Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
In his chambers within the mountain, he keeps a small satchel of river stones.
When I touched one, I saw her as if through his eyes: laughing, her hair dripping water as she pulled herself onto a rocky shore.
Her face, I have seen for centuries, both in my dreams and on my lost friends.
It is a mockery that Fate should draw these two together. Something must be done.
—Ana, Priestess to the Usurper King, Arcadia
A few hours later, Nya retreated into the caves from the open cliffside she’d been curled on.
Her entire body was shivering from the cold winds outside, her eyes dry from the tears she hadn’t been able to stop, from watching the bright plumes of lava beneath her.
She desperately needed a bath—preferably a warm one—and when she found herself in the same cavern where she had gotten ready with Imeria before the marriage ceremony, she thought she’d finally had some luck.
At least, until she saw the figure half-submerged in the water and realized she was not alone.
“I need to bathe.”
Morgen snorted softly, the water splashing as he shifted in his spot near the edge of the pool. “No one is stopping you.”
She tried to keep her voice firm as she said, “You should leave,” but it wobbled pathetically as she shivered.
“Believe it or not, this is my bathing room, and you are the one who is trespassing.”
She squared her jaw. “F-f-fine, then. I’ll go.”
In the dim light, she saw him tilt his head. “You’re trembling. Did you go outside?”
“It’s n-not like anyone s-s-topped me.”
He sighed, shaking his head. “It’s freezing this time of the day. You need to warm up.”
“Not with y-you here—”
“Nya.” He started to stand, and she was not sure if he was wearing even a stitch of clothing. “You’re being unnecessary stubborn—”
“Fine, f-f-fine,” she snapped, turning away. “Jus-t-t sit down. And look a-away.”
The splashing settled, and she glanced over her shoulder to see he had listened to her and was facing the wall. Quickly, she stripped down to the flimsy shift she wore under her dress and then slipped into the water on the opposite side of the pool from where Morgen sat.
“Am I allowed to look now?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his tone.
She didn’t understand. How could he tease her now? Wasn’t he angry? She had said awful things to him today, and she had meant them. Yet, he wasn’t being cold with her. In fact, he was acting almost like he had during all their meetings in the forest in Mise.
“Fine,” she bit out, settling against a stone ledge as the warmth seeped back into her muscles.
He turned his head, his expression shifting into something almost soft as he looked at her.
Perhaps this brought him back to swimming in the creek.
She was certainly remembering those times, when Varax had splashed like a child downstream and Nya dipped underwater for river stones before handing the ‘pretty ones’ to him.
But she couldn’t get lost in the bittersweet nostalgia of the past. She had questions.
“If you knew what my mother looked like after seeing her in Kronos’ throne room, how could you claim not to know who I was the day we met? Everyone says I look just like her.”
Morgen cleared his throat. “You do—except for your eyes.”
“Yeah, they’re my father’s,” she muttered, guilt eating at her as she recalled the horrified expressions on her parents’ faces when she had left them in that room. She hadn’t even stayed to make sure her father was alright or make sure Carus truly wasn’t going to try and hurt them.
“I imagine,” Morgen began, “that I ignored my immediate suspicions in the same way you ignored yours.”
She said nothing, and he added, “I know you saw the embers in my eyes that first day. I can usually feel it when they’re visible, and, most of the time, I’m able to keep them under control if I want. When I couldn’t—”
“You’d turn away,” she finished for him. He nodded, and she forced herself to look at him. “Everything you just told my parents about the embers and the palace… Were you lying?”
She wasn’t sure why she was even bothering to ask. If he was lying or trying to trick them, it wasn’t like he would reveal the truth to her now. Perhaps it was because here, this felt so similar to all those times she’d thought he was always honest with her.
“Most of what I said in that room was the truth, yes.”
She flared her nostrils. “Care to share what you lied about this time, or will I have to settle for some cryptic answer now and find out later?”
“What do you think, Nya?”
He was moving closer to her, cutting across the deeper middle portion of the pool. She ignored the flutter of heat in her belly at the sight of his bare torso and kept her eyes from wandering any lower below the water.
“I don’t know,” she whispered as he stopped directly in front of her. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
He lifted his hand slowly, and her breath hitched loudly as he traced his fingertips lightly over the spot just above her collarbone where he’d bit her. The sensation was jarring; the spot was much more sensitive than it should have been.
“I lied about intending to do this, for one,” he murmured. “That damned demi-god daughter of Juno brought it up to me in the first place before she performed the marriage ceremony.”
“Ana?”
He dipped his chin, eyes fluttering shut. “I told her I wouldn’t do it, even if it made some sense strategically. I doubt her reasons had anything to do with politics, though. Children of Juno are always annoyingly cryptic and meddlesome.”
“So why did you do it?” Nya whispered.
The scarred column of his throat worked.
“I couldn’t get the idea out of my head once she put it there.
You hate me and have every right to. I knew it then and I know it now.
” He rested his hand over her neck, not tightening his grip, just feeling her rapid pulse beneath his palm.
“You’ll probably always hate me, and, selfishly, for just a second, I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t leave me regardless.
I…I’m sorry, Nya. It can’t be undone, and you’re the one paying the price for my moment of weakness. ”
Her lips parted, and his gaze dipped to her mouth.
He looked away quickly, but still, she caught it, just like she caught the way his eyes darkened as his pupils spread.
With a sharp inhale, he moved away, settling a few paces away against the ledge to her right.
Before she could stop herself or think too much about just what she was doing, she stood, the soaked white material of her shift clinging to her skin as she approached him, heart in her throat.
He went completely still as she lifted a hand to his jaw, tracing the hard edge of it and then ghosting her fingers over the curve of his neck.
“Are you alright?” she whispered.
He didn’t reply right away, his eyes dipping and then bouncing back to her face, as if he was trying not to look at the places entirely visible through the water-sheer fabric but couldn’t quite stop himself.
His voice was gruff when he said, “What?”
She slid her hand down, brushing her fingers over the angry-red mark on his chest. “From earlier? You were hurt.”
“It healed fine.”
She nodded, biting her lip. “You couldn’t breathe.”
He gently tugged her lip from her teeth, tsking. “And you’re going to hurt yourself constantly doing that.”
“Morgen. You were coughing up blood.”
He shrugged. “My lung got punctured somehow, I think. There were lots of sharp things around, and Varax hit Heles pretty hard when we portaled. I tried not to, but it’s hard to be precise when I’m distracted like that.”
Her eyes widened. “You punctured your lung?”
“I presume, yes. One of the more unpleasant injuries to heal, for sure.”
“Did you at least pass out while it was healing?”
He brushed a tangled strand of her hair back. “I never do. The embers always keep me conscious when my body’s healing, though I’m not entirely sure why.”
“So you still felt all the pain? Just without the dying part?”
His brow creased. “You don’t have to pretend to be worried.”
A small, disbelieving laugh escaped her. “Do you think me heartless?”
“I think you are angry with me.”
Her hand was still pressed against his chest, and she pushed hard against his skin, shaking her head. “My anger doesn’t cancel out everything else. I wish it did. It would make convincing myself to hate you so much easier.”
“Do you hate me?”
She curled her hand into a fist against his skin, biting back the tears that tried to escape.
For just a second, his voice sounded so unsure—almost hopeful.
She knew enough about him to understand how starved for affection he was, even if he didn’t ever admit to it.
She didn’t understand everything he had done, wasn’t sure if she truly believed all he had claimed today.
But even so, the split second of true vulnerability in his tone broke her heart a little.
“I should,” she whispered.
He searched her expression. “Don’t pity me, Nya. I made my choices, and I’m no victim.”
“I don’t—”
“Then why are you looking at me like I’m some wounded animal?”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Fine!” She slapped her hands against his chest. “Fine, I am. But it’s not because I pity you—it’s because I don’t like it when you’re hurt.
It’s why I asked about the healing and why I didn’t want to leave you when you were injured.
My father was dying, and I…” Her breath hitched.
“All I could think about was the horrible sounds you were making as you tried to breathe.”
His expression shifted, morphing into something almost angry. “You went to that place to save him, didn’t you?”
She blinked at the sudden shift in subject. “What place?”
“The dark place. The void.”
She tilted her head. “Yes, but how do you know—”
“Observation and guesswork,” he cut in, almost too quickly. “Thanatos is your grandfather.”