31. Theos
Chapter 31
Theos
“ A ny sign of her yet?” Ruen’s quiet, demanding question sets my teeth on edge until I want to pound my fist into his face. If there was any sign of her, I’d have told him. He knows it. I know it. Kalix knows it.
Kalix, at least, hasn’t repeated the damn question a million times in the past half hour as if the answer has somehow changed. Ignoring it, I return to what I’d been doing—scanning the area for any sign of Kiera. Waking up to find her gone, her bed empty, and no sign of a note was not on my list of best ways to face yet another rite of the Gods.
The fact that we’d arrived—hoping to find her here—at the assembly hall only to be met with the Ortus Terra and those that had followed us from our own Academies handing out weapons only served to increase my dread. Though the weight of a sword on my hip is a welcome reminder that I am not useless, the fact that the Gods have deemed it necessary to give them to us can mean nothing good.
“I don’t see her,” Ruen states.
“Because she isn’t here,” I snap, losing grip of my temper for a split second.
Ruen shoots me a dark look. “She can’t be far,” he says. “The Gods wouldn’t have taken her in the night.”
“Why not?” Kalix asks, his voice as cold and even as the lack of emotion on his face. “They did the healer.”
Maeryn. Soft, fragile, frightened Maeryn. I wince at the memory of Kiera’s desperation as she’d tried to break the door to the girl’s room down and the inevitable dawn of shock and fear that had followed when we’d discovered it empty.
“Her room hadn’t been emptied,” I say, reminding them of that fact. “Everything was as it was last night. If they took her, then why wouldn’t they take everything else the same way?” As if they were attempting to erase the existence of those who had displeased them.
I’m not stupid. That was the reason for Maeryn’s disappearance. She’d refused to attend the Cleansing—or the Traiectus Ceremony. The Gods had warned there would be a punishment. Still, though, complete erasure?
That action, in and of itself, is a cruelty I didn’t even consider. The brief moment as we’d stared into the empty room coated in dust and contemplated if, perhaps, we hadn’t made up her existence. A room that just the previous day had housed a fellow Mortal God. A friend … of sorts. The absence and obliteration of her personal effects had left me feeling as if I’d fallen down a tunnel.
I’m beginning to question everything. How long have we actually been here? A week? Two? It’d only been two weeks until the Equinox when we’d first arrived, but with the same food day in and day out, no classes, and no schedule to keep me grounded in some sort of reality—I can’t help but wonder if this place isn’t an eternal void where time ceases to mean anything.
Maybe disappearance is natural. Maybe none of us are even real.
“ Theos .” Ruen’s bark sounds right next to my ear and I whirl, my upper lip peeling away from my teeth only to freeze at the reason for his call.
Kiera . I release a breath. She walks towards us with her head held high. She’s dressed in a pair of black trousers so perfectly tailored to her body that it appears more like a second skin around her hips and legs. Instead of a shirt with the color of aged grain, she wears a thin tunic tucked into the waist of her trousers and a matching belt from which hangs a sheath with a sword handle sticking out of it.
Leather belts are wrapped around her chest, buckled beneath her breasts and over her shoulders. Twin daggers facing downward are strapped in place and I’m not so naive as to not think that she’s hiding more weapons under her clothes. Her hair is pulled up and away from her face, braids on either side of her scalp keeping the strands from breaking free as the rest of the mass is tied with a leather band.
She doesn’t stop until she reaches us, and though her lips part, hopefully to give us a reason for her disappearance, I don’t let her. Diving forward, I grip her waist and yank her against me, slamming my mouth over hers—needing, more than anything in this moment, to confirm her existence.
She’s real. I slip my tongue into her mouth. She stiffens—in surprise, I suspect. She’s real. I grasp her harder, dragging her hips against mine in a rhythmic way we both know well, letting her feel the evidence of my arousal.
She’s real. She’s real. She’s real. I repeat the mantra over and over again in my head as I kiss her. After a brief hesitation, her arms lift and she closes them around me, kissing me back. I didn’t know how much I needed her response until I receive it.
Pulling my mouth back, I release a rough breath, gasping for air. “Fuck,” I mutter. “Don’t ever fucking disappear like that again.”
Carefully, Kiera cups her hands around my shoulders and nods, her forehead bumping mine lightly. “I promise,” she agrees. “I didn’t mean to be away for so long anyway, but I’ll leave a note next time.”
With a groan, I shift my head and bury my face into her throat. “No,” I gripe. “Not ‘next time.' No more ‘next times.'”
Her soft chuckle is the brightest sound I’ve ever heard as she strokes her long fingers through my hair, pushing around the strands at the top of my head and stroking the locks that have fallen forward back. The comfortable moment, as beautiful as it is, however, has to end at some point. I lift my head away from her and stand back as Ruen moves forward.
“Where have you been?” he growls, seething.
Now that she’s here, I don’t even care about the fear. I’m just relieved to know that she’s okay and that … she was never a figment of this horrible place playing tricks on my mind.
Kiera’s gaze roves over Ruen’s darkened expression and she shakes her head. “Later,” she says and that’s it. All she has to say. Somehow, in a matter of months, this woman has managed to do what our sire never has—she’s tamed us.
Though Ruen’s anger doesn’t dissipate, he does back off. Kalix finishes strapping on a second sword beneath the first, buckling the leather sheath into place. Each of us had taken more than one sword and a few other weapons that had been available. When it’d become clear that the Terra weren’t going to stop us from having more than one each, we’d decided for ourselves to ensure that we would not be without weapons for this Hunt.
Ruen’s fingers hover over Kiera’s shoulder as she draws nearer, not quite touching, though making it obvious that he wants to. “You will explain yourself,” he says, balling his fingers into a fist before dropping it back to his side. “Later.”
The corner of Kiera’s lips twitch upward, but she nods before facing the front of the assembly hall. To my surprise, it’s not one God that appears on the dais below, but all of them on the God Council.
The five remaining members of the God Council gather on the stage below, and at the same time, the doors at the back of the room slam shut. I whirl, along with Ruen, my hand going to my sword. Zalika and Nubo stand at the back of the room in front of the doors, their faces passive. I glance at Kalix and Kiera, both of whom haven’t moved, their eyes never leaving the dais where the Gods stand.
It’s then that I realize something—they know what’s coming. At least, Kiera knows. Kalix likely doesn’t give a shit who tries to close him in. A monster like him can never be trapped and he knows that. But how Kiera knows what to expect, I can’t say. Perhaps, it’s the reason behind her disappearance, though it’s not like I can ask now.
Slowly, I shift on my feet, turning back to face the same way, and as they keep their eyes enduringly on the Gods above, I follow their lead.