Chapter 18 #2
Who knew first-aid could be this surreal? Or this engrossing?
Afterward, they huddle in front of the flames, settling among floor cushions. Indeed, the hearth is merely decorative. If Envy is one thing—although he’d call himself many flattering things—he’s aesthetic.
Despite their inability to feel temperature, Sorrow acknowledges the brimming flames are a comfort. If this goddess is one thing—and historically, she has often declared herself only a handful of things—she’s an advocate of tranquility. That fact is becoming patently clear.
She wouldn’t have betted on this setup from him. Ah, but there’s a lot she still doesn’t know about Envy, as there might be secrets he’s yet to uncover about this female. He reclines against an ottoman, ready to peel those layers from her like a satin chemise.
The glowing candles and swaying blaze illuminate her in whites and blues, while she sits cross-legged beside the sizzling logs. The visual is marvelous, loose strips of hair falling around her face and a relaxed expression gracing her features.
The topic of aesthetics leads to a discussion about practicality versus frivolity.
Envy and Sorrow compare notes, supplying one another with the objects they deem necessary and unnecessary, ruminating whether they’re as valuable as the baser needs.
Mostly they disagree, their voices rising to the rafters, but the argument isn’t venomous or goading. It’s congenial.
For once, Envy isn’t eager to be right. He’s too busy wondering what she’ll say next.
By afternoon, they’ve ventured into rocky terrain, debating what they think of this campaign on behalf of humanity.
They’re not like their crewmates, who each have tangible experiences with mortals.
Love fell for a human. Anger fell for an immortal outcast who grew up in the sphere of humans. Wonder fell for a human-turned-god.
But Envy and Sorrow? What compels them?
“Being in love isn’t the only foundation,” Sorrow answers, tucking her feet beneath her ass. “Some just change on their own.”
“Or because of friendship.” Envy gazes at the flames. “Seeing Love, Anger, and Wonder like that? It was enough for me. Wasn’t it for you?”
“But what about fate and free will?”
“I think they’re the same from different angles.”
“How poetically evasive.”
“I’ll amend, you hussy. I think they can exist in harmony, but figuring out how to compromise is where it gets tricky.”
“That’s why our crew keeps arguing about the methods,” she agrees.
Even if Envy and Sorrow were to accept the legend binding them together, leading to some grand inspiration across the board and resulting in a truce, The Dark Gods must still conceive a balance between destiny and chance. And they’d have to do so with The Stars’ blessing.
This, assuming the other reason they can’t enact the legend didn’t exist. Guilt worms through his insides. Envy’s been intending to confess this part for eons, yet he’s a coward. A greedy, foolish, clingy god.
Worse, this dilemma is intensifying the longer they spend time alone. The confession stretches off the edge of his lips, desperate to leap out. At the same time, fear splashes through his blood, because this closeness with her feels too fucking good. If he opens his trap, Envy will lose that.
He shifts, but the liability adheres to him like static. “You didn’t answer my question about our crew.”
Sorrow glances away. “I’d sprint into a monsoon with them.”
“But?” he prompts. “Come now, tell me something you would never tell them. I sense it coming.”
“I don’t want to follow them into war. A traitorous part of me wants to stop them.”
Shit. His tongue stalls as if she’d tightened a rope around it.
Sorrow’s profile contorts. Her eyes jump across the fire, her pupils glazing over. The seconds extend into minutes, her throat bobbing like a loose chink. “I’ve had enough of war to last a thousand lives.”
She sounds old and exhausted. As though a dam has ruptured, she confides about the mortal wars she’s attended, the wastelands where she was stationed, and the death tolls she witnessed.
From what Envy knows, those battles kept Sorrow, Anger, and Love busy.
Them, in addition to Grief and many others.
There were countless souls, and Sorrow had attempted to strike as many as she could, to alleviate them of agony. Not the physical pain, since that’s out of her hands, but the emotional torment. Yet their numbers were great, and she couldn’t get to all of them before they died.
“I tried,” she whispers, her tone as brittle as bone. “I tried so hard.”
As the goddess recounts the horrific details, Envy loses sense of time and space. Both narrow to Sorrow’s haunted features as she drags out each word, uprooting them from a place buried so deeply, he’s surprised the sentences don’t cut her on the way out.
“There was a soldier,” she croaks. “A boy of maybe seventeen. He was gutted on a mine field, and he was crying for his sister.” Her anguish cracks Envy’s ribs.
“There’s pain that’s essential because it strengthens who we are.
But there’s also pain that just hurts like fuck and kills you.
Like the slow stab of a blade, I felt every ounce of his suffering. ”
Tears collect on her eyelids, but she sniffles, refusing to shed them.
“You don’t want to know that side of pain, Envy.
I only sampled a fraction of it, but if we fight, we might…
it might… That’s not a pain I’d wish on anyone.
” She grunts, wiping those unshed tears with the back of her arm.
“Whatever. It’s selfish of me to wallow, as if I have a right to claim their misery as my own. ”
“There’s a disparity between selfishness and compassion,” Envy intones quietly. “Just ask Compassion.”
Sorrow’s trembling lips tilt. “We’re not supposed to be talking about my history with pain. I’m supposed to be helping you find yours.”
Envy straightens, leans forward, and cups her cheek. “I think you just did.”
She wavers, resisting his pull. “I don’t… I don’t know how to…”
“Now, now. Come on, relax those arms,” he says, then demonstrates. “Like this.”
She surrenders, allowing him to tug her closer and weave their fingers together. Their intertwined hands rest in the space between them. They stay like that, inhaling, exhaling.
Envy registers the abrasive texture of her despair. He wants to wrap this female in cotton, a soothing textile he’s certain she likes.
But then he realizes. That sensory hint isn’t coming from her, which shouldn’t be possible anyway. Not between deities.
No. It’s coming from him.
This hurts, because he can’t relate to her past. This hurts, because he doesn’t know how the fuck to make it better for her. This hurts, because it just does.
Envy glances down to where his thumb strokes the pulse in Sorrow’s wrist. When had he started doing that? When did he roll up her sleeve?
He doesn’t care to acknowledge this, and she keeps her comments to herself. They recline awkwardly onto the moss, adjusting to the rarity of her head pillowed on his chest, his palm clasping her hip.
Sorrow speaks in a hushed voice. “Some pain, like in those wars? It’s about loss.
But the paradox is, I can’t describe such horrors to you.
At least, not in a tactile way, because I can’t relate fully.
I have the power, and I’ve exercised the shit out of that power, yet identifying with it is impossible. What kind of person does that make me?”
“That doesn’t mean you’re not susceptible like the rest of our crew,” Envy murmurs, combing his fingers through her hair.
“The opportunity just hasn’t happened to that degree yet.
We may embody our root emotions, but I doubt any of us have felt the palpable brunt until recently.
Love never loved until she met Andrew. I would bet that Anger never internalized his short fuse until it became personal with Merry.
And I’m pretty certain Wonder never marveled at the universe more than when she encountered the demon we call Malice. ”
“And you?”
“Drag your hand any lower, and I’ll be damned if I’m able to answer.”
Sorrow freezes, her digits having made a roundtrip from his sternum to his navel, a sure path to the swollen rascal located farther south. That she hadn’t known what she was doing becomes indisputable as her fingers recoil, fleeing into the cove of her neck.
“Sorry,” she mutters.
He’s not. At least, not unless his dick gets the timeout it desperately needs.
“I’ve been bitten by the envy bug several times,” he admits.
“To cope, I sulk until I get my way or steer the advantage back in my direction. Comparing myself to others is pure instinct, but I don’t think I’ve hit my limit yet.
According to mortal tales, the gods are viciously prone to grudges, bitterness, and resentment.
It’s not far from reality, so there’s no telling how far our emotions can go or whether it mirrors the nature of humans. ”
Sorrow lists the jails, hospitals, battlegrounds, graveyards, orphanages, homeless encampments, group counseling sessions, bathroom stalls, and, yes, drunken parties, in which she has aimed ice arrows at her quarries. People fraught with loneliness, bereavement, and hopelessness.
Whereas Envy has made the rounds in bars, competitions, games, marathons, ceremonies, classrooms, offices, and weddings. People consumed by frustration, prejudice, petulance, rivalry, or lust.
Mortal holidays tend to swamp them both.
As they talk, Envy belatedly realizes that Sorrow’s aversion to this war, as it harkens to her prior experiences, should be a reason enough for her to accept the legend. As the lesser of the two evils, she must know this, but perhaps she’s too scared to choose.
That makes two of them.
As the afternoon darkens to nightfall, an idea sparks in his mind. At his behest, Sorrow describes her home in The Dark Fates, including an assortment of lamps.
Warm lighting. Envy adds that to the currant nectar, comfort food, and fleece bedding. Plus, her black attire. Reassessing the latter, her overall style is more Celestial Vigilante than Woeful Witch.
Sorrow resumes her task, reminding him to think about that embarrassing moment. Oh, but if she only knew. He’s never stopped thinking about it.
An ugly god is easy to spot.
Envy’s flesh stings, each word lashing him like a whip. He avoids going there, divulging some of his lowest points instead, such as shooting the wrong humans and watching mortal jealousy turn into self-loathing. In the end, he’s drained yet oddly reinvigorated by this deep dive.
But Sorrow has one more request. “Say something you don’t want to say.”
Shit. He sidesteps that as well. “I don’t have a thing to wear for battle.”
“Something of substance!” she chides, bursting into laughter.
That laugh. That fucking smile.
Envy mumbles something about needing time to reply. When really, he needs time to recuperate from her.
Always. Fucking. Her.
Because they’ve worn themselves out, Envy ushers Sorrow to a chamber that will appeal to the goddess, bypassing several adjacent hollows. “It’s just down another tunnel—wait! Not that way!”
“What’s this?” Sorrow tilts her head, detouring toward an open recess.
“It’s nothing,” he hastens. “Just a storage cubicle. No witchcraft items for you to peruse.”
Hardly deterred, Sorrow ventures into the alcove before Envy can snatch her. “If that’s true, then there’s no reason… oh.”
Hovering on the threshold, he watches as the goddess surveys the assortment of clothing sketches spread across a drafting table, including renderings of a midnight blue gown with chain embellishments, a maroon leather vest, and a tiered black skirt.
He braces himself when she pauses on that last drawing, then swipes it from her fingers with a forced laugh. “I was dabbling.”
“And clearly I’m intruding,” she comprehends. “Sorry, I… I didn’t expect to find anything personal.”
He stalks around her and sets the paper back on the table. “I tend to experiment with ideas when I’m not busy shooting humans.”
“They’re really good. Our people would appreciate the inspiration, even if tailors are—”
“A mortal trade?” Casually, Envy overturns the skirt design, facing it down. “More’s the pity.”
“It doesn’t have to be. Not if you choose.”
Huh. The notion appeals to him.
Even so, Envy waves Sorrow from the room, torn between pride that she likes the images and uncertainty that she’ll criticize the rest. This, provided he succumbs to the conflicting desire to give her a tour.
Plus, if she musters another generous, out of character compliment, the goddess will find herself thrown across the tabletop. At which point, his fingers will rip the pajamas from her body.
A growl rustles up his throat. Picturing the least attractive images possible—seaweed, a broken mirror, a rayon shirt—Envy’s budding frustration recedes, taming the infamous wild beast, also known as his cock.
While leading Sorrow to her chamber, he beseeches The Stars to conjure a few adornments in her honor. Swinging open the door, Envy gives a quick gesture toward the room. “You’ll be pleased to know it’s the farthest one from my suite.”
Sorrow chuckles. “Good thinking.”
“Excellent.”
“Wonderful.”
Spec-fucking-tacular. It’s harmless banter, yet it still bothers him to be right.
Envy twists away, then pauses at the entrance while gripping the frame harder than necessary, her earlier request striking him like a hammer.
Say something you don’t want to say.
With his back turned, Envy lets the words drop from his tongue. “You intimidate me.”