Simi tsked at him. “The Simi would be upset at you excepting for the facts that I knows akri thinks it’s funny when you say things like that.”
“And speaking of peasants …” Thorny’s voice trailed off as he looked past her.
Simi turned to see what had taken his attention away. It was akri-Shadow.
That made sense. As did the comment about peasants. Akri-Shadow wore black knee breeches and a loose white shirt and open black vest. His hair was also loose around his shoulders. Unlike the other people around them, akri-Shadow reminded her more of someone who’d just woked up and rushed out of his house.
Simi, herself, was in a striped, yellow-and-pink dress and wearing a crisp kerchief. Akri always said she looked like a little doll when she wore these clothes. She wasn’t sure about that, but the human peoples seemed to like it when she dressed this way, and they treated her well and gived her a lot of extra food. So while it wasn’t her favorite clothes, she liked that everyone was nice to her.
“Did you lose a bet?” Thorny asked akri-Shadow as he joined them. “Or did someone steal the rest of your wardrobe?”
Shadow gave him a peeved glare. “Just don’t. Have you heard what’s going on?”
“If you mean that Adarian is loose here, yes. I heard.”
“No. The Greek god, Dionysus has fathered a baby with an Apollite.”
Thorn arched a brow at that. “Interesting. Why would he be so stupid?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Shadow glanced to Simi. “Cam is also scheming to breed a new Malachai to kill Adarian, which is the main reason I’m here.”
Simi widened her eyes at that. Cam was one of the original primal gods. Akra-Apollymi hated her awfully. Not that the Simi blamed her. Cam had done terrible things to akra’s Monakribos. And Cam hadn’t been particularly nice to the Simi’s family either.
“Cam wants to kill Adarian?” Simi asked.
Akri-Shadow nodded. “She has some warped notion that she can breed a new Malachai who will break the cycle and usher in an era of peace.”
“Or end the world,” akri-Thorn inserted. “Let’s not forget the other part of that prophecy.”
“That’s why I’m here to let you know. And why I’m planning to tell Acheron, too, as soon as I find him. We need to stop her.”
“But can we?” Thorny asked.
Simi chewed her nail as she considered that. “Akri won’t interfere. His whole life was made an awful big mess when them gods tried to stop the prophecy of his birth. He won’t ever try to stop someone else’s ’cause he says it makes everything messy and worser.”
Akri-Shadow looked incredulous. “So, we do nothing and wait for a Malachai who is even more powerful than Adarian? Am I the only one who thinks that’s a profoundly bad idea?”
Thorn let out a long sigh. “Simi’s right. Everything I know about Acheron says he’ll sit on the fence and do nothing to stop Cam’s plan.”
“What about you?” Shadow asked.
“Every time I’ve gone up against the Malachai, I’ve had my butt wrung out. Even with my army, I’m not strong enough to defeat him. Are you?”
Shadow shook his head.
“Then what do we do?”
“Tell the Malachai what Cam is doing?” Simi suggested.
Both men turned toward her with bugged eyes.
“No!” Akri-Thorn had the same tone akri used whenever she asked if she could eat a pesky human or the heifer goddess. “You can’t go near him, Simi. He’ll destroy you.”
“What if he be reasonable? Won’t he like to know that Cam is plotting evil against him?”
Akri-Shadow scoffed. “He’s not reasonable. Trust me. Reasonable was never part of his genetic composition.”
Thorn agreed. “What he said. Adarian is one of the most psychotic Malachai in history.”
