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Kissed by the Gods Chapters 44–53 Summary
This Caty Rogan Kissed by the Gods chapter summary contains full spoilers.
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. They 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 him. 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.
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.
The Elder then 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.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 50
Leina is deep in the Veil, a shifting, unstable dimension she has been training in for months, with Vaeloria at her side. When she pushes further into it, the Veil resists violently and nearly throws her off balance. She spots a still, soft silhouette in the distance that radiates a strange, familiar warmth, but it dissolves before she can reach it. A second source of that same warmth draws her forward, and she and Vaeloria are flung out of the Veil into the Weeping Forest, far from where she intended to land.
There Leina finds Leo playing in the snow with a girl named Bri. The siblings’ reunion is emotional, but what unsettles Leina almost immediately is that Bri greets Vaeloria by name with easy familiarity, as though they’re old friends. This should be impossible for a child with no reason to know either of them.
When Leina tries to go with Leo to a nearby camp to find Seb, Bri stops her because the Veil is already pulling her back. Before Leina goes, Bri tells her not to fear the Veil. Bri then sings a lullaby Leina recognizes from her own childhood, and warns her to be wary of hammers. Bri’s father Aelric suddenly crashes through the trees with his sword drawn. Leo gets one last hug in before the Veil drags Leina away.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 51
Leina returns from the Veil worn out and guarded. The Elder senses she’s hiding something about where she went but lets it go, ordering her to rest and resume training with Ryot. That’s when she finds out Ryot has been back from Selencia for some time already without seeking her out.
Before Leina can process it, Ryot storms into the clearing and throws a stolen journal at the Elder’s feet. It belonged to the first veilstrider and came from Elandors Veil. The journal reveals that veilstriders leave their physical bodies behind when they cross over, and that the first veilstrider wasn’t lost to the Veil at all. He was stabbed while his soul was on the other side.
Leina refutes what Ryot said, since she and Vaeloria always cross together. They work out that Vaeloria, being born of the Veil, carries Leina’s body and soul through at the same time. The real danger comes when Leina crosses during sleep, because she goes alone and her body is left unprotected. The Elder takes it seriously and releases Leina into Ryot’s care, telling her to move to a private room in the Stormriven hall with a cover story about needing space to study her gift.
Once the Elder is gone, Ryot tells Leina what he found in Selencia. It’s bad enough that starting over is the only real option. A full accord session has been called in fourteen days, and Princess Rissa will stand with them to present their findings.
When Leina moves closer to Ryot, he steps back and shuts it down, telling her they need to train.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 52
Leina drags herself back to her room after another rough day in the sparring ring with Ryot, bruised and exhausted. Her friends show up at her door to bring her to the Crimson Feather for the first night out she’s had all winter. She agrees to go, and since she has nothing suitable to wear, Thalric volunteers to walk her to Elowen’s room to borrow something.
On the way, Thalric opens up about his relationship with Nyrica and the decade they spent apart after both presented at the Synod. He also mentions offhand that Ryot slept outside Leina’s door the night before.
At Elowen’s, Leina borrows a beautiful green and gold silk gown, and while she’s getting ready, she picks up a pair of scissors to cut her hair the way she has since her former love Alden died. But she puts the scissors back down. She decides she’s ready to let go of her grief.
Leina and Thalric head out to join the others.
Kissed by the Gods Chapter 53
Leina arrives at the Crimson Feather with Thalric, where they meet the rest of their group inside. When the two of them cross the room, everything goes quiet because no one there has ever seen a female Altor before.
A pompous nobleman named Daimor Chasen approaches Leina. He shows off his brooches, including a beetle symbol she recognizes from an earlier encounter tied to oath‑binding magic. When he touches her scar without permission, she slaps his hand away, and guards escort him off.
A more agreeable man named Roran Chasen introduces himself as a distant cousin of the king. Nyrica and Thalric warn Leina that his gift lets him influence other people’s will, so she keeps her mental defenses up. She enjoys Roran’s company anyway. They play two truths and a lie, then dance together. Ryot comes up in conversation, which rattles Leina more than she’d like.
When Leina mentions a headache, Roran suggests somewhere quieter and leads her to a private bedroom. He kisses her, and when she tries to pull back, he uses his gift to coerce her into staying. Her mental defenses break it. She draws a dagger, backs him against the wall, and turns their two truths and a lie game into a threat. Before Roran can leave, Ryot bursts through the door.