Chapter 6 #2
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” her mother whispered, stroking her hair. “Nothing, Nya.”
When they pulled away and gave her some space to breathe, she met her father’s eyes—her eyes—and felt her heart sink at the terror reflected there.
I’m sorry.
His brow creased, and he shook his head slightly.
Your mother is right. You have nothing to apologize for.
Yes, she is right. And perhaps, for once, you should have listened to her, Thessilnn grumbled down the pathway. You made us lie for you, and look where that got you, little one.
Her father’s mouth twitched, and her mother muttered, “Yes, well, if you two lazy beasts had better counseled her, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened either.”
Heles is lazy. I am merely tired after cleaning up all your messes for nearly two-hundred years.
Heles didn’t say anything down the pathway, but Nya heard the snapping of enormous jaws just outside the window. From the corner, Juno cleared her throat amidst the chaos and said, “Ana was the one who performed the betrothal ceremony. Nya just confirmed it.”
Nya’s mother looked at the Goddess of Fate sharply. “I thought she was still in D’anna, with Cion?”
Juno shrugged. “Perhaps the queen sent her away. She is near to the end of her mortal life now, and Ana will always maintain her youth. Humans can be very vain about age.”
“I doubt it,” Nya’s father muttered. “If she left D’anna, it was for a reason.”
“I just gave one,” Juno pointed out.
Nya worried her bottom lip between her teeth and glanced between her parents. “You both knew her—Ana—from before?”
Her mother took a deep breath, her thumb brushing over her wedding band. It was a nervous tick both her parents had done without realizing it for as long as Nya could remember.
“We did,” her mother said. “I’m sorry, Nya, love, we should have told you much more than we did, especially before you left home.”
Juno laughed softly. “I fear you were several years too late with any warnings, Sora.”
Nya tried to school her expression into confusion at Juno’s words, even as her palms turned clammy and cold. Her mother glanced at her, brow furrowed.
“What does she mean, Nya?” But before she had to try and think of how to reply, her mother’s expression became faraway. Silver flooded her eyes for a flash, and her throat worked. “Your hikes. Of course… You were meeting someone.”
She glanced at Nya’s father, and he let out a tight laugh, running a hand over his face. “Yeah…a field. They were meeting in a ‘field.’”
Nya said nothing, a little unnerved by how quickly they’d figured it out, by how much she now realized her afternoons spent with Morgen had resembled her parent’s first meetings.
She hadn’t known many details about their past before leaving Mise last year, but as a child, whenever she’d asked her mother how she had met her father, she had always been given the same answer: on a warm, late summer day, in a field of wheat.
They weren’t supposed to meet, but her mother kept returning, despite the danger.
Because sometimes, you loved someone more than you cared about duty or honor.
Because sometimes, love superseded those things.
Nyx rose from where she’d perched on the arm of one of the couches. “Would you mind explaining to the rest of us?”
Nya’s mother turned to the Goddess of Night. “I’m surprised you haven’t caught on. We’re referring to the circumstances that led to your former king tearing my heart out with his bare hands.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Nya noticed both her father and Thanatos flinched at the words. Nyx remained completely still, but the shadows at the corners of the room deepened, stirring as they swirled across the hardwood.
Nya’s head felt light. Too much was happening, and she didn’t—couldn’t think or even breathe…
“Out. Everyone,” her father barked suddenly.
Nyx’s brow furrowed. “We are not finished discussing—”
“We’ll finish talking once my daughter can stand for more than a few minutes without fainting. Out.”
His tone brooked no argument, and maybe Nya was a bit delirious, because she couldn’t hold back a laugh, covering her mouth with her hand to stifle it.
It was just too much, to see her father order around a bunch of principals.
He was technically one of them, she supposed.
If Vulcan ever fell, as heir, his place would be in Arcadia, on the council.
Juno brushed past her, and the mark Morgen had left on her tingled slightly. Nya ignored it, watching Nyx and Thanatos leave, whispering amongst themselves. Once she was alone with her parents, her mother gently lowered Nya’s hand from her face.
Nya hadn’t even realized the laughter had turned to tears.
“Shh, love.”
“Mama, I—” Her voice broke off. “Do you hate me for it? I swear, I didn’t know, not for most of it, and then I just—”
“Nya,” her mother cut in gently, a hand cupping Nya’s cheek. “You are one of the few things in this godsforsaken world I could never hate. I know you think you’ve done something terrible. I do not think so—but even if you had, it wouldn’t matter to me. Do you understand?”
Nya’s throat was tight with unshed tears, so she merely nodded. Her mother tucked a loose strand of silvery hair behind her ear and said quietly, “Good. I’m going to go talk to the others, but your father will sit with you, alright?”
Nya took a deep breath. “Okay.”
Her mother squeezed her shoulder before glancing at her father, who gave a shallow nod. Nya sank onto the couch by the hearth, and once her mother was gone, her father joined her. For a few minutes, they just sat in silence.
Nya knew her mother loved her fiercely, but she had always felt closer to her father. Perhaps it was the hint of mortal blood they shared that allowed for a sort of understanding even her mother could not claim.
Eventually he spoke, asking, “Did you hear what we said, in the other room?”
She glanced at him, brow furrowed. “How did you know?”
His lips twitched. “Because I’ve caught you trying to stay up and listen past your bedtime one too many times. I can usually sense when you’re nearby. You’re my daughter, and I would have done the same.”
She smiled despite herself, but it quickly slipped away. “I didn’t realize Juno was in the room… She didn’t say anything because she thought I needed a moment to hear the truth alone.”
“Juno isn’t usually wrong.”
“You know all of them—the principals,” Nya pushed, watching silver flicker in his eyes as she said it. “And they know you. Respect you, even. Why did you stay away from Arcadia for so long?”
He laughed tightly. “I don’t know how much they respect me. They just know I have plenty to hang over their heads if they tried to insult or threaten me.”
Her next words were quiet. “Because you died for them? For the realms?”
“I wish I could say I was that noble, Nya,” he said, meeting her eyes with a sad smile. “But only your mother can truly claim that honor. I was just happy to finally follow her into the void that day.”
Nya frowned. “You were happy to die?”
His throat worked. “We should have told you all of this. I’m sorry we didn’t and that you’ve had to make sense of the past in pieces.”
She dropped her gaze to her hands, twisted in her lap. “I don’t know if it would have made a difference, but you could tell me now.”
When she looked at him again, his eyes were on the fire and filled with enough pain, she almost took the request back.
But then, in a quiet voice, he said, “There are many, many things worse than death. I didn’t realize that when I was young and still in my first life.
Some of it probably had to do with being raised in the mortal realm, where death is feared above all else.
But Arcadia is different, and my mother had ill-prepared me to face it.
I think she hoped I would never venture across the border, perhaps never really even realize the truth about who I was.
” He laughed, a soft, sad sound. “She didn’t live long enough to understand how impossible that was. ”
“Because Vulcan is your true father.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“And what is worse than death?” she dared, her heart beating too fast and her stomach already turning in anticipation.
Her father looked her directly in the eye as he said, “Watching the one person you swore to protect destroyed in front of you while you are helpless to stop it. Living with the memory of it and being forced to exist, decade after decade, in an empty world you both created. Kronos murdered your mother simply because he could not have her, Nya, and then, when he exiled me to the mortal realm, he took magic from it too.”
A shiver raced up her spine, and he took her hand, adding in a low, insistent voice, “I am not telling you this to scare you. Your mother and I wish we did not keep so much from you, but I will never regret keeping you from this place for as long as I could. Fate is at its cruelest in Arcadia, and to immortal souls, death only holds meaning when it is wielded as a punishment in the worst of ways.”
She nodded, unsure of what to say. What could she say?
All throughout her childhood, she had imagined Arcadia through rose-tinted lenses.
She had assumed her parents were exaggerating the true danger of the realm of the gods, but over the years, she had slowly learned that perhaps that wasn’t the case at all.
“Do you ever regret meeting Mama?” she whispered after a long stretch of silence, only broken by the popping of embers.
A huff of air escaped him. “No.”
“Even with everything that happened? You wouldn’t go back and—”
“No, Nya, love. Never. Some love is worth the pain that comes with it.”
An unwelcome flash of Morgen’s face flitted through her mind, and she didn’t know why. She didn’t love him. She had simply been infatuated with the first friend she ever had, and now, that person was gone, leaving behind only someone she hated.
“Would you like to talk about what’s happened?” her father asked.
She sighed, looking away. As usual, he was unnervingly good at reading her.
She didn’t want to talk about Morgen, not ever again. But perhaps that was childish; this problem was not going to just disappear, and the least she could do was try to help find a way to fix it.
“I have to go back,” she said, her fingers twitching. “I assume… What Thanatos said about the blood bond means staying here could mean war.”
Her father stiffened, and the dying flames in the hearth abruptly flared. “You don’t have to go anywhere. Not if you don’t want to.”
“He has an army, Papa,” she whispered. “Supposedly more than what I even saw, which wasn’t a small number, and they are all loyal to him, not to mention Varax.”
“Ah, the dragon?”
“Yes. She’s just as large as Thessilnn and Heles.”
He cleared his throat, eyes drifting from her and landing on the flames. “She’s bonded to both of you?”
Nya took a deep breath. “Yes, but I don’t think she would betray Morgen any more than she would betray me.”
“So that is his name?”
She shut her eyes briefly, steeling herself. And though she hated defending him in any way, she needed to explain.
“It’s wrong, what he’s doing, but his life has not been easy.”
Her father didn’t immediately react with anger or protectiveness as she expected.
Instead, he sighed heavily and patted her hand before resting it atop hers.
He was warm and steady, just as he’d always been, but still, she shivered when he said, “No, with Kronos as a father…I cannot imagine his life has been anything but cruel to the extreme.”
Her gaze wandered back to the dying hearth, watching the flame spark midnight for half a second as she whispered, “You have no idea.”