She wondered if they’d be good eats.
If it wasn’t so high, she’d be even more tempted. But while she liked to fly, she didn’t want to fly up there where it was really, really scary.
And mostly because akri would be mad if he knew she’d come here. Not that she’d told him she wouldn’t.
Shadow be mad, too.
They both had warned her many times not to venture here. Not for any reason.
But she’d heard akri talking to Shadow about akri-Leucious and how he’d lost his minds and decided to make peace with his nasty god-daddy.
That made her worried about akri-Leucious. She knew how he felt about the ancient evil god, and it explained why Simi hadn’t been able to check in on him. He wasn’t in the human world anymore. He was in the icky, scary place akri didn’t like for her to visit.
So, she pushed open the door to the dark creepy obsidian palace where she felt akri-Leucious’s presence. He was sad. Hurting. She could feel it with every bit of her heart. Now, she had to find him in this big old empty castle.
“Akri-Leucious?”
“It’s Thorn now, Simi. I don’t use Leucious anymore.”
Simi didn’t like being startled. But his deep voice made her jump as it came out of the darkness in the big room with a weird fireplace. He was sitting alone in the corner, near that fireplace, drinking. “Why are you here, akri-Thorn?”
He laughed bitterly. “I don’t know.”
Slowly, she crossed the cold empty room to the wooden chair where he sat with a goblet in his hand. She saw all kinds of other drink vessels on the floor around his chair. Akri-Thorn had been drinking a lot.
He wasn’t his usual selves. For one thing, he stank awful. And his long hair was tousled, and a gross beard was growing all over his face. He was still handsome, only he was messy handsome not the clean, neat handsome she was used to. “What happened to you? You lose your comb and razor?”
He laughed at that. “No. Something much more important. I lost my way, Sim. I don’t know who I am or why I’m here.”
“That’s easy. You akri-Thorn. Though Simi’s not sure why you changed from akri-Leucious. But that all your business. Change your name if you wants. Akri does. He Apostolos to his mama. Akri to his Simi and Acheron or Ash to others. Though some of them call him other names that make the Simi mad sometimes. They don’t seem to matter to him though. But that’s side the pointy. You the little boy who tried to scare the Simi, only you made me laugh insteads. That’s who you is.”
Thorn winced at that. “I wish I were that boy again, Simi. He knew what he wanted. What he was supposed to become. I don’t know me anymore and it hurts. I miss who I used to be.”
Putting her hands on her hips, she stared up at him. “Well, that’s just silly. Akri-Leucious meet akri-Thorn. See how easy that is? Now you know yourself.”
With a sigh, he drained his cup, then let out a belch like the Simi did whenever she eated too much moo-cow. “Leucious was a prince. He was going to rule his father’s people and conquer anyone who threatened his empire. Thorn … has no father. He has no purpose and no reason to be here or anywhere.”
“You gots a daddy. He’s in that other big place across the way. Not a nice god. But … we don’t gets to pick our daddies. Sometimes we just get stuck with them.”
“He doesn’t want a son, Simi. Anymore than Tesiah did. All he cares about is a tool to further his agenda.”
“Well, you not a tool, akri-Thorn. You not brainless. You gots a big heart.” She flew up so that she could sit in his lap. “Tools don’t have hearts.”
He smiled as he allowed her to perch on his thigh. “I don’t feel like I have a heart.”
She put her hand on the center of his chest. Through the dirty linen of his tunic, she could feel the strong beat. “’Course you do, silly. It’s right there. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.” She pulled his hand up so that he could feel it, too. “See?”
He took her hand into his and brushed his thumb over her fingers. “I wish I saw the world like you do, Simi.”
“That’s what akri says, too. Though the Simi don’t know why you can’t. It’s easy to do.”
Taking her hand, he held it up so that he could study her fingers. Akri also did that sometimes whenever he was saddened.
“You are very precious.”
“Thank you, akri-Thorn. You’re precious, too.”
He laughed bitterly. “No. I’m a product of an evil god who wants vengeance on the world he hates.”
