Page 10 of Conflicted Fate
“The least you can do is tell mewhynot,” I said, putting some steel into my voice.
“Because I don’t deserve it,” he replied, closing his eyes.
“Kiel …”
“That washer,” he said, cutting me off. “That was the goddess herself. The one who I helped bind and more. This armageddon hanging over our heads? That’s on me. I see it all now.”
So did I. Kielhadaccepted my answers. Until he’d come face to face with the source of his guilt. Of the person, if a goddess could be called such, that he’d wronged.
“You’re righting those wrongs,” I said. “You’ve been fighting for centuries to do that. She can see that, Kiel.”
“I know,” he whispered. “But that figure down there, the state she’s in, ismy fault. How can I let myself enjoy life when she’s like that? How can I possibly let myself come to care for someone else, to let myself—”
He broke off midsentence. Had he been about to say what I thought he was? Was it possible? I bit my lip, thrown for a loop by his near admission. Could it be that hedidfeel that way about me but was just so unwilling to admit it because of his own guilt that he felt he wasn’t allowed to find happiness? That would be a very Kiel thing.
“Kiel—” I began.
“My name is Callistus,” he growled, cutting me off, something that was beginning to irk me. He said it as if it were a statement, as if he could somehow convince me to think ill of him by force.
“Is that what you want?” I snapped, shoving him with both hands, hard.
He staggered back a step, the physical confrontation unexpected.
“Do you want me to hate you? Is there nothing more you want than to wallow in your own grief and pity about something that happened centuries ago? Something you’ve been fighting for all of those years to undo?” I stepped forward, challenging him. “Well, is it? Hmm?”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes, still staring out across the empty wasteland. “Maybe,” he said softly at last. “Maybe when it’s all over, we can revisit this. Revisit …us.”
“So, that’s it?” I asked stonily, crossing my arms over my chest. “You’re just ending it?”
“Did it ever really begin?” he countered, a sliver of anger making it through his walls.
But anger at whom? Was it directed at me for continually pushing, for not giving up and walking away? Or at himself for being so unwilling and unable to forgive himself?
He continued without stopping, pushing me back a step without actually touching me or even moving. “We never went on dates. I never courted you. We just …”
“Had an attraction,” I finished for him. “We were pulled to one another. Wearepulled to one another, dammit. Just because you’re trying to deny it doesn’t mean you don’t feel it either. Right here!”
I slammed a finger into his chest over his heart. “If you didn’t, if you were empty there, then this wouldn’t be bothering you. You wouldn’t be worked up over it, wouldn’t be hurt by it all. So, don’t fucking lie to me, Kiel, because you’re really fucking bad at it, okay. I don’t know what it is that we have between us any more than you do. It scares me, too. But I’m not running from it.”
Silence passed, a full minute or more before he said anything.
“I’m not running either,” he said. “I just can’t afford to. Not now. Not when we’re so close, after all this time, to finally undoing it.”
I frowned. “That makes no sense.”
“It makesallthe sense,” he growled. “If you’re me. If you’ve lived for as long as I have and listened to the stories told about yourself. Stories that everyone now believes.”
“What are you talking about?”
He sighed. “Jada, whether or not you accept it, IamCallistus. And if we succeed,whenwe succeed, that truth will come out. People will know. There will be no more hiding under an alias, no more pretending to be someone I’m not. Those other people who will know the truth about me? They won’t be like you. They won’t be willing to give me a second chance. They won’t be able to reconcile the truth. You can’t be seen with me when that happens. I won’tallowthem to treat you the way they’ve treated me. I’m doing this toprotect youfrom them. Because they will come for me. And if they hurt you, I will never forgive myself.”
I licked my lips, trying to come up with a retort, a rebuttal,somethingto counter his point.
“It’s too ingrained,” he said softly. “Even your children’s rhymes vilify me.”
Then he began to hum a tune I never wanted to hear again in my life.
Calli-catch.
