Twilight of the Gods
Chapter 23: Vivian the Illusionist

Every Elysian controls a horde of worshippers.

At Julia’s altar, the hungry and homeless mutter their prayers and dream of full bellies. The lucky few are chosen to go to Otherworld where they serve her. Although they perform hard labor, it’s a small price to pay to never starve. The kings in the icy mountains of Ylivia and the warm islands of Myrania are cruel to their poor either way.

Inside the halls of Iris’s churches, a less helpless group of people pray to her name. They are masochists masquerading as warriors and scholars who ask for the patience to deal with life’s hardest trials. They walk on hot coals, fast for days, and engage in self-flagellation to maintain their discipline. They hope that their self-control would impress her enough to make them heroes.

Sitting happily on the pews of Sabine’s halls are a softer group of people, people who believe in the power of true love. They are the star-crossed lovers, soulmates from feuding families, and wayward elopers who have nowhere to run. They think Sabine is the most merciful out of all the Elysians, turning her churches into love hotels. Little do they know that they are simply breeding more soldiers for her to use.

Huddled by the hearth on the coldest nights, Hubert’s acolytes kneel before his image. Although his churches are smaller, they are filled with honest, hardworking men. They toil in the heat and snow, all in hopes of climbing the social ladder enough to keep their families alive long after their death. They pray for Hubert’s blessings for safe journeys on their merchant ships and an endless supply of metal in their blacksmith shops. Those favored by him get the privilege of serving him for a brief period of time in Otherworld in exchange for a large sum of coins.

Unlike the other Elysians, Vivian’s worshippers are a different breed of people. They don’t seek food, glory, love, or coin. They are the miserable and envious, the eternally unhappy. They are often wealthy, penny-pinching landlords or scheming politicians. No amount of power or money could ever fill the pit in their hearts or soothe the undeniable fact that there will always be someone happier than them. So they pray for the downfall of their neighbors, to always have more than those next to them. If they’re devoted enough and they fill her altar with enough offerings, she grants them their wish after a year of service.

It is these worshippers that Anhel meets when he strides up to Vivian’s part of the palace. They regard him warily with their bright green eyes, eyes that matched the woman they served. While they could choose to alter their appearance however they pleased when they got to Otherworld, Vivian mandated that their eyes match the shade of her irises. Maybe it was meant to unsettle the other Elysians, give them a sense that she was always watching them. If that was the case, it was certainly working.

In a past life, Anhel never met mortals face to face. His previous body was huge, his head often surrounded by clouds. A single mortal had been the size of his pinky finger. Having to navigate the world in Daeva’s body was humbling. He wasn’t any less powerful than before, but people treated him differently now that he possessed a woman. There was less respect in their eyes, something that boiled his blood. At least they still feared him, feared her.

He asks the devotees for an audience with Vivian, telling them that he had an important message for her. They look at him dubiously. What business could a God have with an Elysian?

“We’ll relay your message,” one of them said. “Please wait out here.” They go inside the building while the rest of the worshippers keep their angry green gazes on him. That, combined with the rays of the twin suns, made him sweat.

How annoying, he thought. There was a time in his life when he didn’t have to wait for anything. He had an army of angels at his beck and call, eager to serve. But not all of them were loyal. Ezra’s face flashes in his mind briefly. He should have never underestimated the fallen angel. Maybe if he had been more cautious, the Gods would still rule the universe.

The worshiper returns. “She’s ready to see you.”

Anhel follows the acolyte, weaving through long, dark halls. They walk through many doors, taking so many turns that his head spins. Finally, he enters a small red room.

As he takes a seat, Hubert appears, striding out of the room in front of him. He glares at Anhel, stopping near him.

“Whatever you’re here to do, I suggest you turn back now,” he said. “You can’t continue to hurt us.”

“I never said that I planned to hurt anyone. You shouldn’t be making these assumptions,” Anhel said. “What will Nyx think?”

Hubert frowned, noting the change in Daeva’s voice. “You’re not her, are you?”

“Who else would I be?” He gives the Elysian an innocent smile.

“You just sound different,” Hubert said. He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Just leave Vivian alone.”

“I won’t touch a hair on her head,” he said.

Hubert leaves, not at all reassured by what Anhel told him. Besides Daeva’s voice, there was a different look in her eyes. Usually, he’d see anger, the fire behind her need for vengeance. This time, he saw a cold, ancient chaos swirling about in her red gaze. The person he spoke to didn’t care about morals or justice, not in the twisted way Daeva did. None of those concepts applied to them.

Maybe it’s Anhel, he thought. But that was impossible. As long as even one of the links of the Binding Chains were present, he wasn’t supposed to be in Daeva’s body. Ezra had promised it. Maybe he just needed some rest.

Back in the red room, Vivian appears behind a screen door, shielding most of her body from Anhel’s eyes. Her worshippers materialize at both sides of the door, ready to defend her.

“You said you had an important message for me,” she said, her sibilant voice sending tremors through the room.

“I do,” he said. “It has something to do with the Board.”

“Ah,” she said. “I assume you’re here to complete your latest task. How unfortunate for you that it must involve me.”

He smiles wickedly. “Would you like to see what I need to do?” He dangles the slip of paper in the air, gold letters dimly reflecting against the light. One of the worshipers seizes it from him, bringing the slip to Vivian. She plucks it from their hand effortlessly, her dark fingers snatching up the slip.

“This won’t do,” she said. “I assume you have a proposition so I can avoid this fate.”

“Correct,” he said. “Break my Binding Chains and I will forfeit the game. The Board will be in Haydn’s possession once he’s declared the victor.”

“That is a tempting offer,” she said. “But Anhel, I think you can give more than that.”

“I don’t have the same abilities as before,” he said without missing a beat. “Whatever you request would have to be reasonable.”

“What a shame,” Vivian said. “I was going to ask for my wings back. You remember when I lost them, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said. “It was an awful sight. But you deserved it. You are not without sin.”

“No, I didn’t deserve any of it. Do you know how it felt? Can you even fathom the pain?” Vivian’s eyes burned through the screen door, full of palpable green fury. Then the emotion fizzled away, evaporating with each passing second she stared at him.

“That was in the past. It shouldn’t matter, not when I already hurt you in the only way that I can.”

He supposed they were even, given what she had done to them. But if he were a pettier God, he’d argue that he and Daeva had it much worse than she did. After what Hubert had done to them, their collective mind was in shreds. Escape was their sole objective and they plotted many routes out of Otherworld. They thought of sneaking out on an outgoing carriage or following a devotee to the Mortal Realm. But, no matter what plan they devised, they always ended up back in Otherworld in the courtyard of the palace.

They quickly found out that it was Vivian’s doing. The Elysian had used her illusion magic to delude the two into believing that they could escape Otherworld. It was a simple way to contain them, to stop them from wreaking havoc on the Mortal Realm. From then on, Ezra had put her in charge of controlling their reality. They could no longer trust their senses in the same way. If they misbehaved, Vivian would subject them to awful smells and tastes, conditioning them into obedience.

It was a miserable existence.

But over time, Anhel was able to distinguish between Vivian’s illusions and the reality of things. While the two still blended together for Daeva, the illusions started to waver for him. There was always a shaky quality to the images she conjured. He noticed it instantly when the worshipers appeared to guard Vivian. He’d even bet good money on the screen door being an illusion too, but he couldn’t be sure.

There was a reason why she had been Odi’s favorite angel in their golden days.

Too bad it couldn’t stay that way. From the way Anhel saw it, despite her power and the ever-flowing fountain of favoritism Odi had directed toward her, she could never love her fellow angels. She constantly abused her position, doling out unnecessary punishments. It seemed that even taking away her wings couldn’t cure her of her cruelty, something that was still apparent in the way she spoke to him.

“Give me one cup of ichor,” she said, rousing Anhel from his thoughts. “In addition to sparing me, I request that you spill blood in my chalice. I will break your chains in return.”

A real worshiper enters the room, holding a silver chalice in one hand and an ornate dagger in the other. They hand it to Anhel before quietly leaving the room. The God stifles a laugh. Even though she had fallen from grace, Gods’ blood still had its hold over her.

“Do you want to form a Blood Bond with me? Because that’s what’ll happen if you drink the ichor,” he said.

She shook her head. “I won’t be drinking it. Ichor has more uses than pleasure, you know.”

This, he was well aware of. Maybe not all of the fallen were like Ezra with his strange appetites.

He carefully drags the dagger on Daeva’s arm, making sure not to hit a vital vein. Their healing speed was slower than normal, thanks to the Binding Chains. He fills half of the chalice with blood before placing it on the table in front of him. Then he rips a piece of Daeva’s skirt and bandages the wound.

A worshiper delivers the cup to Vivian, who inspects the blood. “I didn’t know you were so stingy with your ichor. You used to give out more than this.”

“There’s only so much blood in this body,” he said. “That is all I can give without hurting her.”

“I see,” she said, the tone of her voice still unforgiving. “It will have to do.” She surges forward, her form covered in fog, and reaches into his throat. The fifth link shatters with ease. His bloody arm heals instantly underneath the makeshift bandage.

“Thank you,” he said. “I feel much better.”

“Good luck getting Ezra to break his link,” she said. “He will never free you. But Tristan can certainly be persuaded. Our business here is concluded.”

Not quite, he thought. He pulls Miekka out, the inscriptions on the pistol glowing blue with power. He presses the trigger, sending a bullet in Vivian’s direction. She dodges it in the nick of time, somehow moving faster than the bullet.

“I knew it,” she said. “You Gods are always full of trickery.” The room fills with fog, obscuring Anhel’s vision. It comes in thick waves, making the air heavy with moisture.

One by one, Vivian’s worshipers attack him, jumping at him with their swords drawn out. They stab him with precision, hitting him in vulnerable areas. He notices that they all wear Conductors to channel Vivian’s magic through their weapons. The magic heightens the sensation of pain, playing into the illusion that the worshipers were more powerful than they actually were.

He fires mindlessly at them, not caring whether they were real or fake. A few fall to the ground, the bullets eating their magic and their life force. But the rest continue to stab him, using his senses against him.

He needed to replace where Vivian was in the room. If he could get her, then the illusion would stop. In spite of all the pain he was in, he stands up, ignoring the swords piercing through him. He stares at the fog, waiting for it to waver. The vapor flickers for a moment revealing Vivian’s hiding spot. Then, the vapor reappears, covering up the hole in the fog.

Anhel wastes no time taking his shot. He sends a few bullets flying in her direction, hoping that at least one hits its mark. Her scream lets him know that it does.

The fake worshippers vanish and the fog clears. Vivian lies on the ground, clutching her leg. Gold blood spills on the tiled floors, pooling beneath her. She glares at Anhel as he approaches.

“Don’t touch me,” she snarled. A wall of flames appears between the two, shielding her from him. He steps through it, unfazed by her magic. A sharp burning sensation shoots up his legs, mimicking the feeling of being burned. He nearly falls, but he stays upright despite the pain. Even with a bullet in her, Vivian was still a formidable opponent.

“Clever angel,” he said, taking a shot at her other leg. She lets out a yelp, flinching away. “If you try anything else, I will shoot both of your arms.”

“You monster,” she said. “Does Daeva know that you’re doing this? Even she wouldn’t go this far to obey the Board.”

He sneered at Vivian’s attempts at an emotional ploy. It was laughable seeing her pretend to care for his other self. “Daeva is the one who gave me control.”

“I knew it,” she said. “She wouldn’t be able to stand this, even with everything she did to everyone else. She wanted to spare me, right? She’s the only one of you two who has a heart.”

He frowned at her words. While he had the weight of centuries of sin and wrongdoing on his shoulders compared to Daeva, he didn’t like that Vivian had said that she was better than him. They were equals, him and Daeva. It was not something that anyone, especially an Elysian, could judge.

Vivian looks into his eyes defiantly. “Daeva, wake up. See what you’re doing to me. Have mercy.”

Anhel shoots her left arm. Of course, Vivian would try to ruin his attempts to protect Daeva. She was insidious in that way, using people’s emotions rather than brute force to maintain her seat on the Council.

“Daeva, wake up,” she repeated, pushing herself up on her last good arm. She stares intently at Anhel, her green eyes growing bigger and bigger until they swallow him whole. He feels himself falling, sinking further away from the surface of consciousness. In the distance, he could hear Vivian saying that Daeva owed her. He replaces that he can no longer regain control of her body as he is shoved to the back of her mind.

Suddenly, Daeva wakes up to replace her pistol, Miekka, clenched between her fingers. Vivian lies before her, bloody and mangled.

“How –”

“Save your words,” Vivian said. “We don’t have much time. You need to hear the truth. What do you know about the Elysians?”

“They were refugees from a parallel dimension,” she stammered. “The Gods offered hospitality, but you guys took advantage and started the war. Why do you ask?”

“Because that’s not true,” Vivian said. “We were never refugees in the first place. The Gods stole us from our homeland, Elysia, after they opened a portal. They took hordes of us across the dimensional barrier with knives at our throats. They brainwashed us into being their servants, called us ‘angels,’ and removed our free will. We may have started the war, but we were not the first to commit atrocities.”

“That’s impossible,” she replied. “There’s no way that happened.” But what if it was true?

“I have no reason to lie to you. You know that I’m on your side. That’s why you can’t eat my heart,” Vivian said.

Daeva knew exactly what she was talking about. In those days when Vivian foiled all of their escape plans and misled them with her illusions, she had left crucial clues that were vital to Daeva’s eventual escape. While she fed Anhel the illusion of being perpetually trapped, she primed Daeva’s head for departure. She led Daeva to the stables where the skeletal horses were and made her notice the keys hidden in a nearby drawer. This, she showed her in a dream. Despite sharing a soul and body with Anhel, Vivian instinctively knew that they kept separate minds.

Thanks to her, Daeva ended up on the Celestial Road all of those years ago, ready to take her fateful leap into the Mortal Realm. It was a feat that was simply not possible without Vivian’s help.

“Why did you do that for me? Why are you on my side?” It made no sense to her. Gods and Elysians didn’t get along. And Gods didn’t commit crimes against Elysians. But somehow, reality seemed to point in the opposite direction of these truths.

“None of it was ever your choice,” Vivian said. “I felt sorry for you and the lack of control you had over anything. You were just an innocent mortal before all of this happened.”

That wasn’t entirely true. She chose to come back to life. But she had a feeling that wasn’t what Vivian was referring to.

“And now you have to eat my heart,” she continued. “It must be you, not Anhel. You were the one who made the deal with Nyx, not him.”

“But I don’t want to,” Daeva protested. “I can’t do it.”

“You can and you will,” she insisted. “I will make it easy for you. Pick up the blade.”

Daeva does as Vivian says, feeling a surge of ecstasy as she touches the metal. No, she thought, horrified. She’s going to make me enjoy this.

“Stop that,” she said. “Stop manipulating my emotions.”

“Cut out my heart,” Vivian demanded, ignoring her pleas. “Slice my skin open. Do it!”

Daeva steps toward her, pulled by the compulsion of her magic. Her heart races with excitement as she breaks open Vivian’s flesh. She cuts the Elysian up carefully even as every movement heightens her enjoyment. When she finally removes her heart, tears form in her eyes. She couldn’t tell if it was from sadness or joy.

She bites into Vivian’s bloody heart, crying while doing so. It had no business being so delicious. To Daeva, it tasted like a hearty beef stew, not the raw heart of a former angel. She finishes it quickly, a mixture of guilt and pleasure swirling around in her mouth.

The high of the kill fades and Daeva is shoved back into reality. The savory flavors in her mouth fade into the tangy, metallic taste of blood. She registers Vivian’s glassy eyes staring at her and the gaping hole in her chest.

I’m a monster, she thought. I’m worse than the Elysians and the Gods combined.

She curls up in a ball, bringing her legs close to her body. She clenches her fists, nails digging deep into her palms. She curses her lack of self-control, sobbing into herself. She was so inconsolable that she didn’t notice Vivian move her mouth, wheezing out barely audible words.

“Stop crying,” she whispered. “It looks pathetic.”

I’m hallucinating voices again, Daeva thought. I don’t know how much longer I can stay in Otherworld. The very air seems to be driving me mad.

She looks over at Vivian’s body, rubbing her tear-streaked face. Either her imagination was compensating for her guilt or Vivian’s heart was regenerating before her eyes. Simultaneously, the bullets Anhel had embedded in her skin were sinking through as if she were made of soft dough.

“It’s a miracle,” she said, mostly to herself.

“No,” Vivian said once she was fully regenerated. “It’s a proper use of science. I stole the results of Sabine’s experiments from her lab to make myself more indestructible. But that’s hardly the point. The point is, you know the truth now, about the Gods and Elysians. The next decisions you make won’t be out of ignorance.”

“What does that mean? I’ve just been following the Board,” Daeva said.

“It means it’s fully up to you whether you stay loyal to Anhel. You know what he did and what he was responsible for. The choice is all yours. You have a bit of control now,” Vivian replied. “The past and present pale in comparison to the future that will come.”

“And what future is that?” Daeva dreaded the next words that would follow.

“One where every single God is truly obliterated. Mind and soul.”