31. Come to Me
31
COME TO ME
Finnian
Finnian raced towards Ruelle, swerving and sidestepping her threads.
Herons hailed from above. Wolves leapt with teeth bared. Soldiers with pikes, mages with tomes, commoners with just fists—they all raged forward to protect Finnian. Though, the High Goddess moved as if she were made of water, dodging the attacks flawlessly, beautifully, eyes crisp and ready for the souls. Her threads tangled around them like nets around thrashing prey.
“We’ll create an opportunity for you!” Eleanor called out behind him. “ Ignis !”
Sparks of fire blazed over his head and rained down over Ruelle.
Eleanor thrust her palms out and moved them side to side in quick, distinct motions. The scattering of fireworks rose from the ground and formed a line in front of her; with each strike of her palm through the air, a blaze of sparkling flame homed in on Ruelle.
The High Goddess danced between the blasts, though a few singed her dress, bubbling her sheen skin beneath. Eleanor’s flaming ammunition sputtered out, giving Ruelle the opportunity to grasp her by the hand and seize the mage in a web of threads, gagging her mouth before she could cast another incantation.
In a sharp cut, Ruelle’s head twisted towards Finnian and the corner of her mouth lifted into a smirk. She thrusted her open palm in his direction.
Finnian instinctively slung his arm out in defense, his fingers flexed.
A bright sigil flared on the back of his hand.
Ruelle’s elbow bent in a deformed angle and snapped, proving she was still breakable.
The words burst from Isla’s mouth without hesitation: “? Cae al vacío !”
The ground beneath Ruelle’s feet began to swirl, break away, and fall into a spiraling vacuum of nothingness. Before she could get sucked into the black ether, she snapped her arm back into place and quickly shot off two tangles of threads, one from each hand, and wrapped them around posts of the nearby fence.
She hung over the abyss for a moment before hoisting herself to safety, using the threads as leverage.
With the same two spools of golden power, Ruelle shot her hands out towards Isla, the gatherings of tendrils swarming both of the mage’s legs and crawling up her like hungry roots.
“Finny, now!” Isla shouted before they reached her mouth.
Finnian fixed his magic on one of the spindles of the iron gate. His fingers curled into a claw and the metal screeched as it tore apart. He flipped his hand upright and sliced his arm to the right, the motion commanding the iron spear to aim for the thread holding the syringe at her waist.
She spun, her auburn strands lifting off her back, and the iron pierced straight through her abdomen. Blood blotched the fine fabric of her dress.
She bared her gritted teeth, unfazed by the pain, as she ripped the iron spindle from her torso. In a singular motion, she cut the metal into pieces with a bundle of threads and sent them sailing through the air like grapeshot for Finnian.
Before they could penetrate his skin, Finnian calmly swirled his left hand in front of his torso, stopping the shrapnel in its path and transmuting each piece of iron into a pointed, crystalline dagger.
With a circle of his index and middle fingers, the cloud of glinting needles whirled.
Finnian gave a quick, forceful push forward with the same fingers and the deadly gale started towards the High Goddess—a small, iridescent cyclone.
Ruelle’s hands came up in front of her and she crossed them over her chest, as if she were laying in a casket. Her eyes shut.
Finnian watched the thin, celestial threads weave through the empty spaces of the souls storming towards her. Golden light emanated from them, braiding together and flattening to form a thick, sharp blade, looping around the entire battle. The halo circled them, faster and faster.
Ruelle opened her eyes and smiled with all the force held within her being. She clenched her fists and sliced her arms in a rapid movement in front of her.
Finnian blinked, and the large, glowing ring of thread pulled inward and back to Ruelle, bisecting everything it touched.
He was forced off his feet. The souls caught in it were thrown back. His storm of crystals slowed and fell.
The ground cradled the back of his head. His vision flickered. The crystal lodged in the canal of his right ear came loose, and the transition was sharp, cutting off all sounds as it fell out.
He swallowed, and something tightened around his throat.
“Finnian!” Cassian bellowed.
The call was not audible in his impaired ear.
He coughed, choking for breath.
My hearing aid.
Fright burned through him. He went to lift on his elbows and quickly search for it.
Something tugged against his nape.
He cringed and settled for looking over his cheekbones.
The blurred silhouette of Ruelle’s heart-shaped face and auburn strands came into focus.
She strutted across the field towards him, the syringe secure in her grasp, a thread in her other hand, balled into a tight fist.
The thread glinted in the sunlight and Finnian followed it, his fingers tracing over his Adam’s apple to feel the thread burrowed deeply in his skin, mangled and severing through flesh and cartilage.
One harsh pull from Ruelle and he would be decapitated.
She slightly raised her arm. The thread carved deeper into his throat. Pain wailed down in his shoulders and into his chest, crushing cells and atoms like they were arils.
He cried out, but the sound got lost in the blood filling his esophagus, dripping copper into his lungs.
His eyes flitted up to the Land’s vast sky gazing down at him.
You deserve this.
The itch screeched in the depths of his skull, aching behind his eyes.
You ruin everything—everyone.
He blinked, and a face appeared, hanging their head over him.
“Father is dead because of you,” his thirteen-year-old self said, sickly pale and with shadowed eyes.
Finnian’s heart accelerated at the thought of death.
A life-force blazed in him to move, get up, fight. He could feel his bottom half already beginning to reattach.
His muscles spasmed as he attempted to rise again. Agony rippled up into his skull. Blood clotted in his throat. He choked on the taste of salt and iron filling his mouth.
“You are weak.” His younger self glared down at him. “Always have been.”
The thrumming rang louder in his mind, the vibrations of it splitting through his system. He clenched his teeth against it, but a whimper escaped him.
Ruelle came for him in a slow and maleficent stroll, knowing she’d already won.
“You cannot win this,” his younger self said. “Give up.”
Images of Cassian, woeful and heartbroken, invaded his thoughts. After the misery he’d gone through at Finnian’s own hand, forced to watch from a distance holding their memories, their love, inside. All for the sake of their plan. It would not be for nothing. It couldn’t be. Finnian couldn’t let it end like this?—
Something tickled the tip of his index finger.
Finnian’s eyes dragged over to the right.
A peony unfolded, a rich layer of velvet petals.
Father.
His arm extended fully, planting the pad of his middle finger on the stem, and siphoning its energy into his veins.
He saw it in flashes. Time stamps stained like the pages of an old book.
Father, a young boy, buoyant and cheerful, ankle-deep in soil, caressing stems from the earth; a young god on his travels, befriending birds and deer, sprouting oaks and maples, turning barrenness into lands rich with soil for harvest, molding mountains like sculptors carved clay; a woman with long, dark hair and a broad smile, eyes alight and swimming with adoration as Father kissed her forehead and dipped down to rest his cheek against her swollen belly.
“Any day now,” she said.
His sea of happiness drenched Finnian’s chest, so vast, so consuming.
Father stood out amongst the ruin of his island, the ache bruising his heart.
He wept, the sound gut-wrenching as he held the woman in his arms. Rain pelted down from the sky, mirroring his sorrows.
She took his cheek, smearing blood across his jaw. “You will be a wonderful father, Vale.”
Her last words.
He cried against her chest, the silence of her heartbeat, of his unborn child, deafening.
The memories skipped ahead of themselves to Mira pacing the width of their bedchamber, hurt rupturing across her delicate features.
“You do not love me, Vale!” she shouted, the depth of emotion present in her tone. “Not like you loved her!”
Father whipped around, expression enraged. “You stole her from me!”
“I did not know the island was occupied by mortals!”
Father’s eyes filled with tears. He turned away from her, shaking his head. “I apologize, Mira, but I cannot love you the way you long for me to. Not when you are the reason I?—”
“You are separated from your true beloved.”
Father looked back at her then, taking in the thin set of her lips, the droplets falling from her porcelain eyes.
“Yes,” he said.
The memory evaporated. A brilliant white shined. Behind it, Finnian could hear the wailing of a child.
“Naia,” his father said, a smile in his voice. “Your name is Naia, darling.”
Naia’s childhood stretched out before him. The birth of each of his siblings. Father growing magnolias and gifting them to a young Marina; twirling a young Astrid on the dance floor; teaching a bright-eyed Vex how to skip stones without angering Ziven, a river god who resided in the River of Souls; sitting on a large stone with Malik at his side, pointing out butterflies.
And then: Finnian in his sixth year, cradling a fish Malik had killed. The gills on the side of its slimy, silver scales open and frozen in place.
Finnian looked up through fat tears at his father. “You must return it to life.”
“Finny, my boy.” Father kneeled and cupped his hands underneath Finnian’s, helping hold the fish. “That is not something I can do.”
Finnian scowled through his tears in disbelief. “You are the High God of Nature. There is nothing you cannot do! Bring it back. It did not deserve to meet its end at Malik’s cruel blade. What if it has a family? Someone who misses it?”
Father smiled softly, wiping Finnian’s wet cheeks with the back of his finger. “My dear boy, death is a part of life. Do not pity those who step into its Land, nor the ones they leave behind.”
“But—but death is separation,” Finnian sobbed, hugging the fish to his chest. “Separation is pain. It is how I feel when we are not together.”
Father stared at him, eyes glistening. “Death is peace, Finnian, and pain is simply a sign of love’s presence.”
The memory melted away.
In its place, an ethereal cloud, a white cosmos, wrapped around him. He was standing now, surrounded by the bright, plush landscape.
He glanced down at his hands, his legs, and ran his fingers through his short hair to confirm he was his present self.
When he looked up, Father was before him.
His eyes widened and something shattered in his chest. A lump swelled in his throat. He snapped forward, throwing his arms around Father’s neck.
“I am so sorry.” He cried into the shoulder of his father’s robe, hanging on to him. “I always mess up. It seems impossible for me to do the right thing. In the end, all I ever do is hurt those closest to me. You, Naia, Cassian. Everything I did to right my wrongs was for nothing. Ruelle is going to kill me.”
Father broke away, wrapping one hand around his nape. With a genuine smile, he studied Finnian. “Do you know why I gave Wren to your sister?”
“To aid her in time of need,” he sniveled.
Father gave a breathy laugh, bringing both hands up to cradle Finnian’s face. “She assumed it was because I believed her to be weak. I assured her that nobody, not even High Deities, can do everything alone.”
He pulled Finnian into a hug. “My boy, you are strong and have made up for your wrongs. I was never disappointed in you. Forgive yourself. Stop trying to do everything on your own.”
Finnian rested his weight on him, sobbing into his shoulder. He could feel the magic around them coming undone. The solid figure of Father under his arms softened and began disappearing like mist. “Please. Don’t go. Not yet.”
“I am always with you.” Father turned his head and kissed Finnian on the side of his hair. “Eternally.”
His father’s voice carried like a leaf caught in a breeze, swirling, dancing, fading.
Finnian gradually drifted from the moment, like stepping out of a dream.
“Finnian!”
The Land’s sky stretched out before him, its lavender-soaked clouds hazy and quickly covered by Ruelle as she came to loom over his side.
Tears slipped from the corners of his eyes, trailing down his temples. An ache stretched into what felt like a crater taking shape in his chest.
He wanted to go back. So much so, that for a fraction of a second, the thought crossed his mind to give up, let Ruelle kill him. Because then, he could return to Father.
“Finnian!” Cassian yelled from somewhere afar.
His sonorous voice split through the ache, through the desolate thought of death.
Finnian sucked in a breath to respond, but the thread constricted around his throat, assaulting his tendons.
Ruelle did not acknowledge Cassian’s shouting as she held up the syringe, readied in her grip. “I sincerely apologize for this.”
Bullshit .
He narrowed his eyes on her, his heart thudding in his chest.
Stop trying to do everything on your own.
After a lifetime of stubbornness and isolation, Finnian finally understood his father’s words.
A smirk slit across his mouth, baring blood-stained teeth.
“Naia, High Goddess of Eternity . ” Each word felt like flesh grinding against a hacksaw as he spoke, but it was worth it as a baffled look morphed over Ruelle’s beautiful face. “Come to me . ”