“She was strong enough to leave soon after, but she wanted to know more about the city, so I brought her anywhere she asked, showed her how Aszath Koth functioned, the markets and the taverns, took her to the Sanctum a couple of times, and there was this one day we had a picnic in the ruins, and that was the first time we,”—he coughed and quickly changed the subject, thank the basest beasts—“I introduced her to The Brotherhood too. She wasn’t too keen on them, but with the rest of it? She told me she’d fallen in love with the place, and consequently me, and didn’t want to leave.”
“So, she just never went back home? And you didn’t use arcana to make her stay?”
“Oh, no, she returned to Eiren. Once. About six moons after she arrived, she decided to make the trek back. I was terrified, but she was determined to go to the crown in Eirengaard and explain that Aszath Koth should be left alone, that there was nothing to fear from us. I didn’t think they would listen, but she thought she could convince them. That was the warrior in her, and to be fair, your mother wasverygood at convincing people of things. I couldn’t leave the city unprotected, so for nearly a moon, I waited. Diana did come back, but as I expected, they didn’t believe her, and her temple tried to imprison her—that same damned temple you’re so close to now—but she was stronger, and she fled back to Aszath Koth. At least, that is what she told me. After that, she put her whole heart and her divine powers into protecting the city.”
“The orb, with the dove.”
“The one in the throne room, yes. Diana crafted that for Aszath Koth to keep those who would do harm out. The arcana in that thing, I can’t even understand it, but she said it contained a piece of her heart. It was a wedding gift.”
Damien sucked in a sharp breath at his father’s admittance that they were married.
Amma turned around swiftly at the sound he made, eyes wide. “Are you all right?”
Damien shook his head, but then quickly corrected to nodding and tapped one of his ears.
She bit down hard on her lip, eyes darting to the stone in his hand, then slowly turned back around.
When Damien refocused on the shard, there was a haziness that worked its way over Zagadoth’s eye and then cleared. Tears, he thought, but for only a moment, feeling the arcana fizzle and then pulse under his fingers. “Damn it, this doesn’t have much more time. Okay, jump ahead—you always told me my mother left, that the two of you just had a deal, and she changed her mind, but you’re telling me now that she wanted to be there, so what happened?”
“Well, we had a…a slight disagreement.”
“About?”
Zagadoth hesitated so long that Damien nearly shouted at him to get on with it, but then the demon sighed. “Birzuma.”
“Donottell me you were disloyal to my mother with Xander’s.” His stomach knotted right up.
“No! Nothing like that. Birzuma and I hated each other, and it wasn’t the sexy kind of hate that Diana and I had going on atfirst—the kind that makes you so frustrated you just want to—”
“Trust me, you don’t need to explain it, and I don’t want to hear that.”
“Right, well, your mother and I were trying to decide if we should have another baby. I said you needed a playmate, someone else like you, and she pointed out you had Xander to grow up with. At the time we’d allowed Birzuma back into Aszath Koth because she had her own little blood mage and wanted to keep him safe which was really an appeal to Diana’s heart, so it won out. But I still said to your mother,Xander’s a little shit, Diana, because even at six years old he absolutely was, and she said,I know, Zag, but he just needs someone to love him. She was like that, you know? Very human. Anyway, we ended up in a ridiculous argument that had nothing to do with what we were originally discussing, and it was right before bed which was an even bigger mistake—don’t ever let the person you love go to bed angry because if you do, you’ll end up wandering the desolate plains outside of Aszath Koth all night and then return the next morning to your entire family missing. Your mother was gone, and she’d taken youandXander with her.”
Damien stood there, mouth agog until the crystal shard hazed again and snapped him out of it. “You really think one argument like that made her want to leave?”
Zagadoth clicked his tongue. “No, I think it was an…an excuse? I’m not sure how to explain it, but when I stormed Eirengaard to get you back and beg her to return with me, she was a completely different person, as if the years we had spent together were all a ruse. We met on the battlefield, and I couldn’t hurt her, Damien, no matter how she insisted I was evil and had to be banished. Archibald was there too, and by the time I ended up in this crystal, I realized she had been a plant all along. She was left behind on purpose to play some game with me, to beguile and trick me. I had fallen in love with her, I had learnedthat Icouldlove, but she had only been toiling under the order of that goddess and the crown all along to bring about Aszath Koth’s downfall. My downfall. And worse than all of that, she took you from me.”
Damien remembered the feeling he’d had, a brief but strong one, when he thought Delphine had his child. Without even meeting the spawn, his instinct was to take it and run from a being he considered evil—perhaps the same instinct his mother had.
“But, Damien, I need you to know, I cannot help but love your mother to this day—at least I love the woman she pretended to be—and I am weak to her still because she gave me you. I don’t regret it, not any of it. I mean, Idoregret getting trapped in this crystal, but that was my fuck up. I would never have gotten you back if it weren’t for Birzuma and The Brotherhood, but I’m forever thankful to the darkness that I did.”
Damien ran a hand through his hair, blowing out a breath and staring hard at the ground. There was so much earnestness in his father’s voice, yet it felt as though something had to be missing, like his father was only recalling the fluffiest bits of his memories, and they simply didn’t amount to the outcome that was his mother leaving. “You kept this from me to protect me?”
The crystal shard blinked. “I couldn’t have you going after her—doing just what you’re doing now—not with me trapped in here and no way to get you if, darkness forbid, something were to happen to you.”
“You just said you still love her. You think she would hurt me?” Zagadoth was quiet for another long moment, and the crystal’s arcana pulsed and sizzled. “Father, please, tell me.”
“No, I…I think she took you with her because she wanted to keep you. Diana wasn’t devoid of love herself. The way she felt for you—that was the one thing I never questioned. But I wasafraid if she kept you, she would turn you against me, and I couldn’t have that.”
There—there was that anger, the feeling he’d bitten back. “You couldn’t let me make my own choice?”
“You were so young,” he said, and then his voice went muffled.
“I’m an adult now,” Damien retorted loudly, “and I have been for some time.”
“…know, but…”
Damien pinched the bridge of his nose, listening to the excuse that he couldn’t even understand as the arcana seeped out of the shard.
