8. Peony Blossoms
8
PEONY BLOSSOMS
Finnian
The Present
The glowing density of Finnian’s magic dispersed throughout the temple, like arrows raining down from the cathedral ceiling. Cassian’s form flickered and disappeared. The purple, cracking bolts hit the obsidian walls, deflecting and shattering like glass.
Finnian cursed under his breath and slid off the altar. Reaching his hand out, he latched onto the magical properties of the fire in their basins and jumped from the platform, simultaneously curling his fingers into a fist, holding onto the firelight’s energy. The flames lunged from the basins and intertwined in the middle of the temple.
With a sharp thrust of his arm, the firelight swelled and roared across the reflective stone, a vibrant, blood orange cloud billowing smoke, incinerating.
Finnian dashed across the sanctuary towards an entryway flanked with spired columns, their peaks sharp as pikes.
The length he could venture from the person he was bound to depended upon the length they allowed. The first thing Finnian needed to do was to test that length. How far could he go without being forced back to Cassian?
He raced down a wide staircase, assuming it led to the temple’s basement.
“Belyse. ” The incantation warmed up his spine and into his eyes, breaking up the blackness to reveal an empty corridor that seemed to stretch on for miles.
Another labyrinth?
An itch festered inside his head, cracking like a rift in the center of his skull.
His nostrils flared. He picked up his pace, glancing over his shoulder, ready for any shift of energy announcing Cassian’s presence.
Something crunched under Finnian’s boot.
He stopped and looked down, lifting his leg. Crushed, pale pink petals fell from the bottom of his shoe onto the glossy floor.
A peony.
Finnian snapped his head up and stared deeper into the daunting darkness he was venturing into. Father.
From what he’d learned over the years, the Temple of the Dead was located somewhere outside of Moros, near Cassian’s castle. For those of his realm to praise him. The basement was secluded. Perfect for isolation.
A precaution in case I ever attempted to break him out.
Finnian set off with haste. The itch in his brain throbbed in pulses. He pressed his teeth together with great force while he ran.
It is nothing.
Don’t give it any attention.
Another peony appeared up ahead. Its tip spiraled and birthed a bed of soft, fat petals, striking Finnian’s heart with wild anticipation as he jogged past it.
“Father?” he called out.
He listened closely for a reply against the sound of his own footfalls and the whooshing of blood in his left ear.
At the far end of the corridor, a glimpse of iron bars caught his eye.
He ran faster. The solid surface of the floor softened, plush-like. He glanced down to see moss, thick and deep-green, overtaking the stone beneath his feet. Along the walls, over the ceiling.
“Finnian.” Father’s voice was sonorous, gentle, like the sweetest whisper. It was a miracle Finnian had heard it. A voice he’d dreamed of for centuries.
Finnian pushed his legs faster. “Father!”
Approaching a single cell, Finnian slowed to a stop. The cage was constructed with the same iron bars as Moros—sleek, black, crystallized bodies of serpents.
Finnian spotted a body within the cell through his bleary night vision. It wasn’t enough. He needed to see him clearly .
Finnian swiped his hand up, igniting his magic. A single flame balanced over his palm, the warm light shining brightly across Father’s face—one painted with the same tan complexion as his own, eyes the color of freshly budded branches during spring.
Father stood in front of the bars, mouth parted, gaping at Finnian as if he were a ghost. “Son?”
Right your wrongs.
“It’s me, Father.” Finnian stepped up to the bars, careful to keep from grasping them. A triumphant smile streaked across his face.
Flame in tow, he lifted his hand to get a better look. Father wore a nude, bare-threaded robe. Dirt stains streaked across the front of it. The torn hem brushed over the tops of his bare feet.
Father regarded him with a gaze pooling of adoration, wonderfully stunned, like he couldn’t quite believe the god who stood before him was his son.
His features suddenly rearranged with unsettling disbelief. “Finnian, how? You are not supposed to be here.” Panic lit in his eyes. “You must leave at once.”
“Father, I have come to take you with me. Naia awaits you. She has a child now. Surely, you’ve seen?—”
“You must leave,” he demanded, like the words could not exit his mouth quickly enough. “ Now. ”
“You were right. She had a power within her all along. Just as you’d said.” Finnian could hardly believe it. Father was before him, and it was as if he were thirteen years old again, spewing knowledge about all the fascinating herbs and plants he’d found in the jungle, near the water hole, and all the fresh teas he could make with them. “From here on, her days will be fruitful. All of ours will be. But first, you must come with me, Father.”
“I cannot go. You must understand. I may not leave. You need to go?—”
“But you can. I am here to rescue you.”
Father turned away as he spoke. “No, you are here to pay for the souls you stole from Cassian.”
Finnian blinked, his response stalling. “I realize this is sudden, but we must hurry if we wish to?—”
Father spun on him. “I said I will not go. I see all my children from here. I’ve watched how you’ve withheld souls within their rotting bones; how you’ve murdered innocents with your ghouls in your precious city!” His tone grew boisterous, chiseling the inside of Finnian’s chest with his dissent. “Allowing them to feast on mortals to keep them alive. Those they’ve killed, you turn them into your undead toys, and the horrific cycle continues.”
Finnian’s mouth opened and closed, his response held hostage in his throat. This is what he’d feared most when he dreamed of their reunion—Father lecturing him over his actions. “Mother banished me.”
“You didn’t have to threaten Malik after he killed Arran.”
“Malik is worse than I. He deserved?—”
“You cannot talk about penance when you have done just as much wrong as he!” Father’s voice rose.
Finnian grimaced. Regret and humiliation ached in his chest as he glared at his father.
“Malik, High God of Slaughter, who gathered praise from the mortals by murdering those in their prayers. Those who had done them wrong. A bloodlust assassin. That is who you are comparing me to?” Finnian had revived more than he could count of Malik’s victims and could attest to the horrors they’d experienced. His brother had been born entirely without compassion.
All his life, Finnian had strived to hang onto a fraction of his humanity. To never sink too far into the abyss, never allowing his disgruntled outlook to truly stick. Each day, he searched for the beauty life held, learning to recognize the affection exchanged between others and appreciate it for what it was. Each day, he struggled to face the light while carrying a lifelong void within. Effort that now felt meaningless. Why had he even bothered?
“Finnian, I said leave me!” Father charged forth, his arm reaching through the bars of his cell. He shoved Finnian back by the chest.
Finnian staggered, his father’s strength jarring him. The flame in his palm flared, along with his unclipped irritation. “What did you expect when you and Mother raised us to be this way?” It left his mouth cold and pointed.
The itch in his skull magnified, sending a sharp pang down his neck.
“Do not blame us for your impudence!” Father boomed, fury twisting his expression. “Now, I said leave. I will not go with you.”
The pain of his dismissal cut deep, splitting Finnian’s heart like a knife through fruit.
Any second Cassian will appear. A reminder of his race against time.
“I am getting you out.” Determination blazed through the hurt. Finnian’s free hand shook as he went to grab hold of the bars. He had three seconds to bend the iron before teeth sunk into his flesh.
“I do not wish to go with you. You are not the boy I raised.”
Finnian’s hand stopped a few inches from the bars and curled into a fist, the pain of his father’s words reverberating in his bones. He wished he hadn't heard it; that his internal sounds had been louder, or that Father hadn’t spoken it so legibly.
He jerked his head up, meeting his father’s stern gaze. They were eye-level, and his stomach rolled at the stark observation of how much time had passed between them. The last time Finnian was in his presence, he was forced to look up at him by a dramatic height difference. The observation burned white-hot desperation in his limbs, nearly driving him to grab the bars and force them apart.
“Would you rather it be Naia? I can shape-shift myself and turn into her! Or perhaps one of the triplets? Marina? Or have they committed just as many vile acts as I? For fuck’s sake, Father, I beg of you, if you love me, come with me!”
“How could I ever love a son like you?” The octave of Father’s voice deepened, as if the words were coming out of a devilish being.
Finnian recoiled, the sting of his words branding his insides.
He stepped back, and the end of his heel crunched down on something.
Another ping rattled in his skull. He felt it in his teeth as he dropped his head.
Peonies circled around his feet. One after another, they climbed up from the tiles and unfolded their petals.
But I have already found him ? —
Finnian looked up, the blood draining from his face.
Father’s figure distorted like a glitch. Black circles shadowed around his eyes, sickly and death-like. His head cocked, and his pupils expanded into disks until his gaze was nothing but blackness.
“...Ever love…a son…” Finnian blinked and shook his head. This is…
His attention returned to the flowers at his feet.
He crouched and plucked a petal from one of the blossoms and siphoned the magical properties from it between his fingertips.
No magic laced through his skin and dissolved into his blood.
Fear jumped in his pulse, reckoning him with the realization.
“You are not real,” he murmured. The petal between his fingers, the flowers at his ankles, they melted away like smoke.
He flashed his eyes up onto his father. “You never were.” Gooseflesh crawled down his nape and spread along his back as Father shrank a few feet in height, his face molding into one Finnian recognized well.
He stood in front of a clone of his thirteen-year-old self. Wavy, velvety-dark strands dusted the shoulders of his gray frock coat, brass buttons undone and a burgundy linen tunic sloppily spilling out of the collar. The same outfit he’d worn to Naia and Solaris’s birthday celebration many centuries ago—the day Mira murdered Alke.
The thirteen-year-old replica twisted his head to Finnian. “Pathetic.” He enunciated the syllables like he’d spat the word on the ground. Narrow eyes sat on a detached expression, judgment beaming from them. “The sight of you makes me ill.”
A paralyzing sensation swept through his limbs, coating his palms with a cold sweat. “I will find him.”
The younger copy traveled through the iron bars as if they were an apparition. “You are chained to Cassian— cursed to go mad. You have already failed.”
The muscles in Finnian’s chest seized.
You have already failed.
The phrase felt like stones pulling him down.
Failed—again.
The clone stepped into Finnian’s space, holding him in his icy stare. “You cannot right a lifetime of wrongs by saving Father. What of Alke and the life he lost? Naia and the torment she endured? Nothing has changed.”
“I have a plan,” he gritted out. “My plan will work. It will work. I promise it will work.”
“You are not strong enough.”
“Shut up!” The itch thrummed down his skull, rattling the nerves in his jaws. The urge to reach inside his head and scratch it pleaded on his fingertips.
“You will never be strong enough.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Finnian snapped forward and caught his younger self by the throat. He squeezed until he felt the sweet satisfaction of cartilage snapping like elastic. “What would you know in the short thirteen years of your life? I’ve lived for centuries. I know far more than you ever would.”
“I know you better than you ever will.” Despite Finnian’s tight grasp, the clone did not gasp or flail for breath. In a blank, unfazed manner, it continued. “Your impulsive nature is why Father is locked away; why you were banished. You have been down here for five years, and yet, Naia has not tried to come for you once. You are unlovable and that is why everyone eventually abandons you?—”
“Stop.” Finnian’s breath went short. The crescendo in his skull grew louder.
“That's why you are here. You fear loneliness.”
“No.” Finnian hunkered down, supporting his weight with his elbows on his knees, shaking his head vigorously. “I will make it all better. I will fix it. Right my wrongs.”
How could I ever love a son like you?
“You never know when to leave anything alone. If you would’ve let Alke die, you would’ve never practiced necromancy. Mother would have never banished you and you could’ve helped Naia escape Kaimana.”
Finny, I did it. I finally found you.
“She is safe now. Happy . With a family of her own. A High Goddess.”
Don’t do this to me, Finnian.
“Father wouldn’t be locked away, and you wouldn’t have broken the heart of the one person?—”
“Stop!” Finnian’s hands came up to his head, over his ears.
“You deserve to die for the pain you’ve caused.”
“ Shut your fucking mouth !” His cry broke through the static screaming inside his head.
The only sound cutting through the thick blanket of silence was his heartbeat thudding loudly in his ear. His chest rose and fell in a rapid rhythm as he regained his senses.
The cool obsidian of the altar was the first thing he registered.
He stared up at the dancing shadows of the firelight along the mosaic tiles of the ceiling.
His eyes jumped over to the flames in their basins and terror welled up in his gut, threatening to push up his throat.
With time, it learns your weaknesses, what you fear most, and without realizing it, your mind plays tricks on you.
When did it begin?
The acrylic taste of the potion lingered on his tongue. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes since he’d swallowed it.
Shortly after drinking the potion.
You’ve already failed.
“Are you ready to depart now?” Cassian’s voice was close, near where he’d been before Finnian reared up to strike him with his magic. Or rather, when he thought he had.
Their moment prior to the hallucination rushed through Finnian’s mind—the High God pinning him down with their lips connected, forcing the potion into his mouth. His body filled with a mix of pleasure and an unwelcome desire, ignited by Cassian’s touch.
A fresh surge of nausea churned in his stomach. He felt a knife to his pride at the thought of sitting up and facing Cassian’s steady composure and superiority, waiting for him.
He took his time, unconvinced he could conceal how much the hallucination had frightened him. While he had figured out the peonies weren’t real, he detected no suspicions during the journey from the altar to the basement and throughout his encounter with Father. Until he spewed out vicious words. But even then, it was difficult to decide whether Father’s feelings were justified and believable.
Little by little, the curse would continue to excavate his sanity. Without the reliance on his mind, what was he to become by the end of this?
Calm down.
It was a future he didn’t want to waste energy envisioning, for it would only darken his spirit, ultimately handing over more ammunition to the blight in his head.
The less he believed in himself, the stronger it became.
He drew in an inhale and lifted from the altar.
Cassian waited at the bottom of the platform, hands inside his pockets. His golden gaze was dark, like melted brass. He stood quietly, his disposition casual, but his brow was slightly furrowed, tracking every movement of Finnian’s face, as if he were searching for something.
How odd. Finnian expected hostile mockery or a patronizing remark, much like the one sitting on his own tongue. The need to strike and draw blood. All for the joy that came with watching the annoyance and animosity harden Cassian’s gaze into gilded stones.
What will your impulsive nature ruin this time?
Finnian swallowed, unsettled by the thirteen-year-old voice trapped inside of his head.
He loosened the tension collected in his neck, disregarded the weariness in his soul pulling at his limbs, and traveled the small distance to Cassian’s side.
Finnian fisted his hands to combat the quivering beneath his skin, a sign of the fabric of his sanity fraying. Once he was hidden in the safety of his indifference, he raised his chin and stared ahead at the dark, oak-stained doors across the temple.
Cassian’s gaze prickled across his cheek and something about it lulled Finnian to grab ahold of it, but he refused.
Without looking at the High God, he said, “Lead the way.”