“You think that ismydoing?” He barked out a bitter laugh, his expression darkening. They always assumed it was him.
“Deities are putting hits on the child left and right.”
“Did your little assassin figure that out?” He recalled the god from his Herald’s memory before it died.
Marina scowled at the seed of his jealousy. “Without Soren’s help, the child would’ve been harmed already.”
Fire scoured up his throat, hearing her say another god’s name with such familiarity. “The madness nesting inside the deities is notme.” He slapped a hand over his chest, and then ripped his arm out, pointing out beyond Tenebris to Isolde. “It’sthe statue of Ruelle in our city, reminding them that they can now be killed!”
His power was an anomaly to most. Like anything else, balance was required. Chaos was the counteract to peace. It had no choice but to exist. That was the disorder slowly spreading amongst the deities like a contagion. It was not a calamity he could siphon away, for it was already set in motion the day Naia gained her power and granted the Himura witch immortality, the day they conceived a demigod of the Himura bloodline.
There was so much Chaos consuming their lives that Acacius had to resist the temptation of setting off the bomb, its fuse always wrapped around his fingers. It’s why he’d dispatched his creatures to Hollow City, like flames attracting moths to their spiraling end.
“Regardless, you sent your Heralds as a catalyst,” she seethed, throwing her arm out in the same direction that he’d gestured to. “Say what you wish, but the fact is that you side with them.”
“And I am supposed to side withyou?” He took a step, hovering over her. “Are we more than just enemies who fuck our loneliness away? Tell me, Rina.” The last bit left him in a desperate crack, through gritted teeth.
Her eyes rolled away from him, to the room that held them, and she pursed her lips, as if to seal her truth away.
Acacius’s pulse jumped with a spark of hope.
She’d neverhesitatedbefore.
Not with anything.
“Do you know what became of Torin for laying a hand on you?” He brought his mouth to the side of her hair, inhaling her intoxicating fragrance. “The Daemons you are so desperate to see are devouring him as we speak.”
She lifted her head to him, her dark gaze swirling, as if the information pleased her.
Acacius leaned down, nudging his nose into her jaw. “It infuriates me, Marina, the way I feel for you.” She eased her weight against him, her shoulder pushing into his chest. “Youinfuriate me.”
He could sense the rise of her desire gathering with his own, giving them a lull in time where their differences did not matter, only the connection bridged between them.
It was a spell too easily broken as she backed away from him. “I made a vow to my father, before he entered the Land of the Dead, that I would protect Ash.”
Acacius’s eyes fell shut.
Fuck.
It was the final nail on the coffin. The reason that he would not be able to convince her otherwise.
But it made all the sense in the world now.
She murdered Vale, and out of guilt or familial connection, she agreed to his dying wish. And of course, the sentimental bastard would think ahead and ask her to protect the child. Marina was many things, but among her most maddening qualities, she was loyal and devoted, and never one to do things imperfectly or halfway. If she’d promised her father she would protect the child, then she would do so with her entire being.
Acacius did not want to lose her, but they were at odds now.
His diaphragm squeezed, clipping his breath as confliction rose in his chest.
“That child can end us!” He twisted away from her and brought his fists up, straining the muscles in his arms to keep his emotions in check. One wrong outburst, and it would all surge forward like a flurry of devastation. His Chaos would eat everything and everyone nearby.
“Does death truly frighten you that much?”
He rotated toward her, tension pulling at his neck. “In death there is peace, stillness, things I do not crave. Not the way others do.”
She searched his face, so calm and composed that it reminded him of her father. In her silence, he could feel their time coming to an end, the way sand drained from an hourglass.
Acacius held onto her gaze, clinging to the frayed fragments of this moment with her, afraid to let go.
