Cassian slowly unraveled his fingers from his hair and let his arms float back down to his sides. He couldn’t tell if he wasmore aroused or furious by his cunningness. It was amazing how easily one deity could push him to the point of insanity.
“What you are feeling is not a lie.” The mischief in Finnian’s expression rearranged and a tenderness took its place. He dipped his chin to grab ahold of Cassian’s gaze. “The side effects of the spell still linger in your blood, but it only heightens your desire. It no longer makes you lustful for anything with a pulse. How you feel, what you crave right now, is not a lie. You love me as I love you. Now, would you please just?—”
“You are going to drive me to madness.” Cassian doused his length in the oil.
Finnian barked out a laugh, flipping over onto his stomach. “Consider me your curse, then.”
22
THE LAND OF THE DEAD
Tremors rumbledfrom the Mortal Land. Sorrow seeped beneath the soil of the earth and bled into the Land of the Dead. Cassian could feel it. A twinge of despair, a cresting storm preparing to uproar.
His stomach twisted with each passing second, anticipating the call of his name through a summons.
He stood on the bridge overlooking the glittering lilac water of the River of Souls. Their wraith-like forms crawled onto the bank and took form. Nathaira greeted them with white butterflies adorning the air around her.
The Errai guided the souls on their journey to the Lavender Fields of Healing. While their personas could not match the cheeriness of Nathaira’s, their layers of silver chiffon and marble masks were far less daunting than the executioners’ attire.
Mavros appeared at Cassian’s side, the sound of his presence like water being sucked between teeth. “My lord, it is done. The executioners are on their way with Tamesis.”
A middle goddess of slaughter. Also the daughter of the High Goddess of War. They both favored Silas, the mortal, with bloodlust and a vengeance against his family for banishing him years prior.
Cassian balled his hands in his pockets as Julian Vincent stepped onto the bank. Silas’s brother, the one who longed for peace.
It appeared there was finally a victor in the War of Sons.
“Take him to the Grove of Mourning,” Cassian ordered. “His death was gruesome, and he will need time to heal.”
The situation was tiresome. Tamesis had stepped out of line and murdered the mortal that the High Goddess of Peace favored. She would be punished for interfering. Not on behalf of the mortal she’d slaughtered in a vile, repulsing way, but because if she went without punishment, the High Goddess of Peace and the deities who had sided with Julian would retaliate.
Cassian despised politics, but it was the Council’s duty to maintain the order and law of their world.
“Right away, my lord.” Mavros said, bowing his chin.
As the attendant backed away, preparing to teleport, Cassian lifted his hand to stop him. “Mavros, one more thing.”
Mavros paused and slightly angled his head towards him. “Yes?”
“Please go to Finnian and inform him that I am dealing with a matter.” Once Tamesis arrived, he would be responsible for her punishment. “I will come to him when I am able, or he may come to me, if he wishes.”
“Of course.” Mavros vanished.
In the three years they’d been together, it became a norm for Finnian to ask about Vale or the way the Land operated, but when Cassian offered to bring him to his home, the idea never sat well. Whether it was facing the reality of his father or simply being surrounded by a permanent end, it was clear that Finnian had no interest in stepping foot inside the Land of the Dead.
While Cassian respected his feelings, he longed to share it with Finnian; to show him death wasn’t as grim and hopeless as he believed it to be. That, and there was the simplicity ofhow much he missed Finnian. Two weeks in the Mortal Land had waned by since Cassian had visited, and it felt like his own personal prison sentence.
Cassian let out an exhale. The ripples of his divine energy encased around him in dark tendrils as he prepared to teleport to Moros.
The iron doorto Tamesis’s chamber swung open and Cassian strode out. Her wails echoed down the corridor as the door fell shut behind him.
Her punishment had been decided among the Council. Cassian was to do to her what she had done to Julian, and then she would suffer her sentence in isolation, under an illusion of eternal starvation.
Cassian’s performance of torture smeared specks of dried rust down the front of his waistcoat. The urgency to clean it was sharp, but he settled for pulling his handkerchief from his pocket to wipe away the blood drizzled across his cheek.
After finishing the most macabre part of his job, the scenery distorted and Cassian’s foot touched down on the stone pathway, surrounded by the sage and freshly budded rosemary of Finnian’s Grove.
He needed somewhere tranquil to come down at, for the dissociation to fade—the void that overtook him each time he was forced to inflict pain on another. Contrary to his title and reputation, he never took much pleasure in his divine power or the strength that came with it in his seasoned age.
