Chapter 26 #2
His throat dips with emotion, but I go on.
I cannot stop. “I know how painful it is to even consider granting forgiveness to those we believe do not deserve it,” I whisper.
“But at tonight’s banquet, I hope you think about what forgiveness means for you.
And I hope that, when the time comes, you’ll forgive, and let go. ”
Attendees mill about the palace parlor. Its ornate chandeliers emit soft lamplight, and the numerous sofas, armchairs, and chaises have been arranged in intimate groupings throughout the room, where the gods can drink and relax.
Eurus, a dark, winged shadow at my side, rests a hand on my lower spine. With the plunging back of my dress, it is almost inevitable that his hot skin will kiss mine.
Tonight, the East Wind will demand his favor from the Council of Gods.
He will be welcomed back to his homeland.
Then he will take Eastern Blood, poison every last one of the twelve council members for having banished him.
Three weeks later, the entire council will be dead. It is everything he wants.
As though sensing my trepidation, he squeezes my hand. “Everything will be fine,” he assures me.
So he claims.
A short, squat deity whose sandaled feet glisten with oil draws Eurus into discussion. Since the East Wind revealed his face in The Blind Oracle the other night, many have begun to acknowledge him, treat him with courtesy.
While Eurus talks, I wander to a table laden with hors d’oeuvres. As I stuff two cheese tarts into my mouth, someone taps my shoulder, and I turn.
“Arin!” I gape at the dark-skinned god. “What are you doing here? I thought…”
He appears uncomfortable beneath my scrutiny.
His weight shifts, one leg to the other.
“The Council of Gods decided, as a reward for such an engaging tournament this year, that they would resurrect those that were killed in the trials. Which is lucky, I guess.” He frowns as he says this.
“But that’s not what I wanted to say to you.
” He takes a breath. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior in the tournament.”
“Don’t,” I whisper, touching his sleeve. “It’s in the past. I don’t hold it against you.”
“You should.”
My time in the City of Gods has not been without its epiphanies. Arin may be a god, but he has family he cares for. He bleeds, as I do. “You sacrificed your life for your sister. It was a selfless thing to do.”
“Hello, Min from Marles.”
I stiffen. It would be rude to ignore the goddess, who has appeared at Arin’s side, so I dip my chin. “Demi.”
She studies me intently. “I’m glad to see you made it through the tournament unscathed.”
Unscathed? I scoff. “Yes, well, no thanks to you.” The Council of Gods so dearly loves their entertainment.
Her gaze is wary. I have been a mouse all my life, but this goddess has suddenly found herself facing a venomous snake. Demi is no fool. She recognizes something has changed. “May we speak privately?” she asks.
I chew on the side of my cheek, considering her request. I do not have to agree if I do not want to.
But a part of me dearly wishes this has been a gross misunderstanding.
“Very well.” I follow her into a small study, moonlight limning the curved wooden desk.
Once I pass through, she shuts the door behind me.
At once, Demi seems to deflate. She is a tall woman with great presence, but even she is minimized when distant from the light. “So,” she says. “Now you know.”
Fury climbs my skin so readily I wrestle with the urge to scratch at her eyes.
“That’s all you can say?” I spit. “Now you know?” I would never expect this lack of consideration from someone I’d believed to care for me.
“You lied to me,” I hiss. “All this time, you were on the council, and I was too stupid to see past your facade.” How deeply do I really know the goddess standing before me?
If she is on the council, then she must be one of the most powerful and influential of all the gods.
“Who are you? What do mortals call you, I mean?”
“I believe in Marles, you call me the Mother of Earth.”
My gut lurches with bitter poison, that Demi would jest in such a manner. “I see. You’re making fun of me. Well, I don’t appreciate it—”
“Min,” she says, sorrow swimming through her eyes. “It is the truth.”
My face grows uncomfortably warm, and I realize how crowded the study feels, with its bookshelves and desk and chairs. “You can’t be. You—”
You smell of chervil.
I press a hand to my stomach. I had spoken of the Mother of Earth before, at length. Demi had every opportunity to reveal her identity. It feels like further manipulation that she chose not to, taking advantage of the poor mortal. “You should have told me.”
“Yes.” She looks away, her eyes downcast.
“So why didn’t you?”
The goddess wraps her arms around her front. “I’m sorry to say I don’t have a good answer for you beyond that I enjoyed what it felt like to live a life of anonymity, however brief.”
“I thought we were friends,” I whisper, voice warbling.
“We are, Min.”
“But you were only using me to get information on Eurus, weren’t you.”
The Mother of Earth reaches for me. I take a step back, warning her without words to keep her distance.
“That’s not it,” Demi says. “It was never about getting information on Eurus. As I said before, our relationship was over long ago. Though I do still care for him, I wanted to spend time with you because I enjoyed your company, if you can believe it.”
I do not.
“If you still care for him,” I say, “why didn’t you try to help him? Why did you vote to banish Eurus and his brothers from the City of Gods?”
“Min.” She sighs, and at her back, the darkness shifts, thinning around her generous curves.
“There is no easy choice. There is only a choice. Unfortunately, I am on the Council of Gods. If I want my voice to mean anything, that means acting in accordance to what we all believe is best for the realm, whether or not I agree with it.”
“So what you’re saying is that your word means nothing.”
The goddess opens her mouth, closes it. A bell chimes, signaling the start of dinner.
“Excuse me,” I mutter, all but tripping in my haste to escape the study.
As guests begin moving toward the dining room, I search for Eurus. Our eyes meet across the parlor. His wings flare slightly, forcing others back.
He is one stream, and I another. We carve our paths, meeting beneath the large, glittering chandelier. As he takes my hand, his wings curve at my back, helping to cloak me from passersby. “What’s wrong, bird?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mutter.
He glares at something over my shoulder. Demi, I assume.
“We should take our seats,” I say. “Is everything prepared?”
“Everything is as it should be.”
My belly roils at that. His decision, I remind myself. In the end, I control nothing. It is his life, not mine. Even if the thought of a world without the divine leaves me drenched in sweat.
The dining room boasts a long table surrounded by no less than one hundred chairs. Each seat is marked with a place card. Eurus and I sit next to each other somewhere near the middle, with a clear view of the lightning god, who sits at the head.
The first course is served. Then: wine, sloshed into jeweled chalices. The divine drain their goblets, signal for more. My eyes flick to the place cards, then to the individuals seated around me. Seeing as Eurus did not warn me against it, I assume it is safe to eat, and to drink.
Throughout the meal, conversation builds and wanes. What does Eurus think as guests gulp glass after glass? Demi is on her third drink, I believe. Not that she deserves my concern.
At some point, the lightning god pushes to his feet, his chalice lifted. “To the victor.”
The attendees follow suit. “To the victor!”
He turns to appraise the East Wind, who stares back at him calmly.
“Congratulations on your accomplishment,” he says.
“Of over one hundred competitors, you alone triumphed. It speaks of your diligence, your unflagging perseverance. I cannot think of anymore more deserving.” He lifts his glass. “To Eurus.”
“To Eurus!”
Glasses clink. Once the commotion has died down, the lightning god continues.
“As you know, the reward for winning the tournament is a favor of your choosing from the council. This is not granted lightly. We will do our best to accommodate your request, should it be within our power to do so. Have you considered what favor you would like?”
Demi looks to Eurus, then to me. I glance away, fighting an odd sense of guilt.
“I’d like more time to think about it,” the East Wind says, “if you are amenable?”
I wipe my mouth, having already resigned myself to a sad, lonely night. Then I frown, replaying his response. Wait… What does Eurus need to think about, exactly? Reversing the banishment was always the plan.
The lightning god appears intrigued, as does the rest of the council. Asking for an extension is likely unprecedented.
“Very well,” the lightning god says. “I will give you until the end of the month, by which time you must decide on your favor.”
With that, everyone returns to their meal. Dessert is served. The plates are cleared. People begin to amble back into the parlor for another drink.
Meanwhile, Eurus rises to his feet, and I scramble upright as well, accepting his offered arm as we return to our suite. There is much I might ask of him, but I hold my tongue. An echoing passage is not ideal for private conversation.
Once we’ve returned to our rooms, I pull away from him. “What was that?” I demand.
“What was what?”
“Why didn’t you ask the council to reverse your banishment?”
He strays toward the sofa and settles into its cushions, his back to me. “I need more time to think about it.”
More time? “But you’ve had many hundreds of years to consider this.” Possibly more. After all, I do not know how long the East Wind has been exiled from the City of Gods.
His shoulders hunch. I stare, for it is unlike the East Wind to shrink from a challenge. “Things change,” he says.
“Like what?”
Only then does he turn, leveling me with those eyes of black fire. “You.”
Stupefied, I plop onto the edge of the sofa. The East Wind’s hard, heavy thigh presses against mine. My mouth goes dry, and I ball my hands in my lap so I do not curl them around the muscle there. The silence frays.
“Well,” I begin slowly, “so long as you get your favor before the poison works its way through the council members’ systems, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
Eurus is up, drifting toward the window. He rubs at his brow, drops his hand with a heavy sigh. “I didn’t administer the poison.”
The air in the room smells of coastal waters. It does not instill fear in me as it once did. “Why not?”
At last, he turns. His armor is gone, his heart is exposed, and I have never seen anything more magnificent. “You were right.”
“About what?”
“Everything. I thought of what my life would look like in a decade, a century, a millennium. Do you know what I saw?” He looks to me, dark eyes solemn.
“I saw myself as I am now. I saw myself waking each morning, having struggled to sleep, my mind twisting onto itself in its attempts to turn back time, undo the hurt that has been done. And I asked myself if that is what I wanted. If I wished to live out my days in suffering. And I don’t want to live that way anymore, bird.
All I want now,” he says, “is to live a life of peace.”
It is suddenly difficult to swallow, for I, too, desire a life of peace. What does that mean, that we both strive for the same tenuous ideal? “And what does that look like to you?” I whisper.
In three strides, he is across the room, framing my face in his broad hands. “It looks like all the days we have spent in each other’s company. It looks like your body against mine, and the ease with which we coexist.”
I reach up, curl my fingers around his wrists. Yes, I think. But it was not always so. Those initial days and weeks were far from peaceful.
“I feel belonging with you,” I murmur to him, a bit of shyness creeping into my voice. “I know it’s foolish—”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Not foolish. Right.”
Eurus has always worn intensity as though it is a cloak to be shrugged on, and I have generally shied away from it, but now I embrace it, I fall into it, and I have never in my life felt more free.
“You’re going back to Marles,” he says, fingers sliding up into my hair. “That was the plan. And yet, I want you, Min. I want everything you’re willing to give me. And if we only have tonight, then I’m not going to waste a second denying what I know is true.”
“And what is true?” I whisper.
“That whatever time we have left, I wish to spend it with you,” he murmurs, and lowers his mouth onto mine.