Chapter Twenty-Three
River
Hauling Kai out of bed had become routine.
Knock once, let himself in; throw open the curtains, endure whining.
But this morning Kai was already awake and standing before the broken mirror hanging above an old chest of drawers, his back to River as he slipped into a pearl-white shirt trimmed with gilded ocean waves.
River took in the barren room. The floor was cleared of glass, if still wet in patches from a haphazard attempt to wash away the spilled wine. The reek of it still hung in the air, although Kai had opened a window, letting in the scent of late morning rain.
“Hey,” Kai called, turning. He was clean-shaven, indicating that Hilo had been by sometime this morning to relinquish his razor, but his eyes were still shadowed from grief and the fatigue of a night of wardwork. “How you feeling?”
Physically, emotionally? They were here, safe and sound within the web of Kai’s new ward. River was fine, of course. It was Ione who wasn’t. Ione who was still gone.
Ione who might be dead.
River squeezed his eyes shut, unable to even think it. “My stomach’s still sore from where Nalu punched me.”
Kai nodded, returning his attention to the mirror. “I’ll get him back for that.”
“I can get him back, myself.”
Kai tensed, but nodded again, chastened. “I know you can.”
Kai felt guilty, River knew. He felt it deep in the pit of his stomach, a gnawing, ceaseless guilt, as heavy as stone. River recognised the look of it, had seen it in his own eyes in the mirror.
They had promised to protect Ione, and they had failed.
Ione had escaped, had spirited Lina away through the chaos. But then what? Kai’s brothers couldn’t have distracted the priests for long: they would’ve found Ione and Lina in no time. Snatched back their god, disposed of the interloper.
River’s gut twisted. He pressed his palm against the burgeoning bruise beneath his ribcage, basked in a pain that was tolerable, far more palatable than the heavy, ice-cold stone.
Kai’s hands shook as he fumbled with the woven clasps of his shirt.
He cursed under his breath and, sighing, River crossed the distance between them.
Knocked his hands away, fastened the neat row of gold frogs.
Even after everything that had happened at Soliz yesterday, River couldn’t stay away from him.
Enduring alone felt impossible.
“This is pointless,” Kai murmured as River fastened the last clasp.
“Maintaining appearances. The… pageantry of it.” He reached past River for a pair of earrings shaped like snakes sitting in a chipped bowl.
“Look good, show my face. Weave wards and do tricks. Appease a man I can’t stand, who can’t stand me. ”
He looked younger than his twenty-two years, alone and afraid and vulnerable. Even finished with the frogs, River couldn’t bring himself to step back, and Kai didn’t flinch or move away as he straightened the lapels, and then laid his hands there, feeling Kai’s heartbeat just beneath.
“I think about arguing, fighting back, but whenever I try…” Kai stared at his trembling hands. “I am a dog, after all. ‘What about Ione?’, I thought. ‘If I ward the shrine now, she won’t be able to come back.’ But I didn’t say anything. I just – he told me to weave, and I did.”
He let his arms drop and looked back up at River, helpless. “Everything that’s ever mattered, I’ve ruined.”
River swallowed a hard lump. “Kai – ”
He shook his head. “Everything,” he repeated. “I tried to heal Da, and I killed him. I tried to protect Ione, and I stole Menon from her. I tried to save her from Soliz, and I left her there to die – ”
“Ione’s not dead,” River cut in, louder than he’d intended. Surer than he felt. “We saw her escape. She escaped. And – and you didn’t leave her there, you – ”
“I lost control of myself.” He sighed, bitterness cresting through the sorrow.
“Saviour. With Menon, I’m more a powder keg than some ethereal being.
” Kai looked away, blinking back angry tears.
“And there is… so much I wanted to tell you, and do, and make up for. And how can I, now? With this – this monumental failure hanging over me, with you and my family and even fucking Saros looking at me like I’m a monster.
” He jerked away from River, self-loathing contorting his expression.
“How’re we supposed to move past this? How can I ever look you in the eye again? ”
River cast for him, one hand grabbing his shoulder and the other wrapping around his jaw.
Forcing Kai to hold his gaze – showing him that he could look right back.
He pinned Kai still for a long moment, the room silent save for their shallow breaths; Kai’s pulse pounded beneath River’s thumb, but his eyes were clear, lined with wet lashes and made brighter, bluer, by the scant light shining in from the window.
The words caught in his throat, but River gripped his jaw and willed into him with every cell in his body:
I see you.
I know you.
Soon Kai shut his eyes and bowed his head, letting his forehead rest against River’s. River slid his palm around Kai’s nape, delved his fingers into his hair, held him.
You are not a monster.
A noise out in the hall made them both suck in a startled breath, break apart. Several rapid knocks fractured the quiet and Kai grimaced, turning.
“What?” he called sullenly, starting towards the door – but in response it burst open and Cynthia clambered through, breathless and panicked.
“Good, you’re both here.” She threw the door shut and leaned against it, glancing behind her as though she worried about being followed.
Kai’s shoulders fell. “Cynthia,” he said wearily, “I don’t have space for another emergency. Genuinely. Whatever you’re here for, I assure you, I cannot handle it.”
Startlingly, Cynthia grinned, and then scrubbed a hand over her mouth. “Ione’s back.”
She laughed, a short, frazzled cackle. She’d said it as casually as if she’d said, It’s raining; just, Ione’s back. Ione made it out of Soliz. Up the mountain. Through the ward.
Something moved in River’s periphery, Kai, dropping to his knees.
Cynthia pushed herself away from the door, advancing until she was very close, her eyes sparkling as she relayed what had happened, grabbed River’s arms, shook him awake.
Blood roared in his ears, but he fought to listen through the lightheaded relief, registering a comforting weight in his hand – Kai’s hand.
“Through the sea,” Kai repeated dumbly after she’d finished. “She – walked.” He hung his head back, laughing, shellshocked. “I didn’t need to save her. Ha! Of course not.”
River brushed his thumb against the backs of Kai’s fingers, glad for something to hold onto as he ran through it over and over. Ione was alive. Ione was safe. Ione was here.
He had been raised to protect her, but in the end she didn’t need him. Any of them. River grinned, prouder than he’d ever felt in his life.
“And,” Cynthia finished grandly, although not without another nervous glance at the door. She lowered her voice and steepled her fingers. “She’s, uh… she brought Lina. As in, Sowelan.” She pointed. “Two halls over.”
Kai laughed again, half-hysterical. “Oh, naturally! Aye, Ineen, shove the flammable god into the same building as the powder keg.”
Although he laughed, River caught the chord of apprehension in it.
He squeezed Kai’s fingers and helped him back to his feet, his mind racing to make this building seem less like a time bomb.
As long as Kai and Lina remained separate they would, in theory, keep their two gods at bay.
But what did Ione expect to do – hide Lina in her room forever?
“Who else knows?” River asked.
“Everyone knows Ione returned.” Cynthia winced and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Hilo knows about Sowelan, obviously. And – Mikau and Ami know now, too.”
Kai shifted his weight, calculating. “Hilo’s fine,” he decided. “I’m not sure about Mikau and Red.”
“Mikau’s trustworthy,” River said.
“And Ami was Lina’s friend from Caelos,” Cynthia agreed. “She’ll be fine, too.”
After a while, Kai nodded. “I presume Her Ladyship won’t be seeing any visitors who might fly off the handle and knock the whole shrine into the sea.” His hand tightened around River’s and he smiled, slow and peaceful. “Send them my regards, will you?”
Cynthia saluted. “And River?” She half-turned and tilted her head, employing her knowing little smirk as her gaze flicked between them. “Will I tell her… you’ll visit her later?”
River’s heart jolted when Kai did not let go. “Yes – after lunch.”
Silence blanketed them again after the door creaked shut behind her, and at last both of them released one long, cathartic breath. Let some heavy presence lift from them, leaving them both free, rudderless aside from their clasped hands.
Kai regarded him, his expression warm, his usual cynical smirk tempered to something softer.
Sweeter. “So many failures in my life,” he murmured, “And so many weights on my shoulders.” He withdrew, eyes down, twisting his wedding band around his finger.
Without ceremony he removed the thin silver ring and held it to the light.
“But – thank the gods, she’s no longer one of them. ”
Still smiling faintly, solemnly, Kai set the ring atop the chest of drawers.
River swallowed, his mouth dry. “Very dramatic,” he said, although his blood thundered as Kai faced him.
“That’s me, Riv. I…” Kai raked his hair back, reddening, and with a quick breath forged on, “I had a lot I wanted to say after heroically saving you and Ineen from Soliz, but failing that and cycling through several stages of grief has, uh…”
River wrinkled his nose. “You’re usually so good at charming people.”