Chapter Eighteen Ren #3
“So, your shadow could break out into fire, huh?” I say without bothering to greet him. “Violet read something like that in a book.”
“What else is it supposed to do?” His face gathers into a scowl.
“I don’t know…project a shape onto the dirt like everyone else’s?
” My voice is heavy. I find myself staring at my fox hanging around Akira’s neck.
If only I’d known to care for it. If only I’d given it to Boser instead of Akira.
Both thoughts torture me because if I’d done either, maybe I could’ve saved Emi.
“Oh, stop staring,” Akira snaps. “It’s insulting that this trinket, practically drained of magic as it is, is my only offering.
If I could give it back, I would.” Dramatically, he wades ashore.
I think he’ll stand over me so he can be commanding and godlike and all that.
I’m surprised when he collapses to the ground.
Rolling over onto his back, he stares up at the sky.
One hand reaches up, the nails growing—only instead of lengthening into claws, they delicately stretch like creeping vines.
“To be up there,” he whispers. “Tell me, sad mortal boy, will I ever be free again?”
“Why would I give a damn?” I ask, tearing viciously at the weeds poking through the dirt.
“Go screw yourself. You’re a god. You could’ve saved her.
You could’ve—” I’m choking on grief. Tears flood my eyes in a violent rush.
I haven’t cried since Emi died. I won’t let them fall.
Not here. Not with him. Akira stares at me, blinking.
“What do you speak of, mortal?”
“My sister. I gave you my relic and you took it. I didn’t get anything back. She died. She’s gone. She died.” I’m ranting, repeating myself, sounding crazy.
“Oh, so that’s why you look so grotesque,” Akira says, his head tilting to the side as he watches me. “Those circles under your eyes are not becoming of one who possesses such a beautiful face.” Almost flippantly, he adds, “And, of course, the divine favor worked. It saved the baby.”
I feel like I’ve grabbed a live telephone wire. I stare at him, my chest heaving. “The divine favor saved Cosette?”
“It is so. Both were meant to die. Your relic, weak as it was, saved one.”
“What? But how—how did it decide who to save?”
“There is no answer to such a question,” Akira says. “It’s like asking why you are tall while another mortal is short. Such things are decided by luck and, at the same time, by preordainment from the gods. The two exist at once and are a holy mystery.”
“It’s bullshit.” A sob wrenches my voice, and my mind is a curtain, cut from top to bottom, the halves snapping in the wind. When I asked for the divine favor, did I make the request in a way that condemned one and saved the other? Could I have saved them both somehow?
“No.” Akira’s voice is hard. I don’t know if he can read my mind or simply guesses what I’m thinking. “You could not have saved them both. But you saved one, even though she was doomed.” He sighs impatiently. “I am most glad I am not mortal.”
“Yeah, you should be,” I say bitterly, burning with rage yet empty at the same time.
“Indeed.” Akira’s neck stretches and his face almost reaches mine.
He ogles me, loathing and curiosity mixing in his glassy eyes.
“Your years are short, and your lives are sand draining out of an hourglass from the moment you are born. And then your ridiculous passions lead to even more ridiculous anguishes and losses. You were meant for sweat, tears, and blood. I don’t understand the point. ”
My mind hooks around Akira’s description of mortality.
I stare into his endless eyes, seeing tiny copies of myself reflected inside them.
They are voids. I think there’s nothing behind them—that if you were to stab one, the blade would never strike bone.
Akira’s been around since creation. He is ancient, ageless.
He’s seen more than I could ever imagine. He’s never lost anyone and never will.
Something in me breaks. Everything about him is strong and immovable and it makes me more of what I am: human, weak, anguished, gone.
I don’t want it anymore. I want to cut out this grief inside me.
I want to tear out the frailty that makes people love and lose each other.
The tears in my eyes spill. I dash them away with the heels of my hands.
I choke down sobs. I uselessly strike the dirt with my fist. Nothing stops them from flowing down my face.
Akira’s head angles and he watches me even more closely.
His lips part as though to say something, but he doesn’t speak.
One cheek twitches. Sitting up, he whistles a tune.
Doesn’t sound like a whistle. It’s sort of like the strain of a violin, verging on a human voice.
The melody is soft and mournful; a song tuned to my pain.
He holds out a hand and the water swirls and gathers under it.
Begins to dash and splatter in time to the music.
It doesn’t babble. Not anymore. It runs like tears.
And it feels like I don’t weep alone.