“Always happy to prove you wrong.” He lounged back, assessing her proper posture and impeccable table manners. “You know, you are brave to step into Tavora. Not many do.”
Marina filled her plate with a few squares of cheese and a strawberry. “Your monsters frighten them.”
“And you?”
“Not at all.” She took a sip of the wine from her chalice, her eyes pinned on Acacius over the rim, not sparing the Bound a glance. “Why would they, when I have monsters of my own?”
“Speaking of which, I did not see them during our fight in Isolde.” He cocked his head, a smirk lifting his mouth. “Why is that?”
Marina was powerful, but she was still a young goddess at the mere age of seven hundred ninety-five. If Acacius had to guess, she was emotionally unaligned, and the ability to use her monsters had abandoned her.
She forked a single square of smoked white cheese, her body language unbothered by his question. “I didn’t see yours either.” She popped it into her mouth, a prideful gleam sparkling in her gaze.
“If I unleashed my Daemons to play in Isolde, there wouldn’t be a city left.” He shifted his attention to the gift box of berries beside his plate, something to focus on other than her face and the smug tilt of her lips.
He plucked a blackberry and tossed it in his mouth. The fruit and the sweet juice exploded across his tongue, and the seeds lodged deep in his molars. Later, it would be a welcomed distraction to work them from his teeth.
Marina placed her silverware next to her plate, the stainless-steel tools clinking against each other. “Let us discuss the issue at hand.”
Acacius dismissed the Bound behind him with a small wave of his index finger. It obeyed and exited, the end of its staff scraping across the floor with each footfall. “Get to the point then,” he said.
She lifted her chin, eyes sharpening like two blades glinting in the night. They twisted Acacius’s gut. “You blame me for Ruelle’s death, yes?”
Fury welled in his throat at the mention of her, and he straightened up in his chair. “Do not speak her name to me.”
Despite his warning, Marina’s indifferent demeanor remained intact. “What shall I refer to her as then?”
The monotone pitch of her tone pricked his nerves, and he squeezed the base of his chalice, the cool silver indenting the skin of his palm. “The audacity you possess to even mention her to me after what you did?—”
“I’ve already made my intentions clear.”
“To make peace?” Acacius chuckled darkly, shaking his head. He tossed back the rest of his wine and slammed the chalice down on the table. “That goes against my nature.”
Marina glowered at him, her jaw setting.
His pride flared at the sight of her annoyance, like a white canvas finally taking color. He could sense it, a thread that had come undone. If he were to pull on it, what all would unravel?
He teleported behind her, gripping the top of her chair once more. She made no move to look behind her shoulder at him.
He dipped in closer to her ear, inhaling a breath of her—a sweet and candied fragrance, like toffee, then vanilla, then cherries. “You do not wish for there to be a war between us, so you drop into my realm with my favorite food and refuse to even feed me an apology. Why would Ieverforgive you for what you have done to me?”
The muscles in her shoulders visibly tensed. “I hardlydidanything to you.”
“You betrayed me. I came to you to help locate the vial of Ash’s blood, and when the time came, you tricked me and kept it for yourself.”
She whipped around then, a crease pinching in her brow. “Did you truly expect any different? Finnian had just hexed my mother. I wished for him to suffer tenfold.”
“And I swore to you that I would help reverse the hex on her!” The echo of his shout rippled in the hall. His heartbeat blared in his skull, pulsing blood thickly into his ears.
Silence hovered, feeding the intensity in the air between them. Acacius could feel its current thrumming in his gums.
Marina searched his eyes.
Velocity surged in his bloodstream, burning in his palms with a need to grab a hold of her and break her into smaller and smaller pieces. He did not wish to discuss their past. It was pointless now. All that mattered was the future and how he intended to make her pay for her foolish decision to rise against him.
After a long moment, Marina said, “I do not believe in the word of gods, Acacius.” It came out quiet, a genuine truth that he understood. One he couldn’t blame her for.
And he hated how the moment he stood next to her during Evander’s punishment came rushing back into his mind. The numb, desolate way she’d spoken back then. He despised being lumped into her pantheon of untrustworthy gods. If she would’ve just given him a chance back then, he could’ve proven her wrong.
