“Your promises mean very little to me right now,” she finally said, glancing back at him.
He blew out a breath, coughing again as he sat up fully. She sighed and moved towards him, positioning herself just behind him then ordering, “Lay your head in my lap.”
“Soren—”
“You still need to rest. This way, you don’t need to prop yourself up with your arm while I decide whether to gut you again myself or not.”
He grimaced but obeyed. She resisted the urge to thread her fingers through the waves of his hair, instead placing her hand on either side of her head, her already-filthy fingers curling into the grass and dirt.
“One hundred and four years ago today, Kronos took your life because you would not let him have it for his own to control,” he began quietly.
She sucked in a breath and almost asked him to stop right then and there, but ultimately, she let him continue. Deep down, she knew she needed to hear this.
“All I wanted was to die with you, and he knew that. So, he made sure I lived in agony, banished to the kingdom that hated me as a child and bound in service to a line of mortal kings. I was an anomaly to King Jonah, Johannas’ father. Most demi-gods fled to Arcadia as soon as they felt the veil sealing. Others went into hiding when mortals became suspicious of those still in connection to the gods. But I had nowhere to go. I was trapped, and the mortal king knew it. At first, he merely used me and Heles for various…errands, dirty deeds the crown wanted to be doled out in the shadows. Jonah was just as cruel as his son, but he was not as wise. When he died and Johannas became the ruler of a starving kingdom, he called me into his council room and asked what I would do if I were him. I suggested asking Mise for aid, as its climate was the most amicable to crops, even without magic. Farming had really only ever been possible in Aren because of the assistance of mages. The field we met in is covered in stone and dust now.”
She tried to ignore the feeling of tearing in her chest at the knowledge that the field was gone.
“How many times did you go back there?” she whispered, her eyes stinging as she focused on the horizon, away from him.
He paused. “Every year. It isn’t far from the capitol. I watched it slowly die as the seasons came and went.”
She clenched her jaw. “Continue.”
“Johannas already had a plan in place when he asked me that, one that included taking rather than asking. But when he proposed his idea of becoming a conqueror to his council, he told them I had advised him in that direction. They all know what I am. Any who disagreed with the idea kept their mouths shut over fear of ‘provoking’ me.”
Vane let out a bitter laugh. “I realized then that I was no longer just a pet with a blade. Johannas wanted me to become a figurehead in the coming war. I became not only the reason, but also the tool he used to win it.”
“You couldn’t go against his orders?” she asked, finally looking down to find him smiling sadly at her.
“I still can’t, Soren. I was something that disturbed the order and control Kronos so desperately needs and depends on. He remedied that—he cursed me.”
She blinked rapidly, her hands shaking even as she dug them into the earth. “What are we going to do?”
“You could leave me behind,” he said softly. “Run now. Go somewhere Johannas cannot find you.”
“And then what? He would send you to hunt me, wouldn’t he? And what of Kronos?”
His throat worked, and his next words were careful. “With you…I’ve been able to bend some of my orders a bit. There’s always room for error when Johannas hands them out, and he’s grown careless over the years, but this…it’s different. If the last order he gave me had held, I couldn’t have stopped Kellmere.”
“What was it, the order?”
“Lead the battle. Win at any cost, even if it was your life.” He paused then added, “Johannas isn’t stupid. He knew about us, and it didn’t take him long to figure out who you were.”
“I see. And Kronos?”
Vane’s eyes grew hard. “I’ll find a way to kill him.”
The sun was nearly set now, the world in a hazy twilight. She imagined it for a moment, a life away from all this, on the run, always looking over her shoulder. A life where she walked away, knowing that, once again, she had sentenced Vane to a fate worse than death.
She couldn’t leave him. She couldn’t do that to someone she cared for like this.
Tears began to stream down her face as she let it fully hit her. She had known how she felt when he was dying, but even that had been in the heat of desperation. Now, in the cold, quiet air of the valley, with him looking at her like she was the reason the sun rose and set, a wave of sorrow crested in her.
Vane sat up, even as she half-heartedly tried to stop him. His arms wrapped around her, rocking her as she wept.
“You know how this ends,” she gasped against his shoulder. “And this time, his punishments will only be worse.”
Thessa and Heles both made low, sorrowful noises, their heads low on the ground. The four of them were bonded by fate, trapped in its cycle of tragedy.
