And what he found most telling about his friend was that while a couple of Bethany’s drawings showed her seductively clad in Greek gowns, none of them were of her naked. Even though Styxx had never intended for anyone else to see this, he’d kept his wife’s honor sacred and respected her. That said it all about how much he loved that woman.
Urian stopped on the next page as he found the image of a toddler boy dressed in a hoplite’s Corinthian helm. It was hilarious and adorable. Beside it, Styxx had written the name “Galen” in Greek.… He also had a few of an adult Galen, one of a woman named Tig, a horse and a dog, and a few scenes from what must have been his native Didymos.
The pages went on and on. Including a large number of Acheron in his modern Goth wear and long black hair, as well as pictures of them together with a bolt of lightning coming down between them.
When Urian turned to the next page, his heart stopped as he stared at a face he’d never thought to see again.
It staggered him so much that he had to sit.
Styxx had drawn him with Phoebe. Even though the bastard had never seen her, he’d penned her perfect likeness from Urian’s descriptions. It was absolutely eerie that he could do that, and it showed him just how true to life his drawings of Bethany must be if Styxx could do this just based off words.
Incredible.
And in that moment, the pain that rifled through Urian was crippling. It merged with the same agony and madness that had driven Styxx to fill this book with image after image of his wife and longed-for son. Since Styxx had nothing left of her to hold on to, he must have created this. And it was like looking into Styxx’s soul.
Unable to cope with it, Urian set the sketchbook back right where he’d found it. Honestly, what disturbed him the most about that book …
He saw his own future. Phoebe had only been dead a handful of years and it still burned inside him like a raging furnace. For Styxx, it’d been eleven thousand years and he still ached as much now as he had then.
That did not bode well for Urian. Because he knew the other truth.
He still missed Xyn. Just as much today as he had the day she’d vanished.
That pain never ended and he knew it.
Maybe that was why he was so drawn to Styxx. They were bound by similar tragedies and had been born virtual contemporaries in ancient Greece. Well, not quite. Styxx was the same age as his father, but close enough.
Urian glanced back at the sketchbook and cringed.So that’s what I have to look forward to. Bitter insanity.
So awesome.
January 20, 2009
Just after midnight, Styxx woke up covered in sweat. Urian wanted to weep for him. He was so cold, his teeth chattered. Feeling for his grieving friend, he pulled another blanket over Styxx’s shoulder, then stepped into his field of vision. “How are you?”
His expression said clearly that he was broken.
When he didn’t respond, Urian squatted down next to the bed until their gazes were level.
“I know,” he whispered. “I still wake up and expect to find Phoebe beside me.” Xyn too on the really bad days. “I haven’t even deactivated her cell phone. I keep it so that I can call and hear her voice on those hours when I feel like I can’t take it anymore. It’s not fair that we’re forced to live without them while the world goes on, oblivious to the fact that it’s missing the most vital part of it.”
He let out a bitter laugh to try to clear the pain that was choking him and making him want to scream out from the injustice of it. “It’s why I’m here with your hairy ass. I don’t want to see Tory and Ash. Not because I hate him like you do, but because they remind me of what I no longer have. And while I don’t begrudge them their happiness, it makes my loneliness burn even deeper.”
Styxx finally blinked. “Why do you talk to me, Urian?”
“I don’t know. You’re entertaining when you’re not catatonic or in a coma. Or in a homicidal rage. Why do you talk to me?”
“Because I can’t hear your thoughts.”
Urian scowled at the last thing he’d expected him to say. “Excuse me?”
Styxx sighed. “It’s something I’ve been able to do from birth. With a tiny handful of exceptions, one of whom is you, I hear every thought in someone’s head.”
So he shared that talent with Spawn. Wow, that was not something he envied. “That has to suck.”
“It does indeed. That was what made me so lethal on the battlefield. I knew what my enemies were going to do and I could cut them off.”
“Yeah, okay, that would not suck.” Urian had meant to make him laugh, but if anything it darkened Styxx’s mood, so he changed the subject. “You think you could eat something?”
