2. Cato
Cato
“What do you think about all this?” Ego drops beside me on the log, holding a plate absolutely loaded with food. I scowl at the mountain of mashed potatoes and venison, then shoot a glance toward the fire where half our powdered milk must’ve gone into that gravy.
“All what?” I ask around a bite.
“Sovran showing up like some fallen angel warrior.”
I roll my eyes and stab another forkful. “I think we’re burning through the good supplies for a guy who looks like he could eat the whole village under the table.”
Ego snorts. When I glance over, she arches a brow and drags her eyes down my frame. “Between you and Elas, it’s a miracle we have food stores at all.”
“I’m a growing boy,” I say with a grin, patting my stomach.
“You’re thirty-six.”
“Your point?”
She rolls her eyes as she smacks her palm on my belly, giving it a rough jiggle. “The only growing you’re doing is outward.”
“Says the hundred-pound woman who eats like a Nu’vak.”
“I have a good metabolism,” she replies through a massive bite. “I’m blessed. Jealousy looks cute on you, though. Really makes the freckles pop.”
“I’m not jealous,” I mutter.
She snorts. “Maybe not of me, but everyone around here has washboard abs. Even I’m a little jealous. And did you see Aryn out there?” She lets out a low whistle and fans herself. “That was a whole sleeper cell of hotness. Low key would absolutely bang.”
“They’re monsters,” I argue. “Which means they have a genetic advantage. And besides, I have abs.”
“We all have abs, sweetheart. Yours are just hiding behind a couple of layers.”
“A couple layers?” I demand.
Bash snickers on my other side and tries to hide it behind a cough when I glare at him.
Xeni leans forward with that catty little smirk, his creepy white eye sliding down my torso.
“Don’t feel too bad… you’re doing your very best. And besides,” he adds, nuzzling into Bash’s shoulder, “a little fluff isn’t a bad thing. ”
“I don’t have fluff.”
“Of course you don’t, gingersnap,” he says, eye gleaming.
“Oh, fuck off. I don’t.” I yank my shirt up and glance at the freckled skin underneath.
Xeni is absolutely delighted as his smile spreads. “Look at those adorable rolls!”
“Oh my gods, they aren’t rolls. That’s what happens when you sit down, Xeni. Skin folds. It’s called physics.”
“So defensive,” he purrs.
I pull a face at him but drop it. Arguing with Xeni is pointless.
He’s stubborn on a good day and downright obnoxious on most. My jaw tightens as I turn my head, and my eyes catch Aryn’s for what has to be the fiftieth fucking time since he flung his shirt at me earlier.
His gaze drops straight to my exposed stomach, and I fumble the hem back down, heat crawling up my neck.
“Bet Aryn doesn’t have those little rolls,” Xeni coos, way too close to my ear.
I shove my palm into his face and push him back.
My eyes flick over to Aryn, but he’s focused on his food now.
Xeni wrinkles his nose and brushes off his cheek like I’m something filthy he needs to clean away.
He opens his mouth to keep arguing, but Sovran clears his throat from the next log.
The whole group falls quiet, every head turning toward him like children waiting for story time.
“I suppose we should start at the beginning,” he says without preamble, though those of us that knew him in Atlanta don’t seem surprised. He’s not one for theatrics, and doesn’t seem interested in wasting unnecessary words.
“The beginning would be when the portals opened?” Cameron asks, leaning forward. “When the barrier between the worlds broke?”
“No,” Sovran answers. He sets his empty plate aside and stares into the flames. “The beginning was long before that. The fall of the veil took hundreds of years, and it wasn’t an accident.”
“What do you mean?” Bash asks, eyes locked on him. “Someone did this on purpose?”
Sovran looks more uncertain than I’ve ever seen him. “They did. And it was my fault.”
“Your fault?” Bash presses. “Like, is that an analogy? Some weird self blame? Or was it like…” He gestures at Sovran as the rest of us wait for an answer.
Sovran nods, gaze fixed on the ground in front of him. “The story starts as most wars do.”
“With a power-hungry dictator?” Cameron guesses.
Sovran shakes his head. “With a broken heart.”
I scoff under my breath and lean back, arms crossed. Bash does the opposite and leans in closer. “Yeah,” he drawls, “I’m gonna need you to expand on that.”
Sovran’s eyes lift to meet his, flick briefly to Xeni, then return to the fire. “My kind rarely leave our own realm,” he starts. “We are… how to explain it?” He picks up two stones and drops them in the dirt between his feet. “One stone is Earth. The other is Elyra.”
“Ely-what?” Cameron asks, brow furrowed.
Ronan frowns and shares a look with Elas. “I haven’t heard that name in decades,” he says quietly. “It was the formal name for our world. Humans call this one Earth. Ours was Elyra.”
“Indeed,” Sovran says with a nod. “There are other worlds… realms that exist on the same level as these two, but none are so close. Your worlds are an anomaly. They sit so near that the edges of their realities nearly touch. The divide between them was thin as a sheet of paper, but it held. For millions of years, these two worlds existed with no knowledge of each other.”
Sovran glances around, then picks up his plate and holds it above the two stones. “My realm sits on a level above yours. We can observe the actions of those on the lower planes.”
“What about above you?” Bash asks. “Are there higher realms?”
Sovran gives him a small, tired smile. “If there are, they have never revealed themselves to us.”
“Alright,” Cameron interjects, “so y’all are basically in some golden version of Heaven? Floating up there in the clouds watching the mortals scramble around below?”
“A crude comparison, but not entirely wrong. My kind are free to travel between the realms beneath us, though we rarely do unless intervention is needed.”
“Is that why you came down?” Bash asks. “Something needed fixing?”
Sovran pushes out a long sigh, shoulders hunched and far too defeated for a guy that could bench press his van without breaking a sweat. “No. I came because I was… curious.”
“Curious,” Ronan repeats flatly.
That out-of-place helplessness spreads tenfold as Sovran stares at the ground, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes.
“After thousands of years in the same place, I had grown bored with the monotony. Our realm is not large. The weather is perfect, resources are plentiful, and since we are all evenly matched, there is no war. Disagreements are handled diplomatically. Violence isn’t tolerated. ”
“Oh, yeah, sounds awful,” Cameron drawls. I fight back a snort, because he read my damn mind with that one. Complaining about literal paradise is a choice.
Bash shoots Cameron an annoyed side-eye before looking at Sovran again. “How many of your kind exist?”
“Last I knew, there were four hundred and seventy-one,” he answers.
“We do not die or create offspring unless we choose to do so. We exist to be guardians of the lower realms. For centuries, I watched the inhabitants of these worlds learn and grow. I saw them wage wars, push the boundaries of innovation, and chase discoveries most other realities could scarcely imagine. There was so much passion in their lives. I admit I… wanted a taste of it.”
He pauses, then continues. “I traveled to Elyra, where my appearance wouldn’t draw as much attention. The variety of species there is vast enough that someone with my stature and coloring barely raises an eyebrow.”
“Can you imagine if he took his little vacation here?” Cameron whispers to August. “Some gold-winged fucker strolling down the street a thousand years ago?”
“It probably happened,” August whispers back. “Where else do you think the idea of angels came from?”
“Damn,” Cameron mutters, going wide-eyed.
Sovran only gives a small, private grin, which feels more like an admission than a denial.
“While I was there, I…” He trails off and huffs a rueful laugh, throwing both arms out in a whole-body shrug.
The action is more human than anything I’ve ever seen from him.
“I met someone. Eventually, I fell in love. Despite my long life, love was something I had never experienced, and I admit it made me… foolish. I started spending far too much time there. I was distracted, and my responsibilities suffered. There was an anomaly that nearly destroyed another realm, and I missed it. My brethren were furious, and they forbade me from returning to Elyra.”
“So you just left?” Cameron demands. “No word, no explanation, just… poof?”
Sovran shakes his head, still staring at the two stones in the dirt. “No, I didn’t just leave him, Cameron. I convinced them to let me return one final time to explain. But that visit cost me.”
Ever the romantic, Bash’s feet move restlessly underneath him as he waits for more. “What did it cost?” he asks when Sovran takes too long to answer for his sappy impatience.
“First, you must understand I had no choice. I couldn’t just sneak away and expect to get away with it. My kind can combine our powers, which is why there is no violence in our realm. A group holds greater power than any single individual.”
Bash nods slowly as he processes. “So they could’ve made you do whatever they wanted, and you couldn’t resist.”
Sovran drags the toe of his shoe through the dirt, carving a small ditch. “Exactly. It’s intended to keep us true to our purpose, and they decided I had lost sight of mine. I was allowed to visit one final time, but with the understanding that if I ever left our realm again, I could not return.”
“They banned you from Heaven?” Cameron demands.
Another sad smile forms on Sovran’s lips. “Essentially, yes. It let me say my goodbyes while ensuring I didn’t make the same mistakes again.”
“So you went to find him?” Bash prompts, so caught up in the story he’s practically vibrating.
“I did,” Sovran says quietly. “He was heartbroken, of course. He begged me to stay, but the threats were too fresh, and the guilt of forsaking my responsibilities felt like failure. I chose duty over happiness.” For a moment, his eyes go distant, then he shakes his head and continues.
“But I couldn’t just walk away. I left a piece of myself with him. ”
“A… piece of yourself?” Bash asks, nose wrinkling.
Sovran nods. “We made love one last time—”
“Can we hear more about that?” Ego whispers to Sprocket, who chortles beside her.
“—and afterward, I took his hands and willed a fraction of my power into his body.”
“You can do that?” Bash asks, eyes wide.
“It had never been done before, and if the others had any idea what I was planning…” He trails off, before taking a long, deep breath.
“I wasn’t even sure it would work when I tried it.
But it did. A small piece of my power transferred to him.
It was meant to protect him, to keep him safe when I no longer could.
He wasn’t evil then, he was good,” Sovran insists, voice rising with agitation.
He repeats it softer, almost a footnote to himself. “He was good.”
Cameron hums and takes Ronan’s hand. “Let me guess. He didn’t stay that way.”
“No,” Sovran confirms. “He did not. Over time, bitterness replaced the gentle spirit I once knew. Power changes people. It corrupts. I thought he was different, that he understood, but he never got over what I did to him. That power... he learned to harness it, then turned it into a weapon, and I never told my kind what I’d done.
I was too ashamed, and far too proud. None of them understood why he rose to power. ”
“They didn’t want to intervene?” Ronan asks.
Sovran shifts uncomfortably. “They believed it was the natural order. They thought it was his fate to be so powerful, and we do not interfere with fate.”
“Except you did,” Bash counters.
“I did.” The words hang heavy for a long moment before he swallows.
“Two hundred years had passed since that damned day—centuries where I watched as he raised armies and took over Elyra. Anyone who opposed him was killed. He might’ve wielded the weapons, but their blood was on my hands.
I felt every death. Soon, there was no one left brave enough to speak out.
His rule was absolute, but it wasn’t enough. ”
Xeni leans forward, brows pinched and lips slightly parted.
Sovran continues, seeming not to notice.
“He had the entire world in his hands, at his feet, but he longed for more. One day he was in the forest, furious at being denied. Furious that the world would dare limit him. All that power brewing under his skin had driven him mad. It corrupted him into something unrecognizable and turned him into my greatest mistake.”
“Who—” Xeni starts.
Sovran speaks over him, the words tumbling out like he needs to finish before he loses the nerve.
“I watched it from above as he fell to his knees and bellowed at the sky like he knew I was there. His cries weren’t for forgiveness.
They were full of rage and resentment, and a desperate fury to feed the power churning inside him. ”
He falls quiet. For a few breaths, the only sounds are the wind moving through the trees and the distant chirp of birds.
“It happened then,” he says at last. “The tiniest pinprick of an opening formed between the worlds. He couldn’t hold it for more than a moment, but the damage was done.
He saw what he could do, and the call of the other side spoke to that desperate hunger to conquer.
It fueled him for the next hundred years.
He grew even more ruthless, overthrowing every small monarch and city in his reach.
No one knew it at the time, but he was searching for the best scientific minds.
He was determined to tear the barrier down for good, and he didn’t care who he killed to make it happen. ”
“Who was he?” Xeni demands. There’s a sharp edge in his voice that makes me glance over. His single eye is narrowed, pale cheeks flushed dark as he stares, unblinking.
Sovran stays silent for a long time, shoulders hunched as he stares at the ground. When he finally lifts his head and meets Xeni’s gaze, he looks smaller somehow. “You already know who he was.”
“I want you to say it,” Xeni hisses.
“Why?”
Confused glances ripple through the group as Xeni bares his teeth. “Just fucking say it!”
Regret twists Sovran’s features, even though he doesn’t flinch away from the shout. His throat works in a heavy swallow as he gives his head a small shake and takes a deep breath. “His name was Zadeus.”