Chapter 14 ARTIFICIAL NIGHT
ARTIFICIAL NIGHT
Marina
The scarlet sky hovered low, its lead-soaked clouds seeping with magic.
Marina’s jaw-length blonde hair whipped across her face as she stood on the ledge of one of Hollow City’s many skyscrapers.
Most were topped with towers blinking like beacons in the blood-red night.
The somber sight combined with the chill of the night air, she didn’t mind waiting for Soren, despite his tardiness.
Marina kept her eyes trained below, hunting for any oddities between the clusters of headlights and the shadows of alleyways. With the city stretched out before her, she couldn’t help but admire the silhouette hugging its landscape.
Hollow City sat in an alcove between mountains, as if her little brother sprouted it up from the valley’s soil. Knowing his mystic tendencies and his concerningly vast knowledge of spells, it wouldn’t shock her if it were true.
While the thought of Finnian triggered an eye roll from her, she couldn’t hate him. Not when he’d built this city for Naia and her family. She knew the story, the trials and tribulations he’d endured with Cassian against Ruelle. Naia had explained the situation shortly after their father’s death.
A hiss sounded behind her.
“You’re late,” she muttered without looking over her shoulder.
He appeared at her side, his tall figure casting a shadow over her. “Nice to see you too.”
His attire was more modern than what she was used to—a crewneck t-shirt and open black jacket with cargo pants and combat boots.
His dark hair was covered by a baseball cap, his frosted tips curling into his eyes.
While gods and goddesses were immortal, they tended to evolve with the times, let the zeitgeist shape them.
Marina’s gaze lingered on the mask concealing the bottom portion of his face. She hated how Acacius popped into her mind and all the times she’d stared at his animalistic skull mask, attempting to burn holes through the bone to see his appearance.
Soren stared at her, a smug glimmer gracing his eyes. “Nina, is it?” He playfully flicked the ends of her blonde hair. “You look dazzling, as always.”
The name plucked at her nostalgia. It was given to her by Viviana, the first time they disguised themselves as mortals with Mansi to enter the village of Tenebris.
Mansi went by Genevieve, and Viviana was Aurora.
Back when Soren and Viviana were in a lopsided relationship, he’d meet them in their mortal alter egos all the time.
Marina pulled at the beanie over her hair, making sure it covered her forehead. “Stop flirting and get to the point.”
“You’d think I’d get a better greeting for helping out a friend.” He crossed his arm and tipped his frame, lightly caressing her skin with his fingers.
Tempted to punch him off the building and into the busy street below, she squeezed her fist at her side. It would only prolong him from updating her, even if she could savor his panicked face.
She pinned him back with a sharp look. “When have you ever known me to hand out a warm greeting?”
“Always a viper.” Soren chuckled, shaking his head.
“I am about to fucking bite if you don’t tell me—”
“The Heraldic Olethros are in Hollow City.”
Marina’s blood drained from her face.
Shit.
She massaged her temples.
What was Acacius’s plan? He was a part of the Council. Would he directly harm Ash? Surely not, given he was already on thin ice with his siblings for what he’d pulled with Ruelle.
But then again, he was also insane and ran off the flare of emotions.
Marina dug the tips of her fingers deeper into her temples.
The High God’s unpredictability would be the death of her.
She grumbled and dropped her arm, looking at Soren. “Tell me everything.”
He peered out at the crimson overcast and exhaled. “Each day, the crime rate escalates on the magical side. It always fluctuates, but never like this. It’s exponential growth, ever rising toward insanity.”
“Have you come across the Blood Heretics?”
“Yes. They are more perceptive than I’d hoped, making it difficult for me to move about freely without the risk of getting caught.
” He glanced at her, the playfulness in his gaze replaced with gravitas.
“The Chaos is attracting foreign witches, and they are slowly infiltrating the city. Ash is their target. I presume they have been chosen by deities who wish the child dead, but Acacius’s influence is only elevating their bloodlust.”
Marina’s pulse flickered with dread. “Body count?”
“I’ve assassinated three before the Blood Heretics made note of their presence—and absence. Their deaths will surely cause even more unrest among those who sent them.”
Marina’s stomach twisted. She had been right to hire Soren. Her faith in mortals was low, no matter how strong Ronin and his Blood Heretics were. Ash’s life was not to be gambled with.
Her only mistake was assuming that she’d done enough to divert Acacius’s attention. If she didn’t try harder, Ash would surely end up in the jaws of his Ruin.
“This is how his divine power works.” She pressed her thumb against her curling lips. “Like a contagion, it slips underneath the skin and multiplies, building until the brain only has one action left: destroy.”
“It is why the High God isolates himself in Tavora, yes? To keep his divine power contained?”
Worst-case scenarios filled her mind: Ash’s small body, bruised and beaten, sold to heinous witches and bled dry as an ingredient for their potions; his limbs separated and offered as occult boons; the gods chaining him to the pits of Moros, leaving him to die slowly.
She sucked in a sharp breath, the motion tensing her shoulders. Even if conflict was inevitable, she’d promised Father to protect the child, and she refused to fail.
“You look stressed,” Soren said.
Her eyes danced around the ground beside her boots, her thoughts growing louder. “No shit.”
Soren grabbed her hand.
Marina’s breath hitched at the sudden touch. His skin was cold, like he’d dipped his fingers in snow.
He stared out at the city, the neon reflecting in his irises—translucent and blue, like perfect cuts of agate. “Tell me why I’m protecting this child, and I will do everything in my power to help you.”
His loyalty eased some of the tension in her chest, and she let him hang on to her fingers. “You’ve already helped me enough.”
He scoffed. “If you’re referring to the time I helped you get back up on your feet after losing to the previous High God of Night, that hardly counts.”
That was one of her greatest embarrassments. Marina tortured the most talkative deities who were present just to keep the information from getting back to her mother, fearful Mira’s disappointment would’ve been too grave to bear.
Marina swallowed and gave Soren’s hand a small squeeze before pulling away. “Remain here,” she told him. “Keep doing your job. I will meet up with you again soon, and together we will investigate the Herald sightings.”
Soren raised an eyebrow at her, a slyness growing across what small piece of his expression she could see. “Is now not a good time?”
The Olethros were Acacius’s eyes and ears in the city. If she killed them, disguised or not, he would know that it was her. She would try one last thing before stepping out from her veil of cover.
Marina turned away from Soren, preparing to teleport. “Right now, I have a bit of business to take care of.”
Marina sat at the vanity in her bathroom, assessing herself in the mirror.
A fresh sheen of glamor painted her lips and cheeks. She pushed the white strip of hair behind her ear and slipped on a pair of dangling ruby earrings. A pair that she’d bought in one of Isolde’s markets.
She traced her fingers down the golden chains around her neck, connected by a matching red jewel between her breasts. Beneath it, the gilded web decorated the skin of her diaphragm, meeting the end of her neckline right above her naval.
The set of jewelry was one of her favorites, but her most precious of all was a set gifted to her by Father. One of his few tangible generosities.
Her gaze jumped from the mirror to the organized rows of earrings hanging on the velvet jewelry holder. She ran her fingernail down the line, and they jingled like windchimes in a spring breeze.
The dainty, opulent stars glinted under the dimmed lights.
Strangely, stars were her favorite part about the night. An atom of light, proof that there was existence in the abyss.
Darkness never lasts, my darling magnolia.
Perhaps, to some degree, Father was right.
Marina lifted her chin, locking eyes with herself in the mirror. “I won’t fail.”
She needed to do more to keep Acacius from advancing his mayhem in the city, while still gathering more information about his intentions.
Marina’s heartbeat stuttered.
She could easily distract Acacius, but to get information from him, she would need for them to hold a conversation instead of fighting.
Marina inhaled deeply, knowing the moment her feet touched the ground in Tavora, he would sense her presence.
Anticipation buzzed in her system. She ignored the enticing jolt in her chest, choosing not to dwell on the anomalous feeling that the High God relentlessly evoked in her.
Marina stood from her satin stool. The sheer fabric of her gown slid down her legs, opening the slits on each side, spreading up to the middle of her thighs. A gown perfect to run in.
She smiled a little to herself, her stomach waltzing as she teleported to Tavora.
And so it begins.
Marina stepped out of the whirling smoke of her divine power, immediately greeted by the blood-orange atmosphere, like the sun had rotted and bled through the cirrus clouds.
Vortexes ravaged the space between the isles, which all circled the mainland. The loud scream of the wind threw her hair in every direction. Strands stung her cheeks and stuck in the corners of her mouth.
Four of the larger isles surrounded the High God’s home, like moons orbiting their planet’s pull. Each isle contained its own landscape and flavor of calamity—one, an evergreen forest swarming with hundreds of moths, or another, a tributary of canyons that fostered monsters within its veins.
She stepped up to the edge of the island, its terrain rocky and made of red clay.
Massive slabs of earth hurled from the nearby currents and into the isle’s ground, like small meteors, each collision echoing through her skeleton like an empyrean thunderclap.
One piece of debris would shatter into smaller ones, creating shrapnel to be picked back up by the wind and reformed.
The mountainous ground was nothing but a collection of craters, ever forming.
And, in the center of all the destruction, was a puzzle of labyrinthine ruins—Acacius’s fortress. Nothing touched it. The comets of ruin that molded the dry dirt seemed to stay in a clean rotation around the home.
Marina looked down off the island’s rim, as far as her vision would allow, into the chasm at the heart of Tavora. It was a cavity that went on, black and eternal, like the deepest parts of the sea.
Such entropy. Acacius must’ve found solitude in his calamitous bastion.
She would be honored to strip him of his disorder, if only for a fleeting moment. It was her move, after all, and what better way to split his nerves than to hide his havoc from him in his own realm?
Her pulse raced; she was exhilarated to be the subject of his scorn.
With both arms extended, she outstretched her fingers. Inky, ebony wisps unfurled from her palms.
Suffocate the light.
The darkness poured from her, a wicked grin stretching across her face.