewed through cloud cover.
More gods take form beside him, each one manifesting with less flourish than before. Valk, whose presence once made the ground tremble with anticipated bloodshed, stands with her shoulders slightly bowed. The others—Ziva, Hallr, Mar, Nyc, and the rest—all appear less…intense.
They’ve given up their human facades and reverted back to their original, more elemental forms.
A shiver ghosts through me as I stare in disbelief, unable to process what I’m witnessing.
My body still thrums with battle-readiness, fire coiled just beneath my skin and ready to burst forth at the slightest provocation. Something about the return of the phoenixes has revitalized me. At this distance, I know I can incinerate at least two of these gods before anyone can stop me.
Zeru will be my first target.
Then Valk.
The two strongest. The two who are clearly not on our side.
Whether it’ll be effective or not remains to be seen. But I won’t go down without continuing to fight.
Sterling stands beside me, teetering on the edge of exhaustion.
When Zeru moves, every muscle in my body tenses.
But the god doesn’t attack.
He doesn’t summon star-fire or command more creatures from the rifts. Instead, his gaze sweeps over our ragged band of fighters before landing on Sterling and me. And then, impossibly, inconceivably, he inclines his golden head.
A bow.
Not the cursory nod one might give a lesser being, but the deliberate acknowledgment of equals, perhaps even superiors.
The other gods follow suit, bending in gestures of respect that feel utterly alien coming from beings who, not so long ago, were trying to eradicate us.
Beside me, Bastian inhales sharply. Agnar mutters something that sounds suspiciously like a string of expletives. Leesa’s hand finds mine and squeezes with trembling fingers.
My jaw hurts, and I realize it’s because it’s hanging open.
This isn’t just us winning. This is…surrender.
The gods are surrendering.
To us.
