They ascended the steps to the arched doorway of the vault.
“You were careless,” Cassian continued to chide.
Finnian scoffed out a clipped breath, his expression arranged in an annoyed manner. “Why are you here?”
His indifferent attitude towards the situation infuriated Cassian. Did he not understand the severity? Had he not shown up, what would have happened?
“You aremineto chase, to fight with,” Cassian snapped. “Nobody else’s.”
A spiteful smile broke apart his lips, flashing his teeth. “Who knew the High God of Death and Curses to be so possessive?”
Cassian’s cheeks kindled. “Stop talking. You are hurt.” He swept his eyes over his left arm, not yet fully regrown, dripping blood over the fallen leaves.
Finnian rolled his eyes, not at all fazed by the physical pain. “I am healing. I am fine.”
Cassian lifted his hand to tend to the wound of his arm, desperate to staunch it, to halt the bleeding.
Finnian recoiled, his magic pulsing in waves and raising the hair on Cassian’s nape.
Cassian’s hand stopped midair, studying the flash of fear dilating in his pupils. “After all of that, you still have some fight left in you.” He dropped his arm, taking in the rough edges of the young god’s features, and grinned. “Impressive, Little Nightmare.”
At the use of the nickname, Finnian’s nostrils flared. “You swoop in to fight away the predators threatening your prey. Do not take me for a fool. I have no intention of being cursed by you today. That is why you are here, correct?”
It was a question Cassian did not wish to confront yet. “I was simply trying to staunch the bleeding. If you do not wish for me to touch you, then regenerate your wound faster!”
“After Malik cut my arms off for the eighth time, the task became exhausting.”
“Why didn’t you teleport away?”
“Only someone superior to death would think so frivolously,” Finnian said with contempt. “I do not abandon those I care about. Eleanor and Isla were in danger. My sudden move would have resulted in the triplets killing them without hesitation.”
His sense of loyalty truly dumbfounded Cassian, given the dark sorcery he practiced. “If they died, you could have performed your necromancy on them.”
“I do notenjoyturning things into ghouls!” Finnian came closer, voice raising.
“Then simplystopturning things into ghouls!” Cassian shouted back.
Finnian leveled him with an obstinate glare. “Are you going to return my father?”
Exhaustion pulled Cassian’s hands up into his hair. He inhaled a sharp breath, squeezing his strands at the roots. “Do you think I wanted to curse my best friend?” He slapped a handon his own chest. “Your father committed a crime that not even I could save him from. The Council demanded him to be locked away in Moros, but I could not stomach such a twisted fate for a god as goodas Vale. You have my apology. I wish I could have done things differently. Please believe me when I tell you that.”
A beat of silence passed as Finnian searched his face. Cassian couldn’t tell what he was thinking, if he believed his apology to be genuine.
“Give him back then,” Finnian said, tone solemn and gratingly stubborn.
Cassian dropped his arms, feeling more haggard than he had in decades. “There are rules even I cannot break.”
Something wicked flashed in Finnian’s gaze, a recognition or dawning of some kind. He cocked his head, the movement stirring an uneasiness in Cassian as he leaned in. “You follow me, you threaten me, try to curse me, and you save me. You exude a power of the Highest of High Gods, and yet here we are, standing mere inches from one another. You could curse me, you could drag me back to your prison and make me suffer for the crime I have committed amongst Death and your precious souls. Yet, you do not. Something hinders you from doing so.”
Cassian turned away with the need to flee. He’d intervened, and now Finnian was safe. He had no other reason to be there.
Finnian caught him by the crisp collar of his waistcoat and shoved him against the wall of the vault.
Cassian’s feet fumbled underneath him, too stunned by Finnian’s sudden touch to consider fighting him off.
Finnian bound his forearm across Cassian’s sternum, clenching the material of his collar. “Your indecisiveness is maddening.”
An intense energy sparked in the air between them, and Cassian suddenly became aware of the breath they shared. This close, Finnian’s eyes were green like the moss Vale grew alongthe stones of Moros.I wish to decorate a place so dreary, he’d said the first time Cassian brought it up.
