Images of Cassian, woeful and heartbroken, invaded his thoughts. After the misery he’d gone through at Finnian’s own hand, forced to watch from a distance holding their memories, their love, inside. All for the sake of their plan. It would not be for nothing. It couldn’t be. Finnian couldn’t let it end like this?—
Something tickled the tip of his index finger.
Finnian’s eyes dragged over to the right.
A peony unfolded, a rich layer of velvet petals.
Father.
His arm extended fully, planting the pad of his middle finger on the stem, and siphoning its energy into his veins.
He saw it in flashes. Time stamps stained like the pages of an old book.
Father, a young boy, buoyant and cheerful, ankle-deep in soil, caressing stems from the earth; a young god on his travels, befriending birds and deer, sprouting oaks and maples, turning barrenness into lands rich with soil for harvest, molding mountains like sculptors carved clay; a woman with long, dark hair and a broad smile, eyes alight and swimming with adorationas Father kissed her forehead and dipped down to rest his cheek against her swollen belly.
“Any day now,” she said.
His sea of happiness drenched Finnian’s chest, so vast, so consuming.
Father stood out amongst the ruin of his island, the ache bruising his heart.
He wept, the sound gut-wrenching as he held the woman in his arms. Rain pelted down from the sky, mirroring his sorrows.
She took his cheek, smearing blood across his jaw. “You will be a wonderful father, Vale.”
Her last words.
He cried against her chest, the silence of her heartbeat, of his unborn child, deafening.
The memories skipped ahead of themselves to Mira pacing the width of their bedchamber, hurt rupturing across her delicate features.
“You do not love me, Vale!” she shouted, the depth of emotion present in her tone. “Not like you loved her!”
Father whipped around, expression enraged. “You stole her from me!”
“I did not know the island was occupied by mortals!”
Father’s eyes filled with tears. He turned away from her, shaking his head. “I apologize, Mira, but I cannot love you the way you long for me to. Not when you are the reason I?—”
“You are separated from yourtruebeloved.”
Father looked back at her then, taking in the thin set of her lips, the droplets falling from her porcelain eyes.
“Yes,” he said.
The memory evaporated. A brilliant white shined. Behind it, Finnian could hear the wailing of a child.
“Naia,” his father said, a smile in his voice. “Your name is Naia, darling.”
Naia’s childhood stretched out before him. The birth of each of his siblings. Father growing magnolias and gifting them to a young Marina; twirling a young Astrid on the dance floor; teaching a bright-eyed Vex how to skip stones without angering Ziven, a river god who resided in the River of Souls; sitting on a large stone with Malik at his side, pointing out butterflies.
And then: Finnian in his sixth year, cradling a fish Malik had killed. The gills on the side of its slimy, silver scales open and frozen in place.
Finnian looked up through fat tears at his father. “You must return it to life.”
“Finny, my boy.” Father kneeled and cupped his hands underneath Finnian’s, helping hold the fish. “That is not something I can do.”
Finnian scowled through his tears in disbelief. “You are the High God of Nature. There is nothing you cannot do! Bring it back. It did not deserve to meet its end at Malik’s cruel blade. What if it has a family? Someone who misses it?”
