Page 11 of Kissed By the Gods
“The longer I’m here—the longer you’re here—the more likely your brothers die,” Ryot says, his voice calm, too calm, like he’s discussing the weather over biscuits and not threatening everything I have left in the world. “The quicker you surrender, the less likely anyone gets hurt.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. My knees threaten to buckle, and it takes everything in me to stay upright rather than launch myself forward and make the kind of mistake I probably won’t survive. The kind my brothers definitely won’t survive.
“I should’ve killed you,” I manage, barely recognizing my own voice.
“Yes,” he agrees. The sight of his dagger at Seb’s throat is more than I can handle.
“I’ll go with you,” I say. “I won’t fight back, if you swear Seb and Leo will be safe.”
“Don’t do it, Leina,” Seb whispers, his determined eyes meeting mine. He tries to shake his head, but the tip of that dagger is too close and that little movement pricks his skin. A single drop of blood runs down Seb’s throat. A warning.
“I can’t swear they’ll be safe, but I swear they’ll be safe from me,” Ryot answers.
“That’s not good enough,” I snap. “Swear they’ll be safe from other Altor. That you won’t aid in their capture. That you won’t tell anyone where you found us.”
I’m not sure how much negotiating power I have, really, but Ryot seems to consider my request anyway. He doesn’t answer immediately. His gaze shifts—not to me, but to Leo, still curledin the blankets in the little wagon. His eyes land on the quilt I wrapped around my youngest brother, the one embroidered with the winged silhouette of a faravar stitched in fading blacks and golds. He tilts his head slightly, studying it.
“I will not aid in their capture in any way,” he says. “That is the truest vow I can offer.”
I whip my gaze to Seb, needing to verify the veracity of Ryot’s vow. My brother’s eyes meet mine and he gives me the slightest nod. Ryot is speaking the truth.
The relief that blazes through me makes me lightheaded and I nearly fall to my knees. This stranger’s pledge isn’t much to leave my brothers with, but maybe it will be enough. I drop my scythe, and Ryot lowers the dagger and shoves Seb forward, sending Seb to his knees.
“Leina,” Seb whispers, and the pain in his voice nearly breaks me.
“I’m so sorry, Seb,” I whisper back.
Ryot stoops to retrieve the scythe from the ground. His movements are careful, but there’s no mockery now. No smirk.
“You have another weapon you’ve bonded with here,” he says. “Call it.”
Bonded? I think of that flash of heat when I hold the scythe or my pruning shears. I stare up at him, dazed.
He shrugs his shoulders in exasperation, and I realize I never responded. “Call it or not—it’s up to you. But being separated from a bonded weapon, even a minor one, is painful.”
A single tear slides down my face, and a helpless laugh escapes my lips.
“You think being separated from my pruning shears will be painful? Burying my dead parents—the harmless farmers your soldiers slaughtered—is painful. Abandoning my brothers, knowing they’ll fight for their very victory. That’s painful.” And Ismile a twisted facsimile of a smile. “Losing my pruning shears? That’s nothing.”
There’s a moment of silence while he studies me before he turns to the little wagon and digs through the pile until he finds the pruning shears himself. He shoves them into his pocket before he walks back to take my good arm and march me toward the trees.
“Wait!” I cry, jerking back with what strength I have left. “I want to say goodbye. To Leo. To Seb. They’re my family! I can’t just leave them here!”
Ryot glances over his shoulder to Leo snuggled in his quilts. “Trust me, you don’t want your brothers to be part of your world. This one,” Ryot says, gesturing to the quiet forest around us, “this world right here, with the whispering trees and the soft fading light? This is as good as it gets. Leave them to it.”
His eyes find mine again, and for one sliver of a second, something is there that makes my heart skip. Regret? Warning? The cold finality in his voice makes the air feel thinner, but I don’t resist this time as he drags me forward.
Seb makes a strangled noise in his throat.
I stumble after Ryot, tears burning my eyes and sliding down my face, blurring my last glimpse of my brother as the trees rise between us and the forest swallows him whole.
Then, I’m alone with the man I should’ve killed.
“An Altor owes nothing to the life they left behind. No family. No name. No oath but the one sworn to the Eternal Wars. Loyalty to the living is a weakness; loyalty to the cause is survival.”
The Annals of the Winged, a canon text in the Synod Reckoning Hall
