It had been two hundred years since he had sentenced his friend to die.
Caidil carried it with him like weights fastened to his limbs. They were Xtilaf's shadows, always following him, always there to curl around his neck and press until he found himself gasping for air.
It had been two hundred years since he had sentenced his friend to die, and there wasn't a day that passed when he did not think of him.
With the souls of the dead clinging to his hand, holding him as he guided them down the steps that led into Irkalla, his mind still reeled back to Evîn. His wasn't a spirit that lingered in the Earth of No Return. His was an essence that had fused with the world and the Anunnaki's blood. A god didn't have the luxury of a human to still find himself haunting beneath the ground.
Luxury.
Was it truly a luxury to find yourself sealed underneath layers of decaying earth and spring-bud blossoms? Was it truly a luxury to find yourself fading from your loved ones' minds, from the memory of humanity, because Caidil kept turning the sand-grains of time?
Luxury.
What was luxury to a god?
Leaning against a fallen pillar, Caidil pondered the words, the questions that kept overturning in his head.
He knew what Evîn would have said. That solid word that was his answer to everything. When Evîn said it, it felt as if, with the letters that formed on his lips, carefully curling around his tongue as if they would join in Nieba's worship of him, he could make all that was dead come alive again.
He said it with such sincerity, that even a cynical bastard like Caidil couldn't help but wonder if there was any truth to it.
Love.
His answer was always fucking love.
Did he cling to that still, when he lay there choking on his own blood?
The tip of Caidil's boot scuffed against a lone pebble, sending it across the courtyard. It found its target against the approaching figure of Ixtilaf.
Caidil looked up. His brows remained furrowed in thought, even as Ixtilaf's shadows skittered closer. They wrapped around his hands, a viper ready to strike, yet Ixtilaf's shadows never turned against his fellow gods.
Except for that one time.
''What has this pebble done to offend you so?'' Ixtilaf asked, his words drawn-out yet quiet.
Caidil opened his mouth to retort, ready to grunt out a response that would be closer to an insult rather than an actual answer.
But a pair of dove-white wings appeared behind Ixtilaf, the faintest flutter of wind against feather announcing her arrival, and his breath caught in his throat.
''Don't you know, Ixtilaf? Pebbles are a gods' true enemy.''
A delicate hand brushed over the sleeve of Ixtilaf's coat, and Nieba tucked her wings in as she passed by him.
Yes, pebbles were a gods' true enemy, but oh, she was his.
''Very funny. Time to trade in your temples for the joys of being a lord's fool?'' Caidil grumbled, crossing his arms. Nieba didn't seem deterred by his tone. She was used to it, as they all were.
Did she know he softened his words slightly for her? Did she know he took a chisel to his throat to try and pry off the marble thorns that made his words sound barbed?
What would Evîn have said?
''I see we have yet to be complete,'' Ixtilaf remarked without even turning his head. His shadows had told him all he needed to know, already investigating every nook and cranny to come back and whisper in his ears. Where Caidil felt shadowed by his duties, burdened by the darkness, Ixtilaf seemed to thrive in it.
''When have you known them to have any regards for time?'' Caidil asked as Nieba brushed her hands over her skirts to take her seat right in the middle of the courtyard. The fabric of her dress swept around her like the sun in full rising, and she seemed completely at ease to be in the presence of her fellow gods.
But Caidil knew how that serene expression could contort in a mask of grief and rage. He still saw it there, lingering in her gaze, buried yet not truly. She could try and pull the earth's soil over her grief, and it wouldn't be enough to contain it.
That had been Evîn's gift and curse.
Love.
A screech pierced the air with a resounding lilt, lightning striking the clouds and making them part as a pair of golden wings made the wind dance around them. The three of them didn't seem bothered by it, Caidil simply tilting his head as he watched her descend on the stones.
A dragon the size of a gilded palace. Brilliant eyes blazing like fires, red and burning, regarded them before they disappeared, and Taniyn stretched her limbs. Half-human, half-dragon, the Illéans called her. The scales on her skin shifted, gleaming under the light. They seemed to house the rays of the sun on their surface, enveloping all that weaved through the sky and making a mockery of it.
When he saw her like that, Caidil could understand why Taniyn found such ease in one of her favourite pastimes; seducing humans.
''Haven't missed much, have I?'' Taniyn asked lazily, a slow smile rising on her lips, legs that were still bare hanging off the edges of the stone balcony she had seated herself onto.
''As always, Caidil is being rather cryptic with his intentions,'' Ixtilaf said, which was met with a scoff from the god of time. It was a bold statement, coming from the god who was both shadow and puppeteer, both their all-father and their keeper.
''Or perhaps I do not enjoy repeating myself.'' Caidil's voice was low, fatigue stringing every word together, a mismatched necklace of dim pearls.
It had been two hundred years since he had sentenced his friend to die, and Caidil hadn't stopped feeling tired.
''Oh, don't be cruel,'' came a light and airy voice from behind Caidil, and he turned, lips twitching into the hint of a smile at the sight of Itri.
She had that effect, with an innocence that seemed strange on a goddess. Purity shone from within her, an undying light that weaved stars through the inky waterfall of her hair. When she walked, they glimmered, but before she could step onto the courtyard, Itri paused as if she had forgotten something.
Turning, Itri searched the shadows.
Ah, of course they had come together. It was easy to spot him there, even easier when Itri extended her hand towards his hiding spot, coaxing him to come out.
Zilar smirked. It was a glint of silver in an otherwise unmoving landscape. He moved from where he had been leaning against the wall, stepping into the light and out of the shadows. And when he curled his fingers, glimmers shone that morphed into something more solid, strings of metal moulding into every passing colour of a sky that slowly shifted from dusk to dawn. He hardly paid it any attention.
It was an innate talent of his, the casualty in which he regarded everything around him, while behind his eyes, cogs turned and bolts clicked.
''Missed me?'' he asked.
The bastard did always have a flair for the dramatic. Even more so when he had spent time around humans, showing off his inventions, watching them tinker with theirs.
Caidil had never quite figured out if he actually liked helping humans, or if he simply enjoyed the praise.
He waited for them to gather around him. His fingers were flexing around empty air, trying to catch something he had lost long ago. His sanity, perhaps.
He caught sight of Nieba's patient face, the unwavering warmth in her eyes.
It only made it more difficult.
''Our power isn't the only thing that's wavering. It needs to happen again.'' He caught sight of the puzzlement on Nieba's face, though behind her, Ixtilaf seemed to understand immediately. His entire posture changed, back straightening, shadows darkening.
''Evîn?'' Zilar's question came with the sharpness of a knife. It was all everyone needed to stand alert. There was only Itri who seemed caught up in something else, a thought dancing into a dream in her head. He watched as she had her head tilted up to the sky, her being entirely at ease.
She'd understand soon enough.
Caidil nodded. Taniyn's gaze went to Nieba, her nonchalance fading for alertness.
They had all felt the shift in the air. Caidil wasn't sure when it had started, but they had all felt it, like dying fireflies in their blood.
It flickered, and it flickered, and Caidil wasn't sure when it would falter and fade into dark for good.
Taniyn knew. She had told him about the temple she had watched crumble when she had been visiting Abalus. It had happened out of nowhere. The air had been still, and suddenly, a crack had pierced through the stone. Out of the chasms, poured another crack, and another, until there was nothing left but rumble and crumbling stones.
And for the first time, her arrow had not struck true.
That was what had shaken her the most. Taniyn never missed.
Zilar and Ixtilaf shared a look. They, too, seemed to understand what Caidil meant. Only Nieba stared at him with that awful look on her face. That anger he hadn't seen since the day they had sacrificed Evîn.
She had never stopped holding it against him.
''Are you saying,'' she started, her breath coming out in slow tidal waves. Her voice shook with barely suppressed anger. ''That it was all for nothing? He died for nothing?''
Over her shoulders, her wings spread in tandem with her rising fury.
Caidil shook his head, quick to dissuade her, to want to calm her and soothe her pain. He didn't blame her for how she felt. Not when it came to Evîn. While Caidil's words had sealed his fate, Nieba's blade had sealed his blood into the earth.
''No. It was enough then. It was enough for us, and the Anunnaki. But I saw it, Nieba. It's no longer enough to sustain us and the world. It has to happen again.'' He sounded so tired, even to his own ears.
His eyes shifted to the others. He knew what they were thinking.
Zilar opened his mouth to speak, but Caidil cut him off before he could give voice to the question he saw so clearly etched into his expression.
''Not one of us. One of them.''
Ixtilaf stepped in closer, as if it would help him read the situation better, as if he could pluck the thoughts right out of Caidil's mind.
''Have you seen it?''
Caidil nodded. He knew they didn't need more than that. They had always had an unwavering trust in his visions and prophecies. Even when it meant the death of one of their own.
Ixtilaf took another step closer. Behind him, Nieba's wings slackened, hands she had curled into fists unfurling and falling by her side, the dying blossoms of a flower no longer blooming.
And beside him, Zilar watched, sharp and listening, while Itri finally seemed to snap out of her dream. She didn't need to ask. One look at Zilar was enough.
Before Ixtilaf's next question could breach the prison of his pressed-together lips —
why why why why
— time came to a halt. Caidil's eyes rolled back in his head, and the world went dark, before bursting into a million colours.