Chapter 8 Sorrow
Sorrow
Shit. Sorrow clams her mouth shut. Her eyes magnetize to Envy’s, which glitter with a ferocious light.
The figure above speaks once more, the voice belonging to a female. “This is a rather grave infraction,” she muses. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I?” a male teases. “I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to wield iron.”
“Doing so violates protocol.”
“See if I give a shit.”
Relief sweeps through Sorrow, a whoosh of air vacating her throat. Envy’s features relax, though the hostile gleam in his eyes remains. Contrary to the assumption, this couple doesn’t register an intrusion.
“We owe them nothing,” the male sneers. “Least of all, our respect. Look at what they’ve done, betraying us, brutalizing one of our own, and fleeing into the sea like cowards… Did you just grunt at me?”
Sorrow rams her palm against Envy’s mouth to stifle another puff of umbrage. A lantern floats between them, accenting their shadows beneath the planks. In the glinting light, the pride god’s offended glower is unmistakable.
Or it might have to do with his incessant grimacing. Something is wrong with Envy, and it has nothing to do with his general personality.
Graceful footsteps and receding voices indicate the pair’s retreat. “Where do you suspect the eight have fled?” the female speculates in a low register.
Sorrow grabs one of the stilts and cocks her head to listen, but she loses wind of the reply. However, one thing’s for certain. None of their crew have been captured. Otherwise, the body count would have been different.
She glides to the walkway’s rim, ignoring Envy’s silent protests for her to “Get the fuck back here” and “Sorrow, so help me!”
To that, she merely raises her hand in a stopping motion, and his eyebrows catapult into his hairline. His thought-bubble can’t be clearer: Did she actually give him a fucking order?
Sorrow curls her fingers over the ledge. Hauling herself upward, she peeks over the side, where two figures huddle together, their arms linked. A cobalt mantel cascades from the male, the textile billowing like blue smoke.
Mercury-forged arrows fill the female’s quiver, her body trussed up in a silk jumpsuit.
Based on their attire and weaponry, they’re members of the pack that attacked Sorrow’s crew.
She tilts her chin, but the deities are too remote to hear more of the conversation.
Still, this is promising news. The couple had been whispering, so Andrew was right about the ambushers keeping reports of the trespass to themselves.
Maybe they’re set on becoming the captors, hoping to impress The Fate Court.
In which case, the monarchs have no idea about the crew’s arrival.
A violent tug on Sorrow’s skirt dunks her back into the murk. She hits the water, the splash resounding in her ears. For Fates’s sake, that was stupid of him!
She reserves that lecture for later and jabs her index finger overhead. “It’s them,” she mouths.
Envy’s visage tightens. Measuring the distance from here to safety, his irises cleave through the vicinity, then land on her once more. “West pier,” he mouths back.
She nods. They paddle at a gradual pace, gliding under the intersecting boardwalks. Lanterns skate around them, making the water appear deeper and darker. They bypass lilting tenors, animated voices, and embittered grumbles.
Abreast of their designated point, Envy stops. Pausing behind a stilt, he waits until Sorrow joins him.
That’s when she lets loose. Exasperated, she shoves Envy backward. “Do you have a death wish?” she hisses. “For mercy’s sake, anyone could have heard the noise when you jerked me under.”
Instead of owning up to this mistake, Envy rolls his conceited eyes.
“The octave of your voice would have been a problem, but not the splashing. Assuming they heard a thing, they’ll attribute the noise to a different source.
Or if you need me to break it down further, other things exist in this sea besides fugitives,” he godsplains. “Namely, sea creatures.”
Aurora whales. Star serpents.
Valid point, but it still wasn’t worth the risk. Nevertheless, Sorrow elects not to browbeat the issue. Arguing this close to potential threats is foolish.
“You said to make for the west pier,” she whispers. “Why are we stopping?”
“Pit stop,” he murmurs.
Trailing his gaze, Sorrow pans toward a familiar dwelling. On the left pier stands a house. A round, ostentatious, three-story monstrosity with a front door of inky stone.
Envy’s home.
In three millennia, the pride god never once welcomed Sorrow inside. Just like she never asked to be invited.
Be that as it may, she knows this place, to which he’s got a visitor. A hooded figure slips from the threshold while checking the perimeter, a pair of dark hands wielding a crossbow nocked with sapphire arrows.
Envy unravels the mystery. “Nostalgia.”
He pronounces the name between his teeth, mincing each syllable to pieces. Unfortunately, Sorrow has become accustomed to every tone of Envy’s voice. The familiarity of this one isn’t platonic.
Despite the odd clench in her chest, Sorrow jibes, “Do all your ex-lovers squat here when you’re not around?”
“Do I look hospitable enough to welcome a guest when I’m not in residence?” Envy grips. “You’re smarter than that.”
True, though Sorrow was being sarcastic. “He’s snooping.”
“Which means he must have been with the pack that chased us, and I hadn’t realized it.”
“There was a lot going on,” she justifies.
What she’s incapable of defending is why her nails are presently digging into the stilt. It can’t be from learning that Envy and this god banged in the past. Putting it mildly, Envy throws his cock into anything on two legs.
Not important.
When Wonder and Malice quested to The Dark Fates, to breach The Archives and research an advantage to win this battle, they journeyed at an opportune time.
Back then, it had been Stellar Worship, a tradition occurring every hundred years, when deities remain at home, paying homage to The Stars with a period of solitary reflection.
Yet it’s not Stellar Worship anymore. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been attacked in the valley forest or pursued into the river.
Anyway, Nostalgia could have been ransacking Envy’s house for traces of the crew’s whereabouts. If so, this deity or his accomplices might have checked Sorrow’s home too, as well as the dwellings of Love, Anger, and Wonder.
They won’t find anything. Though, if they miraculously happen to locate Sorrow’s missing ice arrow, she’d be much obliged.
“Just how crucial is this pit stop?” Sorrow interrogates.
“Relax,” Envy drawls. “Have you seen Nostalgia fight?”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s still an obstacle. We can’t get past—Envy?”
In seconds, he’s gone. She whips left and right, spotting furrows in the surface, delineating his frame breaststroking underwater. He spears toward his home, shooting to the rocks where his victim stands.
Sorrow gawks. Her jaw hangs loose as Envy slinks out of the sea like Poseidon—dripping, gorgeous as sin, and deadly as fuck. The cavalier god rises to his feet and casually taps Nostalgia’s shoulder.
When the male turns, a gasp rips from his throat.
Envy flashes a shit-eating grin, grabs his face, and mashes their lips into a harsh kiss.
The instant this happens, Sorrow’s pupils electrify as if someone has hot-wired her vision.
Disgust curdles in her stomach, and she experiences the severest urge to sink her fangs into someone’s jugular.
Envy’s tactic works. The target’s crossbow falls, skids across the planks, and plummets into the sea. Shocked, Nostalgia freezes long enough for Envy to pull back, wink like a prick, and punch the god in the face.
The archer’s stunned face whips sideways as he goes down.
Sorrow gawks as Envy shakes the droplets from his hair, then adjusts his sopping button-down shirt and trousers.
Any harder, and he could have snapped his adversary’s neck.
Indeed, Envy might have done so, if the intention had been to leave a trail of corpses behind them.
Fuck. The crossbow!
Sorrow dives. Beneath the sea, she jets toward the spot where the weapon had sunk.
Flipping her eyelids open, she whirls and scans the depths for a glimmer of sapphire.
If they weren’t in this predicament, she wouldn’t dare seek out another deity’s bow.
However, being hunted and weaponless puts a new spin on the rules.
The water level is shallow in this area, so the archery must have landed within reach. Sadly at this hour, visibility proves difficult. It would be less taxing to find the weapon at midday, and the clock is ticking.
She bats at a mesh of reeds, in case the archery has gotten tangled there. Instead, a scaly tail darts from the hedge and weaves across her hip.
Sorrow growls, bubbles bursting from her lips.
Breaking the surface, she crawls onto the pier like a crab, slogging upright behind the dwelling.
Inconveniently, the skirt and vest cling to her body, the outlines of her tits and firm nipples drawing Envy’s leer.
She would discourage this appraisal if he weren’t balancing an unconscious god in his arms.
“We lost his bow,” Sorrow whispers. “And he’s going to wake up.”
“If he rouses before we’re done, we’ll tie him up.” One corner of Envy’s smug mouth lifts. “I have experience with that.”
Ignore him, she warns herself. Yet the sensuous tone resurrects the memory of Envy using handcuffs on her.
“If we restrain him, someone will eventually see Nostalgia like that,” she vetoes.
“Ah. Good point.” Envy hustles the god down the planks while keeping to the shadows, then deposits the lump on a neighboring crossway, propping the victim upright on the ground and slumping him against a torchlit pole.
To passersby, it will appear as if Nostalgia has passed out from an alcohol binge. He’ll know differently, but he won’t go publicizing it, except to the comrades hunting for Sorrow’s crew.
Not ideal. But something’s got to give.
By the time Envy returns, he’s clutching his side. “Condemnation.”
Sorrow extends her arm. “What—”
“Just keep watch,” he growls, then strides into the house.
Sorrow paces. Although she has never set foot inside his home, she did steal a peek once. And she’d regretted what she saw.
Yet that was eons ago, and he’s taking too long, and they shouldn’t linger. Anxiety wins out as Sorrow peers through the window. Unlike the only other time she’d glimpsed the interior, she hadn’t paid attention to the decor.
Presently, Sorrow anticipates the makings of a brothel. A bathing chamber large enough to fit a harem. A dressing closet packed with so many clothes, it must cost a king’s ransom. Beaded draperies. Tiger print. Red satin.
To the contrary, she takes stock of the neutral hues, comfortable sofas, baskets holding bolts of fancy cloth, a drafting table, and weathered renderings of clothing.
All right. Not what she expected.
Envy rifles through the spacious living room, then backs up as he returns empty-handed. “He looted my fucking boudoir.”
Sorrow can’t resist. “Is that pun on purpose?”
His eyebrows staple together, scarcely in the mood for a joke. “If Nostalgia took my favorite cashmere robe, there will be infinity to pay.”
Whatever. The house looked pristine. When she says so, he objects by pointing through the window, where a rug has been partially overturned, in addition to a slanted mirror.
“Did he find anything?” she asks.
“Would you classify extra weapons as anything?” he replies grimly.
Motherfucker. Apparently, Envy had been keeping a cache of arms here.
Bows are sacred, but they aren’t the only means of combat.
Deprived of their archery, Sorrow and Envy could have used alternatives.
But like the arrow she lost in her youth, extra weapons are exceptions to the laws of conjuring items. They can’t be replaced through magic.
Rules, rules, rules. So many rules.
The fundamentals of wielding arrows are severely complex. The end result depends on a combination of factors including the striker’s intention, the intensity of an arrow’s power, and the duration of its effects.
But one thing is clear. When a deity is banished, they lose the ability to wield their root emotion. Their arrows no longer hold that influence. This applies to their crew, most of whom have been exiled for their defiance.
Anger and Love are the exempt ones. Due to all the shit that’s happened, their weapons are now immune to losing their power.
They slip back into the sea. An eternity goes by, in which she’s never moved slower, dreading every splash of water, every sweep of her limbs.
At last, they emerge from under the walkway and melt into the cliffside shadows. As they round the bend, the lanterns fade, and they leave the residences behind. A slender conduit flows ahead. Out of earshot and tucked within the crevice, they swim freely without speaking.
After an hour, Envy’s movements grow desperate and clumsy. He’s a ship, a wide berth of muscles and flesh. By comparison, Sorrow’s more like a skiff, but she’s faster at present.
They’ll have to devise a new plan for traveling to Fortune’s Crest. Their crew would have manifested directly, but it can be a highly populated area, especially during deity births.
In such a case, Sorrow and the gang might have landed in the arms of The Court or a cluster of Guides drawing new gods and goddesses from The Stars.
That’s why the crew had collaborated on an inconspicuous route, combining what each of them knows about The Dark Fates’ terrain.
Another hour passes. At which point, they reach a series of inlets.
Sorrow paddles after Envy and bumps into his rigid back, the god’s body pausing mid-swim. She’s about to question his trajectory but stifles the impulse, the view stalling her tongue.
One inlet pours into a lagoon. Tethered to a rock, a boat sways above the surface, narrow and long enough for two people.
To the right, a condensed bank of bushes and fern trees lines a footpath leading to a cliffside, with a gap in the edifice.
The entrance to a cavern, where vines embroider the threshold.
Hidden. Dreamlike. Surreal.
The place robs Sorrow of breath. “What is this?”
Envy stares. “It’s my secret.”