Perception was clearly a strong suit of the young god.
“I was merely curious.” Cassian pushed his words out at a quicker pace, recalling Nathaira’s advice to change his mannerisms and not be sohimself. Apparently talking in smooth, slow syllables was another thing he did often. “I found the way you communicated with the woman to be intriguing. The movement with your hands.”
“Sign language,” Finnian said without looking at him.
“I’ve never witnessed it before,” Cassian lied. He knew what the language was and had seen it a few times in his years. He was well versed in all languages, as he had a variety of souls in his realms from all different backgrounds. However, he never expected a deity to know the language when they themselves had no use for it. Deafness was seen as a flaw, and deities did not have flaws—a concept Cassian believed to be the biggest lie in existence.
“Glad to be of service,” Finnian muttered. “Now, if you will, be quiet.”
One side of Cassian’s mouth tipped up as he refocused his attention on the show. It was easy to become captivated by the row of violins and how they moved their bows in synchrony. The song was full of sorrow, and the ballerinas conveyed tragedy and pain through their heavy movements, reaching towards something they couldn’t seem to grab onto, just out of reach.
“Tell me.” Finnian turned his head, granting Cassian his full attention—albeit with a blank expression.
Cassian met his look, waiting to hear what else he had to say. A desire to provoke him weighed heavily on Cassian’s tongue. To resurface the bold, defiant look Finnian had given him back in the apothecary. Or perhaps, to coax out a smile like he’d seen earlier.
“Are you a stalker, by chance?” Finnian asked.
Cassian couldn’t decide if he was genuinely asking or being his usual snide self.
But Cassian could understand why he thought such a thing. If he were being honest, he was exhibiting strange social behaviors—discreetly watching the young god at the tavern, following him to the theater, and inviting himself inside his private box. He hardly understood his own actions. Especially when he’d spent hours daydreaming of all the ways he intended to make the young god pay for their previous encounters.
“No,” Cassian said, peering back down at the stage. “I am simply lonely.”
He did not know what possessed him to say such a thing, but it was a truth he felt better confessing under the ruse of a stranger’s face. He could be whoever he wished to be in this shape-shifted form.
Finnian’s response was a single-syllable sound, refocusing on the show. It was difficult to gauge his thoughts—if Cassian unsettled him by oversharing, or if he simply did not care.
Cassian snuck a glance between him and the stage, noting the lines creasing over his forehead, the swirling look in his eyes, captivated completely.
“You are a fan of music,” Cassian said.
“Very much so.”
“Have you always been?”
“No.” Finnian paused, the muscles in his jaws ticking underneath his extended index finger along his bone. “I grew to appreciate it after it was almost taken from me.”
Cassian studied the side of his profile, roving over his sunken cheek to the polished patch of skin along his jawline before meeting his ear. A strong cast of glamor, but not invisible to a deity of Cassian’s caliber. A scar of some kind. “I am told loss grants perspective.”
Finnian snorted lightly. “Perhaps. Although, I am convinced I would’ve discovered my love for music without the additional trauma.”
Cassian subtly studied the heliotrope crystal lodged inside the young god’s ear canal. Its glint reflected under the dim lights of the box. Magic seemed to be laced in its properties. Was it some sort of device to assist with hearing?
There were only two ways a deity could sustain permanent damage—a strike from a more powerful deity, or an effect from one of Cassian’s curses.
Finnian had not stepped foot outside of Kaimana until his banishment. If he’d fought with another god, the Council would’ve heard about it. Which meant there was only one reasonable explanation. The unmerciful High Goddess who Cassian entrapped beneath the sea centuries ago had inflicted permanent damage on him. It made sense to Cassian why Mira had banished Finnian. The Council did not know of his lineage yet, and Cassian wondered if Finnian himself knew he was a High God.
“What is it about this piece you love so?” Cassian asked, slightly amplifying the volume of which he spoke, in case the young god’s right ear was impaired. His eyes swept over the glamor twinkling within Finnian’s long strands. Was the young god’s hair color truly black? Perhaps he had tampered with the texture of it to appear bone-straight.
Why do you care?
Deities using their glamor to alter or enhance their features was hardly abnormal.
A long somber second passed before Finnian replied with, “It breaks my heart.”
Something pinched in Cassian’s chest as he stared at the side of Finnian’s face. There was a dissonance in his gaze, arched by a tension on his brow. That curiosity in Cassian prodded deeper, interested in following the mixture of Finnian’s tranquility and torment to see where it led. What had his life been like until that moment? How did he learn to raise the dead? Why did he do so in the first place?
The theater erupted in applause.
