Chapter Six #2
Of course. They don’t know where they’ll be going, let alone how long they’ll be able to stay there. Gold is a currency that has no nationality—no borders.
Coat settled on her shoulders, Khiran takes her hand. There are warnings in his eyes, fear tightening the line of his jaw. “We cannot linger, Anna.”
She nods, trying to swallow past the tightness in her throat. There can be no long, drawn out goodbyes. No lingering embraces. The safety of everyone hinges on how quickly they leave. “Jiro first,” she murmurs. “Silas needs to take Jiro first.”
He doesn’t deserve the mess he’s found himself in—a mortal caught up in the pettiness of gods.
Khiran’s hand squeezes her own, the anxious edge of his expression softening. “Of course.”
The living room is silent when they return, tension blanketing the room so thickly it’s suffocating.
Jiro still looks pale and clammy, leaning his weight on the back of the chair, but Anna is relieved to find him standing.
She knows Silas’ speed and strength is no more than a mortal man’s.
Had he needed to physically carry Jiro to safety, it would have slowed him down considerably.
Anna takes the teen by the shoulders, tries to commit him to memory while bracing herself for the likelihood that memory is all she’ll ever have of him. “Silas has agreed to take you somewhere safe.”
Jiro looks between them, shock bleeding into disbelief. He recoils from her touch. “Wait. What are you talking about?! If you think I’m not going with you—”
Anna breaks his hopes before Khiran can.
“No.” The word is weighted with regret, heavy on her tongue, but she wills it to hold firm.
She can crumble later, when he’s safe from all the danger she would bring him.
“We’re running, Jiro. I don’t know when or where we’ll stop.
If we’ll stop.” The smile she offers is weak.
Strained with bittersweet goodbyes. “We—we aren’t coming back. ”
He stares at her, his eyes wide with the trembling beginnings of grief.
He’s gotten so much taller over the years, they’re now eye to eye.
His lips part, silently, around words he can’t find.
After a few failed attempts, he gives up, his mouth closing around a hiccoughed sob as he launches himself into her arms.
Anna’s throat goes tight, wishing she had more time to make this farewell last. She hugs him back, her arms winding around his shoulders.
Jiro cries into her shirt. Anna tries to find the strength to hold in her own.
“Silas is a dear friend of mine,” she murmurs, like a promise.
“He’ll make sure you’re taken care of. Don’t be afraid. ”
His lip curls, bitter and full of a pain that echoes her own. “I’m not worried about that. I’d rather be on the run than—” His voice cuts off, the words too heavy to shape. Anna knows what they are without having to hear them.
Than be alone.
There is an ache in her heart, one she knows she will carry with her until the end.
She knows how deep a wound loneliness can carve, has spent centuries healing from the scars it had left on her.
The few years Jiro had in her care wasn’t enough to heal the hurt he’s suffered, but Anna can hope that it was enough to give him a fighting chance at finding happiness for himself.
She has to believe he will.
Quickly, she pulls herself from his embrace.
Khiran’s warning words are a sharp and brittle echo over her heart.
We cannot linger. She looks between Eira, holding her head high and her expression strong.
“Jiro and Silas go first.” Her voice holds no room for arguments.
Even if it did, she’s already hugging Silas goodbye before either of them can protest. She murmurs in his ear, too soft for Jiro to catch it. “Take care of him.”
When she steps back, he rests his hand on her shoulder, giving a reassuring squeeze. It feels like a promise. He looks to Khiran. “Seek out Cassius. He’ll provide you shelter.”
Anna doesn’t know who Cassius is, but the effect it has on Khiran is immediate. His eyes sharpen with distrust, the muscle in his cheek jumping with the strain on his jaw. “You’re mad,” he spits, the words dipped in tar, dark and molten. “If you think—”
“I know it,” Silas interrupts, his voice an anchor of calm in the storm of Khiran’s fury. “I would not lead her somewhere unsafe.”
The stare they share is heavy with a history she doesn’t know. Anna folds her hand around Khiran’s wrist, fingertips brushing over his erratic pulse. She waits until Silas meets her eyes, softens under her gaze, before speaking. “You’re certain?”
His eyes hold no hesitation. “My friend, I would lay my life on it.” When Khiran gives no answering protest, Silas meets Eira’s impatient gaze. “Chicago.”
“Chicago?!” Jiro parrots, the city leaving his lips like a curse. “I’m not—”
“It’s done,” Eira snaps. Her eyes keep darting to the windows. “Grab the boy and take it.”
Jiro flushes. Outraged. “I won’t! I refuse!”
“Then you damn both of them!” The words, her voice, are serrated and sharp—biting—in ways only the truth can be. “You will live out the rest of your short, mortal life knowing they will suffer for your stubbornness long after you’re in the ground.”
The anger drains from him, the flush in his cheeks fading until he’s so pale he looks almost ghostly.
When he looks at her, horror dilating his pupils, Anna wants to comfort him, wants to scold Eira for her cruelty, but she can’t.
She can’t, because they have no time for convincing. No time for gentle explanations.
“We need to leave. Now.” Silas says, voice sharp with warning. He holds out his hand, palm up. “We need to run.”
This time, Jiro doesn’t argue. There are tears clinging to his eyelashes, a thousand apologies and a million regrets that will never be said shining in his gaze.
Anna hears them anyway.
She smiles, hopes he sees the love she has for him. Hopes he can carry it with him.
Jiro takes Silas’ hand, lets the god shepherd him out the door.
Anna releases a shaky breath, the knot in her chest slowly loosening.
He’s going to make it. Silas is going to find somewhere safe, and Jiro will have a chance to live the rest of his life without running.
Without fearing the retribution of gods he never believed in until that awful moment the truth was forced on him. He can—
“She’s here. At the south edge of the forest.” Eira stiffens, her eyes finding Khiran’s with despair. Her face is ashen. “She’s not alone. She brought Malik.”
Khiran pales. “The path—”
“Silas is still traveling. I can’t change the course until he reaches the end!
” Her hands tremble as she ushers them out, her expression stricken in ways that make Anna’s heart race.
The beat of it so loud she struggles to hear over the pounding beat in her ears.
“Start running!” she snaps. “Go north, follow the river! I’ll open your path the moment Silas steps off his! Go! Go!”
Khiran’s hand clasps her wrist, running to the back door faster than her legs can catch up. She stumbles after him, heart in her throat. Outside, the sun is bright enough to temporarily rob her of sight—a wash of light before bleeding away into reality as her heart knocks against her rib cage.
Over the meadow, a voice echoes. “Still trying to run, Liesmith?” A laugh, sharp as a blade and just as threatening, rolls from her lips. “We both know hiding behind Eira’s skirts won’t protect you.”
Anna looks over her shoulder, searching, but the house blocks her line of sight. Her foot catches on a rock, sending her stumbling, but Khiran’s grip is as firm as Eira’s scolding.
“Don’t look! Just run!”
A groan, earth deep, trembles under their feet.
The meadow shivers, an invisible vibration in the roots shaking its grassy heads.
It reminds Anna of the husky, rattled warnings of the vipers she’d occasionally find hiding in the rocky outcroppings back home.
Then she looks over her shoulder and understands why the ground shakes and the meadow trembles.
Eira’s house is rising, lurching and peeling from the earth and leaving behind a crater in the shape of its foundation.
It staggers, river rock slipping loose from its bed of mortar on the chimney and rolling off the roof.
It hits the ground, shattering like a grenade.
Beneath the dirt clogged joists, a pair of legs unfold—thin and wiry things that resemble twigs more than branches beneath the bulky shadow of the cottage.
They look suspiciously like chicken legs.
“What did I say about looking?! Stop gawping like fools!” Eira snaps. A quick glance proves that Khiran looks just as shocked as Anna feels. “Keep moving!”
Anna catches sight of the house charging the intruders, its bulk swaying with every lanky step, before Khiran pulls her away. A few yards and Eira shouts. “The path is open—there!”
Anna can see it. It’s just ahead, a stone’s throw away. Her lungs burn and her legs ache, but she pushes to go faster. Safety is on the other side of that path, a few more moments of pain in exchange for the freedom to hold on to each other longer. Just a little bit—
A violent crack splits the air, a wave of heat crashing like the tide at her back and sending them sprawling. When she looks up, the cottage is on fire, an inferno of embers and flame. A screech emits from the windows like a serrated whistle of a teapot bursting under pressure.
Eira is already up, dirt streaking her skirt. She pushes against Anna’s back, urging her forward, as Khiran pulls her to her feet. “Run, you stupid girl! Before the path closes. Run!”
Eira’s hands are hot.
Burning.
Anna’s eyes find hers. There are cracks appearing over her skin, like pottery left too long in the kiln.
They lift away, peeling and floating away like ash on the wind, making her disappear flake by flake.
Anna’s voice catches, stuck in her throat the way her feet stick to the ground.
Eira’s words from a lifetime ago ring in her memory.
This house is my heart.
Khiran’s grip is tight, a bruising pressure, as he pulls her away. He knows. He sees it, too. He must. “Eira’s right,” he rasps, “We need to run.”
There are tears in his eyes, pooling and unshed. Anna can see the fire, can see Eira, reflected in his gaze.
She looks back at the woman who taught her how to live instead of survive—registers the softness of her smile and the goodbye in it.
“No,” Anna says, but her voice is lost in the chaos. She feels Khiran’s arms slip around her waist. Feels him pull. “No,” she repeats, louder this time. He must hear her—he must—because even she can hear it over the static crackling in her ears. His grip only grows tighter, his steps faster.
Anna fights. “No! We can’t—” She gasps, the air knocked from her lungs as her stomach meets Khiran’s shoulder, his fingers bruising her thighs with a desperate grip. The trail is a blur under his feet. Anna cranes her neck, searching the stretch of trail behind them.
There is only flame and smoke—only ash.
Anna’s hands fist in Khiran’s shirt, a sound she doesn’t recognize clawing up her throat.
Khiran doesn’t slow. Doesn’t stop.
Doesn’t look.
Somewhere between the suffocating pain and numbing grief, Anna thinks it might be better that way.
Anna doesn’t know where the path ends, only that there are beech trees as far as her eyes can see and the sun looks higher than where it was when they left.
Khiran walks another yard, his steps dragging through the dried leaves littering the forest floor. Finally, he sets her down.
Blood rushes back to her legs, the sensation of pins and needles pricking at the bottoms of her feet. She flinches, leaning her forehead against his chest. She can’t bring herself to look at him. “We left her.” Her voice breaks, the words bitter and dark on her tongue. “We left her.”
The hands lingering at her hips tighten. “We had to. It was too late. The fire—”
“We didn’t,” she cries, fists curling against his chest. “We shouldn’t have left her!”
“Do you think you’re the only one who loved her?! The only one who’s gutted?! She raised me! I—” A growl, dark and tainted with grief and rage eclipses the words. He turns, his fist pulling back before cracking against the nearest tree. “Damn it!”
Another strike, weaker than the last, and suddenly the coiled tension in his body eases.
Wilts. His hand drops away, blood smearing a crimson stain over the pale bark.
Slowly, he sinks. Knees planted on the forest floor, he stares at the split skin of his knuckles.
“Damn it,” he repeats, a murmur brittle with grief.
Anna hears the way his voice catches, can feel the exact moment his pain eclipses his fury.
She kneels in front of him, hands shaking as she reaches for him—pulls him into her until his face presses into the curve of her shoulder.
There are tears trailing her cheeks, despite her efforts to bite them back.
“I’m sorry,” she croaks. “I’m so sorry. I—” She can’t force the words past the sob clawing at her throat.
It dawns on her that they have never suffered a loss together.
In all their centuries, one of them has always been the grounding force to hold the other.
Khiran’s bloodied hands lift, one fisting in the stretch of fabric between her shoulder blades and the other at the base of her spine.
In her arms, he breaks. He breaks and she isn’t strong enough to hold the pieces of him together. Not when she’s broken, too.
Together, they fall apart.