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Kissed by the Gods Chapters 32–43 Summary
This Caty Rogan Kissed by the Gods chapter summary contains full spoilers.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 32
Leina tries to meditate on the cliffs with Ryot, but she can’t settle. Her mind keeps circling back to her nightmares, the people she failed to save, and the weight of her training. After hours of getting nowhere, she snaps, jumps to her feet, and yells that she’s no good at meditating.
Ryot sits beside Leina and demonstrates the practice himself. He tells her the point isn’t to silence the noise but to sit with whatever’s already there. Something in his words shifts her perspective, and she finally finds a measure of calm.
When the tension breaks, Ryot asks Leina about her family. She brushes it off, but then he mentions he had six sisters he was close to growing up, and the honesty of it catches her off guard. She starts talking about her father playing music, her brother dancing, and her mother’s baking. It’s the first real moment of connection between them.
Ryot tells Leina he doesn’t fight for glory or the gods. He fights for his sisters. Then he stands and says it’s time for the evening meal. Leina is left with the understanding that what drives him isn’t duty at all.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 33
Leina heads to Elowen’s herb garden to learn how to identify frostroot, a plant she’ll need to survive her climb up Elandors Veil come spring. When she arrives, she finds King Agis kneeling in the dirt with his young daughter Siofra, whom he’s leaving in Elowen’s care to train as a healer. Seeing him so warm and fatherly shakes Leina, because she holds him responsible for the deaths of her loved ones and the slow destruction of her people.
King Agis notices Leina, and the tenderness vanishes. He makes it clear he sees her as a threat he intends to handle before she grows too difficult to touch. She asks about the investigation into Selencia’s suffering, but he deflects smoothly, and she realizes nothing has actually changed.
After King Agis leaves, Elowen tries to apologize, but Leina shuts her down and asks only for the frostroot. Elowen shows her the plant and explains that it survives winter by stripping away everything tender until the cold can’t reach what’s underneath.
Leina wonders whether survival is worth what it keeps taking from her.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 34
Leina and Ryot are near the top of Brackenfold Peak on a practice climb when they stop to make camp for the night. Ryot goes through her pack and discovers she forgot to bring furs, which they need for shelter against the harsh cold. He’s furious but sets up his own one-man tent and tells her to get in before she freezes.
Cramped together in the small space, Ryot pulls Leina close to share body heat. Their closeness turns physical fast, and what begins as comfort becomes a desperate, consuming kiss. He pulls back and says he can’t have her the way he wants without losing everything, a nod to the vows they both swore.
Hurt and angry, Leina says nothing. Ryot repositions her so her back rests against his chest, and they lie quietly in the dark until sleep takes them, both aware they’ll have to return to keeping their distance in the morning.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 35
Leina sneaks away from the Synod for a rare moment to herself, but it doesn’t last. Tyrston finds her alone in the trees, makes veiled threats about dangerous enemies, and hints that someone wants her dead.
Ryot arrives just in time to drive Tyrston off, then turns his frustration on Leina for wandering unprotected. The tension between them breaks when Nyrica appears with urgent news. Carrisfal, an island to the south, is under attack, and Ryot must ride out immediately with a large force. He asks Nyrica to keep Leina close while he’s gone, then leaves without much of a goodbye.
Leina and Nyrica head back together, and she agrees to let him take her for a drink.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 36
Leina asks Nyrica about the Kher’zenn, and he describes them as unnaturally powerful enemies who grow stronger with every kill. The conversation takes a sharp turn when she casually mentions that none of the Altor will ever have sex again, which stops the whole table cold. Her castmates quickly correct her. The rule isn’t against sex at all but against forming emotional bonds. There’s even a pleasure house called the Crimson Feather set aside specifically for the Altor as a sanctioned outlet.
The mood darkens when Leina catches Tyrston’s eye, a man from a rival vanguard who has been openly threatening her with a dagger across the room. Her cast responds by driving their own daggers into the table at once, a show of solidarity that hushes the entire hall. Tyrston storms out furious, and the tension finally breaks when Faelon says something crude enough to make Leina laugh.
Thalric raises a toast to family, and it moves Leina more than she wants to admit. That night, she dreams of fire, blood, and the people she loves in danger.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 37
Leina slips into a dream and finds herself in Ryot’s tent, already touching herself. Ryot enters, joins her, and goes down on her until she climaxes. Afterward, she mentions Faelon’s suggestion of taking her to the Crimson Feather. Ryot reacts with jealousy, insisting neither Faelon nor the brothel are for her. They hold each other as the dream begins to dissolve, and Leina slips away before it ends.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 38
Leina watches Nyrica and Thalric spar when it becomes clear they’re more than training partners. She takes the opportunity to nudge them toward the bathing chamber, framing it as a chance to clean up while she meditates. Thalric hesitates to leave her alone, but the problem resolves itself when Leif comes in from the rain.
Nyrica quickly pairs Leif with Leina and leaves with Thalric. On the way out, Thalric casually mentions they’ll be taking Leina to Tempest Reach later for climbing practice in the storm, something that doesn’t quite sink in until they’re already gone.
With the two of them alone, Leina and Leif agree to ignore the hand-to-hand training they were assigned and sit on the floor to recover. The storm rages outside, and Leina tries to meditate to push down her growing worry about Ryot, who hasn’t sent word since the fighting in Carrisfal. She barely begins before the exterior door bursts open and a group of wards enters, one of them Tyrston.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 39
Tyrston shows up with Fenrir and Varek. He tries to push past Leina into the bathing chamber, but she refuses to let him through, sparking a fight.
Leina handles Fenrir and Varek well enough, but Tyrston beats Leif unconscious before turning on her. She realizes his “gift” is actual magic, not just Altor ability, and he channels it through his hammer. He knocks her scythe away and hits her hard enough that she can barely stay upright. Her scar repels him just long enough for her to drive a dagger into his hammer arm. She lines up a second throw at his throat when Ryot appears, wraps a protective force around her, and hurls Tyrston across the room.
Ryot carries Leina toward Elowen to be healed. Rissa stops them along the way and warns him that killing a ward will bring serious consequences and that his feelings for Leina put him in dangerous territory. He doesn’t care. Leina catches only fragments of the argument before losing consciousness again.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 40
Leina finds herself trapped in suffocating darkness, unable to escape. A voice calls her name, and though she can’t locate its source, she recognizes it even through the disorientation. It tells her that her time has come and that she must return to where she has always truly belonged. Leina cries out that she no longer has a place, a feeling bound to the loss of Ryot. The voice carries an otherworldly, almost primordial quality, unlike anything human. It follows her even as she fights against the dark, delivering one final message: the Veil is waiting.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 41
Leina wakes in the infirmary to find Elowen using her healing gift on her. When she realizes the magic is costing Elowen something, she refuses to let her continue. Elowen orders her to drink a foul tonic Siofra has prepared. Once Leina chokes it down, the fog in her head lifts.
Afterward, Leina asks about the others. Leif and Fenrir made it through. Varek lost a foot, but Elowen is working to reattach it. Tyrston didn’t survive.
Princess Rissa arrives with news that Ryot has been exiled to Solmire Island as punishment for defending Leina. Leina also learns that Ryot has a rare gift for creating protective shields strong enough to cover entire groups in battle. The revelation hits her hard. Then, she and Rissa fall into an argument over conditions in Selencia under the king’s rule, but Rissa refuses to believe her.
Suddenly, Leina realizes that the voice she heard while unconscious was a summons to climb Elandors Veil. Elowen warns her the climb is suicidal in winter, but Leina won’t be talked out of it. On her way out, Rissa tells her not to die, because losing another ward would break Ryot completely.
As Leina heads for the door, Elowen grabs her and forces a healing through without warning. The effort leaves Elowen visibly drained, barely on her feet, with dark circles blooming down her arms. She tells Leina that sometimes, refusing help is the most selfish thing a person can do.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 42
Leina passes a temple at the foot of Elandors Veil without stopping and begins to climb, drawn upward by a strange pull from the mountain. The ascent grows increasingly dangerous as a storm closes in. Leina loses her footing on a stretch of ice and falls down an embankment, leaving her with head wounds and torn skin. The extreme cold begins to suppress her circulation, and hypothermia sets in.
Lying on the frozen ground, Leina thinks of her brothers, Seb and Leo, and the possibility of failing them stirs enough anger to get her back up. A disembodied voice says “no” twice, stopping her from making camp or resting, since either choice would have been fatal.
Following that same pull, Leina finds a gap in the frozen waterfall and steps into a cave sheltering a natural hot spring. After climbing in to restore warmth, she treats her wounds and drifts off to sleep, the voice offering a final reassurance of its presence.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 43
Leina steps into a pitch-black, otherworldly realm and pushes through it without fear. The darkness feels almost alive around her, and strange, feathery sensations brush across her skin as she moves. A golden light breaks through the void, and with it come shadows that twist into fleeting shapes before dissolving again. Vast, indistinct creatures pass overhead, but Leina knows instinctively they aren’t there for her.
A second light appears, silver this time, seeping up through cracks in the ground and throwing jagged, ancient structures into relief. The ground shifts beneath Leina, breaking apart and reshaping as she walks, as though the place is trying either to expel her or to drive her somewhere specific. Leina stops before one of the shadows, and a pair of dark eyes stare back at her from the darkness. A voice tells her it has been waiting and calls her “Strider.”