Chapter 14 BRINGER OF RUIN, GIVER OF WRATH, THE PRIMAL GOD OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION
brINGER OF RUIN, GIVER OF WRATH, THE PRIMAL GOD OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION
Casteel
Cloaked in the shadows that clung to the damp walls of an alcove, I waited.
My patience was waning, but I’d waited longer in silence and stillness. Hours spent in cramped spaces, awaiting the right moment to make my presence known. I’d done just that in Three Rivers, learning the comings and goings of the Ascended there. I’d done it in Masadonia as I watched her.
I could wait for an eternity, if need be.
And I would, if necessary. Because if I revealed myself, they would make finding him even more tiresome than it already was.
They being Millicent and my brother. And him being none other than Callum.
They’d been careful in the weeks after Millicent returned with the Rev, keeping him away from me.
I had figured they’d squirreled the golden fuck away in one of the many passageways beneath the capital.
After all, Malik and his heartmate knew the tunnels better than I did.
Tonight, I saw Malik entering the Shadow Temple and followed, unsurprised when he went through one of the side doors of the cella—the inner area of the ancient Temple—that led to the maze of tunnels below.
We had to be damn near under the Elysium Peaks by the time Malik found Millicent.
And I found Callum.
“You can eat or starve.” Millicent’s voice floated out, sharp and cutting like the crack of a whip. “I really don’t care.”
A soft, smooth chuckle answered. “Clearly, you do care.”
Eather swelled against my flesh at the sound of Callum’s voice. He sounded just like I remembered when he’d visited my cell. Good-natured. Friendly. Polite.
“If not,” Callum continued, “you wouldn’t be here making sure I eat.”
There was a beat of silence, and then the soft slide of the sole of Millicent’s boot against stone. “Don’t mistake basic decency for caring. You of all people should know better.”
“And you shouldn’t forget that I know you, Millicent.”
“You don’t know shit about me.” Her tone was flat, and the hard clack of her heels followed as she moved.
“I know you’re a liar.”
The sound of her moving ceased as a spike of hot, acidic anger radiated off Malik, while my interest sparked.
“You’re a good one. I’ll give you that. One of the best,” Callum went on. “Then again, you did learn from the best.”
Millicent huffed. “If you’re trying to get under my skin by insulting my mother, you truly don’t know me. I know what she was.”
I was relieved to hear that.
“Your mother loved you.”
“And?” she replied.
“That right there,” Callum responded. “It’s a facade. Everything about you is an act. You wear a mask that cannot be washed away.”
Millicent didn’t respond for several moments. “As if you don’t wear one yourself.”
Callum laughed again, the sound faintly indulgent, like my…father when he humored Malik or me when we behaved as if we understood the world. “I am who I am. I wear no mask.”
“Whatever,” she said. “You’re boring me.”
There was just the sound of her footsteps, then the heavy clang of bars sliding closed.
“Millicent?” Callum called out.
She let out a heavy sigh that could’ve been heard in Atlantia. “What, Callie?”
“Because I have no ill will toward you,” he said, “I’m going to give you a piece of advice.”
“Can’t wait to hear this.”
“You should let me go.” His words came slower, quieter. “If not, he will come for me. You do not want that.”
“He?” she exclaimed, her voice pitched unnaturally high. “As in the Big Bad Daddy of Death?”
I frowned.
“The big bad…?” He cleared his throat. “Yes, Kolis.”
“Oh. Him!” I heard hands clapping, and based on the staccato rap of her heels, I thought she might also be jumping. “That’s the plan, shit for brains.”
My brows lifted at the insult.
“Makes finding him easier if he comes to us,” she said.
“He will kill you, Millie.”
Malik’s anger nearly choked me, so I wasn’t surprised when I heard his footsteps move farther away from me and closer to them. He stopped, though.
And so did I. But for entirely different reasons.
Because Millicent laughed, and…
And…fuck, my chest caved in. It was so damn familiar. Sounded so much like hers.
My eyes closed.
“I’m not sure what I said that was so humorous,” he muttered, sounding thoroughly put out.
“You don’t know me at all if you think death is a threat,” she said. “It would be a relief.”
My jaw tightened as her footsteps rapped off stone again, carrying her toward the hall and the alcove I stood in.
“You can stop hiding.” Millicent’s hushed voice cut through the darkness, and I knew damn well she couldn’t be talking to me.
“I wasn’t hiding,” Malik muttered a second later. “And you shouldn’t be down here—”
“And why is that?” she drawled. “Actually, don’t bother answering. He needs to eat. Can’t get a skeleton to talk. Well, maybe you can if there’re still tendons, vocal cords, and shit. Huh. Now, I kind of want to find out.”
“If you had let me finish, I was attempting to say that you shouldn’t be down here by yourself,” Malik ground out, apparently accustomed enough to her random tangents that he didn’t get sidetracked. “He’s more dangerous than you realize.”
“He’s a whiny bitch boy, is what he is. Just like someone else I know,” she said. “And in case you’re wondering, that someone—”
“Is me. Whatever,” he interrupted. “I don’t want you coming here by yourself,” Malik bit out, their voices closer.
“I know.” She paused. “And I also know that you know I don’t give a fuck what you want.”
“And we both know that is a lie,” he snapped. “But keep telling yourself that, sweetness.”
“Gods, you’re annoying.”
“And you’re beautiful,” my brother replied, causing my brows to rise again. There was a gap of silence. “What you said back there about death?”
Her steps didn’t cease. “You do realize eavesdropping is creepy, right?”
“It’s not true,” Malik said—or perhaps begged. “Tell me it wasn’t true.”
Millicent didn’t answer as they passed me, but there wasn’t a single part of me that doubted she’d meant it.
Only the gods knew what she’d been through, having spent most of her life under Isbeth’s thumb.
But it wasn’t that. It was the way she’d said it.
She’d said something so dark so lightly—almost lovingly—that I knew it was the truth.
Because I’d once felt that the nothingness of death would be a tranquil, peaceful alternative to living a half-life, where a part of me remained in the dark, grimy cell I had been kept in.
I exhaled a slow breath. The silence of the underground tunnels settled around me.
I waited a few more minutes before moving.
My steps were silent as I walked along the damp corridor.
The air was heavy with the scent of wet stone, and the flickering torchlight cast long, wavering shadows. It was all too fucking familiar.
I stopped before the cell. It wasn’t like the one I had been kept in.
That’d had a mostly solid door that was left open just enough to let the Craven in because Isbitch had a sense of humor.
This one was all bars, and the cell was far more accommodating.
There was a chamber pot, and a cot that the golden fuck sat on.
His head was bowed, and strands of blond hair stained with the rusty shade of dried blood hung forward in limp clumps.
The chain around his wrist jangled as he picked up the food Millicent had brought him.
His lip curled at the bowl of what appeared to be a sloppy stew.
He set it down. Leaning against the wall, he tipped his head back and drew up a leg, letting his wrist rest on the knee of his dirty breeches.
His fingers moved slowly as if dancing over piano keys.
I drifted closer, my gaze tracking over his face. For the first time, I saw his face bare, the wings normally covering over half of it having faded away.
The freckles were the first thing I noticed.
He didn’t have as many as Millicent. They were sprinkled across the bridge of his nose.
Just like hers. And fuck, I didn’t want to see it.
Didn’t want to acknowledge what I was looking at, even though his cheekbones weren’t as high.
Didn’t want to concede that the once-painted wings hadn’t hidden the familiar features—a wide brow that tapered to a slender jaw and a slightly pointed chin.
Didn’t want to accept that it was a nearly identical straight nose with a subtle lift at the tip, or that the fucking bow-shaped lips were the same.
Callum looked like her sibling, and I couldn’t deny it. Admitting that didn’t fill me with shock like it had when I’d finally seen Millicent without the painted wings and hair dye.
All I felt was anger at what that meant. At how utterly fucked up it was.
Callum’s fingers froze. A heartbeat passed, and then his chin dipped and his eyes opened, narrowing at the exact moment mine did.
I knew he couldn’t see me; the shadows were thick around me, but he stared like he could. Did he sense my presence? Fuck if I knew, as his gaze shifted away.
Nor did I care at the moment.
I let the shadows drop.
Callum recoiled, the back of his skull thumping off the wall. The blood drained from his face, and his lips parted.
“Hello, Callum.” My lips curved up on one side. “Miss me?”
He didn’t speak, but his body was tense, wound tight as he stared at me like he was trying to figure out how I’d appeared before him.
I wondered if he realized that the shadows he’d seen moments ago had been me.
Or if he thought I’d just stepped out of them, into the gleam of the wavering torchlight. Then his gaze darted behind me.
“Ironic, isn’t it? How our positions have reversed?” My words were soft but cold. “You behind bars, chained. And me free, unchained.”
His throat worked on a slow swallow. “If you think that gives you the upper hand, you would be wrong.”
“Funny,” I remarked. “You appear incredibly nervous for someone who thinks they hold even a single card.”