Chapter 12 Sadaré #3
Maybe Isha and I are both losing this game. And yet, even if we both lose, he still wins. Because his care for me won’t mean my victory if I forget Daesra. And I will forget him unless I do something different. Isha made it sound inevitable.
Despair threatens to overwhelm me. Eventually I’ll eat again, whether willingly or by force. Eventually I’ll beg Isha to do anything and everything to me, whatever he feels for me. Eventually I won’t even recognize my true love’s face—I’ll only see his.
Perhaps it is inevitable.
Even with the seeds in my mouth, the bites of fruit—or perhaps my previous exertions—send me into a foggy sort of stupor that isn’t unpleasant, for better or worse.
I barely react when Isha climbs onto the table behind me, the informality of which would have shocked me under other circumstances.
He removes my blindfold, and yet I can only imagine how we must look, sprawled across the huge table under the glow of candlelit jaws like the strangest spread ever.
I keep my eyes mostly closed, still naked, as I relax into his lap.
He holds me close with one arm while he uses the other to caress my head, over and over again.
His touch is so soothing that for a moment I can imagine he’s never hurt me. That he would never hurt me.
At least he seems to have forgiven me for hurting him in the east tower.
Will Daesra ever forgive me? I wonder. But he’s quieter in my mind than ever.
Isha begins to hum, his deep voice vibrating through me, nearly lulling me to sleep. When I feel a silken whisper over my skin, his scent growing even stronger, I crack my eyes open to see that he’s draped his outer black robe over me, covering me.
For a moment, I feel warmth in more than just my flesh.
“Are you ever happy?” I ask him in a soft, sleepy murmur.
His humming pauses with his hand, though he resumes running his fingers through my hair. “Happiness is irrelevant to gods.”
Which means sadness should be as well, when it’s clearly not.
I nestle my cheek deeper into his lap and close my eyes again. “I want you to be happy.”
This time, his entire body freezes. “Why?”
I yawn, as if what I’m about to say is also irrelevant. “Maybe because I care for you. Why is that so hard to believe?”
I know exactly why it’s hard for him, as the god of death. And yet it’s surprisingly easy on my end.
My eyes nearly fly open at the thought—that I do actually care about him, despite everything.
He’s forbidding and frightening and complicated…
but in some senses he’s just like any man who has been hated and rejected.
No, he at least tries to act better than most men in the same situation, in his own strange way.
I’ve always sympathized a little too much with monsters, perhaps because most mortal men are worse. Which might be why I do wish Isha could find happiness, and not only because it might lead to my freedom.
The realization sends a panicky flutter through my chest. But I keep my eyes closed and my breathing even.
It’s twisted, indeed, that the lie I want to convince him is true might actually be coming true: that I’m beginning to care for him even as he’s beginning to care for me.
I cannot let myself become entangled in my own web.
He doesn’t move for a long moment. And then I feel the tips of his fingers tracing my cheekbones. Delicately, like I’m fragile and he doesn’t want to break me. “I haven’t considered your happiness.”
I haven’t considered whether or not I could care for you, he seems to be saying. And yet, even if it’s true, it’s still a step ahead of where he stood before.
I don’t like mortals, little one. I merely tolerate them.
“Would you ever consider it?” I ask, before I can think better of it. Perhaps I’ve said too much, but even in my foggy daze, the desperation claws inside of me.
“It seems beneath me to bother.” But his slightly perturbed tone says otherwise.
It seems dangerous.
And it is. Because once I know for sure he cares for me, I’ll use it against him with everything I have in me.
“And yet you take care of me,” I say contentedly, snuggling deeper within his robe, as if that’s enough.
I take care of what’s mine.
“I do” is all he says this time.
I smile wryly—I’m sure he can see it—as I add, “Despite threatening me with a knife.”
His hand passes over my forehead. “You were never truly in danger.”
I might believe him, except his idea of what constitutes danger as a god is probably quite different from mine as a mortal.
I snort softly. “You say that, but knives can’t cut you.”
“They can if I let them.”
My sluggish heart stirs in my chest at a sudden idea. I will my body and my voice to languid calm as I open one eye to smirk up at him. “Would you let me?”
I almost forget any plan I might have at the sight of him leaning over me in the candlelit darkness.
Gods, he’s beautiful. Several strands of black hair have come loose from their tail to fall along his sculpted cheeks.
Without his robe, his arms are bare in his undertunic, and I try not to notice how muscular and defined they are, looking carved from marble like the rest of him.
The desire to see more of him laid bare rises in me unbidden.
It’s a dangerous impulse… unless, of course, I can use it to strip him of his invisible armor.
He has no doubt caught me ogling him. For his part, he stares down at me with those unfathomable metallic eyes. “Let you,” he says slowly, “cut me?”
Right. Focus.
“You cut me, so fair is fair,” I tease. Referring to our conversation in the east tower is risky, because it might remind him why he wanted to punish me in the first place.
Or it might remind him of the strange intimacy we shared before that.
His mouth, instead of going hard and cold like I half expect, twitches at one corner. “I barely grazed you. And I told you, that’s not how your punishment works.” But then he pauses, and my breath catches. His shoulders lift in the slightest shrug. “However, you’ve been very good for me.”
The knife appears in his hand, while he spreads the other out in front of me, palm up.
I can’t believe this is happening, so much that I can only stare for a moment until I urge myself to motion.
I’m proud that my fingers don’t shake as I take the knife from him.
Still, I can barely breathe as I adjust my grip.
Instead of lunging forward, plunging the blade into his hand like I’m sorely tempted, I hesitate with the sharp tip held above the smooth expanse of his palm, giving him a questioning look.
He doesn’t appear the least bit perturbed, exuding every bit of the casual confidence he always has. He almost looks relaxed as he nods down at his hand. “Go ahead, if it pleases you.”
If it pleases you. He wants to please me. Or else this is a trick, because he still doesn’t trust me in the slightest.
I turn back to his hand, biting my lip, and without further delay I press the tip of the knife into the center of his palm.
I expect it to feel exactly as if I were trying to cut the hand of a marble statue—except his skin parts as easily as silk, without a whisper. Golden blood wells around the blade.
Even though I’ve gotten what I wanted, I cut him more than a nick, mostly to see if he’ll let me. He does, showing no resistance whatsoever, watching me impassively. But then his lips quirk when I pull the blade away.
“Feel better now?” he asks, taking the knife from me in his spare hand. It vanishes.
But the blood in his other hand doesn’t.
The answer is yes… and no. Rather, I could burst into delirious tears.
Because I did it. I made a god bleed. And not just any god—the most untouchable of them all. His hand is still raised before me, as if offering me his divine life force like a sip of water cupped in his palm. The golden substance that I need more than any other.
And yet, I can’t reach for it. While this wasn’t exactly a trick, it wasn’t exactly trust, either.
It’s the ultimate test—everything I want, right in front of me. And yet, if I try to seize it, it will be the ultimate failure. He would never trust me. Never let me get close to him again.
I realize with painful clarity that I will never get my own hands on his blood, not through any means I can devise as a mortal. Not even when I’m the one wielding the knife. It’s the same as with the ring on my collar: dangling in front of me and yet forever out of reach.
And yet, in not reaching for it, I might actually gain something else in the end.
His trust.
So instead of seizing his hand like I desperately want, I force myself to screw up my nose. “No, I don’t feel better. It’s disgusting.”
He’s been watching me like a hawk, but now he raises a disbelieving eyebrow. “Disgusting?”
I glare at the liquid gold pooled in his palm as if it offends me. “Disgusting that it looks so appealing to me. It’s still blood, no matter how it shines. I shouldn’t want it.”
“It’s vastly superior to mortal blood,” he says, mildly chiding.
“Any other shade would be clawing for it far more ravenously than they attacked you earlier, and I’m sure you remember how that went.
You can only refrain because I haven’t left you wanting—you still have your memories, and you just ate.
” He sounds more pleased now, whether by my eating or my restraint when faced with his blood, I’m not sure.
His tone drops. “But you doubtlessly still want it.”
It’s like he’s trying to tempt me. Like he wants me to fail this test.
Perhaps because he’s afraid to trust me, just like he’s afraid to care for me.
“Like I said, part of me does, and part of me doesn’t,” I concede. Never mind that all of me wants his blood with a need I can barely contain. I wave my hand in the vague direction of his. “So please take it away before I do something revolting.”
The golden pool begins to shrink into his palm—drawing back inside the wound as if obeying his order. I watch it seep away, trying not to feel the hope draining out of me at the same time, until only a bloodless cut remains in his skin.
“Should I leave the scar?” His eyes take on a dangerous sheen. “You seem to like them.”
He’s obviously alluding to the scars on my back, trying to bring up Daesra again—yet another test, but this one isn’t as difficult to pass. I’m not even supposed to be able to remember him right now. I wouldn’t, if not for the seeds. Especially not after the amount of fruit I just ate.
So I only hum in consideration. “No. You’re too pretty to scar.”
His eyes widen in mild surprise, and a smile slips onto his lips before he can wipe it away. But I saw it.
“And it turns out I don’t much like hurting you,” I add.
His gaze grows softer, and yet his words are anything but. “I can’t say the same, myself.”
A chill creeps down my spine, even though I know he’s not exactly threatening me. But it’s a valuable reminder that he has threatened me, he has hurt me, and he’ll probably do both again. Unless I can dissuade him.
“Good thing I like it when you hurt me,” I say lightly.
He lets his smile linger for longer this time. I lean back against him, watching until it fades, and then I close my eyes. My mind and body are spent, but I only pretend to drift, pondering my dubious victories as his hands resume their caresses.
Yes, he’s starting to care for me. I’m gaining his trust. But my failures shine brighter in the darkness behind my eyelids.
I can’t obtain his blood directly from his body, since it’s either impossible or too obvious a ploy—he as good as pointed that out himself.
He’ll always see me coming, so I have to keep approaching my freedom from a less obvious angle like I have been…
and yet, meanwhile, I’m forgetting Daesra.
I might not have time to play these endless subtle games, while Isha has all the time in the world—which he most assuredly has pointed out.
But at least I found the seeds, and they’ve granted me a reprieve, however brief.
They’ve given me hope that hasn’t yet been crushed in the palm of his hand.
They’re so small and yet so full of potential.
Perhaps they could still bear fruit like the Blessed Isles contain, restoring my memory with their golden bounty, even if their juice is merely a watered-down descendant of the substance that created them—a drop of a drop of a drop of his blood.
Not that I would last long enough to witness any fruit budding and ripening, allowing that I could find a way to plant and grow the seeds in the first place.
And even that’s if I haven’t already swallowed most of them.
I think I feel at least a couple still tucked in my cheek, but I can’t yet verify how many.
Sparing even one seed in such a hopeless endeavor would leave me one less now, when I need them most.
Outside of trying to reach the Blessed Isles myself, which I’ve neither figured out how to do nor yet wanted to risk attempting, I must break through Isha’s defenses, fast, or else find a way to keep my memories until I can manage.
My thoughts snag on an idea as his fingers trace delicious circles over my temples. It might be foolish. It might be useless. But at least it’s not impossible. And it’s certainly a less obvious angle of approaching him.
If I can’t break through the peel to reach the juice inside the flesh, perhaps I can still gain the seed by another means.
Isha is opening up to me, lowering his guard. Even if I can’t make him bleed, there’s another way to taste him.
And I’m even quite skilled at it.