And he’d made good use of that today.
“That made you even sadder, akri-Leucious. Did you know Simi’s matera?”
Sighing, he rubbed her back. “No. I lost my mother today, too.” He wasn’t quite sure why it hurt so much. Tesiah had made sure that he spent very little time with Veru for fear of it making him soft. Womanly.
You’re a warrior, boy. Not a nursemaid.
And today, Tesiah had reaped the full harvest that came from making Leucious as harsh and unfeeling as Tesiah had been. For killing the heart that beat inside him. It was nothing more than a cold organ that had no feeling for anyone.
Especially not the man he’d thought was his father.
And he would never forget the shock in Tesiah’s eyes as he killed him. Or the lack of satisfaction he’d felt afterward.
Truthfully, he was numb over that part. What hurt inside him was the needless lives that had been lost over all this. And for what? Because his mother had been so terrified of one monster that she’d made a horrible bargain with evil to birth another.
In truth, he hated her, too, for giving him this existence that he wished to the gods he wasn’t forced to endure.
“Life is so unfair, Simi.”
“That’s what akri says. That and that life is hard and unforgiving.”
Leucious agreed.
“But akri says that’s why we have hearts … so that we can love good-quality people who’s there to help when it hurts. Their hugs makes it all betterer.”
Placing her arms around his neck, she gave him a big hug that actually made him feel a lot better or betterer. “Thank you, Simi.”
She ruffled his sweaty hair. “You’re very welcome, akri-Leucious.”
And as Leucious held her, he wondered something. “Why are you here alone, Simi?”
She pulled back to stare up at him. “The Simi felt your sadness. It said, ‘Hey Simi, I needs help ’cause I’s having a bad, bad day.’ The Simi don’t want akri-Leucious to have them bad days. You should have happy ones.”
“You keep an eye on me?” He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Not until she smiled.
“’Course. You’re Simi’s friend and friends always stay together. Watches each other’s backs and fronts. The Simi will always be here when you needs her.”
In spite of the horror of this day and the nausea he felt inside, he truly appreciated her company.
She was magick. Stronger than anything he’d ever known.
But the problem with magick was that it, like everything else, never lasted.
And friends were only an illusion. Because the one thing he’d learned in his twenty-one years was that friends eventually turned into enemies.
If Simi ever became his enemy, so would Acheron. While Leucious knew he had never been defeated in battle, he had never gone up against a god as powerful.
Honestly, he never wanted to, either.
And the last thing he wanted was to lose the only friend he had.
An adorable Charonte demon who had no concept of the evil that had birthed him. Or, more to the point, the evil that had fathered him because it wanted to destroy the world Simi loved so much.
8
October 31, 8630 BC
Simi paused as she saw the awful, big bird-like creature fly way over her head. That was the kind of scary thing that made the humans scream and run. Part of her wanted to run, too, but not out of fear.
