Chapter 35
COLINAS, RAVOS
“May I speak with you?” Terena clenched and unclenched her fists as she stood before Hermes.
He was in the dining hall of the castle, laughing and conversing with his cohorts. As she approached, Hermes took one look at her face and dismissed his men.
“What ails you?”
Terena frowned. “Huh?”
“You look like you drank spoiled milk. What’s wrong?”
Searching for a good place to start, Terena let the silence stretch as she discarded thought after thought.
Hermes rapped on the table, snapping her out of her head.
“What is it?”
Sighing, Terena settled her arm on the table, her finger idly tracking the grain of the wood. “Is there any reason… I could not use… an amulet, like the cyphers do, but Sonah could?”
Hermes frowned. “No.”
“I could use it, too?”
The god shook his head. “No. And neither could Sonah. But,” he shrugged and took a sip of his drink. “You don’t need to. You have powers of your own. And she does as well.”
“So, you’ve never heard of a god… using an amulet with powers from another god?”
“No.”
“And it’s not possible?”
“No.”
Terena’s mind whirled. Cassandra had seemed so certain of the vision she’d seen.
According to the seer, there was a party or celebration of some sort and when someone called out to Sonah, she’d turned around. The emerald at her chest glowed so brightly it had blinded Cassandra and she’d broken from her trance, but she was adamant it was Sonah with the amulet.
“What’s troubling you?”
Terena lifted her eyes to Hermes, who watched her with concern. A part of her desperately wanted to share this burden with him. He was a god thousands of years old. He would know what to do. And yet, a part of her kept her from telling him about it.
Instead, she gave Hermes a tight smile, ready to lie and tell him nothing was wrong.
Everything about Cassandra’s ridiculous plan was flawed but, if she was right and it worked, they would save Daris.
But what if Daris still died? Soulmate bond or not, he’d still be mortal.
Terena feared what his death would do to her.
Rubbing at her forehead, she made to stand when a thought struck her.
“How did you make Rydon immortal?”
Hermes blinked. He gazed at her long enough for the ever-present silver in his eyes to snake around his eyes twice. “Why?”
“Is… can I do that? Can I make someone immortal?”
Hermes shook his head. “No.”
“But you can.”
His face shuttered. Long seconds passed, and she worried he would not respond. Her knee bounced as she waited, unwilling to drop his gaze.
“You know I can,” he said softly.
Terena exhaled as her pulse ratcheted up. “Do you… would you do it for me? As a favor?”
Hermes’s eyes turned calculating. “Croak?”
Tears sprang to Terena’s eyes, and she breathed heavily through her nose to stop them from falling. “No. No… not Croak. Although, maybe.”
Hermes grabbed his knife and speared a piece of lamb, chewing on it as he continued to regard her. “Daris?”
“Aye.”
“Why?”
“Will you do it for me?” Terena whispered, hating how her voice broke over the words. She couldn’t recall ever being this vulnerable in front of the god, and she feared he would see her as weak. Or worse.
Mortal.
Gods, how she hated… all of this. Hated how she felt about Daris, hated that his love for her would bring about his death. But most of all, she hated being a plaything for the Fates.
Hermes leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms as he watched her. Terena schooled her features, hardening her eyes as she stared back at him.
“What will you do for me?”
“Really?”
His lower jaw moved from side to side as he made her wait.
“No. Not really.” He stood abruptly, stretching with a loud groan. Turning to face her, a beautiful smile brightened his face. “You’re my niece. Of course I’ll do it for you.”
Relief so profound flooded through her she let out a sob, overwhelmed by her feelings. Putting her hand to her chest, she gave him a tremulous smile as she stood.
“Thank you, Hermes. Thank you.”
Impulsively, she reached out and hugged him. Grinning at how stiff he became, she pulled away.
Turning to leave, Terena raised a finger and turned back to face the god, who stood with his brow furrowed as he stared at the ground.
“Oh, and Hermes,” she said, snapping his attention back to her. “Say nothing to Daris about this coming from me. Please?”
Hermes smiled back and bowed his head. “My lips are sealed.”
As dusk fell into deepest night and the only sounds were the low murmurs of the few soldiers still sitting around the fading campfires, Terena sighed and turned to search out her tent.
Her nerves were shot from the events of the day.
The way Cassandra and Rydon looked at her every time she caught their eyes worsened her mood.
They were waiting for her to have the conversation with Daris about their bond and she was putting it off.
Dread was a wonderful co-conspirator in procrastination.
Terena gasped, her hand flying up to her mouth as Daris’s large frame blocked the dim light from the fires, his face shrouded in shadows.
“You startled me,” she mumbled, thankful for the dark and how it hid the rising color in her face.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said after a silence lasting several heartbeats, which she counted.
Her hands shook and her pulse raced. This moment was inevitable, and yet, coward that she was when it came to this man, her mind fought for ways to get out of it.
Daris edged closer, his body stiff. He seemed angry, and she wondered how he’d react to what she was about to tell him.
“You’re not denying it,” Daris said, his gravelly voice scratching beneath her skin like the most sensual of claws.
She swallowed, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I have been, aye.”
He took a step closer and her heart skipped its next beat, faltering in her chest before speeding up to twice its normal pace.
“Why.”
Not a question. Terena licked her dry lips and opened her mouth to reply but nothing came out.
He stepped closer.
“You come to my rooms in Pera,” he said, that low timbre turning her blood to honey. Another step closer and his mouth was inches from hers. “And you leave me wanting you more than ever.”
“It wasn’t real,” she whispered, heart thundering so loud she could not hear herself.
“Is that what you’ve been telling yourself?”
He shifted his stance and she took a step back, wincing at the hurt she saw on his face before he hid it behind the shadows once more.
“Daris—”
“Something’s changed.”
“Aye.”
“What.”
She sighed, bringing her hands up. Those ineffectual appendages flapped as if that was all the answer he needed and she knew he deserved more.
Ducking her head, she shook it once before meeting his gaze. Severing the bond would destroy her. Destroy them. And yet, if there was a chance she could save him by doing so, she would do it.
“It’s not real, Daris,” she said softly, her voice cracking on his name.
He shifted again, lifting the brow of his ruined eye as he waited for her to continue.
“You and I,” she laughed or sobbed; she did not know. Tears stung her eyes and once more she thanked the night for shrouding her pain. “You and I are not real, Daris.”
“The fuck we’re not,” he all but snarled at her, his vehemence so sharp she felt a stab of fear.
“You—” she shook her head again and placed a trembling hand to his chest, finding the thick corded muscles beneath his tunic rather than the boiled leather and bronze breastplate he’d worn earlier.
Her body reacted immediately, a bolt of desire so sharp and loaded it arced down her chest to settle low in her belly.
Terena pulled back her hand and shook her head again. He must think her a moron with all the head shaking. “You and I were… for whatever reason, you and I are… bound. We are soulmates. Bound together by the Fates.”
To his credit, Daris only narrowed his good eye at the revelation. Then a look of awe filled his face, his expression lightening with wonder as he gazed back at her. His shoulders slumped a bit and he straightened. She caught the slow exhale escaping his trembling lips.
“In truth?” Daris whispered. The way he said it made her heart cramp.
“Aye,” she replied in a voice strengthened by the conviction she was doing the right thing. The only thing she could do to save him. To save herself.
“So you see, none of this is real.”
Daris canted his head and stared at her, waiting. When she did not reply, he grunted, “How so?”
Looking at him as if he’d asked her which way the sun sets, Terena scoffed and lifted her head to the star-studded sky. She angrily swiped at a tear audacious enough to defy her will.
“You don’t know? You have to ask?” She huffed a laugh.
“You don’t love me, Daris. You don’t.” When he opened his mouth to object, she cut him off with a swipe of her hand.
“You think you do, and it feels like it to you; it feels real. But it’s not.
They made you feel this. They bound us together, and the feelings you have are only there because the Fates made it so. ”
Daris stared at her for so long she started to shiver. Whether from the cold seeping beneath her cloak or the way he regarded her so steadily, she could not say.
“You think what you feel is love, but it’s really just a… a manifestation of the bond they placed on you, on us.”
“You think I don’t love you,” he said, his voice unnaturally pleasant.
“I think you think you love me,” she demurred, ducking her head. She could not hold his stare.
“I know I love you,” he countered.
She laughed and even to her ears it was false and forced and she started to panic. Why was she fucking this up so much?
“I’m telling you, you don’t. You do, because you have no choice. You never did. That’s what this is; you don’t love me because you chose me, Daris,” she said and hated the way she sounded so desperate, but she needed him to believe it. For both their sakes. “Don’t you want to find someone who—”