Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“We’ll be fine, of course. So will they.” Ione broke away, paced the perimeter of the room. Checked the door, the window. “I might nap. Let time go by faster.” She glanced at Lina, looking slightly stranded. “Right?”
Lina nodded, dazed. “Right.”
Fools. Weaklings. Cowards.
She resumed her pacing, floorboards groaning beneath her feet.
“It’s lucky, actually,” Ione said, nervously re-making the bed.
“This could’ve been me, traipsing down the mountain to face Rigel and a bunch of adrenaline-addled pyromancers.
” She fluffed out the faded pink duvet. “Better we stay out of the way.”
Sowelan swelled within her ribcage. Is that what you want?
“Kai won’t let anything make it past him. He’ll – ” Ione snapped up, a pillow slipping out of her hands. “He’ll have to use Menon. He doesn’t want to, I know, but surely he understands he can’t…”
Claws – talons – trailed across Lina’s lungs. The slightest touch, laced with warning.
Listen to me.
Lina shook her head, shook Sowelan away. “He understands. He’ll figure it out.”
Matters between gods cannot be solved by the children of man.
Ione plucked the pillow from the floor, hugged it. “You think so?”
You are weak.
“Lina?”
Weak.
“Lina…?”
Weak!
“Well, what do you suggest?” Lina shrieked, throwing her fists down. She clamped a hand over her mouth, rattled by her own outburst, by the way Ione drew her arms up, frightened and small.
Ione set aside the pillow and advanced, step by slow step, like Lina was a cornered animal. “Sowelan is speaking to you,” she said, cautious, as she took Lina’s hands in hers. “What is He saying?”
The room felt too hot, the air heavy and dead, but still Lina shivered. “Nothing.”
Ione tugged Lina with her, a gentle tide, towards the bed. “We’ll lay down,” she said, coaxing Lina to sit. The starched duvet crumpled beneath her. “We’ll sleep. We both need rest.”
The pull between gods is ceaseless.
Let two gods meet on the mortal plane.
Let Sowelan settle this matter once and for all.
“Ione.” Lina rubbed her eyes and focused hard. There, Ione, long hair plaited, an errant strand falling over her shoulder. Sweet grey eyes, that little worried wrinkle between her brows.
Listen to Sowelan.
Let Sowelan save that which you love.
Was this what they were missing? The hatred between sun and moon had begun aeons ago, before mortals ever became involved.
Perhaps it was true. A war that started between gods could only be ended by gods.
“Ione, we…” Lina trembled. Or maybe it was Sowelan, wasps droning within a hive. “We should go after them.”
Ione’s face slackened with horror. “No. No – of course we shouldn’t.” She braced her hands on either side of Lina’s face and narrowed her eyes, searching for Sowelan within Lina’s. “Sowelan,” she began sternly, “is tricking you. He wants us to bring Him to Menon. And then what?”
Her response was instant. “Two gods should meet – ”
“One of you will die, Lina! Die!”
“ – without interference.”
“Don’t listen to Him,” Ione demanded, holding her gaze, forcing Lina to stare right back. “Don’t give in.”
You run and you hide and you tremble in fear.
You relinquish control to those who would tether you.
Lina jerked out of Ione’s grasp. “You said we shouldn’t run from this.”
“Yes!” Ione shouted. “From the entirely separate issue of Saros!”
Lina stood, cursing when Ione caught her arm and dragged her back down, both of them tumbling into the bed.
“I followed you back into the altarhouse, to Castor.” Lina rolled on top of her and pinned her wrists down.
“I followed you up this mountain, into a shrine full of people who would happily kill me.”
Ione struggled, chest heaving. Ice flurried around her clenched fists, but with just a look from Lina, it melted. “I just got you back,” Ione gritted out. “I can’t lose you again.”
“I am not a prize. I am not a doll to be locked away while my people – your people, our people – are about to go and destroy each other.” Lina bore down on her, tears straining her voice.
“You told me we couldn’t run, but you were only talking about your battles, your problems, your grudges.
” She pressed her harder into the bed. “What about me? What about this? How can I keep hiding from death when I might have the power to stop it?”
“Kai is dangerous,” Ione hissed through her teeth. “And so are you, even if neither of you mean to be.”
“Do you think I want anything to happen to Kai? To any of us?”
“I know you don’t!” Ione writhed beneath her, but Lina held fast, kept her still. “That is why,” she cried, “even if it takes the rest of my life, I will keep you two away from each other.” She arched her back, weakening. “I – I will keep you alive.”
“For millennia, sun and moon have chased one another across the sky,” Lina said, and although it was her voice, or close enough to it, Ione went limp.
Stared up at her through wide, petrified eyes.
“This bond stretches deeper than your oceans, brighter and more infinite than the stars. I am life and valour and truth, and She is death and secrets and all that which hides in the dark, and if we are to meet then no mortal may stop it.”
Lina lowered. Pressed her lips against Ione’s forehead. “Sleep, if that is what you want.”
Ione shook her head, tears welling, streaming down her cheeks. “Lina,” she begged, “Fight Him.”
“Sleep,” Lina commanded, a prayer, a spell. The warmth of summer blanketed them, the air perfumed by sunlight, bright citrus, a fresh green world.
Ione breathed it in, the scent of safety, of a golden afternoon. Little by little she relaxed, her fists opening, her eyelids fluttering shut.
“Sleep, knowing that you are safe,” Lina murmured, kissing her one last time. “Sleep, knowing that you are so very loved.”