No blade had ever pierced our skin before.
How could I have known that when I pressed the tip against my fellow god, his flesh would yield so easily?
Breaths were held, complexions blanched, mouths gaped, bones shuddered, bodies swayed, collective gasps and shoutssevered the shock, and yes, the awe, for never before had a god fallen.
Then, one of us dropped to his knees. Dare I say a smile tugged at his lips. He knew death had finally found a way to claim him.
Gods were immortal no more.
His noble heart didn’t resist. He reached up, gripped the blade, and drove it deeper into his chest.
Did he welcome death that much? Had we made life here so unbearable that he chose this ending over enduring us?
Or was it his way of telling me not to blame myself?
The world convulsed, the heavens groaned, and the balance was disrupted.
Those we viewed as friends saw an opportunity to become our foes, for they no longer feared the gods. One of the elves picked up the fallen sword; none of the other gods noticed, we were too stunned. During our shock, he drove the sword into another one of us, and chaos ran free.
I shake off the memory. I’m trying everything in my power to change the tides of war, but like any creature, I have come to learn we can’t control the current. We must endure and fight during the flows; in the ebbs, we must plot and search for hope, even when all feels lost.
My skin is stretched so taut it burns as the heat from the starfire in my forge rages on. It has long hardened my hands, causing the ivory skin of my palms to turn a pinkish hue.
A lover’s touch once smoothed my skin. Now everything is hard: my life, my heart, my gold-colored eyes, which have cried so much that the salt has practically turned them to calcified stone.
I flip my wrists and uncurl my fingers, letting out a slow breath. Thick black soot and oil etch so deeply into the lines of my skin, I fear they will never call me beautiful again.I’m thestitching of a war-torn blanket: threadbare, cut up, and ripped apart.
I look toward the god who’s casting a vast, impenetrable shadow along the stone wall of my forge’s corner. To Lucian, I’m still beautiful, innocent. But he’s always been attracted to dark, broken things.
Lucian has attached himself to me just as his shadows stitch themselves to every creature. This god is a friend and foe, an enemy and lover. He’s the mirror that reflects all angles—the things we love and parts of us we lust to change.
“This war will kill us all,” I mutter to myself, yet Lucian, a god attuned to the faintest whispers, hears me. That man can hear the whispers of the northern winds, even when others can’t feel them.
Lucian leans against a mountain of star rocks. The large pieces fell from the heavens, and they made the hottest fire.He resembles these stones—all muscle, hardness, and heat. His body has set me on fire many nights; I call upon those memories. I hope one day, my body will warm for him again.
His hair is as dark as the vast sky, but his skin is as pale as the untouched ice of the Crystal Mountains. He bears the hands of a killer, yet the mouth of a savior. His eyes are always plotting, but his smirk is the quill that pens the first strokes of peace.
But what is peace but a dance of seduction, anyway?
His heart is a soulless depth none have dared venture to chart.
Yet I have.
I have mapped out his peaks and valleys, discovered the monsters that lurk in his shadows; one might argue I have tamed them, but I am wise enough to know no wild animal can be broken.
Love is a game of trickery.
Some call Lucian’s mind shallow. But they forget that even shallow waters can steal souls. Depths indeed hide many secrets, but shallow lands are the most treacherous; there is nowhere to hide from Lucian’s mind, no escape once he sets his sights on you.
My head hangs, and a bead of sweat leaps off my cheek and dives into the sandy ground of my forge. I watch, mesmerized, as that tiny droplet sits on top of the small grains of sand, rejected from being absorbed.
My world has refused me for what I have done.
I raise my foot and step on the bead of moisture, forcing it to merge with the ground. I will fix this!
Lucian tips his chin up, ever the observer. His hands are caked with dried blood, making his skin tone indistinguishable. Bloodstains mar even the paleness of his prominent cheekbones. He wears the grime like the finest of silk, tailor-made for him.
He hates his beauty, which is why he’s content with filth covering him. It keeps others at bay.
