38. Ruen
Chapter 38
Ruen
K alix’s eyes remain open for a moment more before he turns them to Kiera and really goes at her. The kiss is everything that Kalix is—savage, cruel, and completely irreverent. He has no care for her wants or desires unless they serve him, and yet, she seems to meet him match for match. He’s kissing her and running his hands up her arms, gripping the back of her nape to move her where he wants. She’s not fighting, though she could.
Maybe that’s why she doesn’t—because unlike most people—Kiera is one of few that could truly harm him and she feels safe in her own skills enough to let a creature like him take her.
“We should go.” Theos’ quiet words break the silence between us and as one, the two of us turn to go back down the staircase that led all the way up here.
I shouldn’t have said what I said, yet still … Kalix’s words echo back to me from what he’d said to Kiera on that bridge. Ruen is like me … he would do anything, hurt and kill anyone, to keep you alive.
Fuck him. Fuck him for being right.
I close my eyes as Theos and I slowly, silently descend the staircase and re-enter the grand hall of Ortus Academy. The shadows hover in every crevice, an empty echo of our near whispering footsteps the only thing I can hear aside from the rain that patters at the mountain’s transparent upper half.
Pausing at the mouth of a hallway that will lead us back to the rooms, I look up and watch the gray clouds gyrate and move overhead, some of them so low that they’re pierced by the jagged points of the academy’s exterior.
“Ruen?” Theos stops several feet away when he realizes that I haven’t followed him and glances back.
“Go on,” I tell him, still staring up. “I’ll be there soon.”
He hesitates, but when I offer no assurances and don’t speak again, I hear his sigh and then the shuffling of his footsteps as he finally leaves. When he’s gone, I don’t feel any better. My lungs still squeeze in my chest, my body cold and tingling as if a wave of both euphoria and sickness is overwhelming me.
I take a step back, away from the hallway and back into the grand hall. There are hundreds if not thousands of people here in this mountain—Mortal Gods, Gods, and Terra alike—and yet, its silence is the loudest of them all.
Ruen … will live with his for the rest of his life—and still he, too, would make the same choice.
Fucking Kalix. Damn him. I’ve already lived with enough guilt to kill a much stronger man, and yet somehow the thing inside my chest that beats with life continues on as if none of it matters. Even when the mind is ready to lie down and die, sometimes, the body refuses to let it.
Standing in the center of the grand hall, I close my eyes and draw up an image of my mother—or I try to. I clench my hands into fists when all that comes is a grainy, fuzzy recollection of a woman. Soft curves, long hair, average height, average in face shape, average in just about every aspect, but for one thing.
The feeling she emits.
Kindness.
Love.
Caring.
Determination.
It matters not that she’d lain with Azai, that she’d birthed a child she should not have had; the moment I entered this world, I was hers and she mine. Behind my closed lids, I feel a burning take root. Pain searing up through my skull.
Kalix might be my brother, but he’s never belonged to me. Not the same way he considers me to him. He’s mine to look after, mine to guide and direct. Theos is similar save for the fact that he’s less impulsive. Theos is mine to protect and teach, but Kiera … she’s ultimately different.
She is just … mine.
“Did your brothers take your precious toy?” I stiffen at the familiar deep voice that comes from the darkness.
Immediately straightening and opening my eyes, I jerk my chin down and scan the vicinity. Azai’s voice is like a resounding echo in a dark cave, though coming from many directions and none of them resemble the shape of a man.
Turning slowly, I cast a look backwards. It would be like him to come upon me from behind. Strength doesn’t necessarily mean honor, after all. The blow doesn’t come from behind as I expect, however, but from my left. It slams into my side with a sharp jab that cracks right into my ribcage. Something inside breaks—snapping with sharp agony so piercing that I go down on one knee, my hand coming around to try and hold the injured side in place lest the broken rib puncture an internal organ. Azai doesn’t care. He attacks again, his fist coming down on the back of my skull like a hammer. Skin splits, wetness oozes down, soaking into my hair before dripping down the side of my neck and plopping onto the stone floor beneath me. With a growl, I release my side and catapult myself from the ground, wrapping arms around his middle and shoving the soles of my boots into the floor to carry him up and into a wall.
We crash into the side of the mountain, our bodies slamming into the hard surface enough to release the air from my lungs. The echo of flesh on stone rings through my ears. Azai’s responding chuckle sends me into a rage. Punching out, I slam my curled fist into the side of his face, releasing his middle enough to bring my hands together and slam them down on the back of his head as he bows under the pressure of my blows.
A leg swipes out—his—and knocks my feet together. We tumble to the ground, first on our sides and then I’m flipped onto my back. Grappling, cursing silently, the pain in my ribs screams for relief as something vicious stabs at my insides, lighting up a fire in my side that burns away conscious thought of anything save for the agony. When his fist flies into my face, it drags me back from the precipice as my whole head jerks to the side with the force of his blow. Blood fills my mouth and the sharp, stabbing sensation spreading across the side of my upper abdomen intensifies.
Gritting my teeth, I let myself fall and take the brunt of the impact, only turning and shoving him off me as my uninjured side hits the ground. When the clouds above separate just barely and a beam of moonlight shines down from above, Azai comes into full view and I freeze at the sight. The skin of his face is pulled taut over the bones of his skull and his eyes glow an eerie red as he bares sharpened canines. The taste of rust and salt sit heavy on my tongue as I lift my gaze to the shadows behind him. They’re not shadows at all but bodies. Moving in swaying motions, bobbing back and forth on their feet, I watch as the empty faces of Terra stalk forward, Nubo behind them.
The Mortal God Terra doesn’t smile. He doesn’t even seem to look at me so much as through me. I grope for my side as I feel liquid soak into my tunic. My bones creak and my own flesh contracts as I breathe shallowly, trying not to hasten the damage before my natural healing can kick in. It’s taking its sweet fucking time.
As if seeming to realize just how injured I am, Azai smiles and gets to his feet. The red in his gaze lessens as he smooths both hands back over his long hair, shoving the strands out of his face. Twisting my head to the side, I spit out a wad of blood to get rid of the taste of death in my mouth.
“I had hoped you would prove to be more, Ruen,” Azai comments, his tone almost lazy as he holds a fist up. The Terra all halt their movements but not Nubo. He comes forward, passing through them like a ghost whisperer controlling his own dead souls until he arrives just behind my father’s right shoulder.
“What are you planning now, old man?” I demand, cupping my hand over where blood gushes from a tear in my side. I don’t have to look down to know that bone has broken through. The stabbing agony racing up my body and making my vision grow hazy is enough to tell me it’s bad.
Get up, I command myself. My thigh muscles contract and release and then sag, but I don’t move. Fuck.
Azai bares his teeth in an expression that’s not quite amused, but it is certainly smug. He steps forward, coming to a stop in front of me before he crouches low. The brown boots that lace up his calves are tight and scuffed. I raise my eyes from them to where his tunic collar gapes slightly and I blink at what I see.
A mud-brown snake eases out from beneath his shirt and Azai lifts a hand, letting the creature creep onto his fingers. It’s so tiny that it's more of a worm than a serpent, but its beady black eyes stare back at me as it flicks its tongue into the air.
“Did you truly think Kalix was the only one with these familiars?” Azai asks, keeping his gaze on the snake on his fingers. “If you met Ariadne, then you should know that her daughter’s familiars are also hers.” He turns his hand over, letting the serpent wiggle into the center of his palm. “It never occurred to you that Kalix got his familiar from me, did it?”
My stomach knots and my side burns in pain. My flesh crawls with a horrifying awareness as that damn snake curls up into a small circle against Azai’s skin—as if it’s comfortable there, as if it’s used to his touch.
“Not all Mortal Gods get their powers from their God parents,” I croak out, but I know the words are useless. The truth is before me regardless of what I want to believe. If Azai’s been using Kalix’s snakes to spy on us, then they must know everything.
Dread sinks into me, curling into my bones and turning my blood to ice. Azai nods at my comment. “True,” he says. “But of my three sons, Kalix is the most like me.” He curls his fingers over the baby snake, creating a makeshift cage. The snake doesn’t move, doesn’t try to squirm out of the dangerous place. “It came as no shock when he developed an affinity for the serpents that I left to look after him. I didn’t even mind when he killed one or two—I understood him in a way you never could, though you tried so desperately, didn’t you?”
More blood fills my mouth, this time tasting like vomit more than rust. “ Why? ” I don’t know if I expect an answer. I don’t even know what I’m asking ‘why’ for. There are so many ‘whys’ in my head. Why did you bother to have us? Why did you put us together? Why did you leave us in the Academy? Why did you wait until now to reveal your true self?
Drip. Drip. Drip. Fresh blood steals across my tunic and down to the waistband of my trousers, so much that the fabric cannot contain it and it plops onto the stone beneath me. Even my shallow breaths become violent fire in my lungs, burning a path up my throat. My vision blurs in front of me, the grand hall fading in and out, but I keep my gaze trained on Azai, on the snake for as long as I can see.
“Why did I let you live?” Azai guesses. I don’t correct him, I just swallow past the lump forming against the back of my throat and wait. My legs are growing numb, my muscles stiffening as the pain spreads. There will be no fight. “Come now, Ruen,” Azai says, sighing. “You’re my most intelligent son. You should know the answer to that.”
I finally let my eyes slide shut. He’s right. I do know the answer.
The great taboo Caedmon warned us about. They’re consuming Mortal Gods’ ‘Divinity’ to keep themselves alive and young. That’s why they kept having children. Why hiding any Mortal Gods was made illegal. Why humans had to be punished, why my mother had to die. Azai didn’t care about her or Theos’ mother or Kalix’s. All he wanted was us—our strength, our lives, our powers.
It was all to feed his own.