Thea's eyes widen in realization and she stops speaking, her lips trembling.

"What will I tell them?" she whispers. "They'll be so angry if they find out I sneaked into the game."

"What's going on?" I frown. She mentioned before that if they were found out to be participating in the game, they'd get in trouble, but she never specified why.

"I think it's time to come clean, Thea. She'll find out sooner or later anyway," Cer tells her. Thea licks her lips as she glances at her brother, fidgeting on the spot.

"Well... There might have been one tiny, very little detail I omitted."

I wait for her to continue, but she stalls as she keeps looking at Cer.

"There is a clause in the game that gods cannot participate." She starts in a hesitant tone, fiddling with her fingers. "And well... technically, I haven't passed my exams yet, so I haven't qualified as a deity, but..." She gives her brother a worried look. "You won't tell them, will you?" she whispers to him, pulling on his sleeve as she nestles closer to his side. She bats her lashes at him adoringly, and he doesn't seem immune to her charm.

"So you two are deities?" I raise a brow. At this point, I don't think anything can shock me anymore. In fact, all of Thea's vague answers so far and the fact that she has so much knowledge of everything should have given it away.

"He is." She points at Cer. "I am going to be too, at some point," she grumbles.

"How does this work? You become a deity? You're not born one?" I ask, a little confused. In all the mythological stories I'd read, gods were born to other gods, and in rare cases, mortals were granted divine powers from other gods. But I haven't seen anywhere anything about exams.

"You must be born one, but you only qualify as a deity when your powers mature and you exhibit extraordinary abilities. That doesn't happen to everyone. There are those like Cer who are naturals, or there are those like me who need some time to get better," she explains. "It's not a very clear-cut system. In many ways, it is a meritocracy. Only the best get appointed positions, and only the most exceptional ones get nominated for the position of a Supreme."

"I'm sure you are familiar with human myths," Cer interrupts. "Many of the ancient ones have a pantheon of gods, and each god is assigned to different phenomena."

I nod.

"The Supremes are those gods. But unlike your mortal stories, each main god is a position rather than a person. Take for example the God of Fire. There is no one being who is the God of Fire. Across time, multiple people have borne that name. Gods may be immortal, but they are not impervious. If one dies, another is elected to take its place to maintain the balance of the universe."