Chapter 6
The Champion's value to Themis is their ability to serve her above all else.
— WHAT MAKES A CHAMPION OF ORDER
HART
Each day, we read silently for hours, and each evening, she holed up on the balcony with Charon.
I sensed every time her mood shifted. What was worse, she wiped sweat from her brow when I was angry.
She looked oddly refreshed when I was sad.
Her cheeks sucked in like she’d tasted a lemon when she spent extra time asking questions and batting her eyes at the librarian.
The way she studied me, the same way she studied the pages of her books, as each of the flavors of my emotions hit her, told me everything I needed to know.
She knew. She knew she sensed my emotions, and she planned to ignore this, too.
As her question in the library evidenced, she had no intention of leaving Kavios to its fate.
She’d break our curse, find a way to be rid of me, and then she’d return to …
what? Start a rebellion on her own? Would she really ignore the fact that I had already built the Feared?
That I would hand them to her in a heartbeat?
Fucking Chaos. How had we ended up here?
I guessed I knew how, I just didn’t know how to fix it.
I counted the days that passed by the number of new bakeries we tried on the main road through Ciril.
She insisted we leave the books to eat the sticky buns.
I agreed because testing the goods from each shop …
well, I wouldn’t say it brought her joy, but the variety—and I would guess the freedom—seemed to fill her with wonder.
After each of the too-quick interludes, we returned to reading.
The distance between us was my fault. I’d broken the fragile trust she’d offered me. I knew that, but I no longer pretended I knew how to navigate it. Initially, I’d wanted to give her time to grieve. If she blamed me for Alaric’s death, well, I wanted her to take that out on me, too.
She had done nothing.
Her mood shifts were slight. Like a sliver of sadness found in the downturn of her mouth or a flash of anger in the narrowing of her eyes, each was there and gone before I could comment.
Now I suspected she reverted to the woman she’d been when we first met.
The woman who hid every emotion, because the risk of feeling them was too great.
Alaric’s lies. Her parents’ lies. My omissions. They all weighed on her. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they had her collapsing in on herself.
This couldn’t continue. How we perceived the world around us, how we reacted to it, those feelings made us uniquely us. If there was one thing I’d learned from our magic, it was that the emotions that fueled it demanded to be felt.
“This is nothing like my calling.” Her voice pulled my focus on our third day in the library.
I suspected she tried not to speak to me, but a part of me also knew she’d read enough to come up with her own ideas.
Eventually, she’d break down to brainstorm with someone, and unless she waited for Charon tonight, I was her only option.
Like the desperate man that I was, I jumped on the opportunity to be her sounding board—to help her work through a problem like we had multiple times in Kavios. “How so?”
She let out a breath, like she wasn’t sure I could play the part she needed me to. I’d correct that assumption as soon as she let me. I’d fill whatever shape in her life she allowed.
“Delphine was a healer. She had a life.”
I tilted my head, not understanding the difference.
“She was an adult when she was called,” Ember emphasized.
“You were an adult when you made your choice,” I offered.
Her brow furrowed like she tried to firm up the point she wanted to make. “When you first spoke about Champions of Chaos in Alaric’s workshop—” She swallowed thickly.
I could almost see the emotion she pushed down around her uncle’s name. My jaw worked, and I wanted to speak, to comment. Knowing it would be unappreciated in this moment, I clenched my fist beneath the table.
“You had said this was Eris’s rebellion. Little sibling complex pushed too far. She no longer wanted to do what Themis said just because that was the order they had always abided by.”
I nodded. Charon had given her more context a few days ago. I didn’t know how the dragons fit into this. Given I was the reason Charon had remained a captive for hundreds of years, I didn’t exactly hold his confidence.
She continued, oblivious to my spiraling thoughts. “Delphine had no warning, no protection. One day, while working at the clinic, her life changed, and she accepted it.”
Her voice rose in pitch. Not quite the bitter taste of fear, but … something close—worry, maybe—coated my tongue like a too-salty meal. Even if Eris had had more time to plan with Ember, those in Ember’s life had chosen to protect her from the truth instead.
“Chaos…” I intended to reassure her of her path.
There was no right way to be chosen by a goddess, but as soon as the word left my mouth, my gaze locked with hers.
The endless depths of her dark brown eyes proved that she was a storm of chaos all her own.
Nothing and everything about her made sense.
She had no reason to stay in a kingdom that sought to punish her for who she was, yet she had done so to find her uncle.
She feared the Oldwood, yet she had opened herself to it to learn of a stranger—Charon’s—captivity.
She hated the Blessed, yet she had made space for me in her heart when she considered me one of them.
I was so fucked.
Calling her Chaos meant too much to me. I suspected to both of us.
It had evolved into a language of our own.
My way of goading her toward the truth that everyone hid from her.
That salty taste touched my tongue again as she bit her lip.
She worried about where I would take the rest of the sentence.
Before I could open my mouth to press further, to make her acknowledge all she’d accomplished and what we had yet to do, maybe even to press her on the new facet of our clearly intertwined curse, she cut me off.
“We should go.”
I glared at her, hoping she could taste the heat of my anger at her avoidance. The way she reached for a glass of water on the table gave me a hint of satisfaction that she did. Then, I regretfully stacked the books and returned them to the shelf.
The streets were filled that evening. It wasn’t like the Selection Festival in Kavios, but plenty of citizens were out shopping, drinking, and finishing their workdays.
Blair had mentioned that representatives from the Farmers Guild were in the city this week.
They came to discuss their crop, the stores of goods for trade, and what was needed for the kingdom.
Ember had been so curious about how they debated such things with the queen and how decisions were made by vote of the affected parties rather than simply by the choice of the one in power.
She collected every insight like puzzle pieces, still working to fit them together.
I wanted so badly to ask her how she thought Kavios should be run.
I wanted her to discuss her plans with me, more than how we would end our curse.
But when we entered our suite each night, the depths of her sadness hit me—like swimming to the deepest parts of the Endless Sea.
The taste shifted from cool and refreshing to a cold, overpowering minty flavor. I refused to push her then.
“I’m going to pick up some of those cinnamon cakes,” she said, pointing to a shop window across the street.
She barely gave me a moment to react before she cut across the stream of people.
I moved to follow, but her small frame slipped effortlessly through the crowd while I waited for others to pass.
She stayed in my sight. With each step she took toward the bakery door, my heart pounded in my ears. I could push through these people, could cause chaos in the streets of Ciril to get to her, but she was almost to the doorway.
It would be fine.
As she reached for the knob, a hooded figure grabbed her arm and yanked her away.
With a few steps, they disappeared down the alley. I wasn’t even sure if she screamed. My vision tunneled before the bitter taste of her fear hit my tongue.
I shoved through the crowd with no hesitation, unsheathing my sword as I moved. Ember’s shouts didn’t register in my ears, nor did the outraged cries of those I charged past. Everything faded away. My singular focus was on closing the distance between us as I sprinted through the crowd.
When I caught up to them in the alley, Ember’s knife was raised.
The spice of her anger and the tart taste of her fear collided as she sprinted toward me.
I reached for her, and the noise of the city returned the second my hand touched hers.
A breath of relief escaped my lungs as I pulled her behind me and positioned myself between Ember and her attacker.
“Stay close, Chaos. We don’t know how many there are.”
Though I knew she hated the proximity, she listened, and she didn’t return her dagger to her skirts.
“Themis is waiting. She grows impatient.” The attacker’s words were a whisper before he pulled his sword and drove toward me.
I raised my blade to block his attack. With the other hand, I reached for Ember, reassuring myself she was there. She had moved closer, ensuring my access. We backed toward the brick wall together as two more men entered the alleyway, blocking our ability to run.
Shouts in the main street called for guards. Someone must have noticed the weapons.
Guards didn’t patrol the streets of Ciril as they did in Kavios. I was under no illusion they’d arrive quickly to help.
The three men moved in coordination, striking together, making it impossible to defend. Steel slid against steel as I blocked two strikes. The third sword grazed my leg before I side-stepped.