Page 62 of A Haven of Brimstone and Darkness

The Goddess of Knowledge takes a seat and folds hands in her lap, waiting. Carefully, I ease into the chair across from her. Another small smile graces her lips and even though she’s beautiful without a single hint of emotion on her face, when she smiles, she’s radiant.

I turn my eyes to the ocean’s window. I don’t want to think of this woman—or any of the Gods—as beautiful. It is a cruel trick of the universe for beings of such allure to be wicked and deceitful.

“It is not nor has it ever been my intention to cause you harm, Kiera,” Makeda says. “In fact, it is both mine and your otherAvia’shope that you will succeed in your mission.”

Makeda takes two mugs that had been waiting to the side and fills them with the steaming liquid from the kettle. Her movements are precise and comfortable as if she’s done this many times before rather than allowed others to serve and pour her drinks for her.

“My mission?” I narrow my gaze on her. “What mission is that?”

Makeda finishes pouring the first drink and sets the kettle back onto the candle’s fire. I watch as she takes a small cracker from one of the side plates surrounding the bigger one. I reach for one as well. I may not trust her, but if she’s willing to drink and eat this food, then surely it’s safe, and it’s been days since I had anything that didn’t taste like burned gruel or stale grain.

“To kill the God King, of course.”

My fingers loosen and the flat cake falls to the wooden tabletop, the edges breaking and creating a fan of puffy white crumbs around it. I sit there, stunned as Makeda drops two sugar cubes into the drink in front of her and stirs it with a silver spoon.

Caught like a rat in a maze, I contemplate my options. Get up and run? Act as if I have no clue what she’s talking about? Or … admit the truth?

Before I can make a decision, Makeda sets the spoon down against a plate, the clink of the sound echoing around us and making the tension in my nerves constrict.

“It’s alright,” she murmurs, her movements lax with ease as she gazes at me. “Caedmon has kept me informed of his plans for a long time, child. I know all.”

“What exactly do you consider ‘all?'” I ask.

Makeda lifts the cup of hot liquid and blows air over the surface, sending the tendrils of steam fluttering over the lip. “I know who you are, Kiera Nezerac,” she murmurs. “You are Kiera, daughter of Henric and Ariadne. You are twenty years old and at age ten, you were sold to the Underworld where you were trained as an assassin.”

My shoulders sag and I sit back in my seat. “I…” I blink rapidly. “I don’t know what to say.”

The Goddess sips her drink and grimaces before setting it down and reaching for another sugar cube. “You don’t need to say anything,” she tells me. “All you need to do is what you can. I and your otherAviawill help when we can.”

Shaking my head, I sit forward once more, placing both elbows on the edge of the table. “You keep saying that word—Avia—what does it mean? Who are you to me? How do you know my father? My mother?”

Makeda stirs the sugar cube into her drink with the spoon contemplatively, her eyes moving from my face to the forgotten cake on the table and then to the ocean window. Long after the sugar has dissolved, she continues to stir.

“Fifty years ago, I was much like your mother,” she begins. “I met someone and I knew loving him would bring me nothing but pain.” I follow her gaze, wondering if she’s seeing somethingon the other side of the window I’m not. A small fish with shimmering scales scuttles past the glass, nearly bumping into it with the force of its speed as it swims.

“I loved him anyway.” The words are a confession. “Together, he and I created a beautiful life. I tried to keep him a secret, but one caveat to my own power is that Knowledge is both my gift and my curse. I knew when someone found out my secret. Like Caedmon, I too have a Knowing—albeit a bit different to his. Mine tells me when knowledge pertaining to me has been discovered, a spell I cast on myself when I was much younger that transferred well into this world.

“Any secret I keep, when discovered, becomes a Knowing, and mine had been revealed without my authorization. I knew that if I didn’t reveal his existence before Tryphone was told then I would be imprisoned or put to death myself. Arthur and I made a decision together. He would take responsibility for the existence of our son. He would admit to having lied to me and claiming that Henric had died, and then raising him outside of the Academies without my knowledge.”

The more she talks, the faster she stirs, but at the last part, she ceases moving altogether. Her hand drops away from the cup and it sits there, untouched, for several long moments.

“Arthur was killed when Henric was three years old,” Makeda says. Her gaze is still locked on the ocean window, but this time, I know she’s seeing something utterly different. A past that I have no part in. “He was too young to truly know the man that helped bring him to life, but every day that he grew in the Academy, I watched as he resembled him more and more.”

“Henric was your son.”

She nods. “He was everything that I had left of Arthur and he was who Arthur sacrificed his life for.” Her eyes gloss over with a wet sheen of tears. “I anticipated that he would resent me, that he would hate me for his father’s death, but when I came to himat his graduation from the Academy and told him who I was, all he did was thank me.” A single tear falls, cascading down the rounded curve of her cheek. She doesn’t attempt to wipe it away, instead, simply letting it take its course.

“He thanked me for bringing him into this world because he said he had found someone as well.” Makeda laughs hollowly. “A teacher at the Academy, in fact. A Goddess.”

A teacher at the Academy. The image of Caedmon’s office comes to mind. The great window behind his desk with the woman of silver hair and black shadows. That had been her office, I realize, back when she’d taught there.

Eyes that are a swirling mixture of soil and sunlight clouded with the pain of loss meet mine. When I respond, it’s in a careful whisper. “I’m only twenty,” I say, throat tight. “If he graduated, he would’ve been my age. Mortal Gods have been required to take the contraceptive herb for thirty years.”

Makeda nods. “Yes, that’s true and it works,” she agrees with a brief pause before saying, “when it comes to other Mortal Gods and mortals.”

I close my eyes. Ariadne wasn’t a Mortal or Mortal God.

“They were together for ten years in secret before you were conceived,” Makeda admits. “I suspect Ariadne actually fought him for the first few years. He was sent to work in various households, my son. He was a strong warrior with a fearsome power.”

---