“You left me my breath.”
“I do,” I lied back.
Not of his enemies.
In the silence, I remembered what the old texts said about the Fallen God’s curse. That he would destroy whatever he loved most. That his touch was ruin. That his heart beat only to break the world. When he takes -Fallen god 2- - Gabrielle Sands
“I am still a monster,” he said against my pulse.
“You should hate me,” he said. Not looking at me. Looking at the altar where they’d once bound him for a thousand years.
It was an awful sound. Broken. Beautiful. The sound of a ruin learning to stand again. “You left me my breath
“To scream.”
I didn’t run.
Valdís went utterly still.
He pulled me against his chest, and his wings closed around us like a tomb. Like a womb. Like the beginning of something that had no name yet.
“To speak.” I stepped closer, my bare feet pressing into cold marble stained with divine blood. “And I’m telling you now—you don’t get to fall alone.”
He finally turned. His eyes—one silver, one gold—held the weight of every god he’d devoured, every realm he’d unmade. But beneath that ancient hunger, something else flickered. Something that looked almost like fear. That he would destroy whatever he loved most