Chapter 2 #2
My sister strode the room as if claiming her territory. Her chosen figure was humanesque, though her proportions were akin to an hourglass in the traditional sense.
A human’s vital organs would not support the pinched waist while pumping blood.
A human’s body had no need for supple curves and the pout of coal-dark lips and eyes the size of dinner plates.
Her amber scent mixed with the heat of spiced pepper.
A human’s hair remained connected and static, not the shifting and changing black spill of coiling smoke that Izi wore.
A human’s skin ran in shades of brown and tan and pink, rather than the greyscale common to our realm, from the blacks and whites of shadow and light to the silver sheen of brandished steel that she bore.
The similarities were intentionally uncanny, if only to highlight what was, and wasn’t, of this world. One was mortal. The other, a musing of womanly ideas.
I drove my anger into the back of my teeth, grinding them in an attempt to keep the rest of my face neutral. “Are you finished?”
Izi’s eyes flashed, the candlelit glint of sharpened canines sinister in the humble room. Her voice was too loud for the space. “Of course not. Though I wonder…what are you getting in return?”
I balked.
What was I getting? The question was unfathomable.
Shala had rebuilt her life, and I’d been there to watch.
She’d begun anew, and when she’d stumbled into their village in the middle of the night, I’d enchanted the guard at the city wall to believe any story she told.
She was greeted with compassion, given food, water, shelter, and I’d given her the greatest kindness I could for an unclaimed woman of her region, and ensured that she married well.
Fascination. Satisfaction. Pleasure. Success. The joy in each minor victory as I chipped away at the marble of the world, each fleck of stone improving this human’s life in the slightest of ways. Moment after moment I savored new after new after new.
Wordless sentries, the pair of us remained hidden as Shala sprinkled salt into the bowl and began to knead the sticky mixture.
The home smelled pleasantly of the date and pistachio candy she’d made earlier in the day.
I wasn’t sure why she was still cooking well after sunset, but perhaps with an empty home and nothing better to do, she liked to keep herself busy.
This was new, too, and my sister was ruining it.
Izi’s lower lip protruded. “Talk to me.”
“I have no answer that would please you,” I said honestly.
My sister, as with all succubi, took lovers in the night.
She lured men to their death, captivated hearts, and drank from souls.
She walked through dreams and plucked what she desired from the mind.
In return, her mortals were given the gift of unspeakable ecstasy.
It wasn’t the conventional relationship between god and worshipper, but our kingdom had never been one for convention.
“Should we touch her again? See if we can get her to do more than shiver?”
I pushed off from the wall, flat on my feet, as if ready to fight. It was more of a reaction than I’d intended.
It thrilled her.
Her move had gotten a rise out of me the first time.
She seemed to take pleasure in heightening the stakes.
An iron-sharp talon sprang from Izi’s finger as she approached.
This time, she went right for the head, watching my face as she ran a hand down her back, metallic-grey claws starting in Shala’s dark strands and trailing down her spine.
I grinded my teeth. My jaw knotted. I watched my sister provoke the human—my human.
“I’d appreciate it if you keep your hands off her.”
“She’s pretty,” Izi said.
Wrath took a protective shape as it flared within me. I didn’t need to speak for my sister to see it.
She tutted her tongue. “If you’re going to try your hand at godhood, you might as well live a little. The woman’s husband is away. How often do two of you…worship?”
The clay home flashed crimson as I saw red.
I wasn’t sure if Izi had filled the room with pheromones on purpose, or if it was an unconscious result of what she was. The onslaught of visions pulsed from her like she was the epicenter and thoughts of sex were the tremors.
Before I could brace myself, I saw Shala’s dress puddled at her feet, my hand slipped around her lower back, my fingers in her hair.
Her eyes looked up into mine as I lowered my mouth for hers, feeling the blistering heat of her body against the cool skin of my corporeal form as we melted together.
The gradient whites, shimmering pinks, and the glint of turquoise were opaline on my tongue, tasting that indescribable essence…
I blinked away the vision. I did my best to look unaffected but didn’t have to look at the succubus to know I’d failed.
“I’m not an incubus,” I countered, mind flitting to Izi and her full-fledged brothers and sisters.
I had no idea if they were all like this.
Izi may be one of many from her mother, but we were the only two from our father, the King.
She was difficult enough as it was. I was grateful I didn’t have to deal with more than one sibling. “Nor am I a god.”
“Aren’t you?” she made a contemplative face.
I didn’t like to think about it. Not then. Not now.
“Go about your business,” I waved her away, still working to collect myself from the involuntary thoughts of Shala’s mouth, of her tongue, of how it would feel to have her hold me in return. How it would feel to have her press into me, for her legs to hook around my waist, for her—
“Stay out of my mind,” I snapped, recognizing the renewed pulse of images for what they were.
She smirked as she moved toward the wall, then flittered toward Shala’s door. “You’re new to the practice, so let me give you a piece of unsolicited advice: if you’re going to stake your claim on this one, you might want to ward her thresholds. There are far worse things than me prowling about.”
I whirled on her to snap back at the threat, but before I had the time to rage, she’d disappeared to find her nightly meal.
I would have continued panting, teeth clenched, jaw flexed, poised to fight, if the humming hadn’t resumed.
My shoulders slumped. I was alone with the human. My human.
Shala abandoned her half-prepared meal and walked slowly to the table.
Her eyes traveled to the spot where I stood, unfocused.
Perhaps she couldn’t see me, but she sensed my presence.
I chewed on my lip and settled into the seat beside her, touching her gently, almost gingerly. I wanted to be close, but…
She exhaled and closed her eyes. “I know you’re here,” she said.
She’d been stoned for her faith. She’d seen the face of the immortal. I hadn’t left her side, nor had she left mine.
I squeezed her hand but revealed only my voice. “I am.”
The skin between her brows pinched. She swallowed. “You felt…different. Strange.”
A feeling—gratitude, perhaps—soothed the space between my shoulders. She was perceptive. She recognized when something beyond the veil didn’t feel like her ‘angel.’ The demon she called Star.
I didn’t want to scare her, but she couldn’t make the mistake of being too trusting.
“Would it surprise you to learn there are others? More than me, more than the god or his angels that you once served, more than you could fathom.”
“No,” she said solemnly. “The day I accepted you, I accepted everything.” She squeezed my arm in return. “I’ve seen the temples and those I knew to be heathens within. I’ve heard stories of sacrifices to foreign gods. Who was it tonight? A name I know?”
“It was someone...something...you don’t want in your house,” I said honestly. “But I’ll fix that.”
She chewed on her lip. “Fix it? How?”
I didn’t want to explain the concept of warding. Not yet. I just needed her to trust me. “There are three things I need you to do.”
“Anything.”
The uncomfortable tension that followed her proclamation was too much. I couldn’t dwell on it, or I’d unravel.
“It’s not for me, it’s for you,” I clarified. “There’s a merchant from the distant south. He’ll be in your village next week. He trades in fine golds and jewels, but he carries a black stone as smooth as glass. Make a trade for this stone and sleep with it under your pillow.”
Her lips pressed together. “My husband won’t appreciate gemstones…”
“You won’t need to trade anything of value.
I’ll be with you even when you don’t see me.
Whatever you offer, I’ll charm the merchant to see it as an excellent deal,” I promised.
“Second, there is a plant that grows just beyond the city walls. It has thick green leaves that grow in triangular spindles, with a thick, clear sap within. The sap is used for medicine against burns. Do you know the one?”
She made a face as if leafing through a book within her mind. “I do.”
“Hang it, fresh or dried, over your front door. Take the sap from one leaf and wear it on your wrists. Will you do this?”
“What’s the third thing?” she asked.
This was the most painful.
“Silence,” I said. “I won’t have you dragged from the city again.
If someone asks you who you worship, you lie.
If they question why you sleep with a stone beneath your pillow, you tell them it was a pretty gift from your mother before she died.
When they inquire why you hang the plant, tell them it’s an ingredient in broth from your home village. ”
“Denying one’s god is an unforgivable sin.”
My throat knotted. “Letting harm befall you is the only sin I won’t forgive, no matter which of us commits it.”
I didn’t know where to start in the jumbled explanation of gods and souls and realms, or if I should at all. Humans had been given rigid binaries through which they viewed the world. Theologies helped us both, I supposed. Some more than others.
“I’m not a god,” I said at last. And as far as she was concerned, this was true. I was nothing like the deities she’d been raised to know. “I won’t ask the things of you that were once required. I don’t have priests or holy texts or commandments. I just want you to live.”
Her lips parted, caught on a silent question for a long while. After a quiet eternity, she said, “What can I offer you?”
The corners of my lips tugged up in a smile. “You’ve given me a gift already.”
“Impossible,” she said. “I take. But tell me what I could give you, and it’s yours. From now until the end of my days.”
The damned succubus and her images attacked me once more.
Shala’s lips parting as mine drew close.
Her shawl slipping off her shoulder. Leaning against the wall, the window, falling backward onto the bed.
Her hand guiding mine south as it slipped into something unspeakably beautiful, and curious, and new. Something hers. Something ours.
No, no, no.
Though she’d been poor in her previous village, I’d helped negotiate a marriage with a wealthy suitor.
I looked at the three-story mudbrick home that I’d eyed a million times before.
The garden beyond the courtyard was still.
The gibbous moon filtering through the window was astonishingly bright.
The candle flickered its yellow-orange glow, revealing her frown as she waited for my answer.
“You’re my only human,” I said. “Everything we do, everything we say…it’s my first time experiencing these new, perfect moments. I’ve never had the opportunity to worry about anything beyond a cold war between realms and treaties. Caring for your wellbeing is…”
“Tedious?” she asked with a small smile.
Gods almighty, she was perceptive.
“In a good way,” I replied. “Eternity is monotonous. Through you, for the first time, I’ve been able to experience mortality.
The high stakes of eating every meal, of a cough, of bad weather, of everyday life.
Anxiety is a new emotion. The responsibility is utterly unique.
I’m grateful for the chance to taste it. ”
“There has to be something,” she said. “Something you want of me. Some gift beyond my gratitude. Something greater than my heart.”
I watched the sincerity on her face as she spoke and felt an interesting knot in my throat.
It was an unfamiliar sensation. It was decidedly unpleasant, but in a way that I cherished, though I understood it for the oxymoron it was.
I tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear and reveled in the way her face softened as she leaned into my touch.
There was a tingle somewhere behind my sternum, stuck just below my ribs, as something stirred.
“There is no gift greater than your heart.”