“You think you can handle the truth, Isla.” Her name rolled off his tongue. “But you cannot begin to imagine the things I have had to do. Do not compare your acts of self-defense against vile men to my millennia of wandering this earth. I have caused more death with my little finger than you are capable of with your entire body.” His eyes raked over her form, and heat flared through her.
“Do you want to know what I did to those men for daring to touch you, an innocent human?” He paused, his breath on her skin causing the hair on the back of her neck to rise. “I slit their throats and left them to rot in their blood.”
They stared at each other, inches apart. His chest heaved, but Isla couldn’t seem to find any air. The way his eyes had reacted to his violent declaration made her heart pound. Perhaps a little out of fear, but also something else entirely.
“Is that enough of the truth for you?” he whispered.
She nodded slowly. Without breaking his stare, he extended an arm to her side, grazing her skin. When he pulled back, he had the cold compress in his hand and lifted it to her cheek.
“And the man who did this to you?” He nodded to her injury. “I ripped the air from his lungs and watched him choke on his own tongue and dying prayers.”
She didn’t know what kind of person it made her, what kind of dark mind she must have, for at this confession, she smiled.
The two spent the rest of the evening awkwardly shuffling around one another as they attempted to share such a small space. Isla was not used to having another pair of eyes on her at all times, to feeling a stranger’s presence bleeding into her own.
She cleared her throat, scraping against the broken log she used as a chair. “I can—I will try to leave soon. You won’t have to worry about me staying here for long.” Islahopedthis was true; she desperately wanted to get home to her family. But she was still in pain and terrified of traveling alone after all that had happened.
Rynn sat on the floor against the cave wall, barefoot and reading an old, leather-bound book. He gave her a brief look before averting his gaze back to the pages. “Stay as long as you need.”
Nottoolong, if she was lucky. His open invitation made her wonder why and how long he’d been there, how it was even possible that this mythical deity had simply been lounging around in a mountain for the gods knew how long.
“May I ask you a question?” Isla asked. He gave a lowhmm, and she took that as permission to proceed. “How are you…here?”
“You are going to have to be more specific than that.”
She rolled her eyes. “You. The infamous God of Air. You haven’t just been hiding out in this cave for centuries, have you? Where have you been all this time?”
He studied her carefully. “I never claimed that I was this ‘God of Air.’ I am no god. Far from it.”
“Alright. Thenwhatare you?”
“That is rather rude.”
She huffed and reached over to throw a pillow at him, which he stopped midair and sent floating gracefully back to the makeshift bed beside her.
“My point exactly! You’re obviously some sort of magical being who can control the air. If not a god, then a wizard. Or a mage.” She gripped the pillow next to her and straightened. “Do you even need to eat? Or…or sleep? Relieve yourself?” Her mouth snapped shut, and her eyes widened at the last question.Probably not something a woman asks a man when she first meets him.
This elicited a faint snort. “Of course. Although my body may not age, it is still a body.”
Her eyes ran over him quickly.It sure was.
When he gave no indication he would offer more, she sighed. “Look, I know we just met. And I get that you have no reason to talk to me or trust me. But if we’re going to be stuck here until I’m healed and ready to travel, we might as well…try to get to know each other. Right?” She asked hesitantly, but inside, she was burning with questions. Now that she was past the initial shock of her kidnapping and subsequent rescue, her curiosity over this larger-than-life legend consumed her.
She stared expectantly until finally, Rynn let out a long breath and set his book face-down beside him. “We are not the Primeval gods,” he started, referencing the omniscient beings believed to have created all of life. “We were created by them at the beginning of time, however, to cultivate this world and keep balance between the elements.” He looked up to meet her eyes. “Once we served our purpose, we realized your world did not need us in that way anymore. We were more of a hindrance.”
She hadn’t actually expected him to concede. His voice was calming but powerful, quiet and steady, and she found she didn’t want him to stop talking. “A hindrance? How could someone like you ever be a hindrance?” she asked. He was about to reply when she jumped in again. “And what do you mean, ‘we’?”
He smiled dryly. “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”
“It’s not every day you meet a go—sorry, being? Person? Who can control an element.”
“We are not human, per se. We have been called elementals throughout the years. There are five of us—one for each physical element. Earth, water, fire, and air. The fifth element is the Aether, who exists in all of space.”
Isla had heard of the Aether, but she had no idea it was an actualperson, an “elemental” like Rynn. She had grown up hearing the word thrown around from time to time, as if it were a forgotten deity who was no longer respected or believed in. Much like most of the long-lost gods.
“Where are the others?”
His face darkened. “Presumably, coming here. But where they are exactly, I do not know.”
