And it didn’t matter if he was a god; his friends weren’t going to allow him to travel to the Ordas alone.
“What’s the plan?” Caelan asked, the words squeezing between clenched teeth.
“You and your friends sneak into the Ordas, locate Zyros’s forces, and eliminate them safely before we can launch an attack on Zyros,” Nyx explained.
“Zyros and Lore,” Caelan reminded them. “Don’t forget the God of Wisdom is still rather pissed about what you did to his girlfriend, and he’s looking for some revenge as well.”
“His betrayal has not been forgotten,” Tula muttered, and Caelan nearly rolled his eyes. It was very debatable exactly who was responsible for the betrayal, but he was in no mood to stumble down that dark road.
“If Zyros’s powers are blocking your abilities to see within the Ordas, won’t Caelan have similar issues, seeing as he is now a god?” Rayne inquired.
Caris shook her head. “Zyros has encountered all of us and knows our powers. Caelan is an unknown to her. She hasn’t learned to hunt him yet.”
“But Safa has, and she’s been getting better with every encounter,” Caelan replied.
“All the more reason for you to move quickly,” Kaes said.
Caelan suddenly twisted around, his eyes scanning the immediate area of the ramshackle cave town. “Speaking of, where is Safa? I didn’t see what happened to her after I was stabbed.”
Nyx rolled his eyes. “You’ve died three times, godling. You should let a little stabbing between gods go.”
“Lore grabbed Safa before he disappeared,” Rayne interjected, halting another argument with the Dead God. “I’m assuming he took her to Green Spring or at least wherever Zyros is currently located.”
Caelan glared at the quartet of gods watching him. Oh yeah, he got the picture. They’d made him into a god so they could send him straight into the Ordas to snoop for them while they remained safely behind.
“Could I ask a favor of my fellow gods?” Caelan inquired, struggling not to grind his teeth as he spoke.
Nyx opened his mouth, but Caris was faster. She snapped her fan closed and smacked him with it as she smiled at him. “What would you ask of us, Caelan?”
“Watch over your respective kingdoms while I’m sneaking through the Ordas. Protect the humans there in the event that Zyros decides to launch an attack in a direction we’re not expecting.”
To his shock, all four gods offered him a small bow of their heads and agreed to his request. Nyx did seem a bit grudging, though.
“Good luck, Caelan,” Tula murmured, and all four gods disappeared.
“Fuck,” Drayce whispered. His head suddenly whipped around to face Caelan. “Can you do that? Oh! Can you just zap us straight to the Ordas?”
Caelan gazed at his lover for a second, inwardly debating whether to flick the man in the middle of his forehead. “Doubtful,” he finally answered. “Considering I have no idea what I can do or how I would even go about it, I’m gonna go with no for now.”
“How are we going to get to the Ordas?”
Irritation turned into sympathy as Caelan pointedly stared past Drayce to the docks. Drayce followed his gaze only to erupt into a loud, pained moan.
“Gods, I hate boats!”
Caelan wrapped an arm around Drayce’s shoulders, pulling him in so that his back was pressed to Caelan’s chest. “I know, but Rayne and I will take care of you.”
“Can you?” Rayne inquired. Caelan looked over his shoulder at his advisor to find the man watching him with an inquisitive expression. “Do you still have the abilities the gods gave you when you were bonded to them?”
That was a damn good question.
What could he do now that he was supposedly a god?
He would need to figure it out and quickly. Better to know what he could do before they reached the Ordas.
He had an even better question, though: What kind of god am I?
TWO
Rayne Laurent
Rayne shut the door and leaned his head against it for a second. Drayce was asleep, his nausea under control for the time being while their boat chugged steadily east down the large stream leading to the Whitgami River.
With his eyes closed, he tried to organize his thoughts, attempting to prioritize the tasks that needed to be done. After the disappearance of the gods, they’d raided all the buildings for what supplies they could find and had loaded up the largest of the boats. Returning to the surface through the government building was out of the question since it was likely the dead body of Prime Minister Jasper Feroz had been found. Right now, their plan was to follow the river until it returned to the surface—hopefully well outside the city of Brightspire—and then they would quietly stop for more substantial supplies before entering the Ordas.
But this was only a quick fix in the face of monumental problems that had no answers. It all started with heading into the Ordas willingly.