Chapter Thirteen #3
“Would you like to see something different?” Kiaro asked. Ethyr blinked at him, surprised he was offering.
“But it’ll take the whole day just to get out of the city.”
Kiaro held out a hand. Ethyr stared at it for a long second before daring to take it, and the god’s slender fingers wrapped around his.
He didn’t have time to consider the chill taking over his body, he only had a sense that the ground below him had moved, and he stumbled a little with the change.
Kiaro gripped his arms to keep him upright, and the sudden proximity raised his eyes to Kiaro’s.
As their gazes met, a flicker of emotion ran across Kiaro’s face, and it took a second for Ethyr to recognize what it was, because it was so foreign on the quiet, stoic god. Discomposure. He released Ethyr, stepping back.
“S-sorry,” Ethyr said, not sure what else to say.
Kiaro gave only a curt nod. “This way.”
He started through the trees. Because there were trees, Ethyr realized for the first time.
The city—if it could be called that—was gone, replaced by a towering forest that looked so much like the one from his home that his heart could have burst. He swallowed sorrow and homesickness and followed Kiaro.
The god stepped through the woods with ease, like he knew every branch and root and stone.
“Where are we?” Ethyr asked, but got no response.
Kiaro slowed. Ethyr didn’t see it until they were almost upon it.
An opening in the earth, like the dirt had yawned wide and gotten stuck.
But it wasn’t a cave—forming the top of the structure was the base of an enormous tree.
Where the trunk didn’t cover, its roots spread out over the top and down the sides, mingling with ivy and ferns and other plants to give the whole abode a beautifully overgrown look.
“Wow,” Ethyr breathed. He knew Kiaro was watching him, but he couldn’t help his awe, stepping forward and pressing a hand to one of the roots. To be amongst nature again was like taking the first warm breath of spring after a particularly harsh winter.
“I knew you would like it.”
The words took a second to sink in. Ethyr pried his eyes from the majesty to look at Kiaro, who watched him with a besotted smile. The words were confusing, but the smile took Ethyr completely off guard, and the question on his tongue stammered out.
“Kn-knew? How?”
The smile drifted away and Kiaro did not reply. Ethyr stepped back, a tingling feeling down his spine. Had Kiaro been watching him more closely than the others? Why? It wasn’t exactly something he could ask about.
“You said this place wasn’t alive,” he said instead. “But isn’t this alive?”
Kiaro looked at him curiously. Then, as though the look had given something away, the god caught his expression and neutralized it.
“It is not,” he said flatly. “Humans know that plants grow, and so they grow. But it is not from life. It is more like the way humans manipulate puppets.”
Ethyr understood. It was missing something.
It was vibrant green and brown, but dull somehow.
It did not tug at him the way the wild at home did.
Still, he couldn’t help but appreciate the reprieve from the endless stone of the city.
He returned to the ground-cave’s entrance.
It looked like there were piles inside the shelter.
“Can we go in?” Ethyr asked, resting a hand on the leaf-shrouded frame of the entrance and squinting into the shade. It was definitely full of stuff.
“Of course,” Kiaro said, so Ethyr slipped in. Kiaro had to duck under the opening, but once inside it was surprisingly spacious. It took a moment in the sparse light leaking through the tree’s leaves and roots for Ethyr’s eyes to fully adjust.
The den was filled with things like the temple and palace had been, but with fewer items, and none as opulent.
Simple iron candlesticks like the ones his commune used for the Festival of Frost, bone dice, wool cloaks, a few carved wooden pieces lay strewn about.
But prominent amongst the rustic items was a large piece of wood, taller than Ethyr’s torso and about as wide as his outstretched arms, with an incredible landscape painted on it.
The brush strokes weren’t the clean, careful, pious strokes of the murals in the palace and temple—they were harried, chaotic, like the artist had made it in a possessed frenzy.
But what most drew Ethyr was the dark spot almost directly center of the piece.
The rest of the landscape—a forest—had been painted as though cast in full daylight.
But the foremost tree blocked out the light, so that its canopy was illuminated while below it was cast in darkness.
Barely visible, at the base of the tree, knelt the small silhouette of a person.
His face was the most discernible part of him as he clung to the tree, looking adoringly up at it.
The rest of the landscape may have been bright, but it was tumultuous—this one dark spot was tranquil.
“It is from an ancient legend,” Kiaro’s voice broke through the hold the painting had taken on Ethyr.
“The god of nature harboring the god of darkness. Most mortals interpreted the tale as darkness tricking nature into sheltering him. But this artist understood.” Ethyr looked up at him.
“Darkness is gentle.” Kiaro was speaking almost reverently. “It is nature who is fierce.”
The god had never looked so vulnerable and aching. He stared at the painting alongside Ethyr, lost in his admiration of it and for once too unaware to correct his expression.
“Why is this here?” Ethyr whispered. Something about the space suddenly seemed too sacred to speak loudly.
“I brought it here,” Kiaro said, as though it was a complete answer.
“Why? From where?”
“I saved it after the artist died.”
Ethyr looked around at the pile of other things. “And these too?”
“They were offered.”
“These are offerings?”
“Yes.”
A realization struck Ethyr. “Is this… your home?” He looked around as though expecting a sudden bed and hearth to materialize, but there was nothing except dirt and roots and the heaps of sacrificed possessions.
“You could call it that.”
Ethyr looked curiously at him. Kiaro remained unguarded, vulnerable, staring at the painting like it was carving him open. He hadn’t expected the god of deception to have such a verdant base, or such a weakness for art.
Kiaro straightened, his expression returning to its usual solemnity, and he glanced back at the entrance. “You should return. Your absence has been noticed.”
Ethyr blinked at him, then the hovel opening, creeping up to it and peering out. It was still and silent in the forest.
He turned and startled when Kiaro’s body was abruptly beside him.
He had to tilt his head back to see the god’s face.
A corner of Kiaro’s mouth curled. He gazed down at Ethyr with a restrained amusement that gave the cold darkness of his eyes an uncharacteristic warmth.
His eyes weren’t black like his hair, Ethyr realized, but dark gray like a shadow in moonlight.
He grew aware of how close they were standing at the same time Kiaro’s hand lifted and a finger brushed against the stone hanging from his ear. Ethyr's hand went to it reflexively and Kiaro pulled away, not fast enough to prevent their fingers grazing together. Kiaro clasped his behind his back.
“I-I lost it,” Ethyr hurried to explain, flustered and blushing and not sure why. “I found it at the temple but had nowhere else to keep it. It looks silly, I know.”
“No,” Kiaro said mildly. “It is charming on you.” His gaze drifted over Ethyr’s face as though searching for something.
Kiaro didn’t have the soft, ethereal features of the other gods.
The striking cut of his features weren’t sharp in a chiseled or angular way, but more like the sharpness of breathing cold winter air into your lungs. Bracing, refreshing, irresistible.
With just two handspans between them, the proximity had a weight that held Ethyr’s tongue and quickened his heart.
Kiaro had seen him in all kinds of compromised positions, had elicited one just hours ago, but that moment, the space, the gaze between them then was more intimate and vulnerable than anything else that came before it.
Ethyr raised his chin, shifting subconsciously to the balls of his feet. For a moment—a brief, heart-stilling moment—Kiaro lowered his mouth. Cool breath caressed Ethyr’s lips.
Kiaro straightened and turned away. “Let us go back.” He ducked out into the sunlight.
Ethyr sighed, the soaring lift of his heart plummeting to his feet. Back. To the palace. To his opulent prison. The thought alone was suffocating.
“You need to be wary of Lyrian.”
He paused as he stepped out after Kiaro, blinking at him. “How do you know about that?”
Kiaro’s shaded expression gave no answer.
“Have you been watching me?” he asked, unease stirring in his chest and souring any lightness that might have remained. “Why?” No answer. “How long?”
Kiaro raised his hand and rested two fingertips to the middle of Ethyr’s forehead.
He opened his eyes to a stone ceiling high above him.
For a moment he was confused. Then he jerked upright with a gasp, looking around the offering room.
He was back at the temple, on the bench.
Had any of that happened? Was it just a dream?
Wandering a desolate gods’ realm with a Kiaro who was soft and smiling; it had the makings of a dream.
He reached up. He had his earring.
Ethyr dragged himself off the bench and started down the corridor.
Near the front of the temple, there was an unusual commotion of noise and activity.
He stepped out into the hall where a swarm of priests rushed to and from corridors, Klara in the middle of it all directing them or listening to reports.