Page 63 of Distinctly Daray
“Reginald Bradley,” Death revealed.
“The fuckhead who killed human Grant?” Fate screeched.
“He is now Venerable Knight Grant Valerius, yes,” Death answered calmly. “This is his fuckhead of an ex-boyfriend who murdered him.”
“While no one here will mourn his death, we cannot go around killing humans vigilante style,” Justice stated unequivocally.
“Yes, so much better to take a man who has murdered more than his fair share of people and turn him into a rare shifter, then put him and his family on a remote island no one can see but them,” Chaos retorted.
“She did what?” Mayhem asked.
“Oh, that,” Fate said with a forced chuckle. “That was ages ago.”
“Am I the only one with no clue what goes on around our palace?” Mayhem demanded.
“Until rather recently, no one told me anything either,” Death drawled as she snapped her long skirt so it wasn’t touching the dead body of the man who’d wrapped his bare hands around Grant’s throat to choke the life out of him. Reginald had covered his tracks so well he’d faced no mortal repercussions for his actions. Until apparently Chaos had decided he’d lived long enough.
“The important thing right now is to stay focused on Chaos and her actions,” Justice said through gritted teeth.
“Will you please listen to me before you drag me to theTier’llomen?” Chaos asked.
“Yes, but do not ask us to free you,” Courage stated.
“Do not let her go,” Mayhem agreed. “I could not track her until she appeared at our house again. She is a master at confusing my ability to find her, and our bond as twins should have allowed me to locate her with ease.”
“Mayhem, you do not want to get involved in what I have uncovered,” Chaos insisted. “You may not believe me, but I killed Reginald because it was too late for him.”
“Obviously, since we are standing over his corpse,” Death drawled.
“This is going to seem crazy, but many millennia ago Folly came to me to tell me about how she wanted to spread chaos,” Mayhem’s twin confided. “Of course she would come to me for that. At first, it was fun. I would steal some weapons. Or make loud noises to awake an entire village. I led some elves to find a chest or two. I enjoyed myself, and Folly did not make these requests close together. Months or years passed between them, so it took me a while to understand what I had done.”
“What did you do?” Mayhem asked.
“I just told you,” Chaos retorted. “It was not until many years later that I used a viewing mirror to figure out why she wanted those things. I realized far too late I was stealing weapons to allow entire villages to be destroyed thanks to an invading army or a group of marauders. Or to wake a tribe or race so they would kill their aggressors.”
“The chests,” Justice commented.
Tears slid down Chaos’s cheeks, and she bowed her head. “I do not know how Folly found them. But she knew where they were. So, I did not see the danger of letting some elves dig them up. With a wave of my magic, they were led to a remote spot and had a sudden urge to find out what was buried in the ground. They were poor. I assumed it was a lark. A folly. Perhaps trunks full of gold concealed by a forgotten people so they could buy fruits and vegetables to feed themselves.”
“What was in the trunks, Chaos?” Death asked.
“The rocks the Cwylld used to murder all those warlocks,” Chaos confided as she wept. “It was not until Life resurrected Scythe Lord Masse Daray that I put the pieces together. I did not know what I had done. Or what my chaos created. I wasn’t there when they were opened. The warlocks were long dead before questions popped into my head and I searched a mirror for answers.”
Mayhem wanted to believe her sister, but having been shunned so long, she didn’t know who to trust. The only exceptions were the other goddesses in the alley. They had allowed Mayhem to get friendly with them after many millennia of being ostracized. But everyone else was a mystery to Mayhem.
Folly had help. But who those goddesses were, and how long they had aided her, was yet to be uncovered. Was Chaos telling the truth, or was she working for Folly? She was impulsive. Folly could easily ask her to do silly things, and Chaos would rush in to use her magic. Or Chaos could’ve been horribly corrupted already.
“What does that have to do with Reginald Bradley?” Justice asked.
“Rumors had abounded for years about Folly’s actions,” Chaos responded. “I had already long ago learned to blur my essence to escape her.”
“And me,” Mayhem replied.
“Oh, I did not consider that you couldn’t find me. That would explain why an age has passed since we last spoke.”
“I told you she does not think before she does something,” Mayhem said, annoyed and hurt that her idiot twin had never thought about how blurring her essence would block her fromeverygoddess.
“Focus,” Courage insisted. “Reginald, remember. The corpse at our feet.”
