Chapter Twenty-Four #2
His back hit the cool wall and River lowered to his knees before him, and Kai let his eyes fall closed, peaceful, basking in the indescribable warmth of being with someone he wanted, and who actually, impossibly, wanted him, too.
He cared for Ione. Had come to love her, he believed. But their separate yearnings for River and Lina had hung over them, constrictive, felt like cords around their necks.
Here, with River, even the darkness of this ruined room felt like home.
His fingers tangled in River’s curls and he whispered a broken string of praise and curses in the gods’ tongue as River took him apart with tongue and lips and teeth.
It was called for, deserved: the language was for magic and prayer, and discounting the goddess dwelling within him who didn’t even pay rent, River blowing him was as close to a religious experience as anything he’d ever felt.
After he’d finished River pressed his lips just beneath Kai’s ribcage.
The solar plexus, Kai thought it was called; he’d only ever been punched there and didn’t know something as simple and pure as a kiss would make his heart squeeze.
He pulled River to his feet and returned the favour, in love with the way River gripped his hair and rolled his hips into him.
Minutes or hours might have passed before they curled up together at the bay window, Kai’s head resting on River’s shoulder, both of them staring out to sea and pretending that this would be forever.
It would be. Of course it would.
At the end of the room, the door creaked open, soft light from the hall blanketing the broken bookshelves and casting eerie shadows.
River tensed and Kai scrambled to his feet, straightening his jacket – but the familiar clacking of boots put him at surprising ease.
His family was no friend to him, but his mother and Etan, lumbering after her, were better than Saros.
Malia’s brows furrowed when she stepped around the shelves and found them, Kai, standing awkwardly; River, knees drawn up at the seat before the window. In the half-light, she looked almost worried, a black shawl pulled tight around her shoulders.
“There you are,” she said, coming around to them. Kai must’ve looked a certain way, because she frowned at him, at River, and back again. “Gods, Kai, you know I don’t give a shit what you get up to.”
Kai summoned a laugh and sat beside River again. “Thanks, Mam.”
She crossed her arms and leaned against a bookshelf; Etan stood guard beside her, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here. “I saw you nearly collapse today casting wards,” Malia said. “I wanted to check on you.”
Good to know she was spying on him. “I’m grand.”
She quieted, studying him like he was a specimen behind structurally-dubious glass. Gradually River shifted in his seat and lowered his legs, as though he expected an argument or a fight, and Kai laid his fingertips over his thigh.
He breathed, willing himself to appear bored. Holy, unreachable, something Ione had perfected. “Well,” he drawled, “it’s lovely as always seeing yous. Bring Nalu next time and make my night.”
Etan snorted. “Lulu’s busy crawling up Saros’s ass thinking it’d get him recognition.”
“Sounds familiar,” Kai shot at his mother.
A contrite wrinkle formed between her brows. “Saros was one of my oldest allies,” she said, her voice soft. Sad. “After your father passed and I was forced to defend our fleets, Archpriest Saros pardoned me. I owed him my life.” She lifted her head. “But then he hurt me in a way I can’t forgive.”
She was looking at him like she wanted him to figure something out, to stop being so stupid and useless. Kai knew that look pretty well.
“Mam,” Etan said. “Just tell him.”
Malia sighed like she was in pain. “Kai,” she said, her voice gentler than it had been in years. “When I heard Menon had chosen you, I was honoured. And proud. But – ”
“Menon can go fuck Herself.” Kai loosed a harsh laugh. This was what she’d come here to bother him with? “You’re proud? Of this?”
“Kai – ”
He stood and paced before River could catch him, too agitated to stay still.
“Menon’s the reason my and Ione’s lives’ve gone to shit,” he snapped.
“Menon’s the reason everyone expects me to lead them, to save them, to kill an entire population of people so they can win their shitty holy war.
For fuck’s sake, Menon’s the reason I can’t even shave without asking Hilo for my own fucking razor back. Menon’s – ”
“None of that is Menon’s fault,” Malia cut in. She swallowed, buying time, her hands fluttering about the edge of her shawl. “It’s Saros’s.”
Saros.
His arms fell, the name hitting him like a punch in the gut.
Saros. Kai whirled, searching his mother’s face, Etan’s, even River’s, for any hint of a cruel joke.
They stared right back, River, mouth agape, looking hurt; Etan, vigilant, like he planned to have to pin Kai down.
And Malia, solemn. Sorry. Really, truly sorry.
It was Etan who dropped his gaze first. “He said it was some kind of high-tier siphoning ward – ”
There it was, proof it was a lie. “Saros doesn’t know shit about wards.”
But that wasn’t true – he’d seen him drawing an amplifying ward; had noted, during their first meeting, that Saros could detect his wardstrings. Nepotism aside, Saros couldn’t be an Archpriest without some talent.
His brother shrugged. “Only relaying what he told Nalu and I. He said he found it in one of Llyr’s journals, a way to isolate Menon’s spirit and lock it into a human.”
The memory hit him, then, of how Saros smiled at him after Menon first possessed him. How happy he was. How utterly unsurprised.
Ice-cold dread pitted in his stomach – and rising swiftly above it, fury, blistering rage that sucked the breath from his lungs. Kai felt his shaking hands open and close, his fingernails digging into his palms, his jaw tightening.
Saros did this. To him, to Ione, to all of them.
River’s hands cupped his face. “Breathe,” he whispered, although his eyes were hard, his mouth taut with anger.
Kai backed out of his grasp, feeling cornered. He wanted to run. Destroy something. Break Saros’s door down and wring his fucking neck.
“Kai.” Etan’s voice was low, a poor attempt at soothing. “Calm down.”
Calm down? Kai’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He imagined screaming at them that he wasn’t fragile, that he had every right to lose his mind over this, that he’d love to see how happy Saros was with his creation when it knocked Caelos Shrine and everyone in it into the sea.
Arms wrapped around him and he jolted awake, breathed – in, hold, out, like River had taught him – and came back into himself.
“I’m sorry,” his mother said into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry this happened.”
Kai blinked, jarred by the embrace, by the words he was certain he’d never heard from her. He choked on a real response, stammering out a stunned, “You hate me.”
She sighed. “Don’t be an idiot. You’re my son.
” She released him, held him at arm’s length.
“Saros wanted a master of wards. He said you were perfect. He’d give you a title, a high and honoured position, everything I wished for you.
” She squeezed his shoulders. “I let you walk into his plans without a second thought. I believed in him.”
In, hold, out. “If Etan told you all this,” he mustered, “then why haven’t you said anything? Told everyone?”
“And end up with you killed,” Etan interjected. “Saros said the only reason Llyr never cast this ward was because it was the same as stealing a god’s power, and I guess they’re real precious about that up north.”
Kai’s mouth went dry, recalling the priests and officers at their last meeting, the righteous indignation contorting their faces at the summoning of Sowelan into a human.
He could only imagine the overeager spellcasters vying for his life if he revealed himself not to be chosen by Menon, but an abomination created by Saros.
“Right now, everyone believing your divinity is legitimate only works in our favour.” Malia crossed her arms, an admiral again.
“We’ll go to the parley and at least rid ourselves of the Moth issue first. After that, we will deal with Saros.
” Her eyes darkened. “And believe you me, he will not be forgiven for harming our family.”
“And Llyr’s journals – ?”
“Don’t you dare,” Etan grumbled, scratching his chin.
“If he has them here, they can wait until this is over for you to start poring over them.” He clamped a heavy hand over Kai’s shoulder, another uncomfortably friendly gesture Kai didn’t know what to do with.
“If anyone can figure out how to haul Menon and Sowelan out of the pair of yous, you can.”
Kai started, his heart thumping, but Etan waved him off. “Aye, Hilo told us about Sowelan downstairs, because – surprise, Kai – we’re not the enemy.”
Kai scoffed. His family had never not been the enemy.
“I’ll leave you, then,” Malia said, turning while Etan ensured that the hall outside was empty. “Lay low for now. And…” Her eyes found River’s and she coughed politely. “I suppose once we’re all through with this, we’ll have to invite you to the Cetos for dinner.”
“I dunno,” River said, taking his hand. “Kai told me about your dinners. I’m not sure if I want to have my throat slit.”
“That was a once-off,” Malia said, a hint of embarrassment.
“Oh, in that case.”
Malia laughed – not her stage laugh, nothing cynical or caustic. But warm, like she meant it. Like she was trying.
Kai had never trusted his family without being punished for it.
But the way she smiled and bowed her head to River as she departed, the searing hostility in her voice when she uttered Saros’s name, made Kai think that maybe, for this, she could be trusted.
At least because it would heal her bruised pride.