37. Kiera
Chapter 37
Kiera
“ C aedmon!” I call after the God of Prophecy even as I force my protesting legs to move faster.
In the time that has elapsed inside the God Council’s chambers, the light sprinkle of morning rain has ceased. The dark figure that strides before me grows more and more distant as I struggle to catch up with him, my legs somehow not moving with the natural grace and expediency that I’m used to.
“Hey!” The second I get close to the tall ebony skinned man who has both frustrated and helped me over the last few months, I reach out and snag the edge of his fine-silk coat. He draws to a stop and glances back at me with those all-seeing eyes of his
“What the fuck was that?” I demand, shockingly breathless. My head swims and my fingers tremble as I reach up and shove back a massive lock of silver hair that falls into my face.
Caedmon doesn’t speak. He merely reaches back and grabs my arm and starts walking again, this time dragging me with him. I stumble and nearly go down on my knees.
“What’s wrong with me?” I ask this time, unable to pull myself from his grasp. I haven’t felt this weak since my first sparring session in the Underworld at ten years old. It’s as if a decade of muscles and careful training has evaporated from my body, leaving behind a fragile collection of bones beneath my skin.
“It is the blood loss,” Caedmon says, his tone curt as he directs me down an outside pathway that passes through the very courtyard in which I met him for the first time.
I glance over the fountain where I found my Spider Queen briefly before I return my attention to the God at my side. “It’s not just that,” I insist. “What was that ceremony? That wasn’t the”—I lower my tone—“the taboo?”
Caedmon’s head rears back. “ No .” The fabric of his clothing twists slightly with the abrupt action. I glance down to see that his free hand is clenched so tightly that the normally dark skin over his knuckles has turned an ashen gray. “The ceremony was simply an attempt to discover your bloodline.”
“Why didn’t it work then?” I ask. “Did you do something to disrupt it?”
Caedmon unclenches his hands and sighs. “No, I didn’t do anything to disrupt it. Doing so wouldn’t help. The God Council is determined to find your God parent and they will.”
“You said you know who she is,” I reply. “Is it dangerous if they find out?”
His expression turns contemplative. Ask the right questions, he’d said. Is that one? The hope in my chest is stomped out when, a moment later, Caedmon shakes his head. “That is a question I cannot answer, Kiera.”
“Cannot or will not?” I bite back, anger rising.
Again, I’m left with no answer. I stop walking and when Caedmon nearly pulls me straight off my feet without any effort, I yank back, digging my heels into the dirt beneath my boots. Left with little other choice than to either carry my ass or stop, Caedmon finally halts. His hand falls away and I cross my arms over my chest to glare at him when he turns to face me.
“Enough,” I state. “You need to start giving me answers.”
Gold trinkets dangling from one pierced earlobe glitter in the soft sunlight that now peeks out from behind gray clouds as he shakes his head. “I’ve already told you why that’s not possible, Kiera,” Caedmon replies. “The book?—”
“—is only offering me more problems,” I snap, cutting him off, “not solutions!”
His skin is smooth, no crease between his brows and no lines bracketing his lips as they might a mortal. Of all the Gods, Caedmon is the one that appears most like a statue. Flesh the color of uncut brimstone. Eyes of deepest chestnut and unlit night sky. Sometimes, I’m not sure if his darkness is only external or if somewhere beneath the facade of Divinity, he’s just as evil as the rest of them.
I don’t want to believe it. Caedmon, after all, is the only God, so far, that has offered me even a modicum of truth. Unfortunately, it’s not enough.
“If you want…” I drift off, my eyes turning to scan the area—up the face of the stone walls of the buildings that surround us and towards any exit to see if there are any unwanted ears. When next I begin to speak, I lower my voice so much so that not even a potential familiar unseen in the grass or crevices of stone could hear. “You need to offer me some sort of explanation, Caedmon.” I let him see the conviction in my gaze. I step closer until I can scent the lemon and bookish smell of his office. “I received a warning,” I tell him, “that the Underworld was breached.” I leave out the mention of Regis and how I managed to find him, waiting, instead, for Caedmon’s response. “If you want me to kill the God King then?—"
“I do not want you to kill anyone,” Caedmon finally says after a brief respite where his eyes bore into mine with no amount of emotion that I can decipher, “but this mission is what you were born for, Kiera. Of that, have no doubt. Regardless of what you desire or think you’re capable of—what you are fated to do cannot be changed.”
My own brows crease as I frown. “What?—”
Caedmon turns away from me. “I assume you can get back to the North Tower from here on your own,” he states as he begins to walk away.
My lips part in shock. “Wait!” I yell for Caedmon to stop, but as I drop my arms and try to race after him, black dots dance in front of my vision and I barely make it ten feet before I have to stop and hunch over, bracing myself on my knees for breath.
When I next lift my head, he’s gone. A bell chimes somewhere in the Academy, the sound ringing across the grounds with an air of finality that sounds more like a death knell than the start of a day of classes.
For all we know, each ring of that damned bell is exactly that. The signal that we’re all drawing closer and closer to our ends … and all of it at the hands of the Gods we’re meant to serve.
The failure of the Gods’ ceremony accompanied by the fact that Caedmon still remains an enigmatic figure that I’m not entirely sure if I can trust swirls in my head as I slowly make my way back to the North Tower. The second I enter the main room, Ruen and Kalix are there, blocking me from going any further.
“What happened?” Ruen demands.
“Why do you look like that?” Kalix frowns and reaches for me, sweeping me off my feet and into strong hands that I’ve seen do deadly things like ripping another Mortal God’s head from her shoulders. I should not feel as safe as I do right now and I remind myself that up until a few weeks ago, the Darkhavens were potential targets for my mission.
A mission that no longer exists in the original sense. After all, the brimstone chip keeping me bound in blood to Ophelia’s Underworld Guild is gone. The client I was meant to serve is none other than the God of Prophecy himself.
Kalix carries me over to the same lounge that Regis had occupied and as he sets me down, I straighten. “How is Regis?” I ask, casting a look to first Ruen and then Theos, as he enters the room through the doorway leading to his private chambers.
Theos doesn’t say a word to me as he moves to take a seat near the fireplace, hooking one ankle over a knee and crossing his arms over his chest. I grit my teeth. Now doesn’t really seem like the time for him to be throwing such a childish tantrum about what happened between us this morning, but I return my attention to Ruen as I wait for an answer to my query.
“He’s still in Kalix’s room,” Ruen says. “His condition is unchanged. Now, tell us what happened.”
Before I can answer his demands, Kalix reaches down and plucks my arm up from my lap. “ What. Issss. Thissss. ” All else in the room goes still at those three cold dangerous words.
Kalix’s upper lip pulls back and his tone takes on a distinctly serpentine edge as the s’s elongate through fangs that press down from his gums. The three lines marking the cuts Tryphone had made are revealed as the sleeve of my tunic is pressed up towards my elbow.
Theos stands abruptly, golden lightning sparking at his fingertips.
“I’m fine.” I jerk my arm, but Kalix’s fingers contract, holding me in place.
“Kiera?” Ruen’s voice draws nearer and I turn my head, blinking when I realize I’ve suddenly been surrounded by three increasingly angry Mortal Gods.
Ruen’s normally purple and blue eyes are a stark crimson as he gazes down at the thin lines cut into my forearm and the dried blood crusted around the now closed wounds that should be sealed by now thanks to my Divine blood. That is … they would have been had Tryphone not used a brimstone blade.
Exhaustion thrums a steady beat behind my eye sockets. “Please don’t.” My plea is a hushed whisper, one that is ignored when Ruen manages to pull his eyes from my skin to meet my gaze.
“Explain.” Just like that, I know, the Darkhavens will accept nothing less than an exact retelling of every single thing that occurred between when I left their quarters to when I returned.
I sink deeper into the lounge and close my eyes. Giving up on pulling my arm from Kalix’s grasp, I’m only half startled when I feel him release me. A second later, I’m being shifted forward as a hard male body climbs in behind me and pulls me against a wide warm chest.
Don’t get used to this, I order myself. This will not last. It’s not real.
Despite that internal warning and my dry throat, I spend the rest of the morning explaining in detail everything that happened between the God Council and me. I tell the Darkhavens of the strange room, the brimstone chalice, and the failed ceremony.
Halfway through, both Theos and Ruen take seats on the low-rise table before the lounge, their legs bumping against mine. When I get to the part of Tryphone cutting my wrist as part of the ceremony to combine my blood with that of the God Council, Kalix’s muscles twitch and he moves to get up.
I press a palm flat against his chest and glare. “If you move, I will not tell you the rest,” I tell him.
He freezes, eyes narrowing on my face as if assessing whether or not I will follow through with my threat. I don’t know if he believes me or not, but he doesn’t move again and that’s enough for me to continue. Several minutes later as I finish explaining the confrontation with Caedmon in the courtyard, Ruen shifts forward and takes my arm in his grip. I let him and watch as he turns my wrist over, his thumb coming up to stroke along the three markings that the God King had made. My head tilts to the side. Ruen’s touch is the barest whisper of flesh on flesh and when he lifts his head once more, his eyes have returned to midnight.
“Caedmon is no longer to be trusted.” No one argues against the words he speaks. Not me. Not Kalix. Not Theos.
Kalix steals my arm away from Ruen, but unlike his older brother, he isn’t gentle with the injury. He presses the edge of one nail into the corner of one scab, peeling it back as fresh blood wells. A hiss escapes me as he lifts the lesion to his mouth. Forest green eyes with slitted pupils hover on my face as he presses his lips to the wound. My stomach churns and then tightens for a reason I’m not wholly aware of as his tongue laps at the blood, taking it into himself.
“They will not take you again.” Kalix breathes the words against my bloodied skin.
Nothing, I mentally insist. It means nothing.
Even I know, though, that I, too, am lying. To them and to myself.
Because the one thing I didn’t tell them about was the way Danai had looked at me. The piercing quality of her gaze that I feel knows far more than she’s said. The God Queen has suspicions about who I am and I am more than a little fearful of what that must mean.