“I would prefer delivering my grievances to his teeth,” she muttered.
Acacius grinned a little. “Soren will have the same fate as the last god who crossed you, in the core of Tavora’s torment.”
Another long wind of silence passed.
Marina dropped her chin, the movement pulling her hair in between his fingers. “Do you recall the first time that I dueled Keirnan and lost?”
“A little.” Acacius recalled it vaguely. It was centuries ago, and while he’d recalled her fierce persona from Evander’s punishment, she was unseasoned in her power, annoyingly confident, and carried herself in a way that made it obvious she was used to fearful gazes back in Kaimana.
Keirnan had flooded her throat with his Night, suffocating her until she fainted. The duel lasted less than five minutes. Acacius had been the first to depart.
“That was a colossal hit to my pride.” Marina continued to swirl her fingers in the water. A moth landed on her knuckle. She lifted her palm and it crawled to the center of it. “I didn’t know Soren back then, but he was the one who offered his hand to me after I woke.”
Acacius frowned, his fingers pausing in her hair. “What about Viviana and Mansi?”
“Mansi was in Tenebris, hiding away from all the gods and her past, and Viviana stayed alongside her. Months later, I even introduced the false god to them. It’s how Soren and Viviana began their relationship, which only lasted a year or two. But it was fun for a while, the four of us and whatever slop Mansi brought home.” The moth trailed up her finger to the edge of her nail. “They were all present when I received my title. Afterward, we celebrated in Isolde for weeks, lost in the vices it offered, until Mira required me back home.”
The moth flew away, circling the others above.
An ache droned in Acacius’s chest at the sound of her gloom, while wrath raged in his veins, visualizing their treasured friendship and the pain she was now in because of Soren’s ruse.
If Acacius had to guess, the High God’s motive had been to infiltrate Hollow City, use Marina to fish out information, and pin the attention on Acacius while he snuck around everyone to take the child. The question, though, that ate away at him, was why Soren wanted the child in the first place.
Acacius did not have much experience with the lineage of Trickery and Mischief and their exhausting games. He assumed they were smart enough to avoid crossing deities such as he and his siblings. The fact that Soren had brought Acacius into his little ploy told him everything he needed to know about the High God. Soren thought highly of himself, of his power, and the position that he was in.
It would make it all the more sweet when they knocked the arrogant god off his pedestal.
“We won’t let that bastard get the child.” His fingers worked their way down to the end of her locks, twisting and tying the plait. “I will do everything in my power to convince the Council to punish him and keep Ash safe.”
“The meetings are not the same without your brother, are they?” She peeked over her shoulder at him. “Is it redemption that you seek with him?”
Acacius plucked a few of the roses from the nearby column. “Brotherhood is a fickle thing when you’ve walked in it for as long as Cassian and I have. My redemption is not necessary, but my truest apology is.” He frowned as he pinned the roses throughout her braid. “I want to be a better version of myself before approaching him. That, and I do not wish to disrupt his utopia in Augustus with his mate.”
“You will not bring your Ruin upon them,” she said quietly.
A desolate feeling spread in his chest.
He assessed the braid, noting the empty spaces, and plucked more roses from the vines. “I bring my Chaos with me everywhere I go. It is in my nature to disrupt the quiet.”
It was why Ruelle had used him to cast her vengeance on his brother. His involvement was what spurred the strife between Finnian and Cassius.
“Just as you once told me, Chaos is needed to maintain balance.” Marina placed her palm on his knee and gave it asmall, reassuring squeeze. “Regardless of what you think, you are nevertoomuch, Acacius.”
Warmth swelled in his chest, honeyed and spilling from the chambers of his heart. Nobody had ever told him that he was enough.
He leaned forward and kissed the top of her hair, finished with his craft. “I appreciate that, Rina.”
She gave him a small smile in response.
He dipped his hands in the water and ran them over his face, relishing in the heat against his cheeks. “And what of you and your nightrazers?”
Marina ran her fingers over the delicate blooms woven into her hair. “What of them?”
His nerves tangled in his stomach at the thought of her meeting Soren without him. He had full faith in her ability to overwhelm the High God, but Acacius’s anxiety crawled the trellis of his mind regardless.
After watching Ruelle cut her own thread, the trauma sowed a seed in him, fearful of the thought of Marina being harmed or taken from him. He needed the reassurance that if she was in danger, her nightrazers would come to her aid.
He brushed his finger over the piece of hair stuck to the side of her neck, watching crimson beads roll down her skin. “Tell me the true reason why you do not call on them.”
