Page 55 of In Death's Hands
“Spokesperson?” he asks, his annoyingly thick eyebrows nearly reaching his hairline. “Is that what we’re calling it these days? My, my… how the mighty have fallen.”
I grind my teeth, but to my shock, Turan intervenes.
“Liv is experiencing an incredible amount of changes and hardships right now. Adding to them might not be the best idea.”
Warmth spreads in my chest at her defending my choices.
“She is stronger than you think,” replies Thalnus.
I force my hand to soften its hold on the now empty glass, lest I shatter it. “How wouldyouknow that?”
“You forget who I am. I may have only just met her, but I sensed her emotions. I might even know her better than you do.”
The intense desire to punch him takes me by surprise. I am not a violent male, despite what my reputation says. I am the one that comes quietly to guide the souls away from their prison of flesh. His knowing smile when he feels that violence rising in me like a tidal wave drives the emotion to new highs. It is maddening. No wonder I avoid them all.
Turan catches my eyes, and her warning glare is enough to have me force a big breath into my lungs. It somewhat clears part of the anger fog, and I realise just how vulnerable my reactions to Liv make me. The issue is that they feel completely independent from me. She is pulling me into her vortex without knowing the effect she has on me. I am powerless, and I have justrevealed my biggest weakness to the people I am not sure how to trust.
“You ask for our help yet struggle to trust us,” says Thalnus.
I open my mouth only to close it, deflating in my seat. He’s right, of course. I want to scream and rage at the world. At the missing Fates. At the threads binding me to my thankless duty. For the first time since we entered the room, I look out the window and see those having fun in Thalnus’ garden. Origins and humans alike drinking, swaying, partaking in each other’s pleasure. I’ve always believed they like losing themselves in flesh and drinks to tune out the Order, to numb themselves to the pain it causes, but for the first time I wonder. And as I observe the laughs from behind thick glass, that dark, empty feeling rises once more in my chest. I know he can feel it, making me hate him a little more.
But I don’t really hate him, do I? I hate that they spend more time having fun than handling their own duties to the humans, but maybe I’ve been blind this whole time. Looking around this room, at the letters scattered on the desk, I wonder if I truly know any of them and their involvement with the Order. Glancing at Thalnus, I see the understanding in his eyes, and I’m surprised and grateful that he chooses not to mention it. I’ve been shouldering my burdens alone for centuries; maybe it’s time to open up. Maybe things are not as they seemed, and I was mistaken. Shame tightens my throat, but I power through. There is only one way to find out, I guess. Unable to speak, I nod to the man in front of me, a man I may have misjudged for too long, and leave them to their flirting.
As I close the door behind me, I swipe my palm across my face, hoping it’ll give me clarity. I can feel my shadows gathering, looking to shelter me from the turmoil they sense boiling inside me. They’ve been my only friends, my constant companions, forso many years. It seems only natural for them to take that shape. As I open my eyes, I look into the depthless gaze of one such form. Despite his undefined features, I feel his concern for me, but as I hear footsteps down the corridor, I shake my head and watch him disperse into the salty sea breeze coming through an open window.
I move before I can meet whoever is coming my way, no real destination in mind.
The house I walk through is too ornate. Although I’m sure many would say my own place is too bare. They’d be right. It’s not a home, only a place I bought in case anything ever happened to a certain human woman. She was the first to sleep in that bed. The first to bring any warmth to it. Before her, I had seldom gone there. Most often to drink a glass of rum, having got a taste for it through Cilens—a member of the Unseen Crown who likes to spend most of her time in the Caribbean. If she could see me now… I shake my head as I climb marble stairs so clean my own soul seems reflected back to me. I avert my eyes, not willing to see what has become of it. I’m sure many would be surprised at my having a soul. But humans crossing over is a sacred job. One I take seriously. It hasn’t robbed me of my own soul. I am not evil. A pang hits my chest as that thought rumbles in my head. I am not evil. It’s hard to remember sometimes. Especially in the wake of my own mistakes. How I wish I could scream that from the highest mountain peak. The highest rooftop. The highest cloud, if I could fly.
Being around Liv didn’t prevent me from attending to my own duties. I’ve sent my shadows and kept an ever-vigilant eye on things. But it allowed for a break, and not being drenched in fear and hate these past few days has been like seeing the sun for the first time after a decade-long storm. Like the first breath of fresh air after nearly drowning. Almost painful in its relief.Addictive. I don’t want to think about what will happen to me when all this is over and I have to go back to how it was before.
I shake my head, willing myself to focus on the present. We’re not out of the woods yet. There’s a brotherhood after Liv. One that has plagued us for too long. It finally feels like we’re ready to fight back, and I will not lose this momentum, even if my heart feels lighter than it ever did. I walk down a long corridor and stop at a door like all the others I’ve just passed. For some reason I know Liv is behind this one. I enter without knocking because I can hear her pacing back and forth, and I don’t want her to stay alone with her thoughts a minute longer. I know all too well how insidious and hurtful those can be.
“Hey,” I say as a greeting, since I learned humans like that. “Do—” I start, but immediately choke on my own words. She’s standing in the middle of the bright room, backlit by the warm setting sun, wearing only a shirt that’s so big it only covers one shoulder and goes down to her mid-thighs.
A roaring in my ears like no other makes me gasp and take a stumbling step backwards.Whose shirt is that?The thought barrels into me like Turan into a chocolate cake. Hungry and wild. As I focus on her wide eyes and her cheeks, which are getting rosier by the second, I force down a calming breath that only makes me drown in Atys’ scent.Hisshirt. I feel my shadows buzz beneath my skin, aching to be let loose.
With my fists shaking at my sides, I open my mouth once, twice, looking for something to say while she stands there, stuck in place but still fidgeting with her fingers. I noticed that she does that a lot. There’s always a part of her moving. The most mesmerising one is when she plays with a piece of her hair, twirling it around and around her fingers until it takes that curly shape that bounces around her face for hours afterwards.
Why do I notice these things? I’m not sure, but I can’t deny that this knowledge now takes up an uncomfortable amount of space in my head.
I realise I’ve been quiet for too long. And since I’m the one who barged in on her changing, I should be the one who speaks. It’s only fair. I open my mouth, hoping something will come out this time, except when it finally does, I wonder if a vow of silence would have been better.
“Take that off.”
Liv
Looking at the frilly red thing Atys laid out on the bed, I scoff for the tenth time and turn around to keep pacing the room he brought me to after our tense discussion with Thalnus. He told me to go take a shower while he went to find something for me to wear. When I protested, he only raised an eyebrow as he gazed up and down at me before closing the door on my obscene words. But when I looked at my reflection in the adjoining bathroom mirror, I relented on account that half the beach was still clinging to me.
The shower did me no good whatsoever. The cold water pushed the too-active voice in my head aside for a second, only for it to come back with a vengeance. When I came out of the bathroom to look for my clothes, they had mysteriously disappeared and been replaced with the most scandalous negligee I’ve ever seen in real life. I laughed and went looking for decent clothing, unashamedly searching through the drawers in the wooden dresser to pick the first shirt I found.
It’s way too big and hangs awkwardly on my frame, but it’s better than Atys’ joke. At least, I think it’s a joke. He can’t expect me to wear that. Notonlythat.
He still hasn’t returned, and as I wait to tear him a new one, I keep wearing tracks across the wooden floor, trying to outpace my thoughts. When I hear the door crack open, I whirl on myself, ready to tell Atys what I think of his sense of humour, only to be stopped in my tracks by Nathan’s vicious growl.
“Take that off.”
My eyes widen, a mirror of his, and as I take in the rest of him, the knuckles turning white and the barely leashed violence emanating from him, I take a step back.
