Page 44 of The Blood of Gods and Monsters

“Do Gods have friends?” I ask. “Or allies?”

“Why can’t it be both?”

I want to deny him either but I can’t. “What would you consider Ophelia then? A friend or an ally?”

Caedmon hesitates a moment and when I glance at his face, it’s to see the skin between his thick perfect brows pinched. “Ophelia is…”

He doesn’t need to answer, I think I get it now. I hold the pawn up between us. “She’s a pawn,” I say, answering for him. I look down at the chessboard with more interest now. Pawns. Rooks. Bishops. Knights.

I set the pawn down and gesture to him. “Your move.”

Just like that, the game restarts. Caedmon moves his pieces and I move mine. Despite what he said about Tryphone wanting a different tutor for me, to Caedmon, this game is his version of tutoring, I realize. I’m not entirely sure what lesson he means to teach me. The Gods and their manipulations. I wonder if there’s some spell that’s been cast over them that forces them to do everything in their strange roundabout ways. It would definitely save everyone time and energy if they could simply do away with all of the social cloaking.

Even the Academy is a game. The grounds are the board. The students are pieces, separated into hierarchies. The only difference between the game in front of me and the one we’re playing in real life is the fact that these pieces have no emotions and no autonomy of their own.

If I lose a pawn, I lose a pawn. Not the game.

In life, though, losing a pawn means losing a person. Each loss chips away at you until all that’s left is the husk of the player.

Caedmon and I play in near silence for a long time. The only sound is that of our breathing and the soft whoosh of an invisible wind that flutters at the plants surrounding us. That rich, enticing scent of the blooms seems to sink into my skin, into my very bones.

Finally, when it’s down to just a few pieces on either side of the board—Kings, Queens, a knight, two rooks, and a pawn—Caedmon looks up at me again.

“You play the game well.”

I’ve been playing a game since the night my father died. A game of survival.

“I’m trying to learn your lesson,” I tell him before lifting my eyes to meet his. “How am I doing?”

He sighs at that. “I’m not entirely sure yet,” he admits before sweeping his hand over the pieces on the board. “You’re an offensive player and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I think you play by your emotions. You’re angry right now and anger makes you quick to decisions that you might otherwise take more time to consider.”

Angry? He thinks I’m angry? Am I? I briefly consider his words. Yes, I suppose I am angry, but I’ve been this way for so long that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be anything but enraged.

I pick up his King and turn it over in my palm. “Whatever it is that Tryphone has done, he couldn’t have done it alone, could he?”

Eyes the color of burnt umber bore into me. For several long seconds, he doesn’t answer. I start to think he won’t, but then he does. “No,” he admits. “There are Gods that know, Gods that—though they disagree with the cruelty of the taboo—have been complicit because of the benefits.”

Benefits? So, it has something to do with giving the Gods what they want. I consider his words, trying to puzzle together everything he’s giving me. There are holes, but the image is becoming clearer. Immortality. Power. Oppression. I need more information. I tighten my hold on the porcelain King in my hand.

“One man cannot control a population just like one can’t turn the tide of a battle. It must be more. You say you wish to stop what’s been happening, but how long did it take you to decide to take action?” Did it start with me? Or before? Has he already failed once? Am I just to be another dead pawn in his effort to right the wrongs that he and his brethren have committed?

Caedmon is silent at my question, but I’m far from done. I set the King back into its place, harder than necessary, and the sound it makes is a giant clack in the near quiet of the greenhouse.

“How many pawns have you killed to get here, Caedmon?”

The abrupt inhalation tells me I was right to ask. I close my eyes, unwilling to look at his face as he answers. I don’t want to see what I know will be guilt or shame. It doesn’t matter if that’s how he feels now. When you take a life, you make that decision yourself. You accept whatever the consequences may be. Guilt or shame cannot bring back the dead or erase the past. I know this better than most. The world is a merciless place, and sometimes to survive, you must be just as ruthless as the monsters you fight.

“I don’t pretend to know how you feel, Kiera,” Caedmon begins and it doesn’t escape my notice that he refuses to answer my last question. “But I did not bring you here—to the Academy—because I do not see a future. You are the future for your generation.”

Fuck. Him. I want to scream in his face, punch him, rail against the unfairness that surrounds not just me but every unfortunate soul born into this world less powerful than a God. “No, I’m not,” I tell him. “I’m nothing but a pawn in your game.” The words cut through me and then through the air, but once they’re out, I refuse to take them back. They’re true after all.

I thought I’d learned well enough already that there is no one I can truly rely on but myself. Regis went to Ophelia and Ophelia already knew things—for ten. Fucking. Years. She knew. Still, she never told me the truth. Is there anyone in this Gods forsaken world who is on my side? Who prioritizes me above all others? The desire for something so ridiculous as loyalty is pathetic, and yet, I want it still.

“If you are anything at all, Kiera, you are a key, not a pawn. But if you were, I’d like for you to remember this … at the end of the game, both the pawn and the queen end up in the same box.” As if to punctuate that fact, he lifts one of the pieces on the board and ironically, it’s the only remaining pawn. The porcelain shell of it glints under the pseudo-light shining through the murky glass.

I have nothing to say to that. There’s nothing I can say. He’s right, but we’re also speaking in hypotheticals and hyperboles. Not reality. The reality is this:

The Gods are liars, and if I don’t find some way to resign myself to whatever prophecy Caedmon is trying to force to fruition then it’s not just my life in danger.

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