Chapter 7 #2
I could destroy. I could change the land. And the Council didn’t like that. Didn’t want another Drowning. There was no other reason. Rhyan was gone. Becoming an akadim was irreversible. It was a state that ended in only one way—death.
A death that would kill me. A death that already had in some ways.
Because as much as I was running around in this body, breathing, crying, and running, my heart was broken, my soul splintered.
It was no longer mine. It had gone wherever Rhyan’s had.
I might as well have been an akadim, too. At least, then, we’d be together.
“Auriel!” I yelled, still struggling. “Godsdamnit. Get off of me!”
“I said,” his voice dangerously low, “wait, Lyriana.”
“And I said,” gritting my teeth, “to get off.”
“I would if you’d listen to me. But you won’t!
So you know what, if you want to be stubborn, then go ahead.
Run.” His lips curled. “Do it. But I’ll be right behind.
And when I catch you I will take you over my shoulder, and I will carry you into the cave.
And then I will hold you down myself until the rain stops. ”
Fire blazed in me. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, I think I would. Because if you want to know something, I’m getting just a little bit offended at your welcome of me.
I think I might enjoy carrying you back there.
And if you run, I will do it.” He cocked his head to the side.
“You understand how seriously Rhyan took his oaths? Well, let me tell you, he learned that from me, and he’s far more reasonable!
So listen carefully. You’re going to stop fighting, and you’re going to let me help you.
I’m here to keep you safe, to figure things out until we can actually do something about all of this.
You might not know this, but Heaven isn’t exactly a place you can just come and go from.
Normally the only way out is by being born.
And that’s not what I just did. I’m here for a reason, and we’re going to figure out what that is. ” The muscles in his jaw ticked.
I spat at him, but he moved his head aside too quickly.
I knew he was a God, but I was still stunned at how impossibly fast he moved without warning, and how unnaturally powerful his reflexes were.
And yet, underlying it all was the way his aura felt, clouded, and confused, like he’d been weakened in some way.
I spat again for good measure. He barely blinked as he dodged.
“Well, you’re feisty. I’ll give you that.” His eyes were sparkling, almost mischievously.
“I didn’t ask you to give me anything!” I yelled. “I don’t want anything! Just for you to fucking let me go!”
“And we already went over why I think that’s a bad idea,” he snapped.
“Typical. I was trying to be gentle with you back there. Patient. I understand the pain you’re in—better than you know.
” His voice cracked. “And I really am here to help you. But you won’t accept anything I say. You’re too stubborn.”
Auriel made a sound low in his throat. “By all the fucking realms. The latest one in a millennium, and for all the tiny differences, you might as well be an exact copy of the original.”
“The latest one?” I shouted.
“Latest incarnation. Most current expression of Asherah.” Auriel shrugged.
“I am not a copy!” I slammed my wrists forward without warning, breaking free of his trap.
Within seconds I withdrew my dagger, and slid it firmly against his neck, then grabbed his shoulder, pushing the blade against his skin, just enough to tell him I was serious, and I held it there, until I had him pressed and imprisoned against the stone.
“Who’s a God now?” I asked.
His green eyes widened in surprise and then with far too much amusement considering he had my knife at his throat.
“Well done,” he said, his gaze sweeping down the length of my blade, and then the rest of my body.
As if he were Rhyan. As if we were back in the training room together and he was teaching me.
The rain had flattened his golden hair, and was running down his face in thick rivulets.
But somehow, even with all the similarities between them, it didn’t make him look any more mortal to me.
“Your form, your technique,” Auriel said, “and your element of surprise is really top notch. As expected. But … Not. Good. Enough.” He flicked his wrist and my blade fell to the ground.
A second later Auriel had my arms trapped again at my side.
He pulled me against him, and spun us until once more I was pressed into the stone, my breath coming in quick heavy bursts.
“I can still take you!” I snarled.
He laughed again. “Predictable.”
“What is?”
“This. You. After all—you are her. I knew you’d get all riled up and angry if I argued with you, taunted you just the littlest bit.” He shook his head, a smile spreading across his face. “And you think I don’t know you.”
I wanted to scream. Because he was right. And because it was exactly like something Rhyan would do. It was exactly like something Rhyan had done on more than one occasion. Arguing with me, teasing, even flirting to keep me present, to keep me from panicking. Spiraling.
He always knew what to say, what to do, how to bring me back from the brink when I’d needed it. But this was different. Because this time Rhyan was on the other side of the brink. And I’d be damned before I let Auriel distract me from what I had to do next. “Let. Me. Go.”
“I believe we’ve already covered this section of the argument, but by all means if we must visit it again in the near future, then go ahead, and let me know. I’ll even give you a head start.” He winked.
I glared in response.
He sighed, making an exasperated sound. “Lyriana, look, I know this is difficult for you, to lose him like this. I do. But you must believe me when I say that nothing that happened last night was your fault. It wasn’t.
But it did happen, and it was awful, and traumatizing, and now? You’re not thinking straight.”
“Yes I am!”
“You tried to summon a tsunami!”
“That was right after it happened.”
“Which was hours ago!”
“Oh fuck you. Just stop. Okay? Just stop! I’m not ready for the comfort portion of this.
Don’t you see? I don’t even have time to Godsdamned grieve for him—or try to remember him properly!
This isn’t over yet. My friends are still in trouble!
” I screamed. “They’re in danger! And Rhyan …
Rhyan is—” The Godsdamned tears were back.
“I have to do something about Rhyan.” Find him.
Kill him.
My stomach twisted with fresh pain. I was dangerously close to vomiting again as I realized that the last time I would ever see him, or touch him, it would be as a monster.
The last time I would ever put my hands on him would be the first time ever that I wasn’t trying to bring him comfort, or pleasure, or healing. It would be to kill.
I’d seen his red eyes in my dream. I could imagine what an akadim Rhyan would look like. And just like that, with that image burning into my mind, the fight left me again. I stopped struggling.
Slowly, Auriel released my hands, and stepped back. He held his hands up as if in surrender, once more revealing the scars that covered them. Eyeing me warily, he took a slow step back, treating me like I was a wild animal.
I slumped against the Guardian, my eyes closed. The feeling in my heart was splintering. I felt like I’d just gone through every emotion in the world in the last few minutes. Panic. Grief. Anger. Now, I felt like I was on the verge of despair.
“Auriel?” My voice was small, and pathetic.
“Lyriana.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Are you sure he’s akadim?”
“Meka,” Auriel said gently. My soul. “I am. I am sure. His soul … it’s … it’s not here. I promise you. I’d know. I defied so much more than was possible, but even I couldn’t be here now if his soul was. And yet … it didn’t go to the place one would expect.”
“What place? The celestial realms? Heaven?” Or was it just gone? Eaten. Mangled and destroyed by the akadim. Gods. I couldn’t even voice those fears out loud.
“In a sense,” Auriel said. “It’s not quite that.
It’s hard to explain in language down here.
The mortality I’m cloaked in is making everything more difficult, making me work harder to move, to think.
I can’t stop feeling like I’m forgetting something important.
Something else. But what you’re asking me, these are …
concepts that just don’t exist in this world. ”
“Can you try to explain,” I begged. “Please.”
His mouth tightened, but he nodded. “Rhyan’s soul would have met with mine if he’d passed.
We share the same origin, history, the same life force.
But we don’t share a personality. Not officially.
He would have become a part of me in some way, joined me or …
returned to me. He’d remember being me, remember all of the lives he’d lived.
But he would still be Rhyan.” He frowned.
“Think of your family. Your sisters are your sisters—always. Whether you’re in the same room or not. Nothing changes that.”
There was a sudden pang in my chest. For Morgana. Morgana who’d led the akadim into the capital. Morgana who’d tricked me into stealing the indigo shard. Morgana whose presence stalled me from getting to Rhyan—whose akadim murdered him.
I pushed thoughts of her away and nodded at Auriel, desperate to follow along, to find some glimmer of hope in his words.
“It’s like I’m in another room, and if Rhyan had … had passed traditionally, he would have returned to the room with me.”
“So you’d be in the same place?” I asked.