THE FALLEN GODDESS E-Book

Claire Smith

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 181

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

They stole her divinity. Now, she will burn the world to take it back.” When Evelyn Gray begins dreaming of fire and wings, she believes it’s nothing more than trauma and insomnia—until the marks appear beneath her skin. Golden veins, glowing with impossible light. Whispers that call her by a name the world has long forgotten. A name of worship. A name of wrath. A name once spoken in fear. Drawn into the ruins buried beneath modern London, Evelyn uncovers a temple that bears her own face carved in stone—and awakens a power older than time itself. With that awakening comes Kael, a man bound by blood to her curse, whose devotion is as dangerous as his secrets. But divinity is not mercy. And every god demands a sacrifice. As the barrier between mortal and divine collapses, Evelyn must confront the truth: she was never meant to live a human life. She was the goddess they betrayed, and every heartbeat now feeds the fire of her return. Love and vengeance will battle for her soul. Fate will bow before her flame. For when gods fall… the world remembers.

Leseprobe

CLAIRE SMITH

THE FALLEN GODDESS

They stole her divinity, She will destroy their generations

First published by Ginnie Writes Publications 2025

Copyright © 2025 by CLAIRE SMITH

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

CLAIRE SMITH asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

[email protected]

First edition

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They stripped her of her throne and her name.

They thought eternity would forget her.

But divinity remembers.

And vengeance wears a crown of fire.

Contents

Prologue

I. PART ONE

Chapter 1

Down The Memory Lane

Chapter 2

The Stranger in the Rain

Chapter 3

The Mark Beneath Her Skin

Chapter 4

The Forgotten Temple

Chapter 5

The Mirror of Names

II. PART TWO

Chapter 6

The Man of Shadows

Chapter 7

Blood of Betrayal

Chapter 8

When She First Died

Chapter 9

The House That Talks

Chapter 10

THE GODDESS WITHIN

III. PART THREE

Chapter 11

The Lovers’ War

Chapter 12

THE CURSE REWRITTEN

Chapter 13

THE BETRAYER’S LINE

Chapter 14

THE SECOND FALL

Chapter 15

THE CHOICE OF FLAME

Epilogue

Prologue

chapter-seperator

The Trial Under the Black Sun

The sky was bleeding.

It was not the red of mortal dusk, but the deep, seething hue of a god’s wound. The heavens themselves trembled as the Assembly gathered beneath the obsidian arch of the Celestial Hall. Columns carved from moonstone rose into eternity, their light dimmed by the shadow of judgment.

At the center stood her. Barefoot, bound in golden chains that glowed with cruel precision, the goddess of dawn knelt upon the mirror floor — her reflection fractured, her wings clipped and bleeding silver.

Around her, the gods murmured in tones colder than stone.

“She defied the Decree of Light,” said one, voice like chimes in a crypt.

“She loved what she was forbidden to touch,” said another.

“And worse,” came a whisper from the high dais, “she bore compassion for the mortal world.”

A sound like thunder rippled through the assembly as the High Sovereign, robed in night itself, rose from his throne. His eyes were two eclipses. “Do you deny the charge?”

The goddess lifted her face. Her eyes, once radiant with the first sunrise, now burned a softer, defiant gold. “I deny nothing,” she said. Her voice was not meek; it was melody and defiance woven together. “To love is not a sin.”

The High Sovereign’s staff struck the marble, and the light flickered. “Love? You call it that? You who were made from flame and light, binding yourself to a creature of clay? You polluted your essence. You endangered eternity.”

Around her, the divine court stirred — ripples of fear and disgust.

She rose to her feet, though the chains tightened like living serpents around her wrists. “You speak of danger, yet you fear the one thing that could make you more than gods.”

The High Sovereign’s tone was like breaking ice. “And what is that, Daughter of Dawn?”

“Mercy,” she said. “The kind only mortals understand.”

A silence fell so deep that even the stars held their breath. Then, from the far end of the hall, a god with silver eyes — her brother, her judge, her betrayer — stepped forward.

“You should have come to me,” he murmured. “You should have asked for pardon.”

“I would rather fall,” she whispered, “than beg forgiveness for love.”

His expression faltered — for just a heartbeat — before he lifted his hand. A halo of burning runes formed above her head.

“Then fall you shall.”

Light exploded. The chains liquefied into searing gold, wrapping around her arms and throat, pulling her backward through the archway of heaven. Wind screamed, the sky cracked, and her wings ignited like paper in a god’s hand.

“Strip her name from the Book of Eternity,” the High Sovereign commanded. “Erase her temples. Let no mortal remember her face.”

But as she fell through the endless clouds, her voice cut through the storm like a curse.

“You can take my name,” she cried, “but you cannot erase the echo of what I am.”

The stars flinched. Even the wind recoiled.

“I will rise again,” she vowed. “And when I do… I will unmake the bloodlines of those who betrayed me.”

Lightning tore open the heavens, swallowing her whole.

And from above, the High Sovereign whispered — a tremor of both fear and reverence —

“Then let her rage be buried deep, until the end of all generations.”

The sky sealed itself. The world turned cold.

And the goddess fell.

She fell through eternity.

The storm did not end. It was not made of water or wind, but of memories and pain — a thousand voices screaming her name as if tearing her from the fabric of heaven itself. Every breath she drew was stolen light, every heartbeat a fading echo of her former glory.

The goddess struck the mortal world like a star collapsing. The earth opened to receive her, molten rivers devouring the place where she landed. Her body — once sculpted from sunrise — now bled human blood.

She gasped.

The taste of mortality was iron and salt.

Above her, the heavens sealed their wound. The black sun dimmed. Silence fell like a shroud.

She lay there, trembling, half-buried in ash, her skin seared with the marks of her crime. The golden chains had vanished, but the scars they left glowed faintly — living brands that would never fade.

Then came the voice.

“You should not have defied us.”

It wasn’t thunder. It wasn’t wind. It was her brother’s voice, disembodied and cruel, drifting through the ruins of the sky.

“Brother,” she whispered, coughing. “Do you come to watch me die?”

“Not to watch. To ensure you live. That is your punishment.”

She laughed then, hollow and broken. “Life as punishment. You’ve learned cruelty well.”

“You will walk among mortals,” he said, his tone smooth as glass. “But not as a goddess. You will hunger, you will age, you will love, and each time you will lose. That is the curse I bestow — memory eternal, peace denied.”

Her fists clenched in the dirt. “And you think this will tame me?”

A pause — the weight of sorrow hidden behind authority.

“It will break you.”

The ground cracked beneath her. Flames erupted, forming a circle around her body. The heat rose, curling her hair into black smoke.

“Until every drop of your divinity burns away,” he said, “you will remember what you were, and mourn what you can never be again.”

She screamed then — a sound that was not human. The mountains trembled. Oceans rose. Even the stars dimmed in sympathy.

And as her cry shattered the night, something ancient stirred within her chest — not her heart, but the ember of her power. Small, furious, undying.

She forced herself upright, her skin blistered and raw, her eyes reflecting the inferno around her. “You think I will kneel?” she shouted into the darkness. “You think I will forget?”

A whisper answered — the voice of a thousand gods in one breath.

“You will remember, and remembering will destroy you.”

“Then I will take destruction as my throne,” she hissed.

Her shadow stretched across the burning field, and the world seemed to bow before it.

“I swear upon the ashes of my divinity,” she said, her words trembling with divine power,

“that the blood of my betrayers will never know peace. Their sons will dream of fire. Their daughters will be born with the taste of grief.”

Lightning flashed. The clouds recoiled.

“I will find them,” she whispered, quieter now, “in every life, in every age. And when the stars themselves forget their names, I will remember.”

A cold rain began to fall, hissing against the fire. The sky turned gray.

And from that storm, a single feather — blackened, smoking — drifted down to her hand.

Her last fragment of heaven.

She clutched it to her chest, whispering to the emptiness, “You took my light. You left me shadow. I will show you what shadow can become.”

Her voice trembled, breaking at the edges of fury and grief.

“I am not gone,” she said softly. “Only waiting.”

The flames died.

The goddess — nameless now, mortal and broken — fell forward into the mud. Her golden eyes dimmed as centuries folded over her like a burial shroud.

And far above, in the place where gods could no longer see her, the wind carried her final words:

“Let them build their empires. Let them love and forget. I will return… when their blood calls me home.”

The dream always began with thunder.

It rolled across her mind like the end of the world — deep, aching, familiar. Every night, the same fire. Every night, the same voice. And every morning, Evelyn Gray woke with ash on her tongue and tears drying on her skin.

The city outside her window was still dark when she gasped awake. London — alive, indifferent, soaked in rain. Neon lights flickered across the glass like trembling stars. Her heart hammered as she sat up in bed, her breath fogging in the cold air.

Not again.

She rubbed her temples, pushing back the heavy strands of hair that clung to her face. The taste of the dream lingered — metallic, sorrowful. A whisper had followed her out of it this time, softer than breath but clear as glass:

“Do you remember me?”

Her throat tightened. “No,” she whispered to the empty room. “I don’t.”

But that was a lie. She didn’t know who the voice belonged to — or what it wanted — but each time she heard it, something in her soul recoiled like a burned nerve.

The wind outside howled against the windowpane. The city below groaned with early traffic, buses and sirens and distant thunder. But beneath all of it was the faintest hum — low, rhythmic, like a pulse beneath the skin of the world.

She pressed a hand to her chest. Her heartbeat matched it. Too fast. Too heavy.

“Evelyn?” The voice from the doorway startled her — her flatmate, Lila, bleary-eyed and wrapped in a blanket. “You’re up again. Bad dream?”

Evelyn nodded, her lips dry. “The same one.”

Lila frowned. “You should see someone. That’s— what, three months straight now?”

“Four,” Evelyn murmured. “And I don’t think a therapist can help with this one.”

Lila hesitated, watching her friend’s trembling hands. “You say it like it’s real.”

Evelyn’s eyes met hers. “It feels real.”

And it did. In her sleep, she could smell the burning air. She could hear the crack of chains, the shattering of light. She could feel the pain of falling — not from a height, but from a place. A purpose. A name she could almost touch.

“Maybe you’re remembering something,” Lila said softly. “Something from before.”

Evelyn gave a shaky laugh. “Before what, Lila? Another life?”

Her friend didn’t smile. “Maybe.”

The idea hung in the air, absurd and yet… it resonated. Evelyn swallowed hard, glancing back at the rain-slicked window. In the reflection, for just a heartbeat, she thought she saw someone standing behind her — tall, cloaked in shadow, eyes like lightning.

She spun. No one was there.

Her voice trembled. “I think… someone’s trying to talk to me.”

“Eve, you’re scaring me.”

“I’m scaring myself,” she whispered. “Because I think I might be listening.”

The thunder outside cracked again, louder this time — so close the glass shuddered. And in that instant, the world around her flickered. The flat dissolved into flame and smoke. The rain became ash. She was standing in a field of fire, her nightdress turning to silk, her bare feet sinking into molten gold.

She saw her hands — not human anymore, glowing faintly, marked by sigils she didn’t understand.

“Who are you?” she cried into the storm. “Why are you showing me this?”

And the voice — the same one from her dreams — came closer. No longer soft. No longer kind.

“Because you were never meant to forget.”

A figure emerged in the fire, his face hidden by light, his presence vast enough to make her knees buckle. She couldn’t see him clearly, but she felt something — grief, longing, rage — so intense it made her chest ache.

“They stole what you were,” he said.

“But the blood remembers.”

“I don’t understand!” she shouted, backing away as the ground cracked beneath her.

“You will,” the voice said. “When the first one dies.”

The vision shattered.

Evelyn fell backward onto her bed, gasping, her sheets drenched in sweat. The rain was still pounding the window. Lila’s voice came faintly from the hall, worried, but Evelyn couldn’t answer.

Her hand was glowing.

Just faintly — a flicker of gold beneath the skin, like veins of light pulsing under her palm. It faded slowly, leaving her trembling and breathless.

And then, in the mirror across the room, words began to appear in the fog of condensation — written by a hand she could not see.

“Do you remember the fire?”

Her breath hitched. “No,” she whispered again, though her voice cracked with the lie.

Outside, thunder rolled — but this time, it sounded like laughter.

Rain hissed against the glass until dawn blurred the city into shades of grey. Evelyn hadn’t slept again. She sat at the kitchen table wrapped in a blanket, a mug of untouched coffee cooling beside her, eyes fixed on her trembling hand.

The faint golden glow was gone, but the memory of it burned behind her eyelids.

Her phone buzzed. Lila’s message: You okay?

She typed back Fine, then deleted it. What word existed for not fine, not sane, maybe haunted by a god?

Her mind replayed the voice: “When the first one dies.”

Who?

And why did that sentence feel less like a threat than a promise?

A drop of water fell onto her wrist. She blinked. The ceiling wasn’t leaking. The drop came from her eyes — except it wasn’t a tear. It shimmered like molten gold before fading into her skin. She stared, breath caught.

“The blood remembers.”

The whisper coiled through the apartment. Not outside. Inside. A vibration at the base of her skull, like an echo of her own thoughts but older, wiser, wounded.

“Who are you?” she asked the empty air.

Silence.

Then, faintly, from somewhere between heartbeat and breath:

“You.”

The cup slipped from her fingers and shattered. Coffee splashed across the floor like spilt earth. She stumbled backward, pressing herself against the counter. Her pulse raced so violently that the lights flickered.

“I’m losing it,” she whispered. “I’m actually—”

“Not lost,” the voice interrupted, gentle now. “Only waiting.”

The words came with a rush of images: a woman cloaked in fire, chains melting, wings spread over a burning field. A crown tumbling from her hands. The sound of her own scream.

Evelyn doubled over, gasping. Her reflection in the dark window flickered again — this time, it wasn’t her face staring back. It was the woman from her dream, eyes of molten gold, mouth set in a vow.

“They took everything.”

Evelyn’s voice cracked. “What do you want from me?”

“To finish what we began.”

Thunder rolled so hard the windows rattled. The room darkened; every shadow seemed to bend toward her, kneeling.

A power thrummed through her veins — terrifying, intoxicating, familiar. The air smelled faintly of smoke and roses. Somewhere in the city, a clock struck six; the sound rippled like a warning.

She stumbled to the window and pushed it open. Rain lashed her face, but it felt like heat, not cold. Far below, London crawled awake — people in coats, umbrellas blooming like dark flowers. None of them knew that the sky above them had just remembered her.

She closed her eyes. For a heartbeat she could hear two rhythms — her mortal pulse and another beneath it, slower, older, steady as the turn of worlds.

“Evelyn Gray,” the voice murmured from the wind.

“Or whatever name you choose in this life — the hunt begins.”

Her breath hitched. “What hunt?”

“The bloodline of those who bound us.”

The air went still.

And then came a single image so vivid it seared itself behind her eyes — a man standing in the rain, black coat dripping, head tilted as though he’d felt her gaze. His eyes, dark as obsidian, lifted to meet hers across impossible distance.

Recognition slammed into her chest.

She didn’t know him. She’d never met him.

But her soul flinched.

The voice inside her whispered one final time, almost tender:

“There he is. The first.”

Lightning flashed. The world went white.

When her vision cleared, the man was gone. Only the echo of his presence lingered, humming through her bones like a vow.

Evelyn drew a shuddering breath and whispered to the empty room,

“I don’t believe in fate.”

From somewhere deep within, the answer came, soft and smiling and cruel:

“You will.”

The lights flickered out. The rain stopped.

And in the silence that followed, the goddess of dawn — reborn, forgotten, furious — opened her eyes fully for the first time in a thousand years.

I

Part One

THE ECHO OF FIRE

Chapter 1

chapter-seperator

Down The Memory Lane

London did not sleep.

It only shifted, breathed, and burned beneath its own cold skin.

At three in the morning, the city was a cathedral of whispers — the hiss of rain against glass, the low hum of tires over wet streets, the sigh of lights turning from amber to red. Somewhere within that restless breathing, Evelyn Gray dreamed of fire.

She always did.

It began the same way it had for as long as she could remember — a silver plain beneath a violet sky, the smell of smoke and salt, the silhouette of a woman walking toward a temple that glowed like an open wound. And then came the voice — low, melodic, and impossibly sad.

“You cannot hide from eternity, little flame.”

She turned in the dream. The world rippled as though made of glass, and a shadow stepped forward — tall, cloaked, eyes burning gold. His hand reached for her, fingers wreathed in smoke. When he spoke again, the air trembled.

“Do you remember what you were?”

She woke with a gasp, the sheets twisted around her like vines, the echo of that voice still burning in her skull.

For a moment, she didn’t move. Her heart slammed against her ribs, heavy and arrhythmic, as if trying to match a rhythm older than itself. The apartment around her was silent — too silent — and for a heartbeat she swore the air smelled faintly of ash.

“Not again…” she whispered, pressing a trembling hand to her temple. “It’s just a dream. Just— a dream.”

But when she turned on the bedside lamp, there were faint scorch marks on the edge of her pillow. The fabric smoldered slightly, curling at the edges like burned parchment.

Evelyn froze. Then, deliberately, she blew it out.

Outside, the rain thickened. Lightning cut across the window, and for an instant she saw a reflection in the glass that wasn’t her own — the same gold eyes, watching from a place she couldn’t name.

By morning, the fire had dulled to memory.

Evelyn went through her motions with mechanical precision — shower, coffee, the walk to the art gallery where she worked as a restoration assistant. The world around her moved normally, yet everything felt too sharp, too present, as though reality had been rewritten overnight.

The gallery’s ancient halls were lined with relics of forgotten gods — tablets, urns, fragments of carved stone etched with the same sigils she’d begun sketching in her sleep. When she brushed a hand across one of the marble reliefs — a depiction of a winged woman kneeling before a throne — a shock of warmth shot through her fingers.

“Careful,” said a voice behind her. “That piece’s older than the concept of sin.”

She turned. A man stood in the archway — tall, dressed in black, with the kind of stillness that made silence seem like its natural element. His hair was ink-dark, his expression unreadable. But it was his eyes that caught her breath.

Gold. Faint, but unmistakable.

Evelyn blinked, trying to disguise the sudden rush of vertigo. “I—I didn’t see you there. You’re with the museum?”

A faint smile. “In a way.”

“Then you should know visitors aren’t allowed past the cordon.”

He stepped closer. Not threateningly — almost reverently, as though the air itself had weight.

“I’m not a visitor, Miss Gray.”

Something in the way he said her name — softly, carefully — made her chest tighten.

“Then what are you?”

The man tilted his head, his gaze flickering to the ancient carving between them. “A keeper of debts,” he said. “And you owe a great one.”

Her throat went dry. “Excuse me?”