✨bia✨’s Reviews > Starside > Status Update

"These gates won't keep me from you," he says. He says it like a curse.
I press as close to him as 1 can. He's just inches away—but he might as well be across the world. "See you in fifty years, Raker," I whisper.
Then 1 turn back toward my home of ashes.

I drag his sword out of the scabbard and bury it in his heart. Again.
His eyes blaze with fury.
It doesn't work.
The gates are almost closed. I thrash below him, but he won't let go.
He won't let me go.

This world doesn't need gods. It doesn't need a blade that claims them all. It needs peace.
I vowed to kill all of them ... I killed one. Raker killed another. Two are now dead. The rest will follow. Somehow, some way, I will make sure they all fall. Even him.

Did you mean it? What you said?
He seemed more concerned about my words than my sword sticking out of his chest.
I wish I didn't say them. I wish I didn't mean them. But the proof of what we feel for each other is in these very blades.

"Raker?"
"Yes, Aris?" he asks, right against my mouth. And he says my name like it's the most important word in the universe.
My eyes prickle. Finally, I'm telling the truth. I'm being honest with myself about what this is.
"I think-I think I love you," 1 say.
And then I plunge my blade through his heart.

"You left me," I whisper, chest heaving. Eyes prickling.
"I left," he says, gaze blazing into mine. "To save you."
To save me? I almost laugh. Save me by leaving me for dead? By stealing my sword? I spit the words. "From what?"
"From me."

"Fine," I say, falling into a stance he helped me master. "If you can't strike me down... then duel me, Raker." I've never been able to duel before.
We've done it countless times. Now he shakes his head. But he doesn't get to make that decision.
There is a way. Kill the God of Death.

"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."