Chapter 19 Fool Me Twice #2
From the corner of his eye, he watched her pop the cork out of a bottle of wine and fill a glass with the pale-gold liquid.
She journeyed to her sofa, and took a seat, relaxing back into the cushion with her legs crossed.
So, this is how she wants to play.
The tips of his ears grew hot as he stalked over to the sofa across from her, plopped down, and met her low-lidded gaze.
She sipped on her wine.
He waited.
“You never show the most sinister form of your Olethros,” she finally said, placing her glass on the table between them. “Why?”
Of course, she would continue to pry—to fish out more information.
A harsh laugh scuffed out of him. “You believe you are in a position to inquire anything about me right now?”
Fucking unbelievable.
She exhaled, dulling her sharp posture, and she shook her head. “I do not wish to fight.”
“Then enough of the games, Marina.” He leveled her with a somber look. “Did you know that I would come for you after Ruelle’s death?”
Marina held his gaze for a long moment. “When I was ready to be found, Viviana and Mansi spread my winning streak in the Pit around Isolde, knowing you would overhear it. I assumed your Olethros would be keeping tabs on me, but then it occurred to me that you wouldn’t place them so carelessly, where Chaos and Ruin was not needed. ”
When will you ever learn?
He smirked, darkly amused with his own stupidity.
The resentment that he felt for Marina resuscitated in his chest, and he rested his elbow on the arm of the sofa, balling his fingers into a fist. His palms itched to latch onto her throat and squeeze, to hear her beg for his mercy.
“So, you went along with my revenge war just to keep my attention off the Himura demigod?”
“Yes.” It left her the way most things did: unemotional, cold, and without remorse. The word writhed under his skin.
Acacius laughed, a manic sound rippling from his jaws.
After years of his life spent repeating the same mistakes over and over, it was comical that he’d ended up right back where he’d been with Ruelle—underneath a goddess’s heeled boot once more. The strings of his heart kept twisting around another’s, just to have them cut once more.
Such a fucking fool.
Those were the words Marina had said to him in the Land of the Dead, twirling the syringe of the Himura demigod’s blood in her fingers with her untouchable arrogance.
She’d noticed his weakness immediately and took advantage of it, just as Ruelle had done.
His heart bled, and his malice for both her and himself flared like the smoke of Moros under his skin.
He materialized behind Marina and bent forward, whipping his arm around to grasp her by the throat.
“I must say, Rina, your manipulation knows no bounds.”
“You think you are any different?” She stiffened in his hold, her pulse stammering against his fingers. “You have been doing everything you can to ruin me.”
“You are the one who started this!” He ripped her up off the sofa by her neck and slammed her back against the wall.
A grunt pushed out of her from the impact. The portraits around her slipped from their hooks and crashed into the floor, cracking their wooden frames.
Bring her pain, his Ruin whispered.
He considered it—lowering the internal barrier of his disillusionment and giving it permission to attack her like a nest of invisible parasites. But the disapproval tugging in his gut prevented him from doing so.
Instead, he squeezed her throat until she fought for breath, her eyes bloodshot and wide, snapping her hands up to grab his wrist and break the bone.
That disapproval in his gut twinged harder at the sight of her struggle.
Infuriated by his own stupid, weak heart, he leaned in closer until his breath touched her lips. “You are truly ruthless, Rina.”
She let out a furious growl and hauled her knee up in between his legs. Pain exploded low in his stomach, and he coughed out, releasing her and staggering backwards.
“Enough of this, Acacius!” Her figure distorted and fabricated in front of him, a rush of onyx smoke curling around them and blowing air across his cheeks.
She invaded his space, her blank expression shattering into one of frustration.
“You blame me for a truth you do not wish to swallow. If you need to hurt me, hurt me. Beat me. Chain me away. Bring suffering upon me. Whatever you desire, do it now! But stop blaming me for Ruelle’s death when she is the one who weaved her own threads of Fate! ”
Momentarily stunned, Acacius searched her face, amazed by the fiery pool in her dark irises. He was equally proud as he was irritated by her display of emotions.
However, as her words sunk into his brain, he knew that she was right.
Back when he found her in the Pit, he could’ve saved the trouble of fighting and sent her to the same place Torin was now, a place where she would repeat each day trapped in the void of Tavora with his Daemons dining on her entrails.
But Acacius had walked for thousands of years in this vessel as a High God. His strengths were second nature, and yet, a part of him had held back with her, never inflicting the torture he was capable of. Bringing her pain had never really brought him honest satisfaction.
She was not the one he wished to cause pain to.
It was Ruelle.
Marina was simply a diversion from his pent-up rage, from the reality that he spent centuries pursuing a goddess who never truly loved him.
Acacius ran a tired hand over his face, the pillars in his chest gradually crumbling to the weight he could no longer hold.
“Do you think I do not know that?” He dropped his hand and looked at Marina.
“I was the one who had to watch her cut her own thread. Ruelle was heartless when it came to what she desired most, none of which was ever me. But like you, Marina, I too only ever wanted to be loved.”
The ball of animosity in his chest lightened as the truth finally exited his lips.
Marina frowned up at him. The pitiful emotion on her face, it was refreshing and devastating all at once.
“Not everything was a lie, Acacius.” She gestured to the space between them with her hand. “I meant it when I apologized for what I did back in the Land of the Dead. But I will not apologize this time.”
His nostrils flared, and he lifted his arm, lightly swiping his thumb over the corner of her mouth. Even now, still furious with her, he despised the look of sorrow on her face. “Do you think I am naive to your hatred of Naia? Of all that she has? Why would you work with her?”
Marina slipped her fingers up the back of his hand and rested her cheek in his palm. “I was taught to hate Naia, and without the influence of Mira over me, I have realized that animosity was not my own.”
He removed his hand from her face. “The deities are uneasy because of her power, as they should be.”
“It is you who stirs the Chaos among them.” An accusatory flame danced in her tone.
“You think that is my doing?” He barked out a bitter laugh, his expression darkening. They always assumed it was him.
“Deities are putting hits on the child left and right.”
“Did your little assassin figure that out?” He recalled the god from his Herald’s memory before it died.
Marina scowled at the seed of his jealousy. “Without Soren’s help, the child would’ve been harmed already.”
Fire scoured up his throat, hearing her say another god’s name with such familiarity.
“The madness nesting inside the deities is not me.” He slapped a hand over his chest, and then ripped his arm out, pointing out beyond Tenebris to Isolde.
“It’s the statue of Ruelle in our city, reminding them that they can now be killed! ”
His power was an anomaly to most. Like anything else, balance was required.
Chaos was the counteract to peace. It had no choice but to exist. That was the disorder slowly spreading amongst the deities like a contagion.
It was not a calamity he could siphon away, for it was already set in motion the day Naia gained her power and granted the Himura witch immortality, the day they conceived a demigod of the Himura bloodline.
There was so much Chaos consuming their lives that Acacius had to resist the temptation of setting off the bomb, its fuse always wrapped around his fingers. It’s why he’d dispatched his creatures to Hollow City, like flames attracting moths to their spiraling end.
“Regardless, you sent your Heralds as a catalyst,” she seethed, throwing her arm out in the same direction that he’d gestured to. “Say what you wish, but the fact is that you side with them.”
“And I am supposed to side with you?” He took a step, hovering over her. “Are we more than just enemies who fuck our loneliness away? Tell me, Rina.” The last bit left him in a desperate crack, through gritted teeth.
Her eyes rolled away from him, to the room that held them, and she pursed her lips, as if to seal her truth away.
Acacius’s pulse jumped with a spark of hope.
She’d never hesitated before.
Not with anything.
“Do you know what became of Torin for laying a hand on you?” He brought his mouth to the side of her hair, inhaling her intoxicating fragrance. “The Daemons you are so desperate to see are devouring him as we speak.”
She lifted her head to him, her dark gaze swirling, as if the information pleased her.
Acacius leaned down, nudging his nose into her jaw. “It infuriates me, Marina, the way I feel for you.” She eased her weight against him, her shoulder pushing into his chest. “You infuriate me.”
He could sense the rise of her desire gathering with his own, giving them a lull in time where their differences did not matter, only the connection bridged between them.
It was a spell too easily broken as she backed away from him. “I made a vow to my father, before he entered the Land of the Dead, that I would protect Ash.”
Acacius’s eyes fell shut.
Fuck.
It was the final nail on the coffin. The reason that he would not be able to convince her otherwise.
But it made all the sense in the world now.
She murdered Vale, and out of guilt or familial connection, she agreed to his dying wish.
And of course, the sentimental bastard would think ahead and ask her to protect the child.
Marina was many things, but among her most maddening qualities, she was loyal and devoted, and never one to do things imperfectly or halfway.
If she’d promised her father she would protect the child, then she would do so with her entire being.
Acacius did not want to lose her, but they were at odds now.
His diaphragm squeezed, clipping his breath as confliction rose in his chest.
“That child can end us!” He twisted away from her and brought his fists up, straining the muscles in his arms to keep his emotions in check. One wrong outburst, and it would all surge forward like a flurry of devastation. His Chaos would eat everything and everyone nearby.
“Does death truly frighten you that much?”
He rotated toward her, tension pulling at his neck. “In death there is peace, stillness, things I do not crave. Not the way others do.”
She searched his face, so calm and composed that it reminded him of her father. In her silence, he could feel their time coming to an end, the way sand drained from an hourglass.
Acacius held onto her gaze, clinging to the frayed fragments of this moment with her, afraid to let go.
She erased the space between them and stood on her toes, slipping her arms around his neck. The silk of her hair grazed his skin and stuck in the stubble on his jawline.
His throat tightened. He squeezed his fists at his sides, refraining from hugging her back. It felt too much like this was the end, like she was saying her goodbye.
“If you come for the child, you will have to finish me off with his blood first,” she murmured next to his ear.
Her tone held no contempt or self-righteousness, only a soft acknowledgement of their connection.
As someone who cared for him, but who would not break her own resolve for him.
It was something that Acacius deeply respected her for.
“Your Olethros, your Chaos, nothing will touch him.”
It was a declaration, a new war between them, bloodshed that would undoubtedly end with one of their lives on the line.
A fight that he no longer desired with her.
Acacius closed his eyes, feeling the deadened rage in his heart as she let him go.
“It’s your move, Acacius.”