Chapter 84 Kali
KALI
Icouldn’t believe this was it.
We had won.
Ilasall had fallen, and at our hands.
My breath fogged up the glass as I stared out the window of a ten-story dwelling, a cluster of them located right in Ardaton’s center, the dozen buildings belonging to the green-banded citizens.
Well, the accommodation used to belong to them.
We’d claimed the entire twelve for the time being so Damia’s people would have a temporary place to crash. Sleeping in cramped quarters would do for now. No one protested the arrangements as long as they got a bed, a shower, and a meal. You couldn’t expect the days in the aftermath to be easy.
Where the glass had become matte from the moisture in my exhales, I drew a line, and another, and another, creating a rough sketch of a yellow oleander.
The flower that had changed everything. In search of it, I’d illegally sneaked out of Ilasall and roamed the surrounding forests. The plant was the reason Gedeon and Zion had discovered me in a clearing last summer.
Huddled in the top floor of the residential dwelling, I surveyed the nest of flat, gray roofs sprawled before me. The majority of buildings were now all assigned to black- and green-banded alike, in spite of grumblings or fits of rage many rich folks had succumbed to.
It would take a while for the cities’ propaganda and brainwashing to ebb. Free thinking was not something citizens were allowed to do before.
Including me. For almost three decades, I’d acted like a dutiful servant of Ilasall. But now, I was free.
Truly free.
With two full days having passed since we’d marched through Ilasall’s gates, the war was finally behind us.
Pushing off the windowsill, I scanned the sleek and polished apartment.
It reeked opulence, from the expensive upholstery to the marble surfaces.
Even the closets of the Match, which had occupied this space before us, contained silks of every shade imaginable.
Not merely the white, gray, and black colors the commoners wore to better blend in with the surroundings and avoid accidentally catching the attention of soldiers on patrol.
I strode across the oak floor, my journey to the living room feeling like a hike. With every step, my three-fingered hand throbbed, my muscles screamed, and my bruises and areas of swelling ached.
Plodding toward the bathroom, I cursed the quantity of nerves in a human body. Every movement felt like another beating, another fist, another kick.
At least with the three cities overturned, we had access to meds. The pills for pain had become my salvation. If not for them, I would likely be bound to a bed.
What seemed like ages later, my trek reached its end. A cloud of warmth smashed into me, and the pitter-patter of a spray welcomed me as I paused in the bathroom doorway.
Scrubbing himself free of the gore, Gedeon ran a blue cloth down his front. For the last eighteen hours, since Damia had invaded Ardaton, he’d been dealing with outbreaks of rogue soldiers and small riots of rebelling green-banded residents.
It’d taken both my threats and Zion’s declaration of celibacy after he’d sniffed Gedeon to persuade him to take a well-deserved shower and a nap. Damia could lead in Gedeon’s stead while he slumbered.
Especially when we’d already dispatched our most trusted teams back to Ilasall to seize control of the city. With it in ruin and its military reduced to ashes, the takeover had been easy.
Ardaton was a different case. We had no choice but to establish a command center here to support Damia. She’d occupied the city and rescued us in a bit of a rush, similar to how Dain and Nissa had seized Coriattus.
Leaning against the sink inlaid in a natural stone countertop, Zion rubbed his bottom lip, utterly immersed in the show—Gedeon taking a shower.
“What are you doing?” I asked Zion.
He gestured at Gedeon lathering up his hair. “Watching him.”
Stuck in the doorway, I wiggled my toes. The intricate pattern of emerald tiles had forged an invisible barrier—I’d stopped right before the threshold. Years of living in poor conditions had ingrained the aversion to luxury deep in me.
“Does it hurt?” Zion frowned at the discoloration marring my skin. The pair of dusty pink silk shorts and a matching top I’d found in the closet couldn’t hide much.
Or assuage the discomfort of wearing something so extravagant.
“It’s okay.” Manageable. I wouldn’t dare demand more pain meds when countless injured needed them incomparably more than me.
I could breathe and eat, and that was enough for me.
The sight of crooked limbs, gaping holes in torsos, shattered jaws, and poked-out eyes had been sufficient for me to refuse the bottle of extra pills I’d been offered.
Forcing myself to lift my right leg, I entered the bathroom. The chill from the tiles seeped into my soles, and I imagined the cold forming pillars of support to hold me up. “Gedeon does know you’re leering at him, right?”
“Yup.” A grin contorted the stitched-up slice in Zion’s cheek. “He tried to kick me out, but I reminded him that the only thing he can get rid of is my clothing.”
I stifled my snort. As if Zion was dressed to begin with. With his arm destroyed, he’d decided to forgo any shirts, wearing one pair of sweatpants after another. Not that I was complaining. “And he said nothing to that?”
“Something about a public lesson to be taught, to which I obviously agreed. He hasn’t decided on the date, though.” Zion scratched a patch of sandy skin peeking out between the bars of his plastic arm cast.
Gedeon had convinced our own doc to make the trip to Ardaton so he could personally fix Zion’s limb. As one could have predicted, Zion had sneaked out the moment he’d woken up, too impatient to roll in bed until the doc cleared him.
Now, the bastard wouldn’t stop boasting about how he had metal rods and plates embedded in him. Apparently, his arm had been improved.
I leaned against the counter beside him. “What’s your favorite part?”
The clear glass doors obscured nothing as Gedeon stood under the wide showerhead.
Rain caressed his black waves, plastering the locks to his temples and forehead, softening his harsh angles.
The droplets trickled down his front, exploring the dips of his abdomen, catching on the raised scars, following the faint trail of hair leading to—
“His ass,” Zion interrupted my perusal.
I shifted, making myself more comfortable. Which was impossible with how sore I was. “I thought you said that about mine.”
Zion shrugged, grimacing as the move tested his newly fixed bones. “I like butts.” Nudging me with his foot, he prodded, “What’s yours?
I couldn’t put out my flush. “His back.” Something about the contours of Gedeon’s defined muscles made my belly clench every time.
Had there been a few occasions when I’d accidentally stumbled upon him in the training rings during his morning workouts?
No, definitely not.
I bit my tongue to contain the lie.
Zion chuckled, and the rumble enfolded me like an embrace. “So we both like his backside.”
I threw my head back with a groan. But at the same time, his jokes were the best medicine there ever was. His frivolity served as a healing balm.
Gedeon wrung out the washcloth, and a stream of pinkish water pooled around his feet. Rubbing the bar of soap against the fabric, he glowered at me through the glass. “You’re just going to stand there too?”
“Mhm.” Pure wickedness numbed all the aches in my body as I drawled, “Turn around.”
Gedeon swiped the drenched strands off his face. “Why?
My smile widened. “So we can ogle you properly.”
“Do so at your own peril, little death. I have already warned Zion.” He snapped the cloth. “Once I’m out of this shower, it won’t take me long to catch you and make you pay for your insolence.” Twisting around, he purred, “For now, enjoy the view.”
Hundreds of tiny bird silhouettes decorated his back, not a patch of brown skin left uninked, the overflow of death marks crawling up his sides and nape.
The mass of animals resembled a flock caught in time: the birds tattooed right above his toned ass perched on the ground while their brothers and sisters soared the sky along the line of Gedeon’s shoulders.
Zion’s stomach growled, and he bit his fist, salivating at Gedeon. “I want to eat him.”
My giggle burst free. I clutched my core as flames razed my muscles, but the self-inflicted torture was worth it. It’d been gods knew how long since I last laughed so freely.
The pressure of the war I’d yearned for had ceased looming above me. The cities could no longer oppress us from afar. And nobody was going to experience Alora’s fate anymore.
A new century was about to begin with everyone on equal footing. How well you did in life would depend on each individual and their contributions to the society, not on the state of their reproductive organs.
My stumps pulsed, the phantom fingers smarting, and I had to glimpse at my hand to convince myself that the digits were truly gone. At least the pinkie the woman had removed had been the damaged one.
As wrecked as Ilasall.
We were scheduled to return to my homeland sometime in the next forty-eight hours, and I couldn’t wait to see the city I’d grown up in reduced to ashes.