CHAPTER TEN #2
“How do you play?” I asked, trying to blink the wetness that threatened to fall from my eyes.
Why am I on the verge of crying?
I had never played cards before, even sure that I never played in the past either, since the cards before me did not give any familiar sensation. But neither did Noctis.
“There are three different types of cards. We each take a turn choosing one. Then, you do as the card says,” Calvin explained. “Easy as that.”
“I’ll describe them as we go around,” Zahara assured as she lowered herself to my side, “but just know that soppy Calvin created this game in order to be nosey,” she added with a smile.
Jun huffed in agreement, earning a playful snarl from Calvin.
“Okay,” Calvin said with a sunny ease, “Who’s brave, bored, or just stupid enough to go first?”
Noctis took the top card and flipped it over to show the crew.
“It’s a dice,” his words lifted in question.
A slow, wicked smile spread across Calvin’s face. “Ah, the Fate card, this ought to be fun,” he joked.
“We get to ask one question. Together,” Zahara clarified.
The others leaned in, whispering to collectively come up with the best question to ask the god.
I shot him a grin. “Why were you banished?”
Noctis froze. “Can I refuse to answer?”
“Nope. The cards are bound with magic. They’ll force the truth out of you. Try lying. See what happens,” Calvin answered, rubbing his hands together eagerly.
I almost wished he would attempt to lie, just so I could see the consequence by the cards.
The god huffed, his face scrunching as if he tried to tell a lie, but it rebuked with pain. “A god is sworn to his realm. I abandoned mine… for her,” Noctis admitted with a nod toward me. He averted his gaze like looking upon me would only terrify me more.
But that’s what unsettled me the most. Silence. Because silence, I realized, is where truth lives. Not in what he said, not in the careful way he chose his words, but in everything he refused to let me see.
Hell. No. I wasn’t going to sit back and allow him to hide behind his silence like it was some kind of brooding shield. If there was truth to tell—ugly or not—I was going to drag it out in the open.
“What realm did you abandon?” I asked snappily.
“Is there a god of drama? Because you’re his favorite,” Calvin interrupted before Noctis could answer, “That was heavy. Okay, who's next?”
“Wait, wait. I want an answ—” I tried to fight, but Zahara grabbed the next card and showed it to the crew. A heart.
“The heart means to share a personal fear or secret,” she explained to Noctis and I. She slowly looked everyone in the eyes, tension stilling the air around them, and then she shared. “I am afraid of goats. Their eyes look like ancient evil.”
Noctis huffed. “Seriously?”
She nodded, then shoved her elbow into Jun to go next. He unveiled the Fate Card, but I didn’t give them time to come up with a question together before I asked.
“What’s your favorite color?”
Noctis shot me a menacing glare. I forced my eyes forward and stifled my laugh. If he was going to give me answers soaked in self-pity, I’d make them the only ones that held weight. He looked one question away from ending the world, as everyone else got fluff compared to his moral dilemma.
“Lavender,” Jun answered quietly before returning his card to the bottom of the pile.
I was next, so I flipped the top card over from the deck. Noctis leaned forward, waiting to witness the task I’d have to perform.
It was another heart.
“I can whistle just about any song… just not in tune. Oh, and I hate seagulls. I’m not sure if I’ve always hated them, but now I really do,” I admitted with a smirk to Noctis, who was the only person thus far to have been forced to admit something deeply personal.
Calvin took the next card. It flipped over blank.
“The blank cards mean you get to make up your own rule as we continue the game,” Zahara shared.
So, Calvin made up a rule. “From here on out, Noctis only gets the Fate cards.”
Everyone except the god erupted in laughter. Noctis just shook his head, but a slow, tight grin spread across his face. He caught my attention through the enjoyment and paused, looking across my features in admiration.
“Aetherkin,” he said, eyes glinting with regret, the smile faltering slightly. “I abandoned my people on Aetherkin Bound.”
Zahara and Calvin worked with me on learning the ropes of sailing for the following two days and nights, and by midday on the first, I completed tasks called out to me independently.
I particularly enjoyed climbing the ladder to the top of the crow’s nest, where I looked onward at incoming ships or land beyond.
It took many lessons before I stopped calling every ship that sailed nearby a threat.
Zahara planted herself on the helm, steering the ship as she hummed to the ocean.
Calvin swung along the rigging like it was a game, leaping between masts and throwing in flips just to see if he could stick the landing.
He never did. Jun rested at the table, stitching saturated thread through cloth.
I’d never seen such art before, but when he showed me his own rendition of the Bounds, layered on top of each other in stark contrasting colors and details, awe and panic seeped deep into my soul as I remembered we’d need to traverse each one to find the trident pieces.
“It’s… eerily beautiful,” I whispered as he struck the next thread through the fabric.
Jun did not look up, his eyes focused intently on the artwork. “That’s a good way to describe the Bounds. Not all are scary, though.”
“Have you been to each one?” I couldn’t help but ask, interested in learning more of the hooded assassin that normally shielded himself from the world.
He shook his head slightly. “I’ve been to two, except where truly does the Oceanwrought Bound begin? At the center of the main kingdom under the waves? Or right under the surface?”
I wished I could answer the question for him, reminding myself that I would be content never returning at all to the Oceanwrought Bound once I ensured my people knew safety.
I looked closer at the tapestry art in Jun’s hands, noticing the miniscule details in each Bound—the winged creatures of Aetherkin, forked tails of Oceanwrought, bones of Shadeborne, and Zahara’s ship for Terraguard.
And every detail only sewed more dread and fear deeper into my bones.
It was time. After days of rehearsing the necessary conversation, I approached Noctis that morning, only one night from reaching the Shadeborne Bound entrance. He moved on from brooding in gloom to practicing tying rope into various knots.
My hands grew clammy with every step toward the occupied god, his leg hiked on the wooden banisters, wisps of fiery hair blowing into his face as he concentrated on the knots.
I dodged the conversation with the god over the earlier days, knowing that what came from it would pull us away from the serenity we’ve experienced lately.
“What’s the purpose of knowing different knots?” I probed instead.
He grinned up at me. “Because knowing the right knot can save a ship… or impress someone interesting.”
Seems like his confidence never waned.
I rolled my eyes, an expression I noticed happened often, like a movement I was well acquainted with, and he muttered a laugh. The god fiercely tugged at the next knot, his muscles bulging through the white tunic that fit snugly over his body, the buttons undone until midchest, sweat gleaming—
“Is it working?” he asked with a wink.
My heart pounded beneath my skin, but his presence infuriated me. “Not quite,” I responded with a leveled stare, but my traitorous cheeks burned.
My lungs deflated completely before I dragged my next breath in, a strategy to calm the rattling of my nerves before I went on.
“I need you to know that I do not remember… the past of us. And I need time to think, to feel, to untangle myself from this before I can face you, or the shadow of what we were.”
Noctis’s lips twitched. “I feel the distance I’ve caused, and it weighs on me as it must weigh on you.
” His hands dropped between his legs, the rope hanging from his curved fingers.
His emerald jaded eyes met mine, sincerity in his tone.
“Take all the time you need. I will wait. I have centuries if I must, and I will be here, patient and unwavering, until you are ready to face me again.”
I will find myself again. In the space between what I lost and what I feel now.
He must have noticed the hesitation, because he continued.
“I know what you’re actually here to ask. Remember the god-like hearing? But I’m afraid the answer isn’t going to be what either one of us wants to hear.”
“And what exactly do you think I came to ask you?”
“Calvin can’t ever whisper,” he huffed forcibly. “We will be at the Waning Isles tomorrow morning, and I have not yet collected a human soul for entry.”
So, he did know what I came to discuss with him. And it was actually Calvin that sent me.
His face scrunched, eyes averting as if even he preferred to ignore the necessary conversation.
“It doesn’t get easier handling souls.” His voice dropped low, heavy with anguish.
“Souls that are long gone are fine—ready to be taken to their final destination. Souls that have already passed on are no longer within my reach. In this realm, I would have to claim one that still clings to life. And the universe works in balance. If I take a soul, it will demand a soul in its place. Willingly or not. Equal weight. Equal loss. It could cost more than you understand. Maybe even you.”
Never would I understand the cost of what the god would have to do for the mission. And in that moment, I pitied him. To know he might have to take an innocent life... and live with that choice.
My breath caught. Noctis shot his gaze toward me, frantically searching my face. “What’s wrong?”
“I think I may know a way you can get a human’s soul without having to carry the weight of an innocent’s death on your conscience.”