Chapter Seventy-Seven
Kyan
KYAN WAS LED DOWN A LONG WHITE CORRIDOR, ITS COLUMNS sculptures of the Greek Titan Atlas.
The world Atlas upheld was a circle, symbolising not just the Wake, but the supernatural and human societies.
And then, of course, the straining Empyreal beneath it.
Without whom, the Wake touted, our organisation would not exist.
Yet they did what they did.
Kyan opened the doors onto a marble gallery. As he strode inside, the way was promptly shut behind him.
He hated it. Standing there, clasping his hands behind his back, subservient. Pretending. He was sick of pretending. But if it kept Nicole safe, he’d keep up the charade.
A sculpted relief of the gods filled the back wall like something lifted off a temple. But this was a battle which seemed either lost or unfinished, swathes of the wall uncarved in that pale stone. Faceless, formless.
‘Art, in our culture, is so often prophecy as well as history.’
A man glided in from what must have been a door, hidden behind sculptures to the left. His regal, low tone rang in Kyan’s body like a warning.
He’d wanted to come face to face with a leader of the Wake.
Evidently, his request had been granted. And Kyan was struck with the realisation that he had met this man upon joining the Wake, and several times in Rome.
He had pale skin and hair a type of blond Kyan didn’t really know how to describe. An almost pure gold that added to his striking beauty. Regal energy breathed off him, aided by his expensive clothes: embroidered with details Kyan hadn’t seen in millennia.
Clothes a god might have worn, caped with a material that managed to look modern.
He looked no older than thirty, but Kyan couldn’t get an ounce of a read on the being’s power or true age.
‘All the great beasts eradicated,’ the almost-stranger said, strolling past a sculpture of Laocoon ensnared with his sons by great sea-serpents. Past Hercules fighting the Nemean lion. Past Perseus beheading Medusa. Each a remorseless depiction. Each threading unease in Kyan’s chest.
Kyan followed, but could feel, under the steady weight of the man’s gaze, that this was a threat. That they sought to draw him further into their interior world with this meeting, so that the Wake’s binds could tighten.
‘As honoured as I am to be having this conversation six days early,’ Kyan said, ‘I’d prefer to oversee the new Empyreal I brought in. If I go now, I’m sure I’ll locate them.’
He’d been livid with stress since Nicole had been taken on her mission. It had been more than an hour, and every second ticked in his temple like a countdown.
‘Come now, Kyan. You asked to meet. Why shouldn’t I indulge our best hunter after so many years of unflinching loyalty?’
A part of him flinched now.
‘Don’t worry about your target. She is happily off on her first mission. Alexander is supervising.’
Kyan fought every iota of his protective nature. That sadistic bastard had nearly killed her. ‘He’s much more powerful than I remember. It was quite the surprise to see him.’
‘Ah, well, Empyreals adapt, do they not?’
‘They don’t resurrect. I killed him in 1902. For you.’
It was risky to ask questions, but it would look equally bizarre if he asked none.
The man smiled, an action that was little more than a tweak of the mouth. ‘Come. Play a game with me. We should talk. You must have lots of questions.’ He fanned his hand out to a small table with what Kyan had initially thought was a chess board.
He did a double take.
Fidchell. The ancient Irish game his people used to play was similar in some aspects to chess.
It was said the god Lug invented it. The God of Oaths.
He was momentarily reminded of playing it with his uncle the king, and his mother, who prized her fidchell set and said she had played many a game with his father on it.
Was this some kind of test if they knew Kyan had been searching for the God of Oaths?
The board was silver and gold, the pieces bone. He didn’t want to know what kind – creature? Human? But he acquiesced. He was here to glean as much information as he could, and then he was getting the fuck out and taking Nicole with him.
‘I haven’t played in many years,’ Kyan said. ‘I fear you have me at a disadvantage.’
The being smiled. ‘I’ll refresh your memory.’ He swept into a seat on one side of the board, caped coat fanning out like a spill of metallic blood. ‘Please.’
Kyan gritted his teeth and sank into the delicate chair opposite that he was surprised could take his weight. Its flimsiness was no doubt a distraction technique to stop one’s opponent being comfortable during a long game.
‘Who are you?’ Kyan asked.
‘My name is Elatha.’
So, it was true.
The Fomóir, the Demon God, met Kyan’s gaze. Kyan tried to recall more of their fabled powers, where they had come from.
‘You know your history, Kyan. You can ask.’
‘Elatha is the name of one of the Fomóiri kings. But they are supposed to be dead. They were killed by the Túatha Dé.’
The smallest change morphed behind the god’s eyes.
Disgust, and amusement.
‘That’s what the mythology says, doesn’t it? But we both know how unreliable human stories can be.’ He tutted. ‘No, dear boy. We lived on.’ Elatha moved the first counter and waited expectantly.
So this was to be a game of questions, and Kyan had to pretend he didn’t know most of the answers.
Fine.
He took in the board, echoes of the rules ghosting through his mind.
‘What happened?’ Kyan asked.
‘My son Bres, who’d managed to become king of the Túatha Dé after a while of harmony, was defeated. He was … small-minded. He could have had the world, could have overtaken the Old Gods and ruled Ireland, but he was not just. He did not lead properly.’
‘And you have?’
‘How have I not? The world has not seen a real Dark Age. Those past times overrun with creatures were merely … troubled in comparison to what could be. The humans have not discovered us. There is balance. Harmony. The Old Gods, however’ – he tsked, moving another counter – ‘they were too indulgent. Too focused on art and pleasure and had such darkness within them. The world would have become a feasting ground and little more. A hedonistic world is one not poised for war.’
‘I imagine the Morrígan and her sisters would argue otherwise, as the Goddesses of War.’
Elatha sniffed. ‘They’re also goddesses preoccupied with sex, magic, and madness.
’ He gave Kyan a look. ‘No. We must control ourselves. If Empyreals knew they had the potential to find mates, they would be too busy living for themselves and their pleasures when they have a divine right to protect others. Again, selfishness. But you – you, Kyan, have never been selfish. You’ve always strived to protect the innocent. You’ve valued order. Rules.’
He had. There were benefits to both, but not when they kept you blind. Not when that control was maintained through lies.
He could still protect with a mate by his side. It would just mean he would live a richer life, a life worth living through, rather than being little more than a mindless immortal assassin.
‘You know the story of the origin of Empyreals? That they were made by the Morrígan?’
Kyan made a noise of assent, placing a counter.
Elatha tutted. ‘Wrong place.’
Kyan looked again, realising he’d forgotten a rule. His mouth pressed into a line as he recalibrated.
‘The Morrígan made a mistake. She unleashed a true danger by creating beings with such scope for transformation. The death of a god requires balance, no matter what type of god it is. Only gods should be able to kill other gods. You see, they wanted us to be fought off, even when they were away in their Otherworld. But it was unfair of the Old Gods to have you fight their battles. I know how useless, how devastating, it is to have someone fight in your stead. It’s always better to get yourself bloody, to do it properly.
‘Which is why we must right this wrong,’ Elatha said, swiping through another of Kyan’s pieces.
‘Because this has never been about humans and creatures and Empyreals, scrabbling in the mud. That was all just the first tier, the first distraction. It’s about gods.
Gods do not work with the same …’ He searched for the word.
‘Morals, as humans and creatures. We have larger issues to contend with. There is a purpose to these things, a greater harmony’ – he smirked faintly and Kyan thought of the harmony of the spheres so tied to this ancient conspiracy – ‘to uphold.’
Elatha placed another counter, stealing another of Kyan’s pieces. ‘One cannot set a creature loose that can transform to kill a god and hope the world will stay in one piece.
‘Admittedly, the Fomóir you killed all those years ago was a lesser being. Still, I knew you could not be left unbound, wandering the earth with all that untapped power and grief.’
Kyan’s gaze lifted.
He tried to tamp down his building rage, but the fire of it curled and emanated from the Empyrean power within. He needed to steel himself against the emotions, to play this stupid game and get more information.
But something else cut through his thoughts. The question that had haunted him since the Druid’s announcement: how had he survived killing a god without ingesting goddessblood?
‘Ah,’ Elatha said. Real pleasure washed through his eyes. He sat back. ‘It seems you haven’t yet discovered who your father is.’