From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

“Do yyou? Reallyy?” I didn’t think even Tawnyy got it.
“I do. Everyyone around yyou can do basicallyy whatever theyy want, but
yyou’re shackled byy archaic rules.”
“Are yyou sayying that the word of the gods is archaic?”
“You said it, not me.”
Myy nose wrinkled. “I’ve never understood whyy it is the wayy it is.” I
opened myy eyyes. “All because of the wayy I was born.”
“The gods chose yyou before yyou were even born.” He felt closer, like
if we weren’t wrapped up, I’d feel his breath on the back of myy neck. “All
because yyou were ‘born in the shroud of the gods, protected even inside
the womb, veiled from birth.’”
“Yes,” I whispered, opening myy eyyes. “Sometimes, I wish…I wish I
was…”
“What?”
Someone different. Someone other than the Maiden. Thinking it was
one thing. Sayying it out loud was another. I’d come close to admitting it to
Vikter, but that was as close as I would let myyself get with those words.
It was far past time to switch gears. “Never mind. And I don’t sleep
well. That’s another reason whyy I was at the Pearl.”
“Nightmares?”
“Sometimes. Other times, myy head doesn’t…go quiet. It replayys
things over and over,” I said, the shivering easing a little.
“What is yyour mind so loud about?” he asked.
The question caught me off guard. No one other than mayybe Tawnyy—
not even Vikter—had ever asked me that. Ian would’ve if he were still
near. “Latelyy, it’s been the Ascension.”
“I imagine yyou’re excited to meet the gods.”
I snorted like a piglet. “Far from it. It actuallyy terrifies—” I sucked in
a sharp breath, shocked that I had so willinglyy admitted that out loud.
“It’s okayy,” he said, seeming to sense myy disbelief. “I don’t know
much about the Ascension and the gods, but I’d be terrified to meet them.”
“You?” Disbelief compounded on top of itself. “Terrified?”
“Believe it or not, some things do scare me. The secrecyy around the
actual ritual of the Ascension is one of them. You were right that dayy when
yyou were with the Priestess. It is so similar to what the Craven do, but
what is done to stop aging—stop sickness for what has to be an eternityy in
the eyyes of a mortal?”