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Kissed by the Gods Chapters 12–21 Summary
This Caty Rogan Kissed by the Gods chapter summary contains full spoilers.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 12
The Synod’s four archons interrogate Leina, while the Elder, King Agis, and Princess Rissa observe. The archons ask Leina about her powers, her family lineage, and her life in Selencia. When Archon Lyathin tries to force her to recount the day her abilities first appeared, she refuses. The Elder steps in, shuts down that line of questioning, then asks Leina something no one else has thought to ask: what she actually wants. She stands and demands justice for her people and family against the Faraengardian monarchy.
King Agis argues that Selencian mining labor is a fair contribution to the war effort, then accuses Leina of being a creature of the dark goddess Kheris sent to corrupt the Synod. He points to the suspicious timing of her arrival alongside a major Kher’zenn attack as evidence. Archon Nile seizes on this and calls for the gods to decide her fate. The other archons reluctantly agree, and the Elder decrees that Leina must survive a Trial of Last Blood to prove herself. Failure means death and the condemnation of her soul.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 13
Thalric leads Leina to the temple corridor, then leaves her to find her way alone in the dark.
Leina reaches the temple, a bare stone room with a single candle and mirrors covering every wall. She tries to pray but can’t manage it sincerely, and the attempt quickly unravels into something rawer. All the anger she carries toward the gods for abandoning her people and ignoring her mother’s prayers pours out. She screams her grievances at Thayana, sweeps the offerings off the table, and hurls the candle into one of the mirrors. The room goes dark.
A voice rises out of the darkness, and Leina is instantly seized by blinding pain that drops her to her knees. When light returns, the room is completely transformed, and a tall, radiant woman with golden glowing eyes stands before her. She tells Leina she must learn to control her temper. As Leina looks up, she notices the candle dripping black wax, exactly like in her recurring dreams.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 14
Leina is taken to Sol’vaelen, the realm of the gods, where she meets a goddess while suffering from the effects of godsbane, a poison that makes the experience nearly unbearable for mortals.
The goddess explains that the gods follow their own rules and that every interaction with the mortal world carries a serious cost. She warns Leina that she has enemies among the gods, ones who need her to fail, and that they’ll be far more dangerous than anything she’s faced before. She then offers Leina a gift. Leina tries to refuse, afraid of what it might cost her, but the goddess assures her the price has already been paid in blood by many people.
Before Leina can ask any real questions, the pain overwhelms her, and her body gives out. The goddess holds her up, kisses her on the temple, and sends her back. A voice not her own echoes through her, speaking the word “Strider,” and Leina loses consciousness entirely.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 15
Leina wakes in the infirmary wracked with pain, disoriented, and tasting blood that isn’t there. She finds a hard, web-like scar on her temple where the goddess Thayana kissed her the night before, and it’s enough to convince her the encounter was real. She also notices her weapons in the corner, completely remade in adamas, and shoves them under the bed before anyone can see.
A healer named Elowen arrives and tends to Leina’s injuries. Leina realizes she’s Princess Rissa’s sister and nearly opens up to her, but Rissa walks in before she can. Rissa demands that Leina kneel, but Leina refuses. They trade sharp words until Rissa reveals her true purpose for coming. The Trial of Last Blood will begin at dawn the next day, with a volunteer already lined up to face Leina. The standoff ends when Archon Lyathin and Maxim arrive, dismiss both princesses, and turn their attention to Leina.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 16
Archon Lyathin announces that the Trial of Last Blood will end only when one fighter stops breathing. The victor earns a place among the Altor, while the loser won’t walk out. Maxim, already named as Leina’s opponent, makes clear he won’t bother with a weapon at all.
Leina insists on using her scythe. Lyathin argues that an unbonded weapon is essentially useless and that a scythe is a poor choice regardless. He gives her a brief explanation of what weapon bonding means before reluctantly allowing her to take the scythe to the armorer.
Before Lyathin leaves, Leina tells him that when she wins, she wants to speak with the archons about the state of Selencia. Lyathin doesn’t dismiss it outright but tells her that she has to earn that conversation first.
After Lyathin and Maxim are gone, Ryot appears in the doorway. He says he and Leina are going to the training grounds and hands her a bag of clothes and boots. Leina quietly admits she might be past saving, and he tells her she may be beaten up, but she isn’t finished. He steps outside to wait, and she forces herself to get dressed and keep going.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 17
Leina hides her new weapons under the bed and wraps a bandage around her head to cover the gold scar before following Ryot through the fortress to the training grounds. He leads her to a smaller section called Stormriven, where she meets the members of his cast: Thalric, Nyrica, Caius, Kiernan, Leif, and Faelon.
Ryot tells the group that Leina will face Maxim in a fight to the death the next day and that she’s never held a sword. Each man offers a word to describe Maxim’s fighting style, then they walk through his weaknesses. Leina considers her own advantages and settles on her speed, her ability to think on her feet, and the fact that Maxim won’t take her seriously.
Training begins right away. Nyrica charges at Leina with a war axe and drops her. Ryot scolds Leina for closing her eyes during the attack. She gets back up and asks to go again.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 18
A guard drags Leina to an antechamber beneath the arena before dawn. Ryot is already waiting inside, and when the guard refuses to release her, Ryot pins him to the doorframe by the throat until he lets go, then throws him out.
With the guard gone, Ryot wraps Leina’s hands in oiled leather to prepare her for the fight. She asks why he’s helping her at all, since he’s the one who kidnapped her in the first place. He admits it’s because he knows loss firsthand. It’s a rare honest moment between them, and it shifts something.
Ryot spots the scythe and the goddess-marked armor Leina is wearing and demands to know where they came from. She brushes him off. He takes the scythe anyway and walks her through the basics of how to use it before handing it back.
When the arena gong sounds three times, Ryot tells Leina she’s been blessed by the gods, and it’s time everyone else found out. She steps into the arena and onto the sand.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 19
Leina faces Maxim, a massive and arrogant veteran who arrives without a weapon because he doesn’t consider her a real threat. She spends the opening minutes evading him and eventually sweeps his legs, but he recovers quickly and wrestles her to the ground. He strangles her slowly, taunting her about Ryot and savoring every moment.
When Leina is nearly blacked out, something shifts. She taps into a dark, instinctive ability and turns Maxim’s malice back on him, forcing him to release her. She headbutts him, both reset, and the fight continues. On their next clash, Maxim punches her in the temple and destroys his own hand on her divine scar. He accuses her of hiding illegal metal under the bandage, and the archons stop everything.
Leina unwraps the bandage to reveal the scar. The archons recognize it as a divine mark. Leina demands the fight resume, and the Elder restarts it. She closes in and kills Maxim with one clean cut across the throat.
The Elder pronounces Leina innocent, and the arena erupts in applause. Leina levels her scythe at the archons and the king, demanding her audience about Selencia on the spot. Archon Lyathin grudgingly agrees.
Part 2: The Winged
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 20
Leina walks into the council chamber still caked in sand and blood from the arena. Ryot arrives before the council, cleans her up, and reminds her to hold her ground.
Once everyone files in, Archon Lyathin invites Leina to sit, but she declines. She turns the Synod’s own logic against them, arguing that the gods wouldn’t have chosen an Altor from a starving, brutalized province without reason. She also reveals that a rebellion is already forming in Selencia. Without Synod backing, it will be crushed, but with it, open conflict might never need to happen at all.
The archons push King Agis to address the problem, but his response is too vague to trust. When Lyathin threatens to force obedience from her, Leina tells the council about the day her powers first emerged. The king’s soldiers came to her brother’s wedding and set the young bride on fire. She describes it without flinching and makes clear that someone who’s survived that has nothing left to lose.
Lyathin eventually offers terms. The Synod will send an investigator to Selencia once winter arrives and the Kher’zenn attacks slow, and in return, Leina will stop resisting her training and take her place among the Altor. She tries to claim the Selencia assignment for herself, but Lyathin points out she won’t be far enough along in her training by then. Ryot volunteers to go in her place, and Leina accepts.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 21
Leina has been searching for a master to train her and keeps running into dead ends. The most recent rejection came from Nyrica, who at least told her the truth about why nobody will take her on. Being marked by the goddess Thayana means Kheris wants Leina dead, and no one wants that blood on their hands.
Running out of options, Leina tracks down Ryot, who has been avoiding her since he turned her down. She catches him on his way out the door for a patrol rotation and refuses to let him leave. He gives in, and they go back inside.
Leina asks Ryot again to be her master. He refuses, but she insists, and he finally tells her the real reason. All four of his previous wards have died, and he believes Kheris has been deliberately taking them from him. In his mind, claiming Leina would be signing her death warrant.
Unmoved, Leina tells Ryot the choice belongs to her and that she already trusts him. That breaks through his resistance. Ryot asks her formally to be his ward, and she says yes.