Chapter 14 #2
His gaze meets mine. “You innocent creature. Did you not hear the man downstairs? Gental is hedonism. It’s going to infect everyone, wait and see. If I start trying to kiss the nearest person, you’ll know he’s nearby and that we should have heeded my warnings to leave the city.”
I sit up, a little worried. Our hands detangle and I notice he watches as I draw my hand back. “What do you mean, he’s going to affect everyone? Does it spread like a plague?”
“Not really.” Dingle goes to nibble on Kalos’s hair.
He pulls the goat away with a gentle touch.
“Even a fragmented god influences those around him. The nature of being only one Aspect is that we poison the air of those around us. Lies will make everyone around him deceitful. Hedonism will make everyone around him selfish and pleasure-seeking. Arrogance will—”
“I know what arrogance is,” I interrupt. “But…will this affect us, too? I’ve been around you for weeks now and I haven’t been hit with apathy.”
He arches a brow. “Haven’t you? Perhaps you’re just used to ignoring it more.”
That makes me go silent.
Have I? In a way, I guess I have. I’ve been quick to give up on my life back home, pushing David and everything Earth-related out of my mind.
I lounged at the temple for a month straight doing nothing at all and ignoring Kalos, telling myself I was doing my job.
Even now, the despair of our task threatens to overwhelm me, and it takes everything I have to push it back down.
He’s right. I do get overwhelmed and apathetic, but I’m so used to being productive despite things, to swimming for the shore even when I’m drowning, that I haven’t thought too much about it.
I just shove all my feelings aside and get moving again, because that’s the only thing I know how to do.
“So being around you makes everyone else depressed?”
“We have a goat in our room, don’t we?” He absently touches one of Dingle’s long ears and the goat flicks it in irritation. “The innkeeper simply grew tired of arguing with us.”
“If it makes you feel better, I don’t get tired of arguing with you.”
“Mm. I’m still not entirely certain why you agreed to be my companion. It’s nothing but misery for you, and it won’t even end well. You won’t see him in the afterlife because you’ve been dragged here.”
“Thanks for pointing that out,” I chirp, keeping my secret close to my vest. He doesn’t know that I made a deal with Lachesis to go home once I’m dead.
I’m so glad I did, too. I’ll hang out in Purgatory or wherever I need to, as long as I get to see David again.
Being away from Kalos is a bonus. “As for why I volunteered, it wasn’t for me.
It was for my brother. His cancer returned, and the doctors had warned him that if it spread, it would be fatal.
I wanted him to have a chance at life, and Lachesis said if I did this—joined you—that she’d make sure that his life was long and healthy and fulfilling. I wanted that for him…so I came.”
Kalos eyes me, absently stroking Dingle’s head as the goat leans in and chews on the blanket. “Who is Lachesis?”
“She’s a goddess of fate back where I come from. She said she works with your gods of fate.”
His expression turns sour. “So they blackmailed you into sacrificing yourself. I shouldn’t be surprised. The Fates are the most mercenary of all of us. And here you are, the noble martyr, forced to do a job so terrible no one in this world would volunteer.”
“Well, that can’t be entirely true, can it? You have three other Aspects, and they all have to have Anchors, right?”
He doesn’t answer me. Instead, he narrows his eyes. “You know I could have cured your brother myself. If he was here in this world, I could heal him with a touch. I could make his cancer dormant with no more than a thought.”
I’m not going to play the what-if game with him. That’s a rabbit hole that will only cause me misery. “You might have the ability, but I’ve seen nothing in you that makes me think that you would have cured him, even if you had the opportunity.”
The god of disease chuckles and scratches at Dingle’s chin. “That’s the irony, isn’t it?”
Is it irony? Or is it just being a shitty person? I get up and move to the other side of the bed. “I need a nap.”
“Oho. Even the lady of perpetual sunshine gets tired of me. I take it you’re done with our conversation?”
I yank the blanket back and climb into bed, my mood as gloomy as his. “Exactly.”
It takes a while for me to fall asleep, though. Instead, I pull the covers tight and wonder about David. Was I manipulated by the gods? And have I been too inwardly apathetic to notice until just now?
Or is this all because I was truly needed at Kalos’s side?
And would Kalos have saved David if he’d had the opportunity? Or would he have just let him die because he didn’t give a shit? I suspect I know the answer to that already, and it depresses me most of all. Because Kalos isn’t a good person. He isn’t even trying to be moderately decent.
And I’m stuck with him, an invisible tether that keeps us together until I die.
And who knows where I go in the afterlife here? With my luck, it’d be right back to Kalos’s side.
I pull the covers over my head as if I can hide from fate itself.