"There is a kind of blood that poisons gods — the kind shed for love."
---
The ruins of Ael'Veyr blazed.
The three Silencers, though feared across realms, had retreated.
Not slain.
Stunned.
Not by brute force — but by Siyara's awakening.
She had spoken a Name they thought erased from creation.
Not even Rhaelor knew the power she'd just borrowed.
---
Now, deep beneath the shattered altar, the three fugitives descended into an ancient vault, Kael leading the way.
The air smelled like iron and salt — ancient blood never cleansed.
Kael stopped before a circular seal, hands trembling.
> "We swore never to return," he whispered. "But this is where it all began."
Rhaelor narrowed his eyes.
> "What is this place?"
Kael looked at Siyara.
> "Her tomb."
---
The door opened with a scream.
Inside was a single altar, and on it lay a body — not decayed, not crumbling.
Preserved.
Identical to Siyara.
---
She staggered back.
> "That's… me."
Kael nodded.
> "That's who you were before you chose to burn for him."
Rhaelor stared, his voice barely audible.
> "She died for me?"
> "No," Kael said. "She died to spare you."
---
As Siyara approached her former body, visions crashed over her like waves.
Blood spilled over temple stones.
Her own hand holding a dagger.
Rhaelor chained, screaming her name.
The gods demanding his soul.
And her voice, burning through the heavens:
> "Take mine instead."
---
The ritual Kael had brought them for wasn't resurrection.
It was remembrance.
To bind her present soul with the past one.
To reclaim what even divinity had tried to destroy.
But such a rite needed one more thing:
> "The blood that gods cannot drink," Kael said, pulling out a blade.
> "The blood of the betrayed."
---
Rhaelor's eyes narrowed.
> "Me."
Kael nodded.
> "You must offer your betrayal — the moment you failed her. You must remember it."
---
Siyara's voice cracked.
> "No. He doesn't deserve that pain."
> "Then she cannot awaken," Kael said coldly. "Your flame will flicker. And they will erase you again."
> "This time," he added, stepping close, "they'll erase you from him too."
---
Rhaelor stepped forward.
He looked at his own hands.
> "Do it."
Kael made the cut — just deep enough — and let the blood fall onto the preserved Siyara's lips.
The body shuddered.
The altar cracked.
Siyara screamed — as her past self entered her.
---
She saw it all:
Rhaelor begging her to leave the temple.
The gods offering her a choice.
And her own fingers, trembling, pressing a blade into her own chest.
> "Better me forgotten than him lost."
---
When she opened her eyes again, they weren't just hers.
They were hers and hers.
And something ancient stirred behind them.
Kael fell to his knees.
> "You are the fire they feared. The first girl who made the gods bleed."
> "What do we call you now?" he asked.
---
She looked toward Rhaelor, her voice like tempered steel and midnight flame.
> "I was once Siyara. I was once flame."
> "Now I am the memory they failed to erase."
> "I am Aeyana Veyr."
---
The goddess reborn.
The girl who chose forgetting to save love.
And now, she remembered everything.
---
End of Chapter 21: The Blood That Gods Cannot Drink
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