38. Kiera
Chapter 38
Kiera
I t is by the mercy of some unnamed power—certainly not the fucking Gods—that all returns to normal over the next two days. Everywhere I go, I can sense eyes upon my back, ever present, ever watchful. It’s as if the Gods do not fully believe that their ceremony failed, as if my heritage will reveal itself in the minute details of how I eat my damned breakfast or read books within the Academy’s library.
The Darkhavens—even Theos, despite his coldness towards me—refuse to allow me a reprieve from their presence. At least one of them follows me wherever I go as if the Gods will appear out of thin air at any moment and drag me back to their chambers for yet another ceremony that will see me bled for information.
It’s to no one’s shock that out of all of them, Kalix is the most suffocating.
“How much longer?”
I roll my eyes at that question—the tenth repetition in the last hour—and flip a dusty page to scroll a finger down the list of names of earlier transferred students.
“Until I’m done,” I say, giving Kalix the same answer that I’d given him the last nine times.
A low, reverberating groan echoes into the rafters of the Academy’s library stacks. I flip another page, ignoring Kalix’s pleading expression. Another hour passes and still, I’m nowhere closer to an answer than I was when I started. My vision begins to blur and I blink dry eyes, looking up as booted footsteps sound around the corner. Ruen appears a moment later, eliciting a whisper of relief from Kalix who slips out of the chair to round the table I’ve been sitting at for the last several hours. He doesn’t wait for me to admit defeat. Kalix simply snatches the volume I’d been using and snaps it shut, shoving it to the end of the table before bodily lifting me from my chair.
“I wasn’t done with that.” I deadpan, annoyance a bite in my tone.
Kalix grins my way and encircles me with one arm. “Too bad.” He bends and sets teeth to my earlobe, making my whole body tense in surprise.
“You’re in public, Kalix,” Ruen growls. “Behave.”
“Semi-public,” Kalix replies lightly before biting me again, this time on the side of my neck.
I reach up and shove a hand against his face. “You heard him,” I say, trying not to let it show just how unsteady his attentions have made me. “Listen to Ruen.”
His arm retracts. I move towards Ruen and arch a brow. “Is there a reason why you came to get us?” I ask.
Ruen glances back, and instead of nodding or answering me, his hands grip my hips over the blue-gray fabric of the dress that had been left out for me that morning—a silent punishment, I assume, from Theos. He pushes me back, directing me into the darker parts of the library, away from the caretakers and librarians.
“Kalix, keep watch,” Ruen orders, and just like that the two of us have our own personal bodyguard. Kalix moves to the end of one stack and leans against the curved frame of the shelves in a deceptively casual stance. I don’t mistake the movement, though, for one of true indifference despite the expression of ease and boredom he dons.
Ruen has information and now is the time to find out if all of this sleuthing and research has paid off. Once Ruen has directed me into the shadows of the library, far closer to the statues that line the walls at the furthest end from the entrance, I stop him with a hand against his chest.
“Tell me,” I say, looking up into eyes the darkest of indigo colors swirling with hints of bruised skies.
“All of the students on your list were first taken to Dolos before they were transferred,” Ruen announces. “But not the latest ones—not Malachi.”
I tip my head back further. “Who was Malachi taken to?”
Ruen’s expression darkens. “Tryphone.”
Lifting a hand, I bite down on my thumbnail and consider the implications of what that could mean. At first, students were taken to the Dean of the Riviere Academy—the most powerful God in the vicinity. Then, when the God Council arrived, Malachi was taken to the God King.
“Were any of them seen after they were transferred?” I ask.
Ruen shakes his head. “After they visited the Gods, they were transferred immediately,” Ruen says, his hands squeezing tighter against my side, making me realize he still hasn’t released me. “They weren’t even permitted to pack up their belongings.”
I shift on my feet, the skirts of the damned dress Theos left in place of my trousers swishing uncomfortably around my legs. After so many years in tighter breeches, the feeling of nothing but air on my legs leaves me feeling exposed, and Ruen isn’t helping.
Focus , I order myself.
“How did you figure this out?”
One of Ruen’s thumbs begins to stroke my side as he speaks and it takes considerable effort to pay attention as every nerve ending in my body seems to want to move towards that one spot.
“Your little Terra friend,” Ruen answers.
I blink. “My Terra friend?” Who could he—“Niall?”
Ruen’s lips twitch and if I didn’t know better, I would swear he’s amused. “Yes.” He nods. “It appears your mortal friend is far more apt at spy work than I would have originally expected. He’s very unassuming.”
Realization slams into me with such ferocity I almost slap myself in the face for forgetting one of the most important lessons of the Underworld.
There are thousands of invisible people in this world, Kiera. Ophelia’s words echo in the back of my mind. Maids. Butlers. Cooks. Barkeeps. Humans, all of them. You’ll never catch a God doing menial labor, but what they often forget is that those servants they love to order around are always there for every moment of their long lives. They see even if they don’t speak and those who see things know more than the Gods would ever believe.
I could absolutely curse myself for being so shortsighted, but even as I think that, worry edges into my mind. I lift suspicious eyes to Ruen’s face.
“You didn’t threaten him to get him to do anything, did you?”
Ruen’s face grows closer as he bends, dipping his head towards me. “I know you care for the Terra,” he says, breath warm against my cheeks. “I did not threaten the boy.”
“He’s—” I start to disagree with Ruen calling Niall a ‘boy’ when I know for a fact that he’s at least my age if not slightly older.
“You’ve shared your body with me, but you still don’t trust me not to hurt a mortal?” Ruen asks.
I shut my mouth. All amusement dies in my throat. “So, we’re talking about that,” I say, feeling as if the words are being ripped over shards of glass as they move up my throat.
He tilts his head to the side, keeping his gaze pinned to mine. “We haven’t had a moment to discuss it.” When I don’t say anything, Ruen releases my hips and straightens. “Do you have nothing to say?”
“You didn’t ask a question,” I remind him, taking a step back.
“I hope you’re not going to tell me the same thing you told Theos—that it meant nothing.”
I flinch. “He told you?”
Ruen arches one fine cut brow. “My brothers and I rarely keep secrets from each other and certainly not when we’ve all bedded the same woman.”
Instinct has me crossing my arms over my chest as if that will, somehow, protect me from this conversation. “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” I admit.
“Clearly.” Ruen’s tone suggests more than a little sarcasm.
I scowl. “We’re not children, Ruen.” My voice comes out strong despite my discomfort. “Sex is sex. I should think you would agree with me that we have more important matters to focus on right now than a damned relationship .”
“Just tell me something,” Ruen says, lifting a hand to a nearby statue and stroking the pad of a finger down the side of the icon’s arm. It comes away coated in dust. “Have you considered the consequences of sleeping with the three of us?”
Considered it? I’ve damned myself by falling into bed with them and I know it. Now, I’m just postponing the inevitable for as long as I can.
Dropping my arms, I turn away. “This is ridic?—”
“ Coward. ”
My feet freeze at that one word. I pivot back to face him … slowly. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Ruen rubs the pad of his thumb and dust-covered finger against one another. “I called you a coward and that’s what you are.”
“You have no fucking idea who I am.” Ice touches my voice, frosting over each word.
“Does anyone?” he replies.
“What do you really want to ask, Ruen?” My hands curl into fists, nails stabbing at my palms. “Come out and say it.”
Ruen’s gaze sparks with a dangerous light that reminds me of Kalix. “ You came to me, Kiera,” he states. “You demanded I crack open my soul and reveal all of my dirty little secrets, or have you forgotten?”
Heated flesh on flesh. Open mouths. Tongues. Lips. Teeth. Moans swirling in a darkened bedroom lit by the window and smelling of parchment and ink.
No, I haven’t forgotten a damn thing.
“Say. It.” I bite the words out, angry at feeling so damned vulnerable.
Ruen steps closer. I refuse to move, and when he takes a second and then third step, not stopping until our chests are nearly brushing, my lungs contract to inhale the scent of him as if it needs the added reminder of what being this close to him is like. I don’t need to remember—it’s already burned into my memory.
“You know as well as I do that all power demands a sacrifice.” My eyes lock onto the column of his throat as he speaks. “The four of us have made a deal with a God—one that could betray us as easily as he could save us.” Caedmon.
My lashes flick upward. “And?” I prompt him.
“Are you so blind that you don’t see that Theos is reaching out because he thinks he’s found a woman who doesn’t give a fuck what or who he is?”
“I’m not.”
“Then are you so heartless that you’ll turn him away—turn all of us away because you don’t want to deal with the idea of a relationship .” As Ruen speaks, he uses the same tone that I had before when he says the final word.
I lower my arms to my sides, wetting my lips with the tip of my tongue, and inhale a breath before slowly releasing it once more.
“How many Mortal Gods have you watched die in the Academy?” I ask.
Ruen’s head goes back. “What does?—”
“Answer the question.”
His lips part and after a moment, he responds. “Dozens, at least.”
“And how many of them did you care for in some fashion?”
The silence that follows is answer enough. I nod. “ That is why I avoid it,” I tell him honestly. “You’re right—we are trapped in this deal, for lack of a better word—with Caedmon. He could decide that we’re not what he needs to make the future he wants come true. He could betray us to the God Council. He could kill us all .”
“Kiera—”
I hold a hand up, stopping him. “ Vincere aut mori .”
His eyes darken with confusion. “What?—”
“In the old language, it means ‘conquer or die,’” I answer his unfinished question. “We have not conquered anything, and death hovers over each of us. It doesn’t make me a coward to want to protect myself, Ruen.”
“Yes, it does.” His argument is swift. “The uncertainty of life means that you should take everything it gives you with both hands, not run from it in fear of getting hurt.”
My chest is caving in. I look down and it seems the same. Whole. It’s not. “I can’t.” I can’t.
Blood-soaked snow. Black cloaked bandits. A house on fire. The old memories cling to the raw inside of my skull, molding into my bones with one understanding.
Everyone can die. Everyone can leave. Trust no one.
Even Regis had taught me that in the Underworld. Regis, who had eventually betrayed me. Regis, who now may die—another loss on my conscience.
When Ruen lifts a hand to me I step out of reach. “I am sorry that I hurt Theos,” I say. “But I will never be sorry for protecting what’s left of my heart.”
“I see.” Fury lights the fire in Ruen’s eyes, turning the storm into a sea of red. “So, you don’t wish to be vulnerable then.” He nods, and for some reason, I feel my skin heat. “Yes, I see,” he repeats, seemingly more to himself than to me. “You’re not a coward then, you’re just weak.”
“I am the furthest thing from weak.” The words cut through me like the edge of a sword.
Ruen sets his gaze on me once more. “You’re glass,” he half whispers as if imparting a secret.
“Don’t you dare?—”
“What?” He cuts me off. “Treat you like glass? Why not when that’s what you are—beautiful, broken glass.”
I sneer at him, but his next words stop me from responding. “Glass is fragile until it’s shattered, and after that, it becomes sharp. Deadly.” My heart beats a steady rhythm in my chest, in my ears. “That is what you are. Shattered. Sharp. Deadly. And … a pretty little liar.”
I turn away from him, unable to see the look in his eyes anymore.
“Thank you for the information,” I say, ignoring his words and not deigning to give them a reply. “But I think you should leave Niall out of it now.” Even if Ophelia was right and servants make the best spies, I’m tired of watching those around me die.
Ruen doesn’t respond, but I’ve said all I need to, so I turn and leave him behind, sliding back through the stacks until I reach Kalix. When Kalix spots me, he leans away from the bookshelves and follows me to the exit. A figure appears in the doorway as we pass through and I glance up, absently expecting another student. My heart slams against my ribcage as a familiar pair of golden eyes land on first me and then Kalix.
Azai.
Kalix pretends as if he doesn’t even notice his father’s presence and merely nudges me to keep going. I place one foot in front of the other, not even aware of my direction and it isn’t until we’re halfway back to the North Tower that I wonder if Ruen ran into their father in the library.
Perhaps it makes me a hypocrite for caring when I just informed him that I wouldn’t consider them to protect myself. Then again, hypocrisy is how we met. A Mortal God who hated her own kind, forced to serve them, and now I know the truth—we’re all the same in the eyes of the Gods. Bugs to be squashed. Pawns to be used.