Chapter 40
Chapter
Forty
“I’ve been thinking,” Kalos says, waking me from my slumber. “About our parlay.”
I rouse from sleep, rubbing my face, and tuck the borrowed cloak tighter around our tangled limbs. “What about it?”
“We need to think it through. I imagine my other self will be curious as to what I’m up to, just as I am with him.
And he can’t hurt me. We’ll meet, jab at each other a little verbally, and he’ll be looking for you to kill, just as I’ll be looking for his Anchor.
Which means we need to protect you. Keep you tucked away someplace safe. ”
“But…where?” I make a face. “We can’t be separated by much distance.”
He nods, thinking. “We need a distraction of some kind. Something where he won’t be able to find you, but you can determine where his Anchor is and get rid of them.”
“There’s also Belara to think about.”
“Mm.” Kalos’s lips thin. “We need a good plan.”
And that’s just the problem. I have a sword and the god at my side, and pretty much nothing else. It’s hard to plan around that. I glance at our surroundings. “We can’t ask them to parlay here. He’d find me in a heartbeat. All he’d have to do is scour the area near you.”
“Another town, perhaps.”
I nod, turning the problem over in my mind. “Somewhere where no one’s going to recognize us. Or at least, recognize me. You’re harder to disguise.” I reach out and tweak a lock of silvery-white hair. “Or at least someplace where they wouldn’t immediately sell us out to the enemy.”
“Back to Metta’s village, then?”
I hate that idea. “I don’t want to risk them. It’s not fair to them after how kind they’ve been to us. The cloak and the food saved us last night. They didn’t have to do that and the thought of betraying them is out of the question. Not Omos, either.”
Kalos is quiet, thoughtful. His hand rubs my back as we try to plan, but I’m still foggy from sleep and my traitorous stomach is starting to growl again despite eating all of Metta’s food last night.
“There are more towns near Eagleton,” he comments after a time.
“We can send a message to Belara’s temple and ask them to meet us at one of those.
The biggest one, perhaps. They won’t know you on sight there. ”
“Does it matter if they do or not? The moment I show up at your side, they’ll know who I am. It’ll be obvious.”
His hand on my back stills. “Then you’ll have to go in separate from me.”
Separate? I frown to myself, thinking. “It’s a good idea but it won’t work. We can’t separate.”
“We can,” he says slowly. “It’s just…hard.”
“You mean it feels like I’m being ripped apart.”
“It pains me, too, but at a deeper level. It’s like a tearing in the mind.
” He grimaces. “But I’ll endure it if it keeps you safe.
” His gaze meets mine. “I don’t want you to be in pain, but if we go in separate, you can hide in the crowd.
I’ll keep to a public spot so you can see me and the pain will lessen. ”
I lick my dry lips. The last time I felt the separation pain of our tether being stretched was beyond horrible.
In addition to being painful, it made my skin crawl with how very “wrong” it felt.
I’m not eager to experience it again. If just being separated by fifty feet feels unpleasant, how bad is it going to be when it’s hundreds of feet?
City blocks? “It is a better plan than anything I’ve got… ”
“I can try to make you sick, too.” At my aghast expression, he continues. “You’ve heard that one sort of pain can mask another? A fever can distract, too. It’s not ideal, but it might help you with…being separated from me.”
It sounds crazy and awful but we’re out of options. “We can try it.”
He pulls me tight against him, his nose pressing against my cheek. “Just blend in with crowds and keep an eye out for his Anchor. Don’t worry about anything else.”
Right. Sneak in, ignore the pain, ignore the fever, all the while looking for Kalos’s other Anchor, murder them, and all our problems are solved. “Piece of cake.”
I glance down at my clothing and grimace, because my shredded dress with its many patches will make me stand out. I pick through the bag Metta brought for us, looking for ideas. There’s nothing in there except Varina’s priestess gear, and her warm extra robe…
Aha. I tug it out of the bag. “They won’t be looking for a Belaran priestess, I bet.”
“Good. You hide in the fringes of the crowd, and I’ll speak with my other Aspect in public.”
“How do you know this will work? That he’ll want to even meet with you?”
Kalos grins. “Because it’s me. The other me is going to wonder at what Apathy has planned. Why this Aspect won’t just roll over and die.”
“Because I won’t let you.”
He grunts. “It’s true. If I didn’t have you shoving me across the countryside, I’d have returned to my plane already. Weeks and weeks ago.”
“Not too much longer, and we can put this all behind us.” He cups my cheek gently, gazing into my eyes. “I’m going to be the last one standing, Elsie.”
I nod, because that’s what I want, too. After all we’ve gone through, there’s no other option.
“I need you with me,” he continues softly. “I’m going to bring you home with me when I return, to my plane. You’ll spend eternity at my side, where you should be. You can nudge me every time I make a bad decision and be my conscience, so I don’t lose myself again.”
Guilt overwhelms me. I want that afterlife, too, but that’s not going to happen.
My tongue feels glued to the roof of my mouth, and I want to explain myself, but I can’t.
I pet the front of his wrinkled shirt, knowing that he hates how disheveled he must look.
He does enjoy nice clothes. “I’m not ready to die, Kalos. ”
“Then a lifetime together,” he says easily. “We’ll take it as the days come. I’m not letting you go anywhere. I promise you.”
I ache and ache, because how do I tell him that I elected to go home before I ever met him? Now’s not the time. There’s never been a good time but now is not it. I need him focused on our upcoming battle, not wounded and angry because he’s not going to get to “keep” me. “I’m scared.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you, Elsie. I’ll protect you. I swear. You’re mine.” His eyes blaze with fierce determination.
It’s hard to think about dying when the man you love holds you close. When he nuzzles your ear and speaks sweet nothings. No matter how much I would love for us to be a happy couple traipsing around the countryside with a goat, I must remember why I was brought here.
It was to keep this Aspect of Kalos safe. To be his companion through everything, until he no longer needs me. Being safe was never on the menu.
“Kiss me,” I tell him, and pull him close. My mouth is on his, our lips meshing, and I want nothing more than to kiss away the reality of our situation for the next while. In this moment, Kalos is mine.
I just need this moment to last forever.
“I hate this,” I mutter to myself as I adjust the fluttering red veil over my hair like a scarlet bride. “I hate this. I hate this.”
I continue to chant to the sunset how much I hate it even as I approach the city gates of a town called Narshire.
The last few days have been an absolute clusterfuck of activity.
We paid a farmer (by curing his cattle of worms and giving me a raging migraine in the process) on the outskirts of Eagleton to carry a note to the priestesses of Belara.
The note informed them that we’d meet Kalos the Liar in Narshire in three days.
This particular city is bigger than Eagleton and farther away, so the moment the note was off, we marched cross-country to our destination.
It took a full day of travel to get there, and we hid out and planned for most of another.
Now it’s late in the day and Kalos and I separated a short time ago.
I might have cried a little.
I also kissed the hell out of him and demanded that we have sex in the bushes. That I needed to wear him all over me while we were separated. I’ve been picking leaves out of my hair for hours, and the insides of my thighs are wet with his cum.
No regrets.
Kalos remains in the scrubby woods near the banks of the river. “Only for you would I hide in the bushes like a thief, Elsie.”
“This is your plan,” I’d reminded him. We’d kissed again, and I’d sneezed right in his face.
That was at least a half hour ago. I’m pretty sure I’m running a fever at this point.
He’s infected me, just as he said he would.
I didn’t ask with what, but to say I feel like shit is a hefty understatement.
I’m sweating despite it being cloudy, my nose is congested, and my head is splitting.
To make matters worse, with every step I take, the ache of being separated from Kalos increases.
I know that our tether is designed to force us to stay together, to work together, so he can use my mortal “energy” to sustain him here. Separating from him is supposed to feel wrong. We’ve tested it a few times in the past and it was highly unpleasant.
Separating voluntarily feels like deciding to pull your own tooth with pliers.
Every muscle in my body aches, and as I walk, it’s like slogging through mud. My feet are heavy, my energy low. The invisible string that binds us feels as if it’s stretching taut as I approach the city and trying to pull my skin off as I go.
But I bear it because I must. Because losing after coming this far isn’t an option, and we don’t have any other plans. I won’t involve Metta or Omos or any other innocents because I know I won’t get out alive; I refuse to take others down with me.
Being a martyr is what I do best, after all.