37. 36 #3
Regrettable. My breath came in swift pants. “Did it? What if you had just told me? We could have stopped all of this.”
I cannot involve myself. We are forbidden from meddling so directly in the affairs of mortals.
“This isn’t the affair of a mortal,” I said. My breath was unsteady, my fingers digging into my skin. My tone, whilst not rude, was challenging. I had never challenged Ekris on anything before. “This is a God, using our deaths to return to you. Why didn’t you stop it?”
I want Ragnifort to return.
I squeezed my eyes shut, a frustrated hot tear spilling down. “Why?”
Now, and only now, did a hint of caution curl around his voice. I have my own reasons.
That was all he would tell me. He had allowed one of his own to die, or at least omitted any involvement.
It sickened and enraged me. I had never before felt like a plaything of the Gods.
We were always lesser. But if he wanted me to believe he had given me a gift by letting Robar find another instead of me, then he didn’t know me at all.
The spark of resentment grew into a flame in my heart.
Ekris mused into my mind. I hadn’t realised you would thwart his plan so effectively. But, it will happen eventually. So little is required now. Ragnifort will find a way.
I tried to take deep breaths. “Is there nothing we can do?”
You know what he is attempting. That is not nothing.
That was all I would get. The knowledge of what was to come was our only defence.
The last piece of the puzzle was a Wisdom sacrifice.
But what was there to do? With Ragnifort in Granville’s body, he could infiltrate that great House far too easily.
I could tell Theolis to let no one in but members of her own House, but she would have to leave eventually.
How long would it be until the work was complete? Weeks? Could we last months?
Now, then, Ekris rumbled. A deal is a deal, Annie.
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
You discovered Ragnifort’s identity. His hideout. You completed your end of the bargain.
My end might have been complete… but the other end was returning to Ekris: becoming one of his chosen. A sensation of horror, far too familiar in the last few days, crept over my body. I didn’t want it. I clamoured to speak as my throat felt tight. “I don’t need it anymore.”
I could feel his smile again, but this time it didn’t feel as warm. Alas, when I make a deal with a mortal, I am bound to it.
I pushed myself to my feet, a nervous energy coming over me.
He wouldn’t mark me unless I wanted it. Surely.
“Ekris, no. I’ve moved on.” But before my hand had left the marble floor, my breath was stolen from me.
A touch on my back. Then, immediately, the burn of it.
Like a white hot poker had stabbed into my spine. “No!”
Like a pyre, fire spread across my back and engulfed it in heat.
“Ekris,” I cried. I fell back to the floor and screamed.
I tried to find any chill against the marble, as if my back was truly on fire.
But it wasn’t. The golden fire spreading into the curls and vine-like mark across my back wasn’t visible, nor was it truly emitting heat.
That didn’t make it any less excruciating.
I had forgotten this feeling, or blocked it out.
When he had chosen me for the first time, there had been a ceremony to it: a grand bath I had descended into as his touch seared me.
The other devotees had encouraged me, and wished me well.
I had expected the burn, and the water had muffled the small scream I let out.
I had held the pain inside, revering it and loving it even as it scorched across me.
Then, the pain meant I was chosen. That I was worth something, after all; that I had a future, and a family again.
Now, it meant that Ekris had a window to me again—a window I wanted to slam shut.
The pain crept to the edges, finding and filling the spaces Ekris’ golden touch had lingered before. Building, expanding. I felt the tendrils of his touch in new patterns and new spaces, up to the edges of my shoulders.
There, he said into my mind, as the final licks of the fire burnt up and died. You will carry me with you now, forever.
“What does this mean? For me?” I whispered, lying spread-eagle on the cold stone like a child in the mid-winter snow. I gazed up at the carved ceiling as the pain faded away. “I love Davian.”
Gods are notoriously bad at sharing. And I am worse than all of them.
I shuddered as the ceiling swirled. I wiped the fresh tears away. I was sick of crying so much, but I couldn’t seem to help it.
The ghost of Ekris’ touch drifted across my cheek. But I’ll make an exception.
I did not have the strength to respond. I only lay there on the floor, feeling the burn of his ownership fade away. How dare he? I had said no. I had only come to say goodbye, and now he had used his deal to force me to carry him with me.
His voice was expectant when he left my mind. Speak soon, my Annie.
It used to be reassuring. Now, it rang in my head like a threat. I lay there on that cold marble for what felt like many hours before I picked myself up again.