Are you thinking of the chair or of yourself?
I grunted, a response my sister was more than accustomed to receiving, before gesturing with my hand for Razia to continue.
The man straightened his loud red cloak with a huff before launching back into his explanation.
I drowned his voice until it was near an indistinguishable buzz in the back of my mind while I focused on other, much more important matters.
Like that so far, I’d been unsuccessful in locating our artifacts.
I’d snuck away on more than one occasion to retrace my steps from when I was just a fledgling god making a home in Elyria. But my brief searches had been to no avail.
Solace seemed as apathetic and unperturbed as usual, often dismissing my fears with an impatient wave of her bony hand and a barely concealed scoff. The tension between us was as thick as ever, the chord of dissent vibrating at a higher frequency with each passing day. So much so that I woke each morning with a general feeling of unease and discomfort, like I was in the wrong place.
Something was urging me to search more thoroughly for our artifacts—our last tethers to this world—and I didn’t believe for a minute that it was solely due to the emergence of the two godlings.
My father—and most likely half sister—were planning something, moving in the shadows like thieves in the night, preparing the humans to attack.
I have to find those artifacts.
They were imperative to my own plans, ones my sister was completely blind to.
“Kaos, are you listening at all? Is thereanythingrattling around that massive head of yours, or is it simply filled with air?” Solace’s voice whipped through the empty room, bouncing off the stark white walls that characterized every building in Samyr before twirling up into the rafters that reached toward the heavens.
It was as if her cutting remarks were everywhere, biting into my exposed skin and seeping deep into my mind.
I need to leave this place.
“No, sister, I am not,” I admitted, my tone hard and unforgiving. Solace’s white eyes widened and flashed with anger while her fingers bit into the wood once more.
“And why is that,brother? Is this too boring for you? Beneath your boots, perhaps?” she hissed, causing Razia to retreat a step.
Perhaps he’s not as dumb as he seems.
I shook my head at her vitriol. “You know what occupies my mind, Solace”—she scoffed at my admittance, but I spoke over it—“something far more important than whatever heinous thing you’ve done to that girl.”
“I’ve secured a weapon that will win us this war, Kaos. Or have your mortal sensibilities sidetracked you from what isreallyimportant here?”
I ground my teeth together, desperately swallowing the retort that was on the tip of my tongue.
“If they get ahold of those artifacts—” I gritted, but was rudely interrupted by Solace’s shriek.
“They WON’T! How many times must I tell you? They. Are. Safe!” She pushedfrom the white throne with such force that the chair was knocked to the ground, the clatter drowned out by her deafening voice full of malice as she gestured wildly in my direction. The air began to stir, ruffling my hair and picking Razia’s cloak up in a tailspin.
Perhaps it will wrap around his neck and strangle him, I thought.
“No onehas seen them for centuries! We haven’t felt them for three decades! They were moved and then hidden once more. They are of no concern to us!”
I watched, faking boredom even as my heart beat at a rapid tempo beneath my chest, as Razia finally wrestled his cloak away from his face, revealing wide, worried eyes and disheveled hair.
I jutted my lip out.Pity.
“KAOS!” Solace yelled, pulling my attention back. Her chest heaved with frustrated breaths, her hands clutched into tight fists as if readying to strike me.
“I disagree, sister,” I said evenly and not for the first time.
“Of course you do,” she scoffed.
“Our sister?—”
