“Like Kaly, you need to have some hope, Eyros.”
“If you knew people’s minds, you’d have no hope, Seeyr,” Eyros answered darkly. “You’d retreat into your palace and close yourself off from it all.”
“But you haven’t. Of all of us, you’ve tried to keep things light,” she pointed out.
“Because you either laugh or cry. And crying makes my eyes puffy. I’m quite attractive laughing,” Eyros answered with another toss of his head. “So there’s honestly something worse than what Kaly has done here?”
“Theslices. Not me,” Kaly corrected, which was in direct contradiction to what he knew to be true. The slices were him. He was the slices.
But they are not complete. They are parts of me. Messy parts. Parts that make things difficult or unbearable.A small voice pointed out,But doesn’t that mean that I’m not complete too? I’m missing what I’ve cut off. I’m not myself. Not fully.
“Are they not you? Did they come from someone else?” Eyros scoffed and his lips hovered between a snarl and a grin. “No! Theyareyou! They are the parts of you that you deny exist. And now they are running rampant without any of your self-control or intellect.”
“At least, you recognize my strengths,” Kaly retorted.
“Oh, I do! Because they are so small in comparison to the whole! You have pretended forever to feel nothing,” Eyros snapped. “To follow only logic. While the rest of us were just slaves to our emotions. But the truth,” and here Eyros stuck a finger in Kaly’s face, that finger shook, as he spat out, “is thatyou’rethe one who has been such a damned emotional mess since Daemon went to sleep that you pulled the biggest tantrum in the universe!”
Kaly’s spine stiffened with every word. That they weretruemade them only more infuriating. And Eyros wasn’t even looking in his head. Eyros simplyknewhe was right. But Eyros never saw any of the good he brought to the table. Never recognized the balance he offered Daemon and the rest of them. Kaly knew he was an outsider. Not truly part of the group. But that gave him a different view. But Eyros just sneered at him.
If only the slices had started with Eyros.
“I heard that!” Eyros scowled.
Kaly plucked at the invisible lint on his shirt. Unrepentant.
“That is not helpful, Eyros. And, Kaly, wishing him ill isn’t useful either,” Seeyr said gently but firmly. “None of us can undo the past, even if the past could be undone, it shouldn’t be.”
“What?” Eyros let out a bark of laughter. “This shouldn’t be undone? The War? The War Children? The deaths? The horror? We’ve been decimated, Seeyr! We’re heading towards almost complete annihilation if this War doesn’t stop.”
Seeyr patiently waited for Eyros to wind down before she said, “The War isn’t just Kaly’s fault. All of us are guilty ofmoving towards this place. It was inevitable. You know that very well, Eyros.”
Eyros tossed his head again and crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t want this! I wouldn’t have done any of the things I did if Kaly and Weryn hadn’t started it!”
“I don’t need to read minds to knowthat’sa lie,” Kaly hissed, silver eyes narrowing. “You’ve wanted to be in charge for ages. Take the burden off of Daemon’s shoulders. You with your dirty, little fingers in everyone’s minds. I heard you cooing to Daemon about it. Thankfully, he turned you down each and every time. He knew the danger of having a megalomaniac in charge.”
Eyros spun towards him. “And if I had looked into your mind, how long ago would I have discovered your slicing had started? Your self-mutilation? Your crazy experiments? You have no limits, Kaly, but instead of just taking yourself on this fun-house ride, you’ve taken all of us!”
Kaly said nothing.
“It wasn’t just when Daemon went to sleep that you were doing these things.” A triumphant, bitter smile lit Eyros’ lips. “Oh, no, I’m sure you’ve been experimenting like this forages. You just finally fucked up enough that you couldn’t cover your tracks. And there’s no Daemon here to clean up your mess.”
“Daemon is not here. And he will not be here for a very long time,” Seeyr interceded. “He will sleep until his fledgling comes. So we are the only ones able to put an end to the War and set things up in such a way that when Daemon does wake, he will have the Immortals he’s deserving of instead of what we’ve become.”
Eyros’ lips flattened. “I don’t see myself as having fallen like everyone else. I’m the same as always. There’s not some better version of me–”
“Thereis,” Seeyr cut him off.
Eyros blinked rapidly. “What–”
“There is a better version ofbothof you,” she said severely. “You won’t believe me now, but I can honestly tell you that those versions of you will be happier, stronger and different than you are now in very basic ways. Ways neither of you could imagine right at this moment. And those versions will love and serve Daemon as they should.”
“And what about you, Seeyr? You haven’t said anything about a better version of you,” Eyros snorted as his eyes narrowed at her.
“Oh, I will be different. But better? I don’t know. The cost of what we must all pay to get to this future is very high and it will leave its mark on each of us in big ways and small,” Seeyr continued, waving away whatever would happen to herself as if it were of no matter. Only the future mattered. “Which is why you both need to have hope. You need to believe in what we are doing or otherwise you might not stay the course.”
“Hope?” The word tasted strange on Kaly’s tongue. “I am uncertain if knowing such a perfect being for Daemon exists, or that Eyros and I will be so different as to be unimaginable, gives me hope, Seeyr.”
“Harming yourself didn’t make things better, Kaly,” Seeyr answered. “But this future will.”
