22. Kiera
Chapter 22
Kiera
I f there were a prize for the most aggravating and bothersome males in the entire world, the Darkhavens would win first place, hands down. This is a fact I didn’t quite realize until I was forced to spend weeks locked in close quarters with the three of them. We eat together, we attend classes together, we train together. They hover and I’ve never been hovered over before.
I dislike it. Immensely.
They’re even now aware that Regis is attempting to set up a meeting with me. I would have thought that my obvious snub—and the lack of reply would give him at least a hint to leave me the fuck alone. It seems, however, that my ex-friend is a stubborn asshole.
His crow has figured out that I no longer go to my old room and has been tapping outside the Darkhavens’ window every few days with a fresh note. I’ve stopped reading them altogether, but merely take them from the crow and toss them into the hearth before sending the creature off with a wave. Ruen, despite his sudden quietness since meeting with his father, has attempted to argue that I should at least give a response.
I find both him and the others overbearing.
The only times I gain some bit of freedom from their presence is when I sneak off or must attend tutoring with Caedmon, the former of which consists of a lot of roundabout God talk.
The days pass into weeks and Kalix continues to disappear periodically without telling anyone where he goes or what he does. When he returns, he sometimes smells of blood and decay. Even Theos and Ruen seem to be unaware of his activities, but they both act as though it is normal for him.
Perhaps, it is.
Every day in the Academy reminds me of the invisible noose that continues to tighten around my throat, cutting off my air. Blood is in my lungs and it is what I now breathe.
I’ve managed to keep the book Caedmon had gifted away from the Darkhavens’ prying eyes. Most shockingly of all, from Ruen—who, since the meeting with his father, has taken to himself more so than ever before.
Why does it feel like the four of us are simply waiting for the start of a storm and there’s nothing more we can do to prepare? There must be something. There is always something.
“Kiera?”
I blink and glance up as Caedmon calls my name, sounding as if it’s not the first time. We are, once again, in the strange garden that is lit with divine power with a spread of a chessboard before us. The scent of floral blossoms surrounds us and invades my nostrils with each breath I take. I shake my head and refocus on the board.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “My turn?” I reach for a pawn, stopping only when a dark-skinned hand comes down on mine, halting the movement.
“Your mind is elsewhere,” Caedmon says.
I sit back, pulling my hand out from under his as I look up towards the lights glimmering from every surface of the ceiling. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that this place is coated in real sunlight and that the windows are true visions of what lies beyond the walls. But I do know better and I know that it is all an illusion—much like these ‘tutoring’ sessions with Caedmon.
Perhaps now is the perfect time to bring up the changes to his book. I contemplate that even as I sense Caedmon’s eyes boring holes into the side of my face.
“What is bothering you?” he asks after several moments of silence.
A heavier question, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard. He still hopes that I will accept his request to attempt to kill the most powerful being to exist within this realm. Kalix is keeping secrets and Ruen has pulled into himself. I’m confused and frustrated. The weight of all of their expectations as well as the building pressure within my own body now that the brimstone has been removed is slowly driving me to the brink of insanity, and I fear that when I fall over the edge there will be no coming back.
I don’t say any of that but instead, go back to something far simpler. “The book you gave me has changed again,” I admit.
I sense rather than see Caedmon shift forward. The light creak of the chair beneath him and the scrape of fabric on the stone table echo back to me. Thankfully, I manage to maintain a straight face and not wince at how loud it seems.
Maeryn informed me that it’s only natural for my senses to get stronger with time as my body is now acclimating to having full access to my abilities. That doesn’t make dealing with it any easier though.
“What has it shown you this time?” he inquires.
“Names,” I say, glancing in his direction. “Some are crossed out but others aren’t.”
Caedmon’s face doesn’t change as he absorbs that information. “Are they in any sort of order?” he asks.
“The ones that are crossed out are at the top,” I say. “And the ones that aren’t appear at the bottom.”
“Do you recognize any of them?”
I hesitate to answer him, but my hesitation, I realize a moment later, is answer enough. “I recognize a few, but they haven’t been crossed out yet.” Another beneath Malachi had appeared in recent days. Enid Duskhorn. Though I’m not entirely sure since I don’t know the girl’s surname, Enid is the name of the Mortal God Theos had recommended for advancement before the battles. She’d won and still lives, but her name appearing in the book has me on edge for some reason.
“What is the book’s new title?” Caedmon asks, disrupting my thoughts.
I swallow before answering. “ To Those Who Have Been Stolen.” The only response from him comes in the form of a small twitch over his left eye. I narrow my gaze as he sits back. “What does that mean?” I mean the question to come out soft and curious. Instead, it comes out harsh and annoyed. I suppose trying to hide my frustration at this situation is not within my current skill set.
I find when there’s no reason to hide my personality any longer, I simply can’t. Caedmon knows all anyway. My past. My present. And a future he still refuses to divulge.
“I cannot say,” Caedmon says as he reaches for a tea cup set a few inches to the side of the chessboard.
“You cannot say or you will not ?”
His elegant fingers still as they latch on to the cup’s fragile looking handle. Ebony eyes lift to meet mine. “You are angry.” Yet another statement.
I can’t help but bare my teeth at him. “ You don’t say. ”
His sigh only serves to irritate me further. He releases the tea cup and steeples his fingers together, setting his elbows upon the edge of the stone table between us.
“I told you once that that book is special and that it is quite ancient and spelled,” he begins, his voice quiet enough that even my heightened senses strain to hear him. “But it is more than that. The book you currently have in your possession is a book of prophecies of a sort.”
“A book of prophecies?” I repeat. “But it told me of the past as well. I thought prophecies only dealt with the future.”
“All prophecies that come to pass eventually end up in the past,” Caedmon replies gently. “That book is more than special.” He pauses and his brow creases, lips turning down at the corners.
My heart hammers in my chest as a peculiar sensation takes root inside me. It’s a warning and I know why the moment Caedmon seems to resign himself to something before speaking again. “That book is a part of me,” he finally admits. “It is bound in my flesh and therefore, holds some of the same powers as myself.”
My lips part and my jaw loosens in pure shock. The book is bound in his flesh? The leather I’d held in my hands was not of any animal but a God? Horror sickens my insides and Caedmon must see it upon my face because, in the next instance, he’s out of his seat and around the table, kneeling before me as he takes my hands in his.
“It was purposeful, Kiera,” he says. “Do not worry—I was completely consenting in its creation. I bound it myself. Were I to perish, I wanted there to be something left behind. Something that could aid you.”
My breaths come in fast pants, filling my ears even as he squeezes my fingers in his grip. He’s still talking, his voice soothing and gentle, but I cannot understand. Why would anyone purposefully flay their own flesh to bind a book? What does he mean he wanted to leave something behind to aid me?
My gaze lifts to find his. The skin around his eyes crinkles at the corners reminding me of the same happening to Tryphone the only time I’d met him within the God Council’s chambers. Those lines, though beautiful and speaking of many amusements, are marked by age. Something that should not be possible for a God, another piece of evidence to back up Caedmon’s claims that they are not Gods at all.
After a lifetime, however, of thinking of them one way, it’s difficult to completely shift my understanding of the world around me. Knowing does not always mean truly believing. That is something entirely different. Faith in Caedmon’s words doesn’t come from my mind, but a separate place entirely. I’m starting to feel its spark now.
Before, I thought I’d understood all that is now on the line. It isn’t until I stare down at Caedmon’s otherwise smooth face and the hands that hold mine—hands that cut his own flesh from his body and bound it into an object of permanence—that I realize I was wrong.
The act of stripping flesh from a person’s muscles is a torture I’ve received. The pain that I’d felt and the elongated time of healing after is an enduring reminder. I shudder as the memory comes back to me. I repress it once more and try to catch my breath upon this new information.
“Are you alright?” Caedmon’s voice which had fallen into the muffled timbre of sounds returns in words.
I’m not sure I have a real answer, but I nod anyway. He retracts his hands and stands to his full height. I tip my head back, staring up at him. I focus on his face so that I don’t try looking for scars from his ordeal as I know they won’t be there. Even I healed from mine so there’s no doubt in me that he did as well.
“I know it’s frustrating that I’m not able to give you more information about prophecies, Kiera,” Caedmon says. “Believe me, I wish that I could be straightforward. I do not enjoy the hints I must leave you rather than simply telling you what you need to know. The downside to having these abilities is that we are often controlled by them and there are consequences of stepping outside the boundaries they have set for us.”
“So you can’t tell me anything that isn’t shrouded in some metaphor or mental puzzle that I must first unravel?” I ask plainly.
Caedmon’s lips twitch and he offers me a beseeching smile as he returns to his seat. “I am sorry,” he admits. “The disadvantage of my power is my inability to know the prophecies if I reveal the secrets of the future.”
I just stare at him. Heat fills me. Frustration. I’ve already told him that I am no one’s hero, least of all his. Yet, still, as he stares back, I see the truth in his eyes. He still has hope. Hope that I can somehow manage to overcome all of these obstacles.
He’s one of them.
Whatever future he knows but cannot reveal to me, sits in the shadows like a monster waiting to strike. Like the creature parents tell their children about in secret whispers to make them behave lest the being come to steal them away in the night.
I will not be frightened by an imaginary monster. I have more than enough real ones to face.
I lay a fist on the stone table between Caedmon and me and fix him with a harsh look. “So you can’t tell me what those names mean?” I ask.
Caedmon’s gaze shifts to something unexpected. I’ve seen broken men before. Witnessed their demises in darkened alleyways and shunned their existence simply for the fact that to acknowledge their cracked souls would harm my own ability to live on. That is exactly what Caedmon becomes though at the mention of those names again. He doesn’t speak, but his lips part as if he wants to. They close again and he answers with a shake of his head.
Again, because he can’t tell me.
I lower my eyes to the chessboard. The porcelain pieces—the same as every other time I’ve been here—seem to dance in front of my vision. I know this feeling well. I close my eyes against it, but that doesn’t erase the truth.
Trapped. I am well and truly trapped.
I can try to gain more information from Caedmon, but I have the feeling that no matter how many questions I ask, no matter how many times we come back to this place, I will never get what I seek. Maybe because what I seek is not in him. It’s not here in this false garden with its false light and its confined flowers.
The irony is not lost on me. The Academy is just like this greenhouse. We, the Mortal Gods, are the precious blooms that smell of sweetness and power. We grow under the light of the Gods, but it’s not true sunlight that shines upon us. The primary difference between me and the rest, though, is that I was not raised as a greenhouse flower. I was raised outside. I was carved from blood, sweat, and bone.
My eyes shoot open. Of course … I blink at Caedmon who is peering at me, his expression a mixture of curiosity and concern.
Those names have made me realize something. I’m still not sure what they mean, but they remind me that I’m not alone. I can’t kill Tryphone and I refuse to do so without knowing the truth—a truth that Caedmon knows but can’t tell me.
I must go hunting for it myself.
I stand abruptly. “I think this session is over,” I say, blinking as my blood rushes through me, speeding along my movements.
I need to find out the truth, and then, once I’ve decided what to do, I need to find out how to use the others. There are far more Mortal Gods than there are Gods. Using them isn’t a choice but a necessity. The greenhouse needs to be opened and the flowers need to be released from captivity. Only then can they truly grow into what they were meant to be.
Only then can the Gods’ oppression end.