26. Drowning
26
DROWNING
Cassian topped his glass off with bourbon. The muscles in his arms flexed before he downed it in a single gulp. The fiery liquid enhanced the emotion thrumming throughout his system.
He will never remember me.
We will never get back what we had.
Why did I agree to do it?
I should have never let him drink the potion.
We could’ve figured out another way.
He would be forever forced to meet the look of resentment on Finnian’s face. All because of their altered memories in Finnian’s mind that Cassian knew nothing of.
He would’ve painted me as a monster.
No hesitation, he’d said.
Cassian’s chest caved. He inhaled, but it felt impossible to fill his lungs.
His grip tightened around the glass, and he squeezed, shattering the drinkware. Broken shards sliced the skin of his palm, the insides of his fingers.
It was supposed to end. Finnian’s memories were supposed to return. Cassian hadn’t thought about what he would do if they failed to come back. The thought had been too devastating to consider.
How could I be so na?ve?
Because it would have drowned you.
He shouted and grabbed the bottle of bourbon and sent it flying across the room. It crashed into the wall. Liquor and broken glass made an amber mess on the floor.
He grabbed another bottle and slung it as well. And another, screaming, spit flying out of his mouth. Memories of the past burned behind his eyes—flickers of Finnian’s smile, the dimples in his cheeks, the tender recognition in his gaze as it fell onto Cassian.
His fists came down on the bar cart, breath heavy, pieces of hair falling into his eyes.
“I must say, it pleases me to see you so distraught.”
Cassian’s spine stiffened at the alluring melody of her voice.
Through his ardor, he felt the distinct plush of her divine energy seeping into the room.
He pushed a hand through his hair, taking a moment to relax the corded muscles bulging in his neck before spinning around. “What do you want?”
Ruelle sat with one leg crossed over the other, the slit of her rose-lace dress riding up her thigh and over her hip. She was settled back in the chair with her elbow propped on the arm, gripping her chin. “I hear you have taken the young god into custody.”
Cassian glowered at her, longing to choke the life out of her sparkling gemstone gaze.
When he did not reply, she continued. “It appears he is in possession of the Himura demigod’s blood.”
Cassian had watched her carefully over the past century and a half. With Finnian’s memories altered and with him despising Cassian, their threads had been separated by their own volition. She could not meddle if there was nothing to meddle in. However, it seemed now that Finnian was back in Cassian’s realm, she was suspicious.
He obsessively turned over the fact in his mind as he stared at her.
His mouth went dry, and he swallowed, casually placing his hands inside his pockets. “It is a dangerous item for someone like him to possess.”
Ruelle tilted her head in a sanctimonious manner. “What is your plan once you have located it?”
“That will be something for the Council to decide as a whole.”
They were already nervous. Naia’s new title as a High Goddess of Eternity was one thing. The power to turn mortals into immortal beings was another. It would cause an uproar of prayers among the Mortal Land. Her power would only grow. And then there was the matter that she’d blessed eternal life to Ronin, a Himura witch, and then together, they had a demigod child whose blood could kill a deity. Gods were already conspiring against her. If she were to make Ash immortal, Cassian was sure there would be another deity war.
Ruelle gave a breathy laugh. “You have never been one to tell a lie and do it well, Cassian.”
“You can see the Fate of the child,” he said. “Why are you here pretending to play the fool?”
“You’ve thought it out. I am not like you or your siblings. I do not have a realm to uphold, and much like you and your deities of Death, I work with my own lineage as a collective. One of them could easily take my place.”
“Do you have a point in sight?” Cassian gritted out with forced restraint.
“You want me dead.” She stared at him for a moment, silently challenging him to tell another lie. “Isn’t that so?”
Despite the palpitating of his heart, Cassian's expression remained cavalier. “Desiring your death should not come as a surprise, Ruelle. Truly, after how long you have tormented me.”
He’d known it was only a matter of time until she figured out their plan once Finnian came back to him. Ruelle was many things, but she was no fool.
Ruelle raised off the chair and strutted towards him, her auburn strands gleaming like silk waves down her shoulders. “Did you not think I found it odd when yours and Finnian’s threads miraculously untethered?” She rounded behind him. “There is only one way this plays out, Cassian.”
His pulse throbbed in his skull.
He tightened his hands into fists inside of his pockets, reining in the monster within him that urged to devour her. “Do tell.”
Her small hands smoothed up his back and onto the tops of his shoulders. “Rest assured, while I cannot weave the threads of a deity, I have other ways of making one suffer. Why do you think I have involved Acacius in my scheme?” She lifted on her toes, her breath scratching Cassian’s nape. “You will find where Finnian is hiding the blood, and you will hand it over to me, or your precious beloved will know the true depths of torment and Ruin.”
The muscles in Cassian’s shoulders went taut under her palms.
Cassian did not miss the way she spoke of Ruin, insinuating his brother’s involvement. Whether Acacius knew her true intentions or not, he would do anything for Ruelle. Cassian did not doubt his brother’s love for him, but he did doubt his judgement. Ruelle had Acacius wrapped around her petite, smooth fingers. Manipulating his gullibility and desire for love would be Acacius’s downfall.
Cassian slowly turned and towered over her, the buzzing of his fury reverberating in his ears. “Am I to believe you would not use the blood on Finnian in the end? That is what this is about, Ruelle. What it’s always been about. You long to see me suffer for the heartache I caused you when I refused to resurrect Klaus.”
At the mention of Klaus, the cunning look in her eyes formed into malice. “I wish to inflict far worse upon you.” Her voice twisted. “To show you what it is like to experience true loss.” She smirked viciously, a backdrop of teeth behind red-stained lips. “In Death, you will lose your title as ruler, forced to spend eternal separation from your beloved—as I have.”
True misery.
He could see it. Nothing but a yearning soul in his own realm, drowning in reveries. Forever separated from Finnian.
A calm spread apart the tide of his anger, settling everything inside of him.
He had walked a little over a century with a bone-deep despair, just to one day be on the other side of Finnian’s eyes with their past reawakened in his mind. He could still revive Finnian’s memory. There was time. Find the blood and kill her before she could touch him.
But Finnian’s life was never something Cassian was willing to bet on.
One thing Cassian knew to be true after his five thousand years: he loved Finnian. The young god was in his blood, in the shivers of his soul, and if death was Cassian’s fate, then he was willing to accept it if it meant Finnian lived.
Finnian did not remember him, anyway. He would carry on with his days, and Cassian could hold on to their memories—in death.
“I will get the blood,” he told her. “However, you will not trifle with Finnian’s thread. You will leave him be.” Whirling masses of his divine power surged over his shoulders like a monster in the shadows, sucking the air out of the room. “I have nothing to lose, Ruelle. Set your sights on him, and your beloved Klaus will share his pain, tenfold. My title be damned.”
She lifted her chin, eyes narrowed. “Get me the blood, and I vow to leave Finnian’s Fate untouched.”
Cassian paced down the throne room as Mavros took long strides beside him to keep up. The crowd of deities parted for him before he fabricated onto the stairs of the dais.
“There is the soul of a boyden in the Land. It goes by Alke.” Cassian stared out at the Errai before him. He could feel the tranquil presence of Nathaira to his right, the comfort of Mavros to his left. Aligning the back wall with three executioners stood Shivani. “ Boydens are loyal to their masters, even in death. Alke is somewhere in the Land, but he will remain hidden unless he hears the specific call from Finnian. You will search for him, and you will not stop until he is found.”
As the ruler of the Land, Cassian could sense every footprint, every breath within his realm. This damn boyden seemed to be the one exception to this. Its devotion and power ran deep and had followed it into the afterlife.
Memories surfaced: Cassian cleaning up the small kitchen of Finnian’s townhome, the bird perched on the top of the stove, scurrying down the short hall, disappearing up the chimney. Cassian knew Finnian. Right now, Finnian believed his goal was to find Vale and free him. He wouldn’t hide the blood somewhere far away. He’d keep it nearby, in case he needed to use it as a last resort.
Alke was the perfect hiding spot. A place nobody else would think to find.
The chains held Finnian’s arms up, his body limp against their weight.
An illusion of darkness currently suffocated his consciousness. It smothered any sense of awareness and kept his mind calm. Cassian did not wish to bring any suffering upon him, but he would have to figure out how to revive the lost memories soon.
Moros was connected to Acacius’s realm. He often made rounds in the prison. If he saw Finnian was unharmed, it would look as if Cassian was doing nothing to get the information out of Finnian. Something Acacius would report back to Ruelle.
Cassian knelt and used his handkerchief to wipe the sweat and soot of the Moros air from his brow. Frizzy waves of his hair clung to his neck, his cheeks.
Pain speared through Cassian’s chest as he gently peeled the strands back.
I miss you.
He longed to say the words, to tell this version of Finnian everything of their plan and their relationship. But he knew it wouldn’t work. This Finnian believed the worst in Cassian. He would trust his own false memories over Cassian, regardless of his truth.
Then you must find a way to help me remember us.
Once upon a time, they had truly despised one another. A resentment hid lapses of curiosity, tender twitches of the heart, slowly wearing one another down until that hatred evolved into a maddening love.
That is where their story began.
“I loathe you.” He infused the phrase into his illusion, stitched it into every thought, every spare space of Finnian’s mind. “How much do you loathe me?”
After a year’s time of scouring every inch of the Land, Alke was nowhere to be found.
“He dropped by today,” Shivani informed Cassian.
Cassian paced the pathway in front of the ivy-covered ruins, his throat tight. “Acacius will go back and tell Ruelle I am doing nothing.”
The possibilities of how Ruelle could make Finnian suffer were limitless.
Sweat coated his underarms as he pulled at the tie around his neck.
Being the ruler of Death, he knew what needed to be done.
A sickness roiled in his stomach.
He rotated to face Shivani.
She wore a black robe, the front unzipped and showing her stocky cargo pants and brown top, rusty blood crusted all over the fabric. Specks of it marked her bronze cheeks and the hairline of her tight ponytail. She held the look of a true goddess of slaughter, one who took manic joy in carving skin from bone.
“Do it,” he ordered her. The words burned like acid on his tongue.
Her brow furrowed, studying him with hesitation, the way someone gauged the insane. “My lord, are you certain? We can figure out another way.”
He’d never seen her hesitate, much less dispute over the idea of torturing someone.
Cassian refused to think too hard about what he was commanding her to do. The moment he did, something vital in him would collapse and he couldn’t fall apart. He couldn’t. Not yet.
“Do it,” he repeated, irritation wringing his insides.
Shivani placed a hand over her forehead, distressed. “The young god is resilient, my lord. To do what you are asking, I will have to?—”
“I know what you will have to do!” Cassian snarled, his entire body going rigid.
She flinched, taking a step away from him.
In all the years they’d known one another, he’d never lost his temper on her.
Regret burrowed in the hollow remains of his chest.
I don’t know what to do.
No longer able to stand the look of her wary body language, he turned away, raising his arms and gripping the sides of his head.
I need you. I need you, Finny.
“I apologize, Shivani.” Tears burned his eyes. “You must do this. I do not wish to curse him—” His voice quavered at the thought.
It was what he would do if Finnian were anyone else; what Ruelle had been waiting for him to do.
Shivani crouched beside him and wrapped her arms around his neck, the stench of copper filling his nose. “I will do what I can to get the information out of him, my lord. You have my word.”
Finnian’s wails echoed throughout the mountain and shuddered across the soft fields of lavender.
Cassian sat on the edge of his bed, hands pinned over his ears, rocking steadily back and forth.
As the ruler of the Land, he was connected to the terrain, and because of this, the cries played relentlessly, like a banshee caged in his ears. He’d grown accustomed to them. It was like a switch he learned to activate when needed. Only now, it was impossible to turn it off.
After giving Shivani the order, he confined himself to the walls of his chamber. No matter what, he had to resist doing something irrevocably stupid—like teleporting to Moros and interfering, or worse, unshackling Finnian and setting him free.
Another excruciating cry mauled at Cassian’s ears.
He ripped up from his bed, his muscles straining. His divine power flared in his veins, chipping away at his self-control.
You cannot interfere.
He dug his hands into his hair, staring down at the onyx-crystal floor. The shape of his feet blurred. He blinked away the moisture collecting in his eyes as images of Finnian, bloody and writhing in agony, assaulted his mind.
Finnian’s gut-wrenching scream reverberated through him again and again, tattering his heart.
I can’t do this.
He stormed for the door, gripped the handle—and froze.
A curse would be worse.
You must not let it get to that point.
Cassian teleported, forgetting to put his suit jacket back on.
The tart breeze brushed through his hair as he dropped in between rows of pomegranate trees. Serpents scattered at his presence, coiling up the bark and slithering into the shadows.
Cassian’s eyes flitted around the silhouettes of the branches. Sitting around and doing nothing would only make him go insane.
Find the bird.
Find the bird and this can all end.
Lifting his fingers to his lips, he did his best to mimic Finnian’s call to summon Alke. It hadn’t worked yet, but Cassian didn’t know what else to do.
The whistle traveled across the orchard.
Cassian waited, concentrating on the dark sky for any signs of movement.
Nothing.
Finnian’s scream went on and on, trapped, as if it were stuck in a vase.
Cassian slumped down into a crouch. His hands scraped through his hair and over his ears as a sob broke in his throat.
He folded in on himself, weeping.
Perhaps this is my own curse.