“Why?” he tilted his head, his fingers twitching.
He stepped forward, his bones crunching with every movement. I moved back from him, wrinkling my nose at the sound as I scrutinized his morbid form. He was tall. Too tall. He stood four heads over me with proportions that looked stretched and unnatural.
“What are you?”
“I am… whatever you see,” he answered. “Whatever form you can fathom, daughter. That is what I am to all who dare to look.” He reached out, his lanky fingers drawing toward my face. I took another step back, my stomach pitching at the thought of him touching me. “You are so… beautiful.”
I wanted to retch at that word. The way he said it, the way it lingered in my ears like wax in the weaves of cloth, made me feel ill.
“Why do you take such pleasure in tearing apart your children? In watching us suffer?”
“Pleasure?” he echoed, the word curdling in his mouth.
“My daughter, what use is it to speak of desire to an insect, or whisper of dreams to a fish gasping on the shore? You are not acompanion to me. You are acurio, a flicker of motion in the long stillness of my eternity. This world has long since grown dull. Only in these little games do I find reason to remain awake.”
“So, we are nothing to you.”
“Nothing would have been destroyed long ago, had I wished it,” he said, voice calm yet thrumming with something vast. “Destruction is easy—the simplest indulgence of the dull and the desperate.”
He raised his hand and snapped his fingers. The sound cracked through the air like thunder splitting bone, and even the xhoth recoiled.
“But tomoldwhat exists. To shape the remnants into something new. That is art. That is the beautiful game.” His smile widened, a crescent of malice and delight. “Now… allow me to play.”
“I am through with your games,” I hissed between my teeth.
He regarded me in silence, that vast, incomprehensible gaze swallowing all meaning. The numbness crept through my mind. Gentle. Deceitful. Cradling me as a mother would a dying child and whispering lullabies to keep the fear at bay.
I smiled then, hollow and serene, the last mask of the condemned.
“You cannot have me,” I said, and the words felt like a prayer torn from ash.
I spun, rushing toward one of the xhoth. The stupid beast snarled as I ripped his spear from his hand, bracing it against the stone floor. Then I pinned the spearhead against my chest and began to lean into it when cold, wet appendages began to coil around every limb. I could even feel them knotting in my hair, snapping my head back so hard, I was certain some had been loosed from my scalp.
My whole body tumbled backward onto the stone. Even as I squirmed, I could not gain my footing. The tendrils dragged me back with little effort, placing me in the middle of the chamber, justunder the moon’s gaze. When I was released, the crumbs of my resolve began to dwindle, shriveling to ashes inside me. I recalled what Lyla said, that hope lost was worse than no hope at all. And I was quickly realizing how true that was.
The loss of Vidar and not knowing what was going to happen to Meridan and the others stabbed at me until I could not breathe. I turned onto my side, curling in on myself like a cold little child deprived a blanket, and I screamed. All of my grief and frustration and odium scraped at my throat, echoing through that chamber like there were a hundred of me, all crying out at the same time.
“What wonderful music you play.”
My eyes were slitted as I watched the tentacles slide away from me once more and burrow beneath the tattered fabric of Akareth’s cloak like they’d never existed at all.
“Let me go.”
My tone was vacant, stripped of the emotions I used to covet so dearly.
“I cannot. You are mine.”
“I’m not yours. I’ve never been yours.”
“Once said your mother. But I relieved her of that foolish thought. None can defy a god.” He paused, his head twitching slightly to one side. “Isn’t that right, Lyla?”
The textured wall to my right slowly began to warp, the colors fading into the hues of ashen skin and inky, wet hair. Lyla emerged from the wall, shedding her perfect disguise, and returned to her true form. Her naked body was long and slender, her muscles lean. Her skin stretched so taut over her that I could see every fiber of every curve. She crept forward, her face as emotionless and gaunt as ever, and lowered her head before our coldblooded father.
“Lyla,” I whispered.
Her gaze slowly wandered in my direction.
“How she screamed as I unburdened her of her mortal fears,” Akareth murmured, his voice traveling about the room as if untethered by whatever form he’d taken. “I’ve come to enjoy thesounds. You are all different but all the same in one way.” He leaned forward, his neck elongating to draw closer to me while his body remained stationary. “You all break. And that silence when you realize it.” He let out a shuddering sigh like a wave of pleasure had just rippled over him. “That is the sweetest sound there is.”
