Chapter 16 Grayson
There was a shift in the air. A static that you could taste on the tip of your tongue.
It was as if whatever had been caged was desperate to finally be released.
It set my teeth on edge and made my heart skip in an irregular pattern.
Usually, when mortals prayed to us in a congregation, it strengthened us.
Our aura shone in an uninhibited glow around us and our power pulsed through our veins.
With the cuffs on my wrists, the usual pleasure and satisfaction was traded for an intense pain and discomfort.
The ache in my head and the itch under my skin were becoming unbearable.
“He’s not looking great. Little pasty. Sickly Victorian, if you will.”
I didn’t need to look up to know that Ignacio had finally deemed me worthy to visit.
“Fuck you,” I said through gritted teeth, and pushed myself up to my feet with some difficulty. When I looked up, the room was filled with familiar faces that I had been unable to hear enter thanks to the pounding in my ears. “I’ll never forgive you for wasting so much time.”
“You’ll get over it,” he said, unbothered by my anger. “Because you would have done the same.”
And it was true. How could I hold a grudge against him?
Ig had only displayed the selfishness that we all possessed and did so unapologetically.
If I were to be honest, I would have been worse.
Self-preservation and protecting Quentin came above all else, and no logical argument would have convinced me otherwise.
“How is she?” I asked, hoping one face in the room would be able to answer, but there was not a single response.
“No one’s seen her other than a few days ago when Hunter paraded her around lower Elysia,” Larkin eventually said. She looked less than impressed. The disdain for my brother was no longer hidden since their divorce.
Malachi leaned against a wall as he spoke.
“Your parents seem pretty convinced she’s not worth the time.
Said she’s told them she’s capable of making her own decisions and that Hunter is what she wants.
I implore you to have patience with them.
This must be a difficult situation for them to be caught in. ”
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying not to direct my anger at my parents.
They didn’t know her. They’d barely had a moment with Quentin.
She was trying to survive, but they were too short-sighted to understand that.
Mum was no doubt concerned about what this meant for my future.
She was always worried, since back when I left home, that I would never find my feet.
Never find someone to accept me with my gifts.
She would have taken Quen’s choice as a personal attack.
Dionne shifted uncomfortably to the left of the room, but I caught it as I opened my eyes. Ignoring another wave of discomfort, I fixed my gaze on her. “Dionne. Share with the class.”
She looked up at me with her dark eyes. “We need to get a move on and do this, Gray. I overheard Mabel arguing with Hunter. I can’t be sure, but I think he’s planning the wedding for tonight.”
“Tonight?” Erik said, eyes growing wide. “You can’t be serious. I told him I wouldn’t. He hasn’t…” He trailed off.
“He’s not going to waste any more time. He’s planning something,” I said. “Hunter’s never—”
A steady beat of thunderous footsteps grew louder as they descended into my prison.
The tension was palpable, but I shook my head to the audience.
Hunter was much lighter on his feet. Still, tendrils of different coloured auras filled the room in anticipation of a fight.
The fears were soon eased when Andreas appeared.
“Hunter’s requested Elysia in the square,” he announced. “You won’t have long.”
“He’s going to make a spectacle, and he expects us to be a part of it,” Flynn muttered under his breath.
Andreas approached the bars of my prison. “Are you prepared to do this again? There will be no coming back from this, Grayson.”
I nodded slowly. “Are you ready?”
“I am. I will not stay to be a pawn, but I will help the best I can.”
With Hunter, the rules ceased to exist. He wouldn’t hesitate to use someone’s responsibilities against them, and war was exactly what he would be after. Especially if this plan worked.
“They’ll all go with you?” I asked about the others with the same responsibilities. The minor Gods who looked to him for their lead.
“As many as I can convince. There are some who believe they know better.”
“Glory-hunting bastards.”
A wry smile came across Andreas’s face, making him look younger.
“We really need to hurry,” Dionne called.
Andreas stepped away from the bars and everyone else came into view.
The expressions ranged from boredom to apprehension.
If this worked, we all knew a war waited on the other side for us.
Elysia and Earth would be tipped into chaos, and perhaps that was why my body ached.
It was so tangible I could almost taste it.
“I really appreciate—”
“Shut up,” Larkin cut me off. “We’re not doing this for you. Elysia is a mess, and we’d rather have you onside than not. No offence to Erik, but your skills are more useful in warfare.”
Erik’s lips drew into a thin line, and Andreas snorted.
“I can feel the love pouring from you in waves, Larkin,” Erik mumbled.
“You have such a way with words,” I muttered.
“So,” Flynn said. “Who’s going first?”
The room fell silent as eyes shifted from God to Goddess. To worship another was to swallow your pride. Even war wasn’t enough to make them fall to their knees. In theory, of course, they all showed up, but the reality weighed too heavily on egos. So it surprised me when Bexley stepped forward.
“What are you doing?” Larkin hissed.
Her younger sister looked over her shoulder.
“We all agree we don’t have the time, but we’re happy to waste it standing around and doing nothing.
Doing nothing got us all into this mess in the first place.
We’re all complicit in what happened the first time.
None of us spoke up soon enough. I’m not having that lay on my conscience for a second time. ”
She turned back around to face me properly and nodded.
With only the bars separating us, Bexley folded herself to her knees and closed her eyes.
“Grayson, God of chaos. I ask you to unleash your power. I call to you in a time of need where only you will be able to help. I seek your vengeance and destruction. I ask for your chaos to pave a path of clarity in these uncertain times.”
Bexley continued to talk, but I was distracted by the nausea that rolled. My hands gripped the bars as Erik joined her on the ground.
“Grayson, brother of mine,” Erik started. “I call on your chaos to lead us through this darkness. May your vengeance be swift and just. I ask you to destroy what no longer serves us and allow us to build from the ashes.”
Two voices became three, and soon there was the hum of prayers. Words lapping over each other until nothing made sense, and it all became nothing more than a low buzz.
A sweat broke out over my brow, and goosebumps appeared on my skin.
My vision grew blurry as a beast attempted to claw its way out of my chest. The room tilted and there was a heavy thud as I fell to my knees.
I registered Erik vaguely calling my name, and I looked up to see his blurry form before me.
“Keep going,” he told the others. And then in a whisper directed to me, “Stay with us, Gray.”
Everything was on fire. My insides were molten.
I’d never felt like this in my life. What if the oleander had somehow penetrated the cuffs and seeped through my skin?
Was this how it felt to die? The pain was blinding and white-hot.
It robbed me of my voice, or else I would have screamed.
I needed a release. Something had to give because I couldn’t carry on like this. Couldn’t bear to carry it any longer.
And then it happened.
Something broke, snapped with aggressive violence, to give way for all the power and pain inside of me.
It was like my body was being broken apart to make room for everything that I held.
The heaviness around my wrists faded away as the ground became solid beneath my knees.
My eyes, which had been squeezed shut in anguish, opened slowly to be greeted by nothing more than darkness.
Not the kind of darkness when you turn off the light and wait for your eyes to adjust. This darkness was a void.
Nothing belonged to it… But it belonged to me.
I sat within the cocoon of my aura, panting as I allowed the pain to ebb away with each thump of my heart.
It had worked. Beyond all doubt, this crazy plan had broken me out of the cuffs and the bars before me were bent out of shape. There was enough space that I could squeeze myself out of them.
“Gray?” Sloan’s voice this time. “Are you okay?”
I tried to recall my aura towards me, but it refused to budge. The shield it formed remained firmly in place.
“I know I got caught off guard, but it won’t happen again.
You need to trust me,” I coaxed, still trying to pull it back to me.
It remained steadfast, and I fell to the only thing that mattered.
“We’ll get her back. I promise. And once she’s with us again, we’ll take the throne and rule for an eternity with her by our side.
Nothing is going to stop us, but we need to work together on this. ”
Slowly but surely, my aura receded. There was a mutual trust that needed to exist in order for us to have control. My words were not so much for the aura, but for myself. I spoke my intentions out aloud to remind myself what my goal was. That I could trust myself to achieve it.
Pushing myself up from the ground, I got to my feet to be met with swathes of different auras.
On a good day, it could be difficult to trust me now…
well, I was at my worst. The room remained dark as my aura continued to pulse, encouraged by their words and the prayers of mortals who remained blind to what happened in the heavens above them.
“Gray,” Erik said, taking a tentative step towards me.
“It worked.” I moved towards him, and Erik took a step back.
“You’re looking quite lethal, so I think it’s best…” He trailed off, gesturing around me.
“Then I guess we shouldn’t keep our brother waiting.”
I made my way towards the stairs, the other deities in the room giving me a wide berth as my aura snaked around my feet.
I let the thrum of chaos in my veins lead me out of the cellars and into the chambers where twelve empty chairs stood.
It would never occupy the same twelve again.
Who knew what the future of Elysia would look like after this?
The last time we went to war, there was an obvious goal and a division that held strong. I wasn’t sure how certain the minds of the Gods were this time.
“Dad said they were gathering in the square,” Sloan said somewhere near my left shoulder. But I didn’t need her to direct me. I could sense the chaos that ran through Hunter.
It called to me and beckoned me towards him. And the closer I got, the stronger it built in intensity, and it didn’t take long to see why.
Hunter stood upon the raised dais once again, surrounded by citizens of Elysia. He spoke to them with a sombre gravitas that demanded authority as it conveyed the unfortunate news.
“This was never what I wanted. I have tried my utmost to keep Elysia balanced and to keep us all safe, in the best way I know how.”
I edged closer, watching the show. The faux sadness Hunter wore was almost believable.
It would be easy to mistake him for a ruler that had been showered with unfortunate events wildly beyond his control.
A benevolent King who was distraught that the dwellers in his kingdom may find themselves at risk of danger.
What he truly was, was a snake who led them to whichever path suited him best.
“Gray, we need to go,” Erik whispered urgently, grabbing at my arm.
My focus drifted from Hunter to the empty dais around him.
Of course he would not keep her there with him.
She was not his equal, no matter how much he wanted others to believe him.
I scanned the crowd, backs of heads visible, and tried to find the dark locks that belonged to her.
Where would he have placed Quentin for this show?
“Gray,” Erik hissed.
But it was too late. Hunter’s eyes found mine as my gaze returned to the dais in search of my soulbound. The smooth facade showed cracks as his eyes narrowed and the corners of his mouth turned down.
“Hello, brother,” I said, a grin spreading across my face. The rapt attention he once maintained had dissolved into gasps and whispers.
“See what they’ve done?” Hunter asked, focus fixed on me while he addressed the crowd. “None of them care for your safety. They’ve helped the biggest risk to Elysia to escape.”
“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” I shot back. “Do they know how you’re forcing Quentin against her will? Do they know the role you played in all the murders during the first war?”
The conversations grew louder around us.
“I took no joy in that,” Hunter called out loudly. “Unlike you. And Quentin didn’t have the truth about you. Once she did, she made a choice that she felt fitting.”
“You—”
“He’ll destroy us all if we allow him. Do not let Elysia fall into destruction again. Defend your heavens.”
It was a call to arms, and there was no clear side to take.
And that was exactly why all chaos broke loose.