trigger warning: the first pov deals with mentions of self-harm. if you wish to skip this altogether, please let me know and i'll summarize for you!
Outside the windows, the sky was softly bruising. Slowly, as if by a lover's kiss, each press of wind-lips against sky-blue fading into plum orange and lilac. Laia wondered how it would feel to stand underneath a sky so loved, to be looked at with the reverence one only reserved for the good and the pure.
Laia wondered, but Laia knew; that simply wasn't meant for someone like her.
But hadn't she always been a dreamer? Even as a little girl, she had craved the peace and sanctity of a life made of dreams. She had stared up at the sky and drawn shapes out of the clouds with her little brothers. She had drawn figures in the sand with her little sister, tracing the dip and curve of their small hands, wondering what it would be that they would hold once those hands had grown big enough to reach for the sky.
Eventually, she had started to dream what her hands might do with Evîn's blessing. Excitement gleaming back at her in the mirror each time she gently traced the skin underneath and around her eyes, thanking the god for the gift he'd had given her.
Laia had been only nine when she had still dreamed of good.
Laia had been only nine when her powers came to be.
Laia had been only nine when she'd first broken her own fingers.
They ached even now, wrapped up tightly to conceal what lay hidden underneath. Erra Gahiji took her hand, and she wondered if the gods had healers. If she pressed the pain into her own skin again, would she be able to seal the wounds, to hide that which her father always told her to hide?
''Am I boring you?''
His voice was a torrent that pulled her out of her thoughts. Laia blinked, tearing her gaze away from their linked hands, meeting a gaze that was shadow and blood. It was like staring into a night sky of bleeding stars, devoid of the twinkling silver she had come to associate with it.
Shaking her head, Laia smiled, the gesture a feather across her lips. ''Not at all. I was just — lost in thought.''
Erra's gaze was on something behind her. The music swelled, and he turned her in his arms, so she was facing it. Him.
''Don't worry. Doesn't seem like he's itching to talk to anyone.''
Ward was still standing in the same spot, her metal butterfly in his battle-torn hands. He held it like it was made of glass, like it might cut him if he held it for too long. He didn't look at them.
Another spin, and he was out of her line of sight. Her gaze fell back on Erra's. ''He should. Or maybe you should. We could all be friends, don't you think?''
He scoffed. ''Hardly.''
Her smile was curious, gently probing. It was the same smile she'd had when she walked through the garden with Ward, when she had shown him the flowers that only grew around magic. Itri's Stardrops, shimmering amidst a mass of green, gently moving in a curtain of shimmer. ''Then why did you ask me to dance? Don't you want to be friends?''
His smile was crooked, the slightest pull of one corner of his mouth, edged there by something sharp. Again, ''Hardly.'' The hand on her back pressed.
Laia wanted to frown, but she didn't allow her smile to falter. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off.
''You intrigue me. And when I find things intriguing, I hunt.''
His fingers inched towards her bandages. Toyed at the white stripes, like the wind attempting to move grains of sand in a gold-duned-desert.
Laia recoiled, tugging herself out of his grasp, careful, careful, careful not to get cut on him. Her smile was a trembling thing, held up on the wings of a dying butterfly. ''Oh, I think you're mistaken. Out of all the Anunnaki here, I'm not someone to be intrigued by.''
Something flickered in his expression, the slightest twinge of a burning light. Laia wasn't sure if she could catch it before it disappeared again. His hands curled into fists by his sides, flexing and unflexing, as if he might still feel her touch. ''I'll be the judge of that.''
Around them, people still danced. Erra took another step forward. Laia's gaze flickered around, around to where she had tried to get Ward to try her favourite sweets, around to where the Anunnaki stood.
He wasn't there, so Laia took another step back. Her skin itched, as if Erra had already torn her bandages away, as if he already saw the carnage both hers and by her.
Would Jasia still love her if she saw?
''I just remembered I left something in my room. Something very important.'' Laia's hands were a mirror of her nerves, dancing in front of her, motionless and continuously in motion. ''Thank you for the dance.''
Her skirts were an ocean-wave behind her as she turned and fled the ballroom. Her mind ran through mazes as she hurried through marble corridors, her hands burning underneath her bandages, her fingers itching to creep underneath, to press and to slice and to bleed.
Wrong.
She had been so wrong to come here. She had been so wrong to think she could be good, that she could be seen as something good, that she could be something different. A fool, her father would call her.
His words were still echoing in her mind when she turned the corner to an alcove, and felt the relief of the night air on her skin when the double doors opened as if on command, and she stepped onto a balcony.
''Oh.''
The white-clothed Anunnaki turned to her, his forearms leaning on the railing. Laia's hand was on her chest, the furious pitter-patter of her heart a war drum underneath.
''I'm sorry. I can leave.''
But she didn't want to. She wondered if he wanted her to leave, and wasn't that a lonely thought to have? They were only dust particles in a sky of stars. Only humans, in a palace full of giants. She had always learned that there was a gravitational pull between the Anunnaki. Wasn't it natural, then, that she wanted to stay?
He looked at her, moonbeams casting a crown of silver around his head, and she knew he didn't want to be alone, either.
''No need. There's plenty of space for the two of us.''
Her fingers tapped against her skin, grounding her in the moment, trying to remind herself that she was safe, safe, safe. She had run, and she was safe.
''I don't think I saw you dance,'' Laia said as she stepped up beside him, carefully manoeuvring the ocean fabric of her skirt, so it didn't snag on the stones. ''Icharen, right?''
He quirked a brow at her. Had she been too forward? Too familiar again, another stranger she looked at as a friend?
''I didn't realize I was being watched.''
Laia's cheeks warmed, petals of blush pink unfurling on her skin. ''Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't — ''
Laughter sprung from his lips, its cadence short and rhythmic, filling the air around them. It almost seemed like he had to adjust to the sound, how it had suddenly escaped him. ''Has anyone ever told you you're fun to tease?''
Her voice caught in her throat, words tumbling to find footing, to find something to say. She was sure her cheeks were bleeding red by now. ''No, but it's a first for many things tonight.''
His laughter ceased as swiftly as it came. An air of mystery hung around him like a shroud. It hid him, even in the moonlight. Her silver touch seemed to make his lips move, their corners lifting. Laia wondered how genuine it was.
She wondered if she looked the same.
''The gods?''
Not a god. A hunter. But Laia had always been equipped at lying. She lied when she told Jasia not to worry. She lied when she told her siblings not to fear her. She lied when she prayed to the gods. Lieslieslieslies.
What more was another one?
Laia nodded. ''They are mythical. I'm almost afraid to come close.''
Icharen's smile was lit by amusement. ''Believe me, not everyone is afraid to do so.'' There seemed to be an undercurrent of something more underneath his words. Laia's gaze was curious when she looked at him, questioning, but he held his tongue, only smiling a mysterious close-lipped smile that could put the curve of Itri's moon to shame.
Their hands were side by side on the railing. It was something she had noticed the first time she'd seen him on the courtyard, how his gloves seemed to be his second skin. Even now, he hadn't taken them off.
She held her hand next to his.
One gloved and pristine — the hand of someone who was steady, who could turn the universe with the curl of his fingers.
One bandaged and ruined — the hand of someone who faltered, who could bring devastation with the touch of her fingers.
And the girl of ruin laughed. It had always been her only weapon against the world. She had always tried to escape and erase, Erra's fingers now a phantom touch on her arm. What could she do but smile and laugh? ''I do believe we might be the most fashionable of the Anunnaki.''
Icharen glanced down at her hand, mismatched eyes narrowing. ''If this is your idea of fashionable, then perhaps we ought to worry about the future of divinity, if it's left in our hands.''
Yes, Laia wanted to say. Yes, perhaps you do ought to worry, because I will try and I will try, but in the end, that reverence of a softly bruising sky was a fool's dream.
Her gaze had been fixated on him from the moment they entered the ballroom. Nieba could see the anticipation in the Anunnaki's eyes, their forms that of a bird ready to take flight, their wings itching to take the leap and fly to them.
And Nieba smiled, letting her skin glow with the gold of her divinity. She smiled, and she sought him out, like she had done so many years ago, like she should have done before and long after that.
Caidil's eyes were a burning cross between her shoulder blades. They marked her wherever she went. Zilar leaned against the column, arms crossed. He seemed to formulate a plan for every step the Anunnaki took. His eyes, veined with the lines of the sea, tracked their movements, pieces moving across a board, where, at the end, a scythe awaited them.
Taniyn didn't seem to concern herself with their calculations. She moved with the ease of an enchantress on the waters, an empress finding her footing with her subjects. Only briefly, did Nieba's gaze skim across her, and it was to no surprise that she found the goddess already tangled in a conversation with two Anunnaki; a pale one dressed in the darkest midnight, while his companion was swathed in the colours of marble, his dark hair a shadowed veil.
Nieba did not care for them. Not yet, at least. Not now.
When she saw him leave the ballroom, she moved to follow. Caidil stepped in front of her, his expression urgent. Exposed, and flayed open for her to see every ache that swirled underneath. She shook her head. ''Don't try to stop me, Caidil.''
There was a roughness to his voice, those thorns growing on every word. Evîn had always said Caidil was the most human of them all. Nieba wondered if he was mistaken. ''Your longing is clouding your judgment, Nieba. You are seeing him as someone he isn't.''
She moved past him, her wing brushing his shoulder. She felt the stares of the Anunnaki around them, wondering and wandering.
''Nieba, please — ''
His words died on the feather-flutter of her wings, pushed to the back of her mind, pushed to where she stored the image of Evîn underneath her blade, of Evîn who held her hand when they disguised themselves during Thule's harvest festival, of Evîn who told her the human heart was a treasure they could no longer protect, of Evîn —
''Ward.''
Her voice was an echo against the stones of the empty hallway. It looked out over the courtyard, and he stood there, searching for something she wasn't sure he wanted to find. The sprawling landscape of Limuria and its temples hidden underneath the clouds.
He looked forlorn. He looked resentful. Nieba wondered how he could be wrought of those things, how he could be both the blade and the blood that fell.
Nieba wondered, but she knew. He was of her creation.
''Will you allow me to apologise?''
He didn't look at her. ''You already have.''
And he had been the blade in response.
''You didn't let me speak. You didn't let me explain.''
Her footfalls were a silent prayer whispered on the lips of the dying. Quiet and unassuming, swift and slow. Ward's face was unmoving, not a muscle twitching on his death-mask as he kept his gaze trained forward. He didn't deign her worthy of a reaction. And oh, how badly she wanted to reach out, cradle his face in her hands and demand of him to see her. To see what she had done for him, even when he cursed her for her abandonment.
He was frayed and fraying, and she wondered how deep the cut would be if she reached out, if she sang a hymn to his lips.
Would he allow it?
''In every way that I could, I guided you. In every way that I was allowed to, I kept you safe. You're alive because — ''
His hand collided with the stone column. It broke through her words, cleaved through her speech, rendering her silent as she stared at him. His gaze finally turned to her, the script on the side of his face illuminated by the moon, distorting his features as he snarled, provoked. ''Alive?'' he spat. ''Alive and chained. You must be delusional if you believe yourself to be my saviour.''
Nieba shook her head, stepped in closer, reached again and again and again. She caught his sleeve, the touch of his hands on her wrists a vivid sensation seared into her skin. When she placed her hands on either side of his face, she expected to feel it again.
It didn't come.
Wouldn't Caidil be surprised to see the two of them so? Wouldn't he think she might be right, that the essence of her beloved was buried underneath an armour of poisoned spikes and lethal fury?
''I could be, if you let me. If you forgive me. Please, Ward, I tried — ''
His face was vivid in its anger, in its passing confusion that fell through the red-hot blaze of fury in a streak of white. He looked as if he might wrench her hands away. He looked as if he might forsake her again, as if he might leave her again, leave her without his love and devotion.
Before he could, Nieba leaned up, and pressed her mouth to his.