A dense tree line surrounded him. Beyond the stormy nightfall and the forest, he could not pick up on the distinct rush of the waterfall along the cliffs. The smoke from the fires did not fill the air.
This darkness around them was different, less opaque than it’d been seconds ago.
Marina had teleported them away from Tenebris. An attempt to dissuade his Chaos.
He fixed his attention on her across the clearing. “How cute. You care about your sad little village.”
Rain poured down her long, wavy strands. Rivers ran down the crevices of her face, over her curling lips. Only, they weren’t arching into the sharp edges that usually accompanied her glare. This time, her mouth curved upward into a wistful smile. She peered up at the rain, and to Acacius’s surprise, a light laugh sang out of her.
Acacius blinked, the sound catching in the bottom of his stomach like the flutter of a flame’s light. The sensation brought brief relief, softening the hard shell of his insides, those parts of him solidified in bitterness and repulsion.
Marina fabricated to the nearest elm tree and rested her back on its trunk.
She tilted her head up. Droplets pelted into her eyes. She disregarded Acacius and their fight, as if his presence was no longer right in front of her.
The muscles in his neck went rigid as he watched her uncharacteristic behavior. “Are you having some kind of episode?”
She laughed harder, clutching her abdomen—a melodic, velvety rush of noise that transfixed Acacius. In all the centuries he’d known her, heneverheard a bright inflection in her voice, much less true laughter.
“It appears you’ve gone fucking mad.”
“Perhaps a little.” She slunk down the tree into a sitting position, pulling her knees up and settling against the bark. “However, I wish to rest for a second.” She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, letting out a breath.
The downpour echoed louder, a percussive beat against the earth, catching on the leaves and branches around them.
Beyond the hum, stillness lingered into a lull of peace. It pinched at Acacius’s chest. In its echo, he saw traces of Ruelle in the shadows, spinning and dancing around them like a ghost. Flashes of her flowing amber locks and soft hands, reaching out, haunting him.
He balled his hands into fists, the inside of his fingers crusted with Marina’s blood. The tide of his divine power pulsed in his fingertips.
Trees. He could turn them over; tremble the earth; bury Marina underneath the spilth; leave her to mend what remained of her broken village.
Acacius glared at her. “Stand up.”
She did not move.
He would not fight her like this. “I’m not finished.”
“Acacius.” She dropped her chin to look at him, her low-lidded eyes lacking their usual fervor. “I am tired.”
He held her gaze, intrigued by its hollowness and the weight dragging her words. The exhaustion she spoke of was not physical nor mental, but something heavier, something he dared not name, for he understood it wholly.
Five thousand years of life melded weariness in the crevasse of his soul, but never to this degree. The need to fight was to fill the noise. Something he had to force himself to do each day, just to hold on and continue onto the next. As if he needed a reason to keep living, to not lose faith in the way of the world. He needed something to believe in.
And right now, that something was Marina.
Exhaling in defeat, he strolled over to the tree across from her and plopped down. “Perhaps a short break.”
He propped his forearm over his knee and stretched out one of his long legs, the sole of his muddied boot lingering near her bare feet. A detail he failed to notice until now.
He studied her for a beat. The rain slid down her black satin nightgown, over the bare skin of her diaphragm where Acacius had ripped the fabric earlier, exposing the underside of her breasts. She must’ve panicked when she saw her crumbling village and rushed to him without changing and slipping into shoes.
Marina rested her head back and closed her eyes again.
Acacius stared at her, curious as to what triggered her emotional candor. Beads of rainwater glided over her eyelids and down her cheeks. What softness lay beneath her weary, jagged edges?
The steady rhythm of the precipitation played a syncopated lullaby. For a moment, it was as if they were hidden in a small pocket of the world, isolated from the desolation.
“Do you ever pay visit to the Land of the Dead?” she asked, eyes still closed.
