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Kissed by the Gods Chapters 38–49 Summary
This Caty Rogan Kissed by the Gods chapter summary contains full spoilers.
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. 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. 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.”
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 44
Leina breaks out of a snow-blocked cave by hacking through the ice with her scythe. On the other side, she finds a faravar and feels an instant, overwhelming bond with it. The creature is female and smaller than the males Leina has encountered, but just as formidable, with feathers sharp enough to draw blood.
The faravar wants to fly, so Leina climbs on, and they take off. Instead of heading northwest toward the Synod, it steers northeast, and Leina decides to let it have the day. They spend hours in the sky together, looping, diving, and spinning until the sun is nearly down.
Leina and the faravar land in the Weeping Forest by the River Eleris, and she rubs the creature down with a fur from her pack. Frustrated that she still can’t hear its thoughts or know its name, she lashes out with her scythe and accidentally splits open a Veil. The faravar nudges her toward it, and they step through together.
Inside, the darkness is disorienting and suffocating, but the faravar spreads a wing around Leina to steady her. Then she speaks, revealing her name is Vaeloria, and their bond fully locks into place.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 45
Leina finds herself in a dark, formless void with Vaeloria, disoriented and unsure where they are. When she parts the shadows, she spots Ryot and Einarr being driven back against a crumbling ruin near a volcanic island by the Kher’zenn and their draegoths. Leina wants to go in alone to protect Vaeloria, but Vaeloria refuses to be left behind, and together they dive into the battle.
Their surprise attack throws the Kher’zenn off balance. Leina cuts down several enemies while Vaeloria hurls razor‑edged feathers like weapons, something Leina didn’t know she could do. Their intervention gives Ryot and Einarr enough time to launch a counterattack, and together the four of them bring down the remaining enemies until only one Kher’zenn escapes toward Morendahl.
Leina is ready to give chase, but Vaeloria pulls her back, and she sees Ryot collapsed on the ground with a deep wound across his neck. Leina and Vaeloria land, and Leina goes to work immediately, stitching Ryot’s wound shut with shaking, blood‑slicked fingers. She tries to open a jar of healing paste called aldersigh but can’t get the lid off as the shadowy void creeps back in around them. Running out of time, she smashes the jar against the stone and presses the paste into the wound. The darkness swallows Leina and Vaeloria before she can do anything more, and everything goes black.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 46
Leina wakes in a forest in agony, covered in ash, with Vaeloria beside her. They make their way to the River Eleris and spend a long time submerged, washing the debris from their bodies and slowly recovering. When they crawl out onto the bank, she notices her fingernails are still stained red with blood despite all that time in the water. Then it hits her that what she believed was a dream was real. She and Vaeloria were on Solmire Island with Ryot, and they left him there.
Driven by urgency, Leina wants to fly back to Solmire immediately but rules it out because Vaeloria is too exhausted and the journey could kill her. She tries instead to retrace her path from the night before, cutting through the Veil with her scythe, but it doesn’t work.
Out of options, Leina asks Vaeloria if she can make it to the Synod so they can send someone to rescue Ryot. Vaeloria agrees, and though both of them are completely drained, she launches into the sky and flies at remarkable speed. Leina urges her on, knowing Ryot and Einarr are running out of time.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 47
Leina calls an emergency assembly of the archons to convince them to send warriors to Solmire and rescue Ryot and Einarr. The archons are dismissive, treating the vision as nothing more than a bad dream.
The Elder then asks Leina to recount how she came to receive her faravar. Leina describes sheltering from an ice storm near the summit of Elandors Veil and dreaming of a dark, strange place before waking to find Vaeloria there.
When Leina reveals she already knows Vaeloria’s name, the archons recognize her as a veilstrider, a type of gifted person unseen for centuries. Rather than focusing on the rescue, they immediately start talking over each other about how to use Leina as a weapon.
Leina cuts the archons off and demands action. Archon Robias calls for volunteers, and dozens step forward. He promises to lead the party himself and ride without stopping until Ryot is brought home.
Left behind, Leina waits and hopes the riders make it in time.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 48
Ryot wakes in the infirmary after four days unconscious. Siofra catches him up on what he missed. Leina publicly revealed herself as a veilstrider, and Archon Robias personally led a contingent to search for Ryot. Einarr somehow managed to fly Ryot all the way to Carrisfal even in bad shape. Ryot also learns that Leina slept on the floor of his room the whole time he was out.
When Leina shows up to visit, she and Ryot fall into their usual push and pull. She tells him the Elder will be taking over her training for the winter while he’s away in Selencia. Before they can say much else, a ward interrupts to let Ryot know that Archon Robias is on his way to collect his post‑mission account.
Leina starts to leave, but Ryot stops her at the door. He tells her what’s between them has nothing to do with who owes whom anything anymore, and when she asks what they’re about, he says fate.
Kissed by the Gods Part 3: The Gifted
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 49
Leina crawls out of a training session in the Veil battered and spent, with a dark, glimmering wound on her arm that burns rather than bleeds. The Elder tosses her a healing tonic Elowen mixed specifically for that kind of injury, then calmly notes she’s doing well. Leina barely has the energy to challenge him. A moment later, frustration overwhelms her, and she punches a nearby tree hard enough to split it in half, injuring her hand in the process.
The Elder observes that the Veil seems to be imprinting on Leina, warping her emotional state the more she uses it. They talk briefly about the two veilstriders who came before her. Aerion, the most recent, was less powerful than she is and avoided the Veil as much as possible. The first has no surviving record beyond the fact that he died inside it.
Then, the Elder gives Leina what sounds like the simplest task yet: step through the Veil to reach a rock a few feet away. She steps through, and the Veil collapses into chaos around her.