His mouth still burned from where her lips had touched his. He wondered how this would haunt him. He could almost feel it, another chain slithering around his neck, iron fingers pressed to his throat.
I guided you —
Ward was three years old again, toddling after the glaerons of his temple.
He had no name.
He had no mother, no father, nothing except the statue of Nieba at the centre of the temple.
He had been her ward, he had stood underneath her outstretched, marble hands, veined with gold, and he had been given her protection by someone whose face he did not remember.
Was this only natural, then?
I kept you safe.
Even his name was hers.
Ward.
What part of him belonged to himself?
What part of Ward was his, wholly his, and not something wrought into a weapon? Into a vessel?
Even his powers weren't his. Anunnaki. Acolyte. Of broken blood. Collector. Dog.
Nothing.
Please, Ward
Was it right?
Was it wrong?
He hadn't been able to move.
He hadn't known what to think, what to feel, that raging hurricane inside him suddenly stilling. It had died down, and he had stood there.
What was he supposed to do?
Her lips on his had felt like a decree of sorts. The goddess, tying an invisible thread around his throat, linking her to him, him to her.
The ink on his fingers ached.
Ward was seven years old again, feeding the stray cats around her temple.
Ward was thirteen years old again, receiving his first tattoo of blessing, a prayer etched into his back until the earth reclaimed him once again.
Ward was fifteen years old again, his hands aching to scratch them off, to free himself.
Ward was seventeen years old again, watching blood coat the sands of the Pit, carmine bleeding into gold.
Ward was eighteen years old again, holding a chamomile flower against the dying lights that fell through the bars on his window.
Ward was twenty-six years old, stone touched by a divine kiss, chained forevermore.
He wasn't sure how long it had lasted, time slipping through his fingers like the sands of Caidil. He only remembered her bright, sunlit eyes as she stared at him upon pulling away, her fingers on her lips as if she could hardly believe it herself.
Everything around her faded away, her voice some far away sound, like the bells that would signal his arrival onto the Pit. The bells that signalled another body fallen.
''Ward — ''
He had to leave. Leave. Leaveleaveleaveleave —
Behind him, a drumming of heartbeats. They were spiked in panic, mingling together until they were nothing but a high-pitched screech in his ear.
Ward squeezed his eyes shut.
''Ward — ''
The walls suddenly seemed that to close in on him. They were made of sand, pillars tumbling down, drowning him, burying him, suffocating him of his breath —
''Ward, look at me.''
He didn't look at her. ''Something happened,'' he murmured, and he didn't wait for her to react. He didn't wait for her to reach out to him again, to lull him in, to wrap him up in her embrace.
He fled down the corridor, following the trail of the midnight moon casting her silver beams. They were knife-tips pointing him towards chaos and mayhem.
It had been quiet when Nieba kissed him.
That silence fell away as he looked at the gathered Anunnaki, crowding around a body.
Ward was twenty-six years old, and had seen enough blood to cover tales of war.
He'd known it would continue to haunt him upon his return to Limuria. He wondered if the fallen girl had known the same, if she'd known she'd end up torn to bloodied, silk ribbons, dead on her first night with the gods.
His lips burned. He tried not to think of it.
Cain was swaying on his feet, swaying as if he was dancing, held up by Marcus — it was Cain who had come to him in the ballroom. Cain who had thought it fitting for him to tell Ward all about the other Anunnaki, who had matched names to faces for him as he'd stood in that corner, unmoving, watching, a statue. His grunts and silences weren't enough to deter the Anunnaki, his obnoxiously glittering attire even more obnoxious up close. He only left when he saw Icharen, Icharen who had was another name in a row of Anunnaki who had seen Ward, and thought they should talk to him.
He and Laia, the two of them closest to the dead girl's body. Laia was crying, and Icharen was pale, paler than before, as pale as a sheet of white thrown over a mangled body in the Pit.
They were both bloodied, but he saw no wounds on them, no torn flesh or bleeding skin like that of the girl on the ground.
The metal butterfly felt heavy in his pocket, there where he had kept it for her, where he'd forgotten about it because Nieba had erased every thought from his mind. Someone — Daeva, was it Daeva? — crouched next to the body, unbothered by the blood that touched her slippered feet. Some of the Anunnaki were still in their ball clothes, others looked ready for bed. Everyone was tense, their bodies coiled, as if a blade might be launched at them.
''I don't suppose whoever did this will admit to it?'' Daeva asked, eyes piercing as she looked up from the body, gaze resting heavily on the two bloodied Anunnaki first.
She was eerily calm. She reminded him of the keepers of the Pit, those who stood guard by their cells, those who tossed them back in, bloodied and broken.
But when Ward looked, her hands were clean. Not a speck of blood on anyone but Icharen and Laia. They looked guilty. They looked awful.
''We found her like this.'' Icharen, tired, as if the words were being pulled from him, forced from his throat again and again. Laia only cried silently.
''Convenient,'' Daeva said, standing to her feet, wiping her hands on the fabric of her skirt.
''It's not them,'' whispered the brown-skinned girl with the wide eyes, the one who couldn't stop looking at the dead Anunnaki in their mids. Arevik. Beside her, mushroom girl, as everyone had dubbed her. Rhodys. Rhodys had her hand on Arevik's back, rubbing soothing circles. The mushrooms on her dress seemed to shrink, as if they died with her distraught emotions.
''And how can you be so certain?'' Someone else asked, the priestess who carried Nieba's symbols on her dress with a pride that made Ward nauseaus to look at. He looked away. ''Were you there when she died? Did you witness who killed her?''
Arevik hesitated, and Ward had heard enough. He barreled past the girls, past Marcus and Cain, until he reached Laia who was still there, still sitting there on the floor, sitting there as if her legs had given out.
He knew the feeling.
Holding his hand out to Laia, he said, ''Don't cry.''
His own words were a startling pull to the past. Spoken to him by someone else.
He blinked, and Laia hesitated visibly. She seemed to wait for something — wait for him to join the others in their accusations, wait for him to sharpen his claws and fangs and bite into her like the others. He reached into his pocket with his other hand, taking out the metal butterfly. Its wings were limp, but its sheen shone silver underneath the light of the smattering of stars overhead. It was a velvet sky that housed them. He thought she might want it back, the butterfly that died in her arms before the dangerous looking Anunnaki from Buyan came to dance with her.
The sight of it seemed to calm her. Slowly, her hand trembling as it moved through the air like it might be cut by the wind, Laia reached for him. Even underneath her bandages, her fingers were cold as they touched his. Ward didn't look into her eyes, had always learned not to look, but he watched her as she carefully got up. His fingers were stained red, and it reminded him of when he'd been a child, eating berries from the bushes around the temple.
''Thank you,'' Laia whispered, and Ward dropped his hands to his sides again, nodding.
What was there to say?
He didn't have to think about it, because her friend, the one who had made her the butterfly, the one called Jasia, arrived as the last Anunnaki on the scene. It was clear she'd been in bed, her hair mussed and her eyes frazzled as she looked for Laia. She was by her side in an instant, arms wrapped around Laia's trembling shoulders.
''What happened?''
Laia shook her head.
''What happened is we have a dead girl and two Anunnaki covered in her blood,'' someone drawled, his arms folded in front of his chest. His eyes were misty, and Ward knew he couldn't see the dead girl. He seemed to regard them still, regard them with a twinge of amusement, as if he'd gotten what he had come to the palace for. One of the three from Buyan. Ilari.
''Somebody killed Livia, and your friend looks quite suspicious.'' Daeva didn't seem to want to let up on her accusations. It was suspicious.
Jasia paled when she finally noticed Livia. Her fingers trembled as she squeezed Laia's shoulders, as if she was trying not to show it, making herself into a pillar for Laia to lean on. Her voice was unsteady, but she tried, ''I've always learned that whoever casts blame first is usually trying to cover their tracks.''
Another voice cut through before Daeva could retort. The girl who had sliced Icharen, whose words were edges as sharp as a knife. Erra stood by her side. ''Do you think that they would stay here, marinating in her blood, if they had truly killed her?''
The skin on the back of Ward's neck pricked. He turned, and saw them. Gathered on a small stone balcony carved out of the wall, overlooking the courtyard, them, the body. Looking down upon them.
She stood at the centre. Ward turned around again.
He ignored her burning presence, her eyes that bore into him, flaying his back open with the golden blade of her stare.
His mouth burned again.
The gods stood surrounded by stone, gold threading through bone — they watched them, impassive and unmoving.
Naenia was a little girl again, begging to be heard by a distant voice. Begging to be seen by an unseen love.
It stayed silent.
She wondered why she'd ever prayed to them.
She also wondered how everyone could be so incredibly stupid. She'd been with her mother when she'd heard the scream. She hated leaving her mother.
And she hated surprises. Almost as much as she hated herself for speaking up in Icharen's defense. Even more for the urge inside her, like the strings of a puppet wound around someone else's fingers.
She didn't want to talk to him.
She didn't want to even see him.
And yet she felt a strange sort of annoyance roiling in her gut, annoyance that some of the Anunnaki were looking at Icharen like he was a murderer. Naenia almost wanted to scoff at that. Because Icharen Va'alor was many things, liarthiefmanipulativearrogantprickliarliarliarliar, but a killer?
Naenia was certain they were wrong. Naenia had lived with killers all her life. They'd been her neighbours. She'd stolen from them, seen their faces up close, saw the bloodlust in their eyes. Taking a life changed a person.
Despite all Icharen's faults, she was certain murder was not his sin.
And perhaps she wanted to be the only one to points her words towards him, sharp and silver. Perhaps she didn't think anyone else had the right to do the same. Perhaps the sight of the red-haired girl by his side, the same girl Erra had danced with, made her act without a thought.
Naenia stepped forward, and Erra immediately reacted, a hound trained to watch her steps. His hand was on her arm, as if he might hold her in place. Her snarl was a living thing, the crawl of a bug along skin. It looked like it pierced him as she shrugged him off.
''Don't.''
Their eyes met — such bloody eyes, Naenia had always thought. She wondered if they would have suited her better than the crumbled lavender and shining silver.
''Let him rot,'' Erra said, and oh, Naenia wanted to. But no one else had the right to bury him, to ruin the striking white of his robes with ruin and damnation. That was hers, and hers alone.
She ignored Erra. He wasn't used to that, but he knew better than to try and stop her again, intimately familiar with the way her teeth could rip through skin.
Beside her friend, Laia, (Laia, her friend whispered, Laia Laia Laia), trembled still, but people were starting to take notice of the gods. Dhyana and her reverence for Nieba remained unhidden as she stared up at the winged goddess, but it was the mushroom girl who spoke up, who no longer conjured up flowers with each word she said.
Her voice was wilting, even as she kept holding Arevik who tried to look stoic. She couldn't fool Naenia. Arevik was unable to tear her eyes away from Livia's corpse now, her eyes wide as she stared at the blood that pooled around the dead girl. She was forming her own river with it.
''Help us, please,'' Rhodys whispered to the gods, and it was Caidil who first moved. Caidil, who appeared as if carried down by Ixtilaf's shadows, kneeling down next to Livia's body. His fingers touched her temples gently, the same way one might wrap their fingers around the stem of a plant, hoping it might bloom in their palm.
''There's nothing to do,'' the dead god said solemnly. Naenia wondered if he would ever cease to look tired. She wondered how a god could seem so, when she'd always thought them to be invincible. He looked like a human among them. ''She has joined the death in my domain. Her soul is no longer among us.''
It was all Arevik needed to hear to turn around and leave. And Rhodys stood there for a moment, staring at Caidil and Livia, Livia and Caidil. Her stance was that of an animal who wished to flee, too, but she stood there for a moment, extending her hand, palm up. A flower grew out of nothing, a single white lily that she placed on Livia's bleeding chest, bending down to do so.
Everyone watched. Even Laia had stopped shaking, hands streaked white-and-red on her cheeks. Even Ilari who was leaning against the wall next to Erra, Ilari who always had something to say, was silent.
Then, from above, a voice.
The other gods had yet to come down like Caidil.
''It seems,'' Ixtilaf said, his voice low, each letter the slicing of a scythe, ''the Selection has truly begun.''
Before the door to her room, Naenia turned to him.
Icharen looked at her, waiting, as he had looked at her since she'd told him to follow her to her room. Erra's glare had followed her even as the others had dispersed, urged by Itri and her words. ''Oh, it is almost dawn, don't you see? You must get some rest. It does not do to dwell around her. Leave her to us, and we'll give her a proper burial.''
The gods hadn't asked who'd done it.
And Icharen hadn't questioned her, though his footsteps had been heavy behind her, his footfalls resounding as if chains of metal were strapped to his ankles.
Even if he had questioned her, Naenia wouldn't know what to answer.
She didn't understand what she was doing.
''Close your eyes.''
Icharen raised a brow. It seemed her words had roused him from a stupor. Perhaps if she pressed a blade to his neck again, he might look more alive.
Tempting.
''Why?''
''Just close your fucking eyes.''
He sighed, but did as she said. Naenia didn't linger to look on his face, slowly opening the door to her room.
''Walk,'' she said flatly, and Icharen stood there for a moment, as if he was contemplating why he had even gone with her. He looked as if he was awaiting th tip of her blade again, this time nestled between his ribcages.
When it didn't come, he finally moved, slowly walking forward. Naenia gave him a light shove against his back, following behind him. The door fell closed. ''Keep walking.''
''I'm not sure what your intention is, but if Erra is in here waiting to jump me, I'd rather you give me the courtesy of a fair fight.''
Naenia rolled her eyes. ''No one is here.''
That was a lie. Because her mother sat there by the large window that overlooked the garden, filled with its divine plants and trees. She sat there unmoving still, the same as Naenia had left her. She didn't want Icharen to see her.
She didn't want him to see her room, either. Naenia had hated how the gods had looked into her soul once she stepped inside it. It had large windows and comfortable seat with little wheels attached to the bottom, running so smoothly she thought Zilar might have made them himself. The chairs were perfect for her mother, the windows big enough to let in the warming sunlight or the twinkling moonlight.
The colours of her room were muted and calm, as woodsy as their home in Buyan, but brighter still. The vivid colours of the paints that littered the room were an anomaly, and they had made her heart leap upon seeing them. More paints than she could have ever stolen for herself. Their quality far more luxurious than the Buyan markets could ever hope to sell. And the walls were empty, no canvas given to her, as if the gods expected her to decorate her room herself.
Naenia hated how much she'd loved the idea. She'd painted her mother's favourite flowers around the windowsill at which she sat now, so she could look at the blooming reds even when the night sky obscured her view from the garden. She'd painted a version of her mother's favourite cypress tree around the window, its branches extending towards the ceiling. Naenia didn't want her mother to feel uprooted, scared to be in a new place.
On the floor there were scattered paintbrushes and splatters, the flowers and the tree all she'd had time to paint before death claimed its first victim.
Naenia hoped her mother liked the paintings.
Atchara Kitezh didn't move or look up, even as Icharen bumped his toe against the leg of Naenia's bed, swearing under his breath. Naenia hadn't thought it necessary to warn him.
He didn't question her like she thought he would, even when she opened the door to the bathroom adjoined to her room.
It was far too big, with white marble threaded with silver, and ornate mirrors that made her remember how badly she'd wanted to change out of her clothes.
''You can open your eyes,'' Naenia said, taking a wash cloth and wetting it. The water was warm, perpetually so, as if by magic. Everything in the palace of Limuria seemed run by magic.
Icharen wasn't looking around, taking in his surroundings as she thought he would. He was looking at her, watching her movements, but stayed silent.
''I don't think I've ever experienced you this silent.''
He opened his mouth to speak, but Naenia cut him off. ''Tilt your head back.''
''Awfully demanding, are you,'' Icharen mumbled, but he tipped his chin back, exposing the white column of his neck to her, where his fingers had left traces of Livia's blood.
She saw the cut she had left, still there.
Naenia pressed the cloth to his skin, wiping the blood away.
''My hands are still functioning, in case you forgot.''
''Your hands might, but your mind doesn't. Seems to have died out there in the courtyard.''
''Well,'' he paused, eyes closed. Even like that she could tell he was trying to think of a retort, something to say. Icharen Va'alor always had something to say, except that night in the courtyard. ''My mind was occupied, as you could see.''
''Wish you were this distracted in Buyan. Could have saved me some — '' heartache ''anger.'' Her touch wasn't gentle. It was firm and rough against his skin as it moved up to the side of his face, onto his temple where the blood had crept into his hair.
Icharen didn't have a response.
And Naenia stared at him. When she'd pressed him against the wall just that morning, she hadn't truly looked at him. Her vision had been blurred by the blazing hot anger that ran through her veins, clouding all of her until all she could feel was Ixtilaf's fury.
She realized he wasn't the boy she'd known before. The boy she'd kissed and drawn over and over, who had sat there with her mother in the same room, drinking their tea.
The boy she'd tried to chase out of her dreams, a haunting apparation in fully rendered flesh.
Naenia lowered the wash cloth. Blood mingled with water. It dripped onto the marble floor. It had sunken into his skin. It wasn't his.
''Gloves.''
It felt like a test. He'd never taken them off more than a few seconds around her. She'd been fascinated, almost wanting to rip them off his hands herself. Once, when he was long gone, Naenia had stolen a pair she thought he might like. She'd thrown them into the waters as soon as she was home.
Icharen opened his eyes, and his face was all too close as he looked at her. Something compelled Naenia to move closer. Something stronger compelled her to move back, cloth still in her hand, gaze unflinching.
She looked at him, unfazed.
''You look like you want to say something.''
''You've changed,'' he said simply, as if anything about this, about them, was simple. Naenia's fingers itched to do something other than hold a damn wash cloth.
''So have you.''
The blood haunted him. It stained his hands, even as he pried his gloves off. It threatened to stain hers as she reached for him, an eyebrow lifted in question when he immediately moved back.
''Don't act all demure now, Va'alor.''
''I can do it, Kitezh,'' he said, taking the cloth from her hands, careful not to touch his bare fingers to hers. He began to clean the blood off his skin, scrubbing as if he wished to remove it entirely.
Naenia knew that feeling.
And they stayed like that, silent and yet working in tandem until Icharen's skin was no longer a bleeding red. She didn't say anything when she dropped the cloth in her bath, watching it get cleaned by invisible hands. But she was aware, vividly aware, of Icharen's presence behind her. Of his body, a few inches away. She wondered what might happen if she closed that gap between them. She wondered about the fury that lay underneath her skin, dormant and yet awake, calling to him.
Her silence and unmoving stance told him more than her words could. He'd always been able to read her silences. She thought he might have lost touch with it after all these years.
He hadn't.
''Thank you.'' Another beat of silence. His voice was an echo against the marble walls. ''You looked striking today.''
And then, he was gone. And Naenia wished she'd strangled him.