Chapter 40 Nyssa #2
A gentle hand tipped my face upwards, and a soft set of lips pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“That tale remains to be written,” Caelus murmured.
“It can either say that we made a hard choice to send our best warriors on a fool's errand to recruit an army that ultimately doomed us — or that their return is what saved us.”
“You think he should go.”
And though it wasn’t a question, he answered anyway, “Yes. I think he needs to.”
“Very well.” I turned back to where Aros stood smouldering away silently. “But you’re not relinquishing anything. I relieve you of no oath, rescind no titles. They’re yours for as long as we both live.”
He swallowed roughly, audibly to my heightened sense of sound, and thanked me.
“Don’t thank me just yet. Evie — you’re going with him.”
“What?!” they both said in unison.
“If there’s anyone I trust to watch his back, it’s you — and vice-versa. I’m not letting you go off on some harebrained scheme on your own. In fact, take ten of our best warriors with you.”
“Ten?! No. Four.”
“Eight.”
“Five, and no more,” he grumbled.
“You forget yourself, arguing with your queen.” I smiled then. “Five and no more.” Without a second thought, I launched forwards and wrapped my arms around his thick neck.
Aros caught me with ease, likely because he could see me coming whereas I was just blindly groping and hoping for the best. He held me to him for longer than was probably appropriate, tucking his face into the crook of my shoulder, and just breathed.
I think the embrace helped both of us bolster our nerves and do what needed to be done. Almost reluctantly, he withdrew, but not before smacking a quick kiss to my unexpecting lips.
“What?” he laughed when Caelus hit his arm. “It’s for luck!”
“Don’t get any ideas, Evie,” Caelus teased, but before I knew it, a second pair of lips pressed against mine for less than the span of a heartbeat.
“It’s for luck!” Her snicker only goaded mine and within seconds the room felt lighter, splashed as it was with the sounds of godly laughter in all directions. Even Apollo’s rough bark made an appearance.
Caelus snatched me back, wrapping his arms possessively around my middle.
The moment eventually faded, reality pressing in. “Well, then. Don’t dally. Inform your chosen warriors and make ready to leave. Oh, and Aros? May Tyche bless you, and hurry back.”
He came back for one last hug, embracing Caelus and I both, whispering a quiet, “Thank you.” Departing before either of us could cry.
“This doesn’t feel real,” I whispered.
“War rarely does — until after,” Athena murmured. “In the interim, though, you do need an acting Blade. I’d like to volunteer my services.”
“It would be my honour.”
Diving immediately into her duties, she began thinking aloud, “We need to choose a location for our final stand. Somewhere innocents won’t—”
“Athena. I no longer have the ability to look at a map—”
“For now,” Caelus growled.
I sighed. “For now, for ever, who knows but the Fates? My point is that, in this, I am worse than useless. I trust your judgement. Your’s, Sophocles’ and Demetria’s—”
“Demetria was lost in Hellespont,” Athena interrupted softly, her voice hitching slightly in the middle.
I reached for her hand, finding myself grasping at thin air until she put me out of my misery and reached for mine instead. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“As was I. But I hear what you’re saying and will go at once to speak with the Athenian council… see if we can find somewhere that will work to our advantage.”
I nodded, turning to where I knew Aph, at least, still sat. “That leaves you two.”
“Apollo says that he would like to take a second look at your eyes now that he has recovered,” she said.
It is incredibly inconvenient not to be able to see your words, Apollo, but please… please, tell me you can fix them.
His response was to place one hand on either side of my face. I knew they were his because his warm, honey-laced voice flooded immediately into my mind as he tried to fix me.
Titan powers were never meant to be fought by those of Olympians. After the Primordials, they are the original gods — their powers far exceed ours. Perhaps not yours, since none have ever boasted two powers before you… I’m sorry, my queen. I am unable to do anything else.
I reefed my face out of his grip, twisting back into the solace of Caelus’ arms lest I let them see how truly devastated I was by those words. I felt Caelus nod, then heard the door shut and knew that we were alone.
For the first time in I couldn’t even remember how long, we were finally alone.
“Did he tell you?” I mumbled against Caelus’ shirt.
“He did.”
“And what if I can never see again? What if I remain this broken, useless thing—”
“You are not broken, Nightshade.” He pulled back to cup my cheeks and I closed my eyes so that he didn’t have to look at the disgusting blank stare of a blind woman.
“You never were. And you are not useless, either.” He pressed a kiss to each eyelid, oblivious to the fact that melancholy was rising steadily in my throat — harder and harder to swallow past that burning lump.
“That sounds like an innuendo.” I forced out a laugh, a feeble attempt at convincing myself that everything was perfectly fine.
It doesn’t have to be perfectly fine. Not right now, he answered through our soul-bond.
“Did I say that out loud?”
No, but you thought it loud enough.
“And with the weird half conversations and talk of innuendos happening, I’ll take my leave,” Aphrodite said, startling the ever-loving fuck out of me.
I hadn’t realised she was still there. “I wonder what Arch is up to now that he’s awake,” she mused on her way out, the door snicking shut behind her.
“Arch is awake?” I asked.
“He came to last night.”
“I bet he did.” I grinned, coy amusement thrumming beneath my breastbone.
He made a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan. “Only you could crack jokes right now.”
“Hyperion stole my sight, not my magnificent sense of humour.”
He snorted, sounding more and more like me every day. My lip tipped up at the corner, my heart infinitely lighter. Aph and Arch finding each other was one good thing to come out of this war — if both could make it to the after.
We have to win. We have to give them, us, and everyone else a chance at life after war. At peace — no matter the cost.
You speak like you’ve already decided that you’re the cost. I won’t allow that to happen, Nightshade, he growled.
His arms coiled around me, hoisting me into the air, my legs automatically hooking around his waist. When he sat on the edge of the bed, I was straddling him, and judging by the sizable bulge in his breeches, he wasn’t averse to that.
Caelus cleared his throat, every muscle I could feel was tense as he fought the wave of desire that came crashing over him. “You haven’t eaten in two days. You must be starving.”
“Oh, I’m starving — but not for food.” My grin morphed into a smirk as he groaned, that bulge twitching beneath me. “If you keep doing that, we’re going to have to skip right over the entree to devour the main course.”
“Nightshade.” He fell back against the mattress as I dragged a finger down the lines of his chest. “Nyssa, stop.”
I froze.
“We shouldn’t… we can’t… your eyes…”
“Oh.”
I get it. They must be hideous…
I slid off him, intending to scoot farther up the bed and wrestle my emotions back into that well-worn box within me; intending to don that ice cold mask of impassivity.
Instead, I was flipped onto my back — the weight of a god upon me, the weight of his gaze pressing into every inch of my face, so heavy I could feel it.
“Don’t,” he said, leaving a rising trail of goosebumps upon my skin everywhere his breath brushed against. “Don’t close yourself off.
I didn’t mean it like that at all.” He grasped one of my hands, guiding it down his torso to land on his crotch.
“This wouldn’t be happening if I suddenly found you repulsive — which I definitely do not,” he added hastily.
A soft breath, more relief than laughter, forced its way out my nose.
“I would still be attracted to you if you were blind, deaf, and mute. If you were scarred across your face, suddenly gained twice your weight, or if your skin exploded in a wealth of oozing pustules—”
“Gross.” My nose crinkled.
He kissed it. “You were made for me, I am sure of it. The Fates crafted you knowing I would be powerless to resist you in any form — be you goddess, queen, or worm.”
“Worm?” I snorted. “I find it a little hard to believe you, son of Zeus, the once-heir to the Olympian throne, would find yourself attracted to a worm.”
Mirth and embarrassment mingled like warm air along our tether. “Well, obviously I meant that as if I were a worm, too.”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously,” he teased, kissing my nose again.
“But what I truly meant” — he kissed my right brow — “was that” — he kissed my left — “you have been through something” — he kissed my left cheek — “truly horrendous” — he kissed my right — “and anyone else would need some time to recover from that. Physically and psychologically.”
I reached up to grab him by the scruff of his collar, dragging his face down so that I could feel the heat of it almost touching mine.
“Caelus, I don’t feel like myself from here up,” I admitted, indicating the space from my collarbone upwards.
“Yes, something horrible happened to me, but I don’t want it to steal the rest of me, too.
We have tonight. Just tonight. You, better than any, must know that we aren’t promised tomorrow, and I’d like to forget about what happened to me, and get lost in the feeling of you, and us. Just for tonight.”
“Just for tonight,” he murmured, the tang of guilt still worming its way up the bond.