4. Chapter Four #2
Branwyn laughed lightly, shooting me a look with a spark that said I’m impressed. “Wouldn’t you like to know how much?”
“Oh, I think I would,” he replied, eyes still fixed on me.
His lips were an irritating slash across his face when the air shifted again.
I froze. There was a presence behind me, like the pressure before a storm. Fine hairs at my nape lifted, and I knew—without actually seeing him—that an annoying god had found me for the third time tonight. I rolled my eyes to the ceiling, and held my breath.
A familiar, deep voice came from just behind my shoulder. Threaded with the kind of hardness that made drunken men hesitate. “Davorin Kesh,” he said, the unmistakable sound of a warning in his tone.
The man across from us—Davorin, apparently—leaned back slow, chair creaking beneath him. His gaze gleamed with…was that a hint of fear flickering there? “Well, well,” he murmured. “Look what the forest dredged up.”
And then, with deliberate bite, he spoke a name that wasn’t Tairngire. “Eryndor Vale.”
The syllables hung in the smoky air, almost catching on my tongue. Eryndor Vale.
What the fuck?
The gods’ chosen protector. The one sent to guard me, to drag me through mysterious lessons in the forest, was wearing a false name as easily as his dark, impenetrable gaze. He was back to hiding his godhood like some thief in the night. Why?
Davorin and Tairngire knew each other, and not just with handshakes. That much was clear.
I kept my grin in place, because I had to. Branwyn’s glamour held, and neither man could know me. But inside, questions pounded—a low, relentless drumbeat echoing in my chest.
Why was Tairngire lying about his name? Why did this stranger share the same void? What history made a man speak another’s name like a knife being drawn?
“Didn’t expect to find you here,” Davorin drawled, kicking his feet up on the table and steepling his hands in front of himself like he had all the time in the realms. “I thought you’d sworn off places like this.”
Behind me, Tairngire—Eryndor Vale, apparently—let the pause draw just long enough to make the air heavy. “Some stains,” he said, voice like gravel and embers, “don’t wash off so easy.”
Oh, for gods’ sake.
Only he would say something so droll. I rolled my eyes so hard I feared they would pop out of their sockets. Branwyn caught it and gave me a bemused look.
I still hadn’t looked at him. Couldn’t. My expression would have given me away, and my secret was paramount. If Brannach learned that I was here, I’d be locked in the temple, forbidden to leave its walls. A risk I couldn’t take if I valued whatever sanity I still had left.
Davorin chuckled. He took a knife out of his pocket and started flipping it between his fingers. The sight quickened my pulse.
“Always the poet. Tell me—what’s the Godhead's Hound doing sniffing about the Seventh realm?”
What a fantastic question.
Wait..Godhead's Hound?
Tairngire was no lapdog, never had been, at least not according to the legends. But the sneer on Davorin’s face suggested otherwise.
Interesting.
“Making sure the rats aren’t carrying plague,” Tairngire answered. A scrape of boots against wood—he’d moved closer. I could feel his rage in spades. I resisted another eye roll. He was the worst.
Of course, he would insinuate mortals in Anamcroí were dirty and carrying some sort of plague. Branwyn glanced my way and mouthed asshole, at least we were on the same wavelength.
Whoever Davorin really was, he knew Eryndor Vale’s true identity. His look what the forest dredged up comment hadn’t been a coincidence. The alias was only a mask. I could feel him at my back, close enough that if I leaned back just a hair, I’d brush against him.
Which wouldn’t be ideal. I went out of my way not to touch anyone in general—and touching divines was strictly forbidden.
My Sight could open without warning from a single brush of skin, and I’d rather not risk it.
That was one rule I didn’t mind following.
I’d happily avoid those visions. The Oracle had warned me about the pain that comes with them.
I shifted uneasily and Branwyn flicked her gaze toward me, the smallest sideways cut of her eyes. It said everything. This wasn’t casual.
Davorin tipped his chair back, the front legs hanging in the air. “You always were good at pretending it was duty.” His grin widened, his eyes flicked to me briefly, then back to Tairngire. “Still lying to yourself, Vale?”
Tairngire didn't react, but the air between them stretched tight as a drawn bow. I was getting itchier by the second. These two males were clearly having some sort of cock measuring contest laced in riddles, and I suddenly had the urge to grab Branwyn by the arm and drag her out of here.
“Still hiding in others shadows, Kesh?” His tone hadn’t changed, but each word unsheathed itself like a dagger, cold and ready to cut.
I gripped the table’s edge to keep from betraying the twist in my gut. They’d danced this dance before—two predators testing teeth, and I was becoming more aware of Tairngire’s proximity, too close and entirely unwelcome.
Davorin let his chair fall with a thud that turned heads. “Well. I’d stay and trade old stories, but I’ve got better company to keep.” His gaze slid over me, then Branwyn—lingering too long—before he stood and gave a mock salute. “Good eve, chosen of Scáthae.”
He graced us with one last smarmy grin. Branwyn responded by making a rude gesture in her typical crude fashion as the crowd swallowed him, just another shadow moving through smoke. He didn’t see it, what a shame. I still hadn’t let out the breath I was holding.
Tairngire shifted. With a slow pivot and a creek of leather, he slid into my peripheral view.
Branwyn’s lips twitched at the corner, a mix of humor and wariness. “So, free table!” she said brightly, taking the far side.
I followed without being prompted, anything to get away from him. I settled into the seat next to her and kept my spine straight. Branwyn kicked my leg under the table, I bit back the ouch on my tongue and scowled at her. I would not show any sort of weakness in front of him.
“Well,” she continued, expression fixed on Eryndor, “that was enthralling. So tell me, Sir Broods a Lot, what kind of name is Elodyn Vale, and where exactly are you from?”
He still didn’t move. Just tilted his head, eyes glinting like he was amused and three moves ahead. “Eryndor,” he corrected lazily, and the grin that followed probably made mortals, half-born, even demigods swoon.
I nearly rolled my eyes again.
“And I’m from wherever I’m standing when the question’s asked,” he finished.
Branwyn’s mouth curved, laced with her own amusement. “That’s not an answer.”
“Mm, I disagree. You asked, I replied. You just didn’t like the answer you received.”
I found myself annoyed at the correction. It was exactly the kind of thing I’d learned to expect from him. I needed to find a way to get rid of this god. There was no way I’d last a single minute alone with him without spontaneously combusting in a fit of pure rage.
He crossed his arms, leaning toward her, his tone dripping with barbed heat. “But if you’re asking because you want to follow me home, I might be persuaded to be specific.”
She laughed—low and knowing. Branwyn always knew how to handle men like this. I, however, was silently counting the ways I’d like to strangle the godhood out of him for every arrogant word that left his impossibly full lips.
Damnit. Why am I noticing his lips of all things?
He pulled out the chair across from me and sat, leaning back like he had all night to torment me.
Why was he everywhere now? Shedding names like skin. Striding into taverns as if Anamcroí itself breathed him out. Acting as if his blood wasn’t dripping with divinity.
I fixed on the grain of the table, my jaw tight. I wouldn’t blow our cover. I couldn’t.
Then he shifted his weight, and I caught that sly flicker in his expression—that same one from the Elder’s hut, the one that triggered my violence.
The words slipped out before I could stop them. “You know, looks like that tend to invite challenges you aren’t prepared to win, Eryndor.” I emphasized his false name with narrowed eyes.
His head turned slowly, predatory. And then—there it was again, that maddening curl of his lips. I fucking loathed it.
He didn’t answer right away. His gaze swept over me, then Branwyn—weighted and calculating, taking in every inch from our cloaks to the steel strapped high at our thighs.
When his eyes returned to mine, they were more animated than they’d been all night.
“Interesting,” he said conversationally.
“Most chosen I’ve met could reach their blades before a man blinks.
But you…” His gaze dipped, then rose again, as slow as a whetstone’s drag. “You don’t strike me as the type.”
I leaned back, lips curling into something that would pass for a smile if you didn’t know better. “And what do I strike you as?”
His jaw ticked, the smallest shift, but I caught it before that infuriating grin took his mouth again. “Someone who’s learned the names of her weapons before she’s learned their weight.”
The bite landed too close. Godsdamnit. I felt my skin prickle and my stomach drop.
Because he was right. I didn’t know the weight of most weapons or armor, not really.
But I knew this badly balanced dagger, and the memory of it sinking into living flesh.
I buried the heat rising in my chest, shoving it into the same dark corner where the rest of my secrets lived.
I leaned forward, elbows on the table. “That’s the thing about men like you—you swing steel around to prove yourself but never stop to wonder if someone already has a blade at your ribs.”
I knew that if he started swinging his infamous divine forged twin blades around me, I’d be dead in under a second. But it felt good saying it, anyway.
Beside me, Branwyn’s mouth twitched. Her gaze flicked between us, an avid voyeur of the drama unfolding between us.
He didn’t flinch at my jab, just looked instead like a man savoring a drink he hadn’t ordered that turned out far better than expected.
“That so?” His voice was low, warm, heat before it burned “Then maybe we should test that theory. See which of us walks away without bleeding.”
A challenge dressed like a suggestion. Part of me wanted to take it. I wondered if divines bled red like the rest of us. It would be a match that ended in my death, of course. But I still wanted to find out.
Branwyn leaned back, clearly entertained, eyes glinting in the tavern light. She didn’t bother to intervene—of course, she didn’t.
I held his stare. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Watching me draw steel for your amusement.”
He tipped his head slightly, eyes never leaving mine. “I’d like to see if that fire in your mouth matches the weight on your thigh.”
Gods. I should’ve shut up. But the glamour was a shield, and I was drunk on its freedom. So I smiled, slowly. “Careful, Vale. That kind of talk makes people think you’re…” I cast my gaze downward, heavy with implication. “Compensating for something.”
Branwyn shot me a look, clearly fighting not to drag me out of this tavern like she did the last one. This wasn’t the first time I’d toyed with strange men, but it was, however, the first time I’d attempted to provoke a god. She didn’t know that, though.
He leaned forward, voice low and edged. “Assumptions are a coward’s crutch, darling. They tend to show one’s own...insecurities.”
I matched his stare, though my glamoured eyes narrowed to slits. “Good advice. I’ll be sure to remember it…next time I bother ‘assuming’ you’re worth a conversation. Besides, isn’t that a little double-sided? Considering all of the assumptions you’ve made of me in the past few minutes?”
He raised a challenging brow and chuckled darkly. “Those were simply facts. Not the same. But I appreciate your tenacity.”
Branwyn, ever the conductor, tapped her fingers once against the table and slipped back into her easy charm, giving me a pointed look.
“Well,” she said breezily, “as stimulating as this exchange has been, I think it’s time Maeve and I took our leave.
We have a long day ahead of us come morning.
” I felt her boot kick mine under the table.
He didn’t protest, just leaned back in his chair, arms folded. “Ladies,” he said, with a cocky parting tone that suggested he thought he’d won our little verbal sparring match.
We stood. I kept my face smooth, though inside I was ground down to the bone. The heat, the smoke, the weight of his focus—it pressed in like a hand at the back of my neck.
Gods, I was tired. Tired of the mask. Tired of him appearing repeatedly tonight—different names, different moods, but never changing the fact that he had a knack for being exactly where I didn’t want him.
We pushed through the stares of travelers, slow music curling in the background, and stepped into the cool night air once again.
I breathed deep, cutting through the tavern’s smoke.
Branwyn cast me a sideways glance, no doubt silently debating whether to ask what I’d been thinking talking to a man like that. She didn’t. Thank the goddess.