Page 21 of The Monsters We Are

Plus, Eve was something of a pacifist by nature. To help free the Ancients would also be to indirectly help them launch an attack on her old home. In that sense, she would be an accomplice. And since she had stayed out of all previous wars, preferring to remain neutral, he had thought it would take time to convince her to help them. He’d even been braced for her to refuse point-blank to do so.

“I let you down during the first war.” Eve swallowed. “If I had stood up to Adam, if I had sided with you, perhaps I could have helped. Perhaps I would have instead simply died. In any case, by doing nothing I have always felt that I played a loose part in imprisoning you. The least I can do is assist you in righting that wrong.”

Appreciative of that, Cain dipped his chin. “You hold no blame in this, you have nothing to atone for. That said, we would be grateful for your assistance.”

He wished her words could have moved him somehow. Wished they could have punched through the wall of apathy he’d seemingly erected between them. Wished he could feelsomethingas he looked upon his own mother. But still, he struggled with that.

Noah stroked a hand down the front of his shirt. “I will help as well.”

Cain exchanged a stunned look with Seth.

Rima gaped at her brother. “Noah. I’m not siding with Adam—far from it,” she hurried to assure Cain and Seth. “But I’m also not keen on the idea of Aeon and its last inhabitants suffering for his sins.”

Noah thrust a hand through his hair. “Neither am I, but—”

“The place will be ravaged,” Rima went on. “The people there will be killed.”

“Aeon is already being ravaged—the decay is more prevalent than ever,” Noah pointed out. “And if the Ancients don’t take the war to Aeon, Adam will bring it here.Where we are.And then we could very well die. Not sure about you, but I want to live.”

Rima pressed her lips tight together.

“And you know full well that the Aeons there aren’t all goodness and light,” Noah said to her. “They follow Adam. They always will. It was why we didn’t dare ask if any wanted to leave with us. We didn’t trust that they wouldn’t report it to him.”

Wynter took her napkin from her lap and carefully set it on the table. Her eyes soft, she said to Rima, “I get it. Aeon holds the home you shared with your mother; you hate the thought of it being destroyed.”

Cain blinked, not having looked at the situation from that angle.

“I understand,” his consort went on. “I do. My mom lived there too, for a time.”

“You don’t care for Aeon, though,” Rima pointed out, her voice clipped.

“Because my mom might have spent many of her years there, but she also suffered greatly at the end,” said Wynter. “She was exiled—or, more specifically, marked for death—as I was. Completely paralyzed, she was tossed over the falls where she then drowned, powerless to help herself. So no, I don’t care for Aeon. But Idounderstand why you so hate the thought of the place meeting its end.”

Detesting the pain in his consort’s voice, Cain rested his hand on her thigh and gave it a comforting squeeze. He knew that part of her anguish came from not realizing until recently that her mother had never truly left Aeon; that her dead body had been so very close all along.

He also knew that there was some guilt mixed in with her hurt. Not only guilt at believing the lie that her mother was alive and in exile. Wynter also felt that some of the responsibility for her mother’s suffering lay with her. Because Davina Dellavale had given her life to spare that of her daughter’s; had pled guilty to bringing a ten-year-old Wynter back from the dead so that no one would know the truth.

He’d tried convincing Wynter on numerous occasions that her guilt was senseless. He’d insisted that there was no reason sheshouldn’thave bought the lies she’d been told. He’d firmly stated that the only people who had any real hand in her mother’s death were the Aeons and the keeper who personally carried out the “exile”.

But that’s the thing about someone sacrificing their life to save yours,she’d once said to him.They meant it as a gift, but it will always feel like a heavy, painful weight.

Noah swallowed. “Our mother suffered there, too.”

Rima let out a heavy exhale, her gaze dulling. “Yes. She wasn’t happy. She spent most of her years pining for Abel.”

“She spent the rest of them hating him for forbidding other men to touch her,” Noah chipped in. “She despised Adam with a blinding passion.”

Rima’s gaze went unfocused, as if she were lost in her memories. “Unable to move on and find happiness, she grew bitter and angry until there was no softness left in her. Both men killed it.”

Noah nodded. “I think she would be glad that Abel’s dead. I think she would support the Ancients in seeing Adam dead. And I don’t think she would care if Aeon fell. I think it might even bring her some peace.”

Rima’s shoulders lowered as all hostility seemed to seep from her body. “Yeah. Yeah, maybe.”

*

“Well,” began Wynter later that evening as they entered Cain’s chambers, “that was sure the height of casual dinner conversation.” She wasn’t gonna lie, she was glad the meal was over. “Something good came of it, though. Your plan to settle ruffled feathers worked with Eve and Noah.”

Cain flicked a hand to light the many candles. “I wasn’t expecting them to volunteer to help us.”

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