Chapter 25 Sadaré #2
And so I understand intuitively—immediately—what I’m the god of. It took Daesra a while to discover himself as a god. It has taken me but a moment. For good reason.
I laugh out loud at the realization—likely sounding mad with my sudden mood swings. Both Daesra and Isha blink at me.
“I’ll never be lost again.” I choke down a giggle, covering my mouth as tears threaten me simultaneously. “Because I’m the god of labyrinths. Of finding the path through.”
There’s that pull in my chest, a brightness lighting the way—currently toward Daesra and out of here—and there always will be now.
At least my past selves, whether they were selfish and power hungry or selfless and clever, knew exactly what to do to bring me here.
I’ve always had this in me. I clawed my way into becoming a witch.
I skulked my way into harnessing Daesra’s power as my own by betraying him.
I navigated my way into and out of the maze to save him.
And I muddled my way through Isha’s labyrinth—the prison he made out of my own mind.
I point at Daesra, who smiles at me with overflowing pride and tears in his own eyes, and I glare at Isha once more.
“He offered me a choice, while you took it. He fought for me, while you fought against me. He loved me for who I was, while you did everything you could to mold me into your creature.” I scream the word this time, and something shatters in the distance.
“Hear this and know it for absolute truth: You will never. Have power over me. Again.” I punctuate my declaration with such rage that the feared god of death shudders as if under blows.
I turn to Daesra, whose gaze is now filled with awe.
“I don’t blame you for believing what I said to you—but that wasn’t me.
You couldn’t see through his lies. I couldn’t myself, and you only wanted to let me choose.
But I had no choice. Now I can see clearly, and I blame him.
” My voice rasps in fury even as it breaks.
“And I hope you can forgive me for doing what I did.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Daesra breathes, “nothing at all.”
Of course, there’s more that he should know about what I did and was forced to do, but there’s still no time—never mind that we have an audience, as unwilling as it is.
His warm eyes turn molten as they land on Isha. “But not when it comes to you.”
Isha’s resignation is so heavy I can hear it in his voice. “Just leave—now.” But it sounds more like a plea than a demand. “Take Melé with my blessing, but what I said earlier was no lie—you’d best have a plan for her soul when you go. As a shade, she has no body outside of my realm.”
“We have a plan,” Daesra says. “Well, someone does.”
I’m more than ready to leave this place—I’ve never been more ready for anything, nearly bouncing on the balls of my feet, my fingers itching to reach for Daesra once more—but I hesitate.
There’s someone here who I will miss—and I tell myself it’s not the god of death.
And yet I can’t bring the boy out with me, because he’s dead.
“By the way, you do have a child,” I say to Isha. The sight of both gods gaping at me again might have been amusing under other circumstances, but now I feel only a weight on my heart. “The boy you saved and brought here.”
Daesra’s shoulders relax, while Isha’s hunch the slightest bit defensively even as he draws himself up to stand taller, resting a hand on his throne in an obvious attempt to regain some of his former imperiousness.
“He’s not my child,” he snaps. “Merely a lost orphan. Not my responsibility.”
“I’m making him your responsibility,” I snap right back at him.
“You saved him, so take care of him. Feed him fruit from the Blessed Isles. Don’t let him fade.
Teach him to play the harp.” To play it for you, I don’t add, because that’s a promise of sweetness he doesn’t deserve.
“Or I will seek my vengeance. I will find the way to destroy you. That’s within my power now.
” I can’t actually see a path to destroying him, but then I’m not searching for it.
I saw what happened when Daesra nearly succeeded—every shade in the underworld would have gone with him.
Including—“Maro. That’s his name. Make sure he remembers it. ”
Isha’s jaw is tight, but he gives me a curt, singular nod. That’s enough.
And yet it’s not all I might want from him.
I stare at him, trying to see something in this dark, remote god that I recognize. “You said it was inevitable after you broke open the collar. Did you know what I would do with the ring?”
He shakes his head, releasing a nearly silent, rueful sigh.
“You think too much of me, even now. That was all you—your careful manipulation. I had no idea what the ring was. Its divinity was only for you. I wanted to free you… but I couldn’t.
It’s not in my nature, even though I wanted you back.
The stubborn, resistant, real you”—he smiles briefly, and then it’s as if those lips had never smiled in an eternity—“the one I locked away. The one who would never forgive me, not after what I’d done. That would go against your nature.”
He pauses, and I hate that I can feel my heart pounding painfully in my chest, despite my anger. I’m not only angry because he hurt me, but because he ruined everything in a way that I don’t think can be rebuilt.
His next words rise tentatively. “Am I wrong? Is there any path…?”
He doesn’t finish, but I know what he would have said. Back to me.
I can’t believe he’s asking. If there is a path, I don’t want to know—and I certainly don’t want him to know. “There isn’t,” I say, forcing myself to be as cold as him. Wintry.
A state frozen in time, where nothing can grow.
“Even so,” he says, bowing his dark head in seeming acceptance, “I’m glad you have freedom where I don’t. I even wish I had helped you gain it. But I didn’t.”
He’s speaking the truth—I know it. I can feel it in my veins. I wish I could deny the sentiment behind his own denials, but I can’t. “The first step would be an apology,” I grit out, willing my voice not to quaver, “and I didn’t hear one.”
He looks at me almost sadly, with the throne between us. “I can’t apologize for being what I am. Not for something I can’t change.”
Surprisingly, Daesra speaks before I can respond—not that I know what I was going to say.
“You were always trying to convince me I was nothing but a monster, and that all we can do is submit to our own nature. But you were never one to submit to anything or anyone.” His smile is crooked—both sharp-edged and soft, somehow.
“I think, rather, it’s you who’s the monster—and you hate yourself for it.
So you’ve simply convinced yourself there’s no other way you can be.
But you can change. If it’s an ability you envy in me, which I believe it is, then know it can be yours.
Trust me—I am the god of possibility, after all.
” When Isha only stares at him, either shocked to stillness or turned to stone once more, Daesra throws up his hands.
“Though I don’t know why I’m bothering with you, since I don’t owe you a godsdamned thing. And neither does she.”
He’s right. And yet, I keep peering at Isha… searching. Maybe even hoping, against my better judgment, for some sign of him yielding. It wouldn’t mean I could forgive him, and yet I somehow wish there were a reason for me to try.
But he remains as immovable as ever. My hope, as feeble as it is, dies like everything else in this place.
“Thank you,” I still say, surprising even myself. “For not touching me after you turned against me—after you turned me against myself. For not betraying that, at least, when I was most vulnerable.”
He shakes his head, looking nearly stricken.
“I don’t deserve thanks for doing nothing to you after everything else I’ve done to you—for preserving the bare minimum of whatever decency is left alive in me.
I could never be like… those men… who hurt you.
” He looks away, and I catch a glimpse of the hatred and shame warring in his eyes before it’s gone.
“So I didn’t withhold only for your sake, but mine as well.
I wouldn’t have touched you even as my queen.
Not even I’m that much of a monster, I suppose.
” He glances at Daesra, his lips twisting in a grim smile at the echoing words.
“Even so, it wasn’t nothing to me,” I say.
Isha returns my gaze, holding it. “And that person wasn’t you, to me. And that was my doing. It gladdens me to see you again, despite everything.”
At least that’s something, if not quite what I was looking for—neither an apology nor a path I’m unsure I even want to find.
Although there is one path I can see clearly now in my mind’s eye—I knew it existed already.
“There is a golden gateway in the Blessed Isles—and I can find it!” I cry in excitement, spinning on Daesra—turning my back on Isha. I toss my final words to him over my shoulder. “And that, at least, doesn’t lead me to you.” I hesitate, only for a moment. “Goodbye, Isha.”
And then, with Daesra’s hand in mine, I stride down the dais steps, along the carpeted aisle through the pillars and statues, and out through the doors of the throne room, leaving the darkness… and Isha… behind. Daesra squeezes my fingers as we go.
Neither one of us looks back.