Status Updates From Starside (Starside #1)

"Do you think I don't know who you are?" He takes another step. "Aris Agron, heiress of House Agron? One of the Great Houses of Stormside?" My teeth lock together. It's been years since I heard my full name spoken. I lost it that day, when my house burned to the ground. I don't know why that matters to him, but it looks like it does. It looks like my lineage could mean more than I'm aware of.

He is a god. Again.
"I suspected the gods were plotting against me. So, during the last Questral, 1 traveled to Stormside and buried a shred of my soul there.
When the God of War finally tried to kill me, he failed to kill all of me.
I awoke on Stormside as a human," he says. He glances at the cup. "I needed the magic to access my powers again."

Not like Raker does.
"I killed the God of War," he says, his voice distant. Emotionless.
"Who thought he killed me, the God of Death, five years ago." He steps over the dead god without sparing him a glance. "He's been trying to rule the underworld ever since. Badly, as you saw, with the demons and stolen brides."

kill the God of Death, and you can bring back your family.
I might have been afraid of him, I might have been running from him this entire time, but hope and love banish any fear from my chest. Because-—I'll do anything. I'll climb up to the fucking stars if I need to. I will rip them from the sky.

The goddess's eyes widen. "You made a blood oath not to kill me."
panion. "Eat."
"I never said anything about my dragon." I look up at my silver com-
The goddess can't even summon a flicker of power before my dragon swallows her and her thousand gems whole.

The words feel wrong. I never believed, in a thousand years, that I would be speaking them. But I do. Clearly. Desperately. "I swear on my blood that I will not kill you, goddess."

"Because of the prophecy," she says simply, without a morsel of emo-tion. "You posed a threat. I tried to eliminate it." Prophecy. There's that word again.
She thinks it's about me. The paladin who was promised.

"Your swords are two halves of the same blade. That's why they glow the same color. Long ago, they were split, for their power was too great as one. Your swords connect you." A shadow passes over her face. "If he seeks to merge them again, you must stop him. Those swords, joined, will lead to millennia of ruin."

He changes strategy. As if maybe he can say something that might pull at my heartstrings. "The god—he said he would take me straight to the Land of the Gods. He said I would get two immortal cups. I have, I have a family, and—"
"I don't give a shit," I say, grabbing the other blade from the ground and burying it in his chest. He bellows.

We've ruined each other. And by the time we finally go to sleep in
the pile of sheets, we've ruined each other even more.
When I wake up, my body is sore. Aching. Sensitive everywhere.
And Harlan is gone.
He took my sword.
He betrayed me, just like I always knew he would.

Are you deadass