Page 65 of A Sword of Shadow and Deceit

I blink back at him as the familiar pulse of persuasion moves over me. I ignore it. “I heard you the first time,” I say.

“Then what the fuck are you still doing here?” he demands, frowning as he realizes that his powers aren’t working.

It’s a risk, I have to admit, but I notice the mostly empty bottle turned over at the foot of his chair and hope he’s had enough by now to equate my non-response to his own abilities failing. If necessary, I’ll use my own powers of persuasion on him the same way I had Hael. A drunken Mortal God is far easier to control, after all, than a sober one.

“Cleaning,” I answer calmly.

Dangerous. This whole fucking mission has been nothing but dangerous since I stepped foot on Riviere’s Mortal Gods Academy grounds. With each passing week, I find myself more and more wrapped up in the daily lives of these Mortal Gods. Since day one I’ve had this nagging sensation in the back of my mind. The longer I’m here without an actual target to take out, the more I wonder again if this isn’t a test from Ophelia.

I thought I’d proved myself to her time and time again. From my first kill to my last one. But Ophelia is nothing if not cautious. She’s never been married and more than once swore that she trusted no one to be her partner because at the end of the day, humans and Gods alike are immoral creatures. Liars. Devious backstabbers. I guess it’s difficult to run an assassination Guild like the Underworld and still believe in people. It wouldn’t surprise me if this turned out to be another one of her trials.

Still, though, I don’t leave the Darkhaven chambers and instead begin cleaning up the space. I pile shattered wood into a spot by the fireplace and pick up discarded books, stacking them on the table near Ruen’s usual spot.

“Why do you never fucking listen to me?” Theos groans as he slumps back into his chair, his voice slurring slightly. In this entire room, the sole thing that isn’t damaged is the cabinet across the space that contains the alcohol. It hangs open, but the glasses are unbroken, and the bottles are still in their spaces save for the ones that have been drunk.

I circle Theos’ chair and stare down at him for a moment. He tips his head back, a singular lock of his pale hair falling over the side of his forehead. It makes him seem younger than I know him to be. Perhaps other Terra don’t investigate their wards, but I’m not them. I’m not a real Terra at all.

“Because I am not your friend, Master Theos. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I am here because I want to listen to your problems, especially when you fail to realize that you are not alone and everyone around you has problems, too, that they must face.”

He rears out of the seat he’s in so harshly that it sends the piece of furniture tipping back onto the floor. The loud noise of it clatters against the wood and echoes throughout the room as he advances on me. I don’t move save to tilt my chin up and meet his eyes as he comes to a dead halt mere inches from my body.

“No,” he grits out. “You are not my friend. I do not have friends. I have allies and I have enemies.”

He doesn’t have friends? Is that what he’s telling himself after Darius’ death? I meet his eyes. “And whose choice was that?” I ask.

He steps forward and I take a step back, the two of us moving in sync until I feel stone against my spine and stop with him hovering over me. Golden eyes narrow on my face, darkening at the edges. “You think it was my choice?”

Even if I can understand his hurt and pain at losing a friend, he has to know how that makes him seem to the Gods who orchestrated Darius’ death as an act of entertainment for their own sick amusement. “You act like you don’t have choices, Master Theos, when the truth is, you have plenty of them.” Far more than I was ever given.

“And the choice of my birth?” he counters. “I didn’t choose to be a fucking God’s son!” His fist drives into the wall at my back, causing a rain of dust and stone chips to fall over my face and shoulder. I don’t flinch, and after a beat, once his actions have caught up with him, his eyes widen.

“Perhaps,” I reply, “but you sure have reaped the benefits being a God’s son gives you. You relished in them.”

“Oh no.” He shakes his finger at me as he bares his teeth, forgetting the lack of reaction I’m sure he’s accustomed to receiving from other Terra. “No, you don’t get to judge me, little fucking human.” Oh, if he only knew. “I would not have relished—as you say—in the benefits of my God blood and status if I didn’t need to distract myself from the fucking pain it brings me!”

By the end of his words, he’s screaming in my face. Spittle flies from his lips as the pale flesh over his cheeks grows redder with each passing breath. He blinks as if realizing his perpetuated loss of control and after a moment, he takes a step back. When he speaks again, his voice is back to its normal tone.

“I drown it out,” he admits quietly. “With sex and drugs and liquor. I numb myself, Kiera … but don’t think that I don’t hate my own existence. Don’t think I do not crave the things humans have even if I have so much more.” He laughs, though the sound is devoid of any real amusement. “Gods are greedy creatures,” he says, “and their children are no different.”

That, I believe, is the first thing he’s ever said that I wholly agree with—myself included, though he wouldn’t know it.

Theos turns away and his head dips towards his chest before he lifts it and moves. He strides back across the room and reaches the chair lying on the floor. With a swift hand gripping the solid back of it, he lifts it into place, turns, and sinks into it once more. His head bows backward and his white hair, just a few shades lighter than mine—with far less gray in it too—parts down the center to either side of his forehead. His eyes are open but unseeing as they squint into the shadows—past me, past the walls, and perhaps even past the truth that he just confessed to me.

A beat follows the silence and then another, and when the only movement from him is the slow slide of his booted foot drifting outward, laying stretched across the floor as he collapses even deeper into the chair and whatever depression has taken hold of his mind, I decide enough is enough. With a sigh, I move across the room towards the cabinets of liquor sitting in the corner with their doors wide open.

“You’re not allowed to move unless I give you permission,” he says tiredly, as if the words are drawn out of him unconsciously rather than by any will of his own.

“Then,” I say as I find a full bottle of amber-colored rum and pull it down from the shelves, “I suggest you either give me permission or have me whipped because I have no intention of stopping.”

The sole of his boot hits the floor behind me, but I don’t hear the creaking of the chair that would tell me he’s stood up, so I keep going. I grab a glass and pull that down as well and then uncap the bottle, pouring a hefty amount inside.

“You think I won’t do it?”

“What?” I ask. “Have me whipped? No, I’m sure you would if you really wanted to.” I recap the liquor bottle when the glass is nearly tipping over with fullness and then replace it in the cabinet.

“You don’t seem that concerned about the idea,” he comments. His tone is ripe with confusion, as if he can’t quite understand my motive. To be honest, I’m losing my own reasoning too. As much as I don’t want to, I’m feeling a kinship with Theos Darkhaven. I understand the hatred that dwells within him. The fear. The anger.

I am violent. Angry. But I was not born this way. No little girl is. I learned to be these things out of necessity and the same can be said for the Darkhaven brothers.

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