He gave a curt nod. “Even though we’d been friends, during the first war of the gods I fought against the Malachai and his army. Against my own mother and her sister. I was the reason your great ancestor was defeated, cursed, and enslaved. It was for that betrayal against them that I was set up, betrayed, and punished by all those I called ally, including my own brother, who will never again have faith in me. For anything. My mother and aunt strove to teach me a vital lesson about trusting others. And it is one I learned well, indeed. No matter how much of yourself you give. No matter how much you bleed. In the end, they believe whatever lie they want to believe about you. They see only the worst, in spite of the fact that you only gave them your best. And there’s nothing you can do or say to change another’s mind. Ever.”

Xev’s eyes clearly telegraphed the depth of his anguish. “The real truth never catches up to the venom enemies spew against you. So I don’t expect you to believe me about today, or anything else. No one ever has. My mother personally saw to it that no one would ever put me at their back again. Not for any reason.”

“Wait,” Kody said with a scowl. “The Sephiroth general, Jared, was the one who ended that war.”

“No. He naively betrayed his Sephirii army to the dark powers and put down his own soldiers, but I was the god who ended the war by making sure the Mavromino were cut off from this world. So after Braith abandoned her siblings for the deal they made against her child, it was my blood used to seal those original gates to Azmodea. My blood that continues to hold them back from this world.”

Kody gasped. “That’s why you’re the Malachai’s blood general. You’re the one who locked Azura and Noir in their prison.”

Xev gave a slow single nod. “And it’s my blood, through the Malachai’s hand and magic, that’s needed to unlock it and release them back into this realm.”

Completely still, Nick was trying to digest that and not lose his mind in the process. The Mavromino, which could be both singular or plural, was the essence of all darkness. The great evil that had spawned the three primal dark gods—Azura, Braith, and Noir.

From a forbidden affaire de coeur that had ended tragically, Braith had birthed the first Malachai and seen her child cursed by the gods of light, who’d demanded the Malachai’s wife and child be sacrificed to appease them. Heartbroken and with no other choice about the matter, Braith had vanished and left her son to become the property of her evil siblings, Azura and Noir.

To never again see her child, if she wanted him to live.

Since the day they’d been locked away from the world of man, Azura and Noir had been trying to get back to it and restart the war they’d lost. Each generation of Malachai had been a tug-of-war of wills between the two ancient gods and the Malachai, who was both a weapon and tool for them. Without Braith, Azura and Noir lacked the total control they needed for the Malachai to make him do their bidding.