He made no effort to greet her at the edge of the mainland, and Marina made no effort to look up at him as she teleported from island to island, traveling over pieces of the bridge that were once connected.
He shifted his stance, annoyed that none of the flying boulders managed to take her out.
She materialized on the edge of the fortress grounds, and the wind beating against her calmed. Her hair drifted back down over her shoulders, its dark ends meeting her waist.
Acacius’s gaze slid down the deep cut of her neckline, following the dangling silver necklace that bounced in between her breasts as she walked, to the slit in her dress that exposed her long legs with each step. Her confidence and alluring appearance knotted his stomach.
He crossed his arms, pulling the black blazer taut around his biceps. His eyes flitted up to her indifferent disposition, and the urge to crush her windpipe buzzed in his palms. Perhaps pain would triggersomesort of emotion in her.
He had a growing impulse to shatter the shield she hid behind and reveal the mess that lay within. A mess that called to him. He wanted to fold her inside out and see the canvas of Chaos she so easily kept contained.
Marina stopped a few feet away from him, lifting her low-lidded eyes to his face. “Lord Acacius,” she greeted.
Acacius leaned against the column of what was left of the arched stone gateway, entertained by her deadpan tone. “I must say, I am eager to hear why you’ve journeyed to Tavora.”
“Are you going to invite me inside?” She looked from him over to his shattered home.
Her condescending tone pinched his nerves, insinuating he lacked manners. “Are you so desperate to continue where we left off that you would ambush me in my own realm?”
A flit of exhaustion pulled at the corner of her eyes. “This would be a very poor ambush.” Her tone remained neutral, unruffled. “I am here to talk. Nothing more.”
Acacius stared at her for a moment, weighing her words against the twinge in his gut telling him she was full of shit.
Deities did not step foot inside of his space for fear and uncertainty at what calamity awaited. Yet here the High Goddess was, waiting to be let in.
He wasn’t sure if he was more impressed or perplexed by her bravery.
His attention shifted to her long red nails, their pointed ends pushing into the velvet material of the gift box she held against her waist. She wore three silver rings: one held a black crystal in its center, another was a dainty band, and the other was the shape of a dagger that extended to the knuckle of her middle finger.
He pondered the gift, everything in him screaming to not engage with whatever antic she had planned. Not once had he ever seen her show generosity to another. The gift was a gambit, and it was best not to accept it.
But it was precisely all those reasons that he sighed in defeat.
Uncrossing his arms, Acacius gave into his curiosity and said, “Very well. Follow me.”
Acacius escortedher through the pointed threshold into the courtyard, a disarray of a garden that he had no control over. Climbing roses and briars of vines and overgrown ivy swallowed the stone exterior of his home. The edges of the flora spread like a virus, their growth determined by Acacius’s emotions.
Acacius and Marina’s presence alarmed the moths resting within the greenery, sending the insects into a swarming flutter throughout the garden. A cloud of white and black and brown swirled in the air around them. Their tiny legs tickled his skin, a feeling his senses had long adapted to.
Marina’s heelsclickedto the side of him, her frame lingering in his periphery. She glanced around at the roses and braided ivy over the dark stone. Moths scurried over her shoulders and landed on the top of her hair, but she made no move to bat them away.
They passed by a patch of fresh blossoms in the shape of small red hearts dangling from their stem.
Bleeding hearts.
A flower that sprouted hours after Ruelle’s death. Acacius clenched his jaws at the sight of them, despising thecrackin his chest that they triggered.
He escorted Marina to his dining hall. The interior of the fortress was just as cold and grim as the outside. The gloomy walls were barely visible behind the thicket of mangled ivy, the mess decorated with crimson blooms hanging from the ceiling.
He pulled out a chair to the head of a long, narrow table draped in lacy linen. The centerpiece was a bouquet of creamcarnations and currant-red roses. Taper candles, their wax dripping and clumping down the sides, each held a flame. In between them was a serving platter filled with a variety of cheeses, nuts, and berries, courtesy of his Bound Olethros—the weakest breed of his monsters, who acted as his servants.
They had no way to anticipate the realm would receive a guest. It had been at least a century since their last one, aside from his siblings and Ruelle. This feast was a ploy directed at him, something they started a few weeks after Ruelle’s death. A way to persuade Acacius out of his bedchamber. If not to dine, then to be in their company. Because while Acacius was used to the loneliness, his Olethros rarely left him in it.
Acacius gestured for Marina to sit with a dramatic motion of his hand. “I suppose we canchatover wine and refreshments. Whatever you have to say, I know I will need the alcohol.”
At the sound of his sarcasm, she sent him a fake smile, the expression drawing little divots right below her eyes, high up on her cheeks. “I must say, your hosting skills need arduous work.”
He gave a fake smile right back, gripping the top of the chair a little tighter to keep from throwing it at her. “How long are you going to make me stand here before you sit?”
