Chapter 15 #2
Lark slowly nods. “Do not trust her. She’s manipulative and surely wants something.”
“Okay,” Kim acknowledges. “We will keep that in mind when engaging with her. She claims to be the leader of your world?”
“She is… sadly,” Lark says.
“I shall simply crush her head between my hands. Watch her brains ooze between my fingers,” Vero announces as he starts toward the door, but I hold a hand up.
“Let me see what she wants and then we’ll see about crushing her head,” I say.
“Crush first, questions later,” Vero decides.
My eyebrow lifts as I try to consider how that would go. Then I push him back and walk into the room with Special Agent Kim, Torin, and two other agents I haven’t been introduced to. It kind of feels like they’re just here to make sure shit doesn’t go south.
“Thank you so much for—” Onyx’s words cut off when she takes note of me.
“We meet again,” I say.
She just gives me a gentle smile. “We meant you no harm. You have to understand you kept so many secrets from us that we had to be cautious. We only wanted to keep you in a cell until we could better understand you.”
“Your people shot at me,” I point out.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you; it should never have happened on my watch. I never permitted them to do that, and I promise you that those who shot at you have been heavily disciplined.”
Her sweet voice just irritates me more. “What do you want?”
“Our land has been stripped—”
My attention strays from her when I see one of her guards move forward, almost like they were one person before splitting into two.
A chill rushes down my spine as I realize that Famine has been in the room this whole time and I was completely unaware of it.
She could have attacked us with ease, and we were just sitting here oblivious to her presence.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, reaching for my pendant and ready to fight the second she tries anything.
“I was just explaining that,” Onyx replies.
“Not you,” I say. “Famine.”
Torin’s hand tightens on my arm as he leans in to whisper in my ear. “I can feel her, but I can’t see her. I have to assume no one else in the room can either.”
And I remember how no one on the roof reacted to her as well.
“You give me too much credit, Brother,” Famine says, and the way no one is reacting to her voice tells me that I’m the only one who can hear her.
She steps up to Onyx and sets a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m just here to observe.” She leans down and puts her face close to Onyx’s and smiles at me.
“They’ve done all of this on their own. They’ve turned their backs on each other and torn each other apart…
all for what? Humans are such fascinating and weak creatures. ”
“We will trade what we can for food,” Onyx says, her words cutting through Famine’s quieter voice.
Famine smiles as she pushes Onyx’s hair back and she still doesn’t react. Then she straightens up and kisses the top of Onyx’s head before walking out of the room.
I shove up from my chair and rush through the door, but by the time I reach the hallway, I find that she’s gone.
“What’s going on?” Mickey asks as he meets me in the hallway.
I feel uneasy not knowing where she went. “Famine was in the room, but… I guess I was the only one who could see her.”
“I sure didn’t see her,” he says. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know. She’s gone now.” Kit stares off in the distance before I turn back toward the door. “Mickey, be careful.”
He gives me a pat on the shoulder as Toast snoozes away.
He’s as sleepy as Mickey is. “It’s okay.
I have a raging hunk of a god standing next to me in that room prepared to crush skulls and scoop out eyeballs while berating me for desecrating the undead.
I’m all good,” Mickey assures me. None of that sounds good, but I head back into the room.
“I see that your eyesight doesn’t bother you here,” Onyx remarks offhandedly while I take a seat.
“It’s fascinating how many good things magic can do,” I say.
She merely smiles at me, not taking the bait, which annoys me for some reason. It’s not like I want to fight her, but if I have to let Vero crush her skull a bit, I wouldn’t mind. My problem is that I don’t know where Famine went. Is she protecting Onyx?
“We simply want to make a trade for food,” Onyx says. “Our people are suffering and I’m afraid they will soon begin to die if we can’t properly feed them. A vicious goddess destroyed our land, and every year it dies more and more.”
Torin gives her a cold laugh. “I would pity you and your people if I hadn’t seen what you are doing.
I was told that all of this started when a leader from your past bound and tortured the goddess because he wanted more power, and that is why you must live this way.
You’re using those you’ve branded, forcing them to labor only to use their work to feed those inside the capital walls but starve the ones outside them.
If we give you food, I can only assume you’ll give it to those in the capital while exploiting those outside it. ”
“I fear you might have been misled by information that came from an unreliable source,” Onyx says. “We would never let those who have been branded starve to death. And you seem to believe we branded them to hurt them. We are saving them.”
“Then if we bring food, we want it to go to the ones outside the capital walls,” Torin states.
“All of our people are hungry,” Onyx says. “We would want to share the food equally.”
Torin stares her down. “You’ve never treated them equally since the moment you threw them outside of those walls.”
I suggest, “We could give them the food and the people from within the walls could come out and get some, could they not?”
Onyx still doesn’t grow annoyed, she only smiles.
“I see that we’ve upset you and for that, we apologize.
I know it can be hard to understand how traditions are different in each realm.
Please consider our offer. If you decide to help, simply step through the Door, and I will have someone send you to me immediately. ”
“Send me to a cell?” I ask. “You’re going to let people with magic inside your walls now?”
“We eagerly await your decision,” she says pleasantly as she stands up and starts toward the Door back to her world.
The door to the room is flung open and Vero lunges in, trying to stop her exit, but the second he’s in the room, Famine appears as if out of thin air.
She swings a spear down and slams it into the ground, and Vero is flung back through the doorway he’d dashed in through.
The whole room quivers while the walls begin to crack and the ceramic tile floor shatters.
Famine steps toward Vero, but before she can touch the man who’s been thrown halfway through a wall, I rush in front of her.
I’m not quite sure what I can do in this state, but perhaps she’s like Conquest and doesn’t exactly want me dead.
Before I can even open my mouth to say anything, she turns around and walks through the Door, disappearing just as Onyx and her guards did once Vero entered.
“I told you not to do it,” Mickey says, holding out a hand to help Vero out from where he’s halfway through the drywall.
Vero growls in rage as he shoves himself forward and pushes Mickey out of the way. Mickey’s not expecting it and stumbles but is unable to catch himself before he hits the ground hard, slamming down on the shattered ceramic tiles.
I rush up and shove Vero back, knowing Torin’s right behind me. “You do not harm one of ours in your fit of anger. You don’t even have enough power right now to heal yourself; did you really think you could take on Famine?” I demand.
He lifts his hand, like he wants to take another swing, but whether it’s something he sees in my expression or Torin’s, he immediately lowers it and looks away.
“You okay, Mickey?” I ask as I walk over to him.
“Who are you to speak so scornfully after all you’ve done?” Vero yells. “You’re as bad as she is!”
Seething, Torin pushes to the front but doesn’t physically engage, probably because I’ve asked him not to.
“Riley doesn’t remember anything from that time.
How can we condemn him for something he wasn’t involved in?
He might be the same horseman, he might have the same power, but he is not the same person who hurt us.
Now, if you aren’t going to play nice, then we’re not going to work with you. ”
“I don’t want to fucking work with you,” Vero growls. “I want to kill all of the horsemen, including him.” He jabs a finger at me. “I want to make them pay for what they’ve done. I want them—”
Mickey shakes his head. “As someone who has brought a lot of people back from the dead, I know the last thing the dead want is for their loved ones to tear their life apart for them,” he says as I help him up.
I notice his hands are cut up from falling on the shattered tiles, but he ignores them. “Come on, we have much to think about.”
He heads into the room we were just in and slumps at the table before setting his head on it, like he’s just going to take a nap. The rest of us file in while Torin temporarily destroys the Door. Just as he’s finishing, Vero joins us.
“Lark, what do you think we should do?” I ask as I turn to where she and Story had been staying out of the fighting.
“Food would be amazing, but do you have enough spare food to feed thousands?” she asks. “We don’t need full meals. Something we could dilute with broth to feed many would be phenomenal.”
“What backlash would it cause?” I ask. “Will those in the capital target you even more?”
Lark shakes her head. “I don’t know. But at some point, we have to decide whether we’re going to starve to death or face their backlash. I’m not sure there is a better option… or even another option.”