27. Chapter 27
Chapter 27
Viola
E veryone around me is sleeping, the sounds of their breathing tickling my ears and threatening to lull me down with them. We're in the living area of a small home with rickety stairs leading up three floors. It's dark, the cracked windows only letting in the orange glow of the moon. There is a fine layer of red clay dust on everything as if they do not bother to try to keep it out anymore. Upstairs, there are at least fifteen Lowlanders of varying ages spread amongst the rooms.
Tulip sleeps like the dead, stretched out on the floor with her head thrown back, mouth wide open, and arm crossed over her eyes. Every once in a while, a little snore comes out.
Morrow is halfway sitting up, pressed against a wall, his feet pressed against Tulip's and his chin resting on his chest.
Somehow, Plume manages to look elegant even in her sleep. She is curled up on her side in a small armchair, hands folded by her face.
And Mace seems to become all knees and elbows when he sleeps, so he's stretched out and pressed against the wall, far from the rest of us, to help us avoid his kicking feet. The crease that appears between his eyebrows regularly is smoothed, his face slack and relaxed, and his breathing even. His sharp features look softer like this, a reflection of the gentleness that he possesses with him. He seemed restless, even before the minotaur attack, which is why I asked him to dance. I'm not sure I would have without the encouragement of half a bottle of wine, but I'm glad I did if only to get him out of his head a little.
After Pran's complete acceptance that I am a God, which I am still having trouble processing, the whole town ate quick meals of the hog we brought for Linna and then retreated to their homes. The citizens of this home refused to let us sleep in our outdoor hollow, despite our insistence that it was comfortable, and we were quite used to it by this point. I didn't want to risk offending the people who would be tearing their homes apart for priceless family heirlooms for me, so here we are, piled up in this house that has entirely too many people in it. It makes my skin itch to be in such close quarters, but I am not going to turn down their hospitality.
However, I do slip out of the home silently with Shadow and my blades as soon as my group is sleeping to get some fresh air.
The glow of the moon and the wisps of wind, chilled from the nearby sea, bring me home momentarily. People are milling about still, and despite my desire to be alone, I keep getting approached. It's not malicious; most people just want to shake my hand, ask about my powers, or in one case, propose a marriage, but I am afraid of biting one of their heads off with hostility at some point if I do not get a little solitude. After the fifth time of getting stopped, I move to the far outskirts of the city and sit down on a bench, eyes on Shadow.
I'm beginning to suspect that he's in tune with my thoughts and emotions because he tightens around my forearm and pulls his face into the palm of my hand just like he did before I got pushed into the shadow vision a few nights ago. I grin, guessing what his suggestion is, and push shadows out to obscure me. This time, the shadow vision is not just black but resembles a deeply shadowed cave. I sigh happily and lean against the wall, relishing the silence and solitude.
These past few days have been difficult for me. On the one hand, I miss how things used to be for me. I love the quiet and being alone, and I thrive in it. But I have spent my whole life pushing people away because of fear they'd die in the Race or leave me, and that threat is gone. So can I continue to behave that way now that the cause for it is gone? Sure, they may die, but that's a part of life that is always unavoidable. It doesn't feel as inevitable as it did when the Race was still in play.
Lately, in a move that even shocks even me, I am finding myself wanting to open up to people. Men asked me to dance under no pretense, and I accepted. It's not the first time someone has asked me to dance, but typically I would blow them off or take them to my home for a quick fuck to reduce some stress. But this time, I accepted and actually enjoyed myself. The first offer was the hardest to accept, but the subsequent ones came easily.
For a while there, I was just a woman at a festival, dancing.
My parents never let me attend events like that because all it did was distract me from my goal of getting to Ytopie. Getting to play the part of a maiden was new to me, and I supposed I took full advantage of it, even if I managed to drink a little too much. And when the crowd today supported me and cheered me on, I felt myself buoyed up with their words. They spoke to me as if I was their God, with no question or doubt.
I wish I could see it so clearly.
"Your thoughts are incredibly loud, daughter."
I was wondering if his voice would join me tonight. Or maybe hoping. Either way, I don't bother looking up where my head rests on my knees. "Maybe they wouldn't be if you didn't crawl into my little bubble of solitude." The bite is gone from my voice, replaced with resignation.
I feel the sensation of being watched creep up the back of my neck, and I dart to my feet. Standing behind me is the shadowed form of Himureal. He's as beautiful as ever, his severe features in a soft smile and his hands showing palms up towards me. His white hair is braided into several small braids down the side of his head, with the rest let down. He's not wearing a shirt, and white scars decorate his chest like runes. Barefoot and wearing white pants, he is so beautiful that he could be a figment of my imagination.
Or a siren luring me to my death.
"I thought you said you wouldn't join me in my shadow vision, Frostweaver."
He chuckles, and the sound is like cool water poured down my back on a hot day. "I don't think you'll kill me today. If you even could." It's a taunt, a challenge, and it takes a lot of self- control to resist responding to it.
Sitting back down and leaning my head against the cave wall, I groan. "No, I don't think I will." My magic is fighting against me, longing to be beside him. It makes sense because it originally belonged to him, but it is infuriating to desire to spend time with someone who is the antithesis of my goals.
"And why is that?"
"I want, no need, to know more about my magic, and you're the only one who can tell me."
He sits across from me, folding his legs like mine, our feet touching one another. "I understand that, daughter. In fact, I believe I told you that you needed me for this. But, information isn't free. With the way your ancestors chose to hide it, you should have figured that out by now." A sinister smile stretches across his face, his clear blue eyes sparkling. "Oh no, you cannot just get the answers you seek. You must pay for it."
"What could you possibly want from me?"
He taps his pointed nail on his chin as if thinking, "I want to know you, Shadowweaver. You are my daughter, and even if you refuse to see it now, we will rule together- not because I force it, but because you will choose it."
"Not on your life, Himureal," I scoff.
He rubs his fingers on the sides of his nose, pressing down as if I've caused him great pain. "You are so combative. I wonder, how did you end up that way? You may be my daughter, but I know nothing of you from before we met. Tell me a story from your childhood, and I'll tell you more. More about your magic."
I pull my legs under me as I sit up straighter. Shadow crawls up my neck and hangs loosely like a scarf. Himureal reaches out to him, and he hisses at the God, who pulls his hand back with an amused chuckle. "I still find that snake just fascinating," he murmurs, squinting as if he'll be able to figure the shadow-snake out.
"That's it? You want to know about my childhood?" I interrupt his musings about Shadow.
Nodding, he produces a goblet of wine out of thin air. When he sees my reaction, he laughs. "I appear to be in your realm but am in my own. The shadows answer to you, not the other way around. You brought your snake and blades with you, didn't you? Just because you can see me doesn't mean you're not still where you were. One more thing you'll need to learn." He takes a long sip and leans his head back, eyes closing. He looks serene, powerful, calm. I can see, looking at him in the shadows but dressed all in white, how he must have had a plethora of followers in his day. He is magnetic.
Frustrating and dangerous, yes. But magnetic.
He lowers the glass and peers at me over it with a bored expression. He flicks his hand towards me as he says, "Now. Tell me something."
I suck my teeth and absentmindedly pet Shadow, trying to think what memory I can release to the God of Winter that won't weaken me. "I know my father loved me, well, I'm pretty sure he did, but I'm not sure if my mother was capable of it. One of my earliest memories is of my mother taking my breakfast plate away and telling me to go outside and forage for food in preparation for when I would Race." A phantom hunger pain hits me. "I was maybe five or so."
The memory of it floods me, stumbling through meadows and the edge of the forest to find something, anything, to calm the loud rumbles within my belly. I felt as if I was out there for hours, but as a child, my concept of time could have been warped. Eventually, my father came and found me, pulling some iron rations from his pocket and feeding one to me.
How could he let her do that to me if he loved me so much?
Himureal clears his throat, pulling me out of my memories, and I tap my leg several times to ground myself. "My mother believed if I trained my whole life to Race, I wouldn't be a burden on them in my Ascension year." My traitorous voice cracks with emotion, a weakness I never wanted to reveal to the Frostweaver. "I must've been one, though, because they left me there that year."
The glass of wine hangs as slack as his jaw between Himureal's fingers, having not been raised to his lips once while I spoke. "They left you there? On your own?"
"Yeah, just up and bolted in my sleep." I laugh sarcastically, trying to recover from my brief show of emotion. "I was a bit of an odd child, but I mean, who wouldn't be when you're raised not with love and hugs but with training and textbooks? I never went to formal school. I learned what I could from my parents when it came to reading, but that was only because they wanted me to study texts on the Gods or the fae or edible plants. "
The visceral jealousy I would feel watching the kids skip off to the schoolhouse every morning as I got left behind flares in my chest again. Max would try to teach me as much as she could, but a child who is still learning herself is not the best teacher. Once, Mother caught me working on mathematics and tore the papers I had painstakingly transcribed from Max's books to shreds. She didn't deem numbers to be useful enough in the Race to waste my time learning.
That was the one good thing about them leaving me on the Summit. I came home and immediately threw myself into formal studies, going so far as to hang out on the outskirts of the lessons for the village children. I was not going to allow myself to be left ignorant when I made it to Ytopie. Max told me it was pointless since I was an adult, but I am glad I took that time.
The mind can be as great of a weapon as a blade, even if I prefer the more brutal of the two.
It takes me a moment, but eventually, I notice a lightness in my chest. It's nice to talk about this with someone other than Mace, who is so weighed down by his guilt he can't properly listen. And for all his faults, Himureal is an excellent listener. He's not taken his eyes off of me, his face a perfect mixture of empathy and sympathy that does not make me feel like a burden when I speak to him. It must be from eons of practice from receiving worshippers.
"Anyways, they had this saying," I inhale deeply, doing my best attempt at an impersonation of my mother even though there is no benefit of it to the Frostweaver, " 'In the Race, there are no friends. In the Race, there is no family.' I didn't expect them to take it so literally." My rueful laugh surprises me, echoing years of resentment. I watch as Himureal's fingers tighten around his glass almost imperceptively. "So there I was, freshly eighteen and having to deal with figuring out how to live on my own and survive. I managed, but I had some rough moments."
Those moments threaten to bubble to the surface of my memory, and I push them back with the rhythmic tapping of my index finger against my collarbone.
Himureal rests his chin in his hand, the wine glass now abandoned on the ground and shakes his head slowly back and forth. "I would not have left you behind, daughter." The sincerity in his voice shocks me, and for a moment, I entertain the idea that maybe he isn't as bad as we have thought. The moment passes quickly. "That's why I want you to come back. I will not leave you alone to survive on your own."
I wrinkle my nose in displeasure. "I have survived just fine on my own, father ," I sneer.
"You are not without your scars, Viola. Can't you see that I can heal you? Your own father couldn't protect you. Let me. Let me."
With that, I am on my feet, rushing him. He takes a step back and holds his hands up, erecting a waist-high shadow barrier between us.
"Do not speak of my father as if you have any idea what went on in my home. You may be the father of my magic, but you are nothing to me." I spit on the ground and he rolls his eyes as if I am a petulant teenager. "You don't want me, Himureal. This whole thing has nothing to do with Viola Mistflow. You want me back because you believe I belong to you, as you so kindly yelled at me after the ritual."
"Your magic belongs to me, it's true. I couldn't fully explain myself when you were running away from me, scared."
"I wasn't scared."
"Believe what you want," he says with a wave of his hand.
I turn, ready to disassemble this shadow vision, and leave before I remember. "You said you'd tell me something about my magic."
Sliding back down to the ground, Himureal stretches his long legs out before taking a deep sip of the previously abandoned wine. "So I did. And despite the ridiculous temper tantrum you just threw, I will uphold my end of the bargain."
For someone who seems to want to be on my good side, he sure is doing a great job at pissing me off. "You're one to talk about temper tantrums. You murdered someone and screamed at me that I belonged to you in the garrison."
He waves away my words as if they're a nuisance and speaks as if he didn't hear me. "I was the first God, did you know that? Winter came first as the great equalizer. I blanketed the world in snow, and through it, Spring grew. Snow, Ice, and Frost were my first powers, though they all come from the same core of Cold."
"Core? What's that?"
When he smiles, his face takes on a feline nature, his lips pointing in the middle. "Core powers are essences of Gods. Winter's cores are Cold and Dark."
"Is there anything under Dark other than Shadow and Blood?"
He groans. "You're asking so many questions and only paid for one answer. One answer. Let me continue."
I sigh but gesture for him to keep talking, making a note to ask about the Dark core if I get this opportunity again.
"As I was saying, when I learned I could bring forth Ice, I thought it was only literal. I froze things constantly. No lake was safe. If there were any moisture in the air, I would solidify it. Amaryn, the Bloomtide, at one point, fed up with my freezing every bit of water and not allowing her plants to grow, came to me and shook me by the shoulders and said that Ice didn't have to be this way. The purpose of Ice is to freeze." He takes a sip of his wine, looking entirely self-satisfied.
"What are you even saying? Of course, Ice magic freezes."
He rises to his feet and pretends to brush dust off of them. As his hands move, shadows flow from his fingertips, and I roll my eyes at the wanton display of power. When I focus on those shadows, I realize that, for some reason, his magic doesn't buzz to me like the others do. "Why don't I hear your magic?"
"I already gave you more than one answer today, daughter. You'll have to give me another truth for one later. I'll see you soon." With a wink, he's gone, leaving me in the shocking quiet of my shadow vision. I spin, looking around as if he's still waiting for me, hiding behind something. When I realize he's fully gone, I pull the shadows in and ground myself back in Pran, wondering what the fuck that was all about.