Page 54 of A Haven of Brimstone and Darkness

I tug at the wrists he holds locked in his grasp. “Let go.” The request isn’t an order, but a whispered plea and after a moment, he concedes. My arms slowly lower back to my sides. My tears dry up and I take a long, unsteady breath.

“We should focus on why the book isn’t helping,” I murmur, shifting the subject, needing it to change before I shatter completely. “Caedmon is alive so it can’t be the fact that his power no longer works on it.”

“We should ask him,” Ruen suggests.

I know he’s right, but to ask him would mean we’d need to return to the prison. Returning to the prison means seeingheragain. Turning away from him, I stride back to the bed and pick up the book. With it in my hand, I hold it out to him.

“You should take it to him.” I lift my gaze to meet his. “You should be the one to ask.”

Because I can’t. I won’t see her again if I can help it. Maybe I don’t want her to starve. Maybe I don’t want her to die. But I also don’t want to face her. I don’t want to feel so fucking rejected anymore.

A beat of silence passes through the room and then, with careful steps, Ruen approaches me and gingerly takes the book from my hand. I release it too soon and he catches it before it can crash to the ground. My chest is an ugly, empty thing. Hollow and achy.

“Okay, Kiera.” Ruen brings the book closer to his chest with a nod as he straightens. “I’ll go to him.”

“Thank you.”

He turns to go, but before he reaches the door, Ruen pauses and glances back at me. I close my eyes and silently beg him not to say anything else, but of course, as is common with these damn Darkhavens, they never do anything I want.

“Even if you resent her for leaving you, Kiera,” he says softly, “you cannot run from her forever. Eventually, this war with the Gods will be over. She will either be dead or freed. Running from her won’t heal you. If you don’t face your problems with her then they will always drag you down. Take it from someone who knows a lot about scars—inside and out. The more they go untreated, the more they fester. Cut off that part of your heart for too long and it will decay. You’ll look back one day and see that you’re dead inside.”

With that final statement, he opens the door and leaves. The smile that comes to my mouth is anything but amused. It’s atwisted thing that forces my whole body to collapse onto the edge of my bed as my hands lift back to my face and more tears cascade down my cheeks.

Why doesn’t he see? I’m already dead inside.

Chapter 27

Ruen

People lie. It’s a fact of life I’ve come to understand implicitly well. And if people lie, then so, too, do Gods. They are—by Caedmon’s own admission—after all, just people. Different people. People with power and strength beyond the ancestors of this world, but people nonetheless.

Kiera’s lies, however, only serve to make my chest ache. Whether she realizes it or not, keeping her emotions wrapped inside is a lie. A lie to herself that will slowly but surely erode her from the inside out. I should know, after all, I have the scars from my own attempts to do the same.

As darkness falls, I slip from the dorm residential halls down below. Through the great hall, I follow the pathway that Kiera and her spider’s mental map had taken me several days prior. When I reach the wall behind which the stairwell to the lower prison resides, I’m struck anew by how well-hidden it is.

The light guiding my steps flickers as if my power has waned since the last time I came down here. I pause at a point on the stairs as it goes out entirely. Sweat coats my nape and it takes several long moments of concentration for me to get the illusionary flame to return. It’s dimmer, but this time, it doesn’tgo out as I descend the rest of the way and head down the lower corridors.

As my footsteps near the cells that house both Caedmon and Kiera’s mother, the sounds of their movements echo towards me. I stop in front of them and bring the satchel I’d carried with me around and lower it to the ground.

“Ruen.” Caedmon approaches the bars of his cell. He looks healthier than before. Still gaunt, of course, the small tidbits of food and supplies that Kalix had delivered via his serpents couldn’t truly erase the look of imprisonment, but his eyes are brighter, far more alive.

“I’ve brought more food,” I tell him, scanning the ground of their cells. “The snakes brought you some before, yes?”

“It’s hidden.” This comes from the woman, Ariadne, as she too approaches the front of her own cell, hands coming out to grasp at the bars. The rattle of chains draws my attention to her ankles and wrists.

Dark links hang from the cuffs wrapped around her slender limbs, but they’re not tied together. A quick glance over at Caedmon reveals the same, though his chains blend in well with the color of his skin, making it harder to see.

I’d been so shocked at their presence the last time I’d come here that I hadn’t even really noticed that they weren’t just locked behind brimstone bars, but that they have cuffs and chains made of the same material to weigh them down. I should have thought to bring something else—perhaps a tool of some sort that could free them from their shackles.

I withdraw several packages of the stale bread that Kalix’s serpents had procured from the dining hall after hours. Splitting the bundles in half, I hand one to Caedmon and then the other to Ariadne before going back for the canisters of water.

The two imprisoned Gods take the gifts with gratitude and hide them in the back of their cells behind stones and rocksbefore coming back to the bars. I don’t miss the way Ariadne’s eyes scan the area around me and then try to peer down the corridor as if looking for her daughter, but even if I did, there’s no failing to notice her words.

“Where is my daughter?” she asks, eyes the same color as Kiera’s landing on me. Unlike Kiera’s though, they’re somehow more vibrant, crackling with untapped energy.

I remove the book from the satchel and hold it at my side. “She’s not coming.”

Ariadne keeps her body from revealing her reaction. Her face doesn’t change or twitch in disappointment, though I know she is. Above my head, the illusion of my light flickers again and I know I need to hurry this along.

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