Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
LYRIANA
Say goodbye to Rhyan? Say goodbye? The idea felt preposterous. Some part of me still felt like this was a nightmare—a bad dream I’d wake from soon. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t.
I sat with Sean still, the two of us staring into the dark in silence. I kept contemplating his words, and thinking over what had to be done, making choice after choice in my head. And every choice I made, I felt sicker and sicker. Nothing felt right.
I’d already known what had to happen. What I had to do. But I’d been trying to avoid it. To make it go away. To pass it off to someone else.
I didn’t want that either. What I wanted, was it to have never happened.
An hour passed, and then another. I cried.
I listened to Sean cry. I drank some more.
And I ate. Sean did the same. Finally, when the chill of the night air became too much, when I couldn’t listen to Sean’s tears any longer without wanting to die, when I couldn’t be reminded any longer of Rhyan when Sean’s northern lilt came out, we stood up, and both walked inside.
Cold, and numb, our eyes red and swollen.
Branwyn was already waiting, and offered hugs to both of us. I could tell from the look in Sean’s eyes, and the feel of his aura, he needed his wife. He needed her comfort.
And I went to seek out Auriel.
I took long, slow breaths as I headed down the stairs. Reminding myself that I could get through this. Get through the next five minutes. That was all I had to do. I didn’t have to decide anything yet. I didn’t have to do anything tonight. Just breathe. Just survive. Five minutes at a time.
Find a way to get through the next five minutes without answers. When you get through them, get through five more. Enough of those minutes become a day, and before you know it, those days become weeks. I’ve survived for months like this. It’s enough.
Rhyan had told me that just after he returned to Bamaria, when we met in the middle of the night at the Temple of Dawn. It was the very first night Mercurial had approached me. The first night of his manipulations.
My hands fisted, remembering the Afeyan’s taunts about my use of Rakashonim in the arena two nights ago. The Godsdamned immortal bastard.
I’d never forgive him. Never forgive him for the way he stood back when Rhyan needed him, when I needed him.
When the akadim attacked, and Mercurial just watched.
I could see him so clearly, his blue skin, and his human-like head replaced with that of a falcon.
He had refused to help me while I was desperately searching for Rhyan in the attack— desperately trying to save him.
And that bastard still wanted me to go after the fucking red shard.
To fulfill my end of the bargain. To fully claim my power as Asherah, as a Goddess.
What did it fucking matter now? I’d called on Asherah’s power. It hadn’t been enough. And the bargain we’d made—his silence about my relationship with Rhyan was worthless now. Because he was gone. And I was forsworn. And from the sound of it, the truth was out anyway.
I found Auriel sitting on the edge of the bed.
He was hunched over, his face in his hands.
His aura reached out toward me, quietly, almost unsure.
But there was something else. It felt different from before.
There was no more fire. No more anger. Just a profound, heart-wrenching sadness that seemed to overtake him.
The power of his aura was weaker, too, cloudier and murkier than ever.
Like it had lost more strength. Lost even more potency.
My heart softened, and our fight—all of the horrible things I’d said to him, the terrible ways I’d acted towards him—came back to me.
Gently, I sat down beside him, reaching for his hand.
He didn’t move, but he let me take it into my lap, let me entwine our fingers together.
I could feel the uneven skin, the scars from the burns that covered his palms. Rough and raised in some parts, and smooth and indented in others.
Without thinking I began to rub small circles into his skin with my thumb.
It was just like something I would do for Rhyan.
Like something I needed to do for him now, but couldn’t.
What I would give to touch him again. To hold him. To ease his pain.
His words from my dream still haunted me. You swore no one else would hurt me. You lied.
“Auriel,” I said, my voice hushed. “Rhyan’s already made his first kill.” I swallowed. “His first …” My throat tightened, “kills.”
Auriel frowned, but nodded slowly. “I know. I think I felt it—the moment it happened. It hurt—it injured me. Then Sean confirmed it. We had time to talk while you slept, for me to fill him in on exactly what happened.”
I nodded. “He told me about that.”
Auriel bit the inside of his cheek, continuing to stare ahead.
“Did you tell Sean who you are?” I asked.
Auriel shook his head. “No. And he hasn’t pressed the issue, but I get the impression that he knows exactly who I am. What I am. Even if he has no explanation for it. He’s a lot like Rhyan. Perceptive. Maybe too perceptive. But I think, at least, knowing that—it made him feel a little better.”
“That’s good then. He deserves that. He needs it.”
“Though apparently, it’s not helping you at all.” He made a noise low in his throat, and he looked down. “For you, my existence is having the opposite effect.”
“Auriel,” I said.
He shook his head. “It’s okay. I understand. I mean, I was never meant to replace him, or be some kind of compensation—especially not for you. I just want you to feel better. Because I care. Do you feel better?” Leaning closer to me, he asked, “Did going upstairs help? Getting air?”
Shrugging, I said, “Yes. And no.” I frowned. “Auriel, I’m sorry.”
He turned his head slowly, watching me with guarded eyes. It only made me soften more. Knowing the effect I had on him. On a God.
On the man I’d once loved when I was Asherah. The man I still loved to this day because my soul remembered his. And the man, or rather, the God, who was all that remained of Rhyan. Because he was him. He was. It became clearer with every moment.
I remembered how I felt after I’d found out the truth.
That I was Asherah. Even before I knew Rhyan was Auriel, I’d felt differently towards the God.
I’d felt more love for him. I’d felt a supreme sense of love even just from hearing his name.
It had become precious to me. Sacred almost. And I’d done nothing to honor that since he’d arrived. Since he’d left Heaven to come here.
“Auriel, I’m sorry for what I said before. For how I treated you. You didn’t deserve any of that. Especially not from me.”
Tears filled Auriel’s eyes and he nodded. “Lyriana.” He practically whispered my name, his voice hushed.
“I don’t want to fight with you anymore.
” I squeezed his hand. “You were right about what you said. You were right about everything. I was punishing you. And punishing myself. But mostly I …” I swallowed roughly.
“I didn’t want to be the one to kill him.
I couldn’t bear it. But I also couldn’t bear the thought of him going on like this.
Of knowing he’s out there in the world, existing in this form.
Knowing what I have to do—what has to happen to end this.
That knowing is almost worse for me, more horrific than the moment when I realized—when I knew that—that he died. ”
Auriel leaned in toward me, his arms pulling me in for a hug.
“Oh, Meka. There’s nothing to forgive. You were right, too.
I don’t know exactly what this is like. And I’m sorry.
I was too harsh with you before. I’m mortal now—in body, and in mind.
I can’t—” He shook his head. “I’ve been struggling to remember so much.
To remember everything I knew. Every purpose I had.
Since I’ve come down here again—everything is so harsh, and hard.
I feel like I’m trying to run through water.
I keep moving my feet, I keep running, and I keep getting nowhere.
I think the journey … it took something from me. ”
“Auriel,” I said, and buried my face in the crook of his neck, content to simply breathe, to just be held for a little.
And to hold him, too. Even if he wasn’t who I wanted.
Or who I needed. He was close enough. The sense of failure I had for Rhyan, the utter devastation that losing him had left me with, made me need to comfort Auriel.
I needed it like air to breathe. I needed to do whatever I could for him.
At least give to him what I’d failed to do for Rhyan. I held him tighter.
After a few moments passed, Auriel asked more about my talk with Sean.
“He said he would do it,” I said quietly, my voice small. “He said he’d hunt Rhyan down. It doesn’t have to be me.” But even saying the words, my stomach was in knots. There was a wrongness to it. To the idea of hurting Rhyan, or hunting him—even in his present form.
Auriel pulled back, his eyes searching mine. “How do you feel about that?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’d already made up my mind to do it the other night.
That it had to be done. That it had to be me,” I cried, then shook my head, blinking back fresh tears.
“But hearing Sean say he’d do it?” I shrugged.
“I thought that would fill me with relief. But it didn’t.
It feels worse for some reason. And I think that means …
” The tears started falling. “I think it means that I need to be the one. I just have this feeling, this sense that I have to find him. That I need to go to him.”
Auriel’s eyes seemed to darken. “But you don’t want to.”
I sniffled, biting my lip to get the words out. “No. Of course, not. Gods. It’s such a fucking nightmare.”
Auriel nodded and pulled me back into a hug, his hands moving up and down my spine with soothing strokes.