I let the muffled conversations around me fade into the background. “Please tell me you’re okay,” I beg.
“I’m fine,” she answers, but it doesn’t satisfy me. Her voice is flat, devoid of any emotion, and I begin to fear I didn’t get her back at all.
ZIV
As I lower myself into the chair, I catch sight of the blood speckling my knuckles. Bathing in the fluid wouldn’t be enough to ease my fury, not when the focus of my wrath is looking at me from across the table.
I remind myself time is no longer infinite. Soon, she will feel my rage. As a god, I had nothing but time. Ages could pass, and I would barely notice. There was no sense of urgency, not even to finish a battle. Wars were waged without end, and that was enough, even if there was a hundred year break in fighting.
When battle grew tedious, there was no lack of entertainment to distract me, because that was what everything was—a distraction.
With no expiration date on anything, I began to lose the desire for everything.
Falling wasn’t the result of a single instance, but rather eons of monotony, and it took one moment to recognize there was no point in continuing on with the same existence. I longed for something I could never have—change.
I’d become stagnant, or rather I’d always been and finally realized it. Ryujin and I were moments away from rekindling yet another battle over something so inane, I can’t even recall what it was about, but reputations, rankings for power positions, and possessions were often the catalyst for our brawls.
As I picked up my axe to begin another cycle of war, I saw myself doing it at least a hundred other times. Some had already happened, while others seemed to be forewarnings of the future to come, and I just stopped, finding I had no desire to repeat the same encounters over and over again.
Chaos, who was already thriving on the prospect of turmoil, wanted nothing more than to reawaken our feud for a few centuries. He thrived on the mayhem, while I relished the battle. We were brothers in that.
When I dropped my axe and refused to fight, he was indignant. I think my refusal to engage and my reasoning awakened something in him just as the foreshadowing of my future did for me, but the feeling of inertness wasn’t new to me. I could no longer ignore the need for change now that I recognized what it was, so I renounced my godhood, relinquished my divinity, and fell.
He vowed to make me regret my choice, and all this time, I assumed he had made good on his threat and took Briar from me without taking into consideration that gods don’t work on timelines. It could be another era before he even rememberedour conflict existed or deemed it worthy of his effort, and unlike a god, I can admit when I’m wrong.
Syrinx is the reason Briar is gone and her life is in jeopardy, but it’s still my fault. The banshee craves power much in the same way I longed for combat and Chaos needs anarchy. Her mistake was thinking she could use me to get it.
Not killing the banshee after Kage told me what he overheard was a test of wills I wasn’t sure I would win, but getting rid of her now, without knowing the full breadth of her plan, would be foolish. Syrinx wanted Briar dead and wanted someone else to do the dirty work for her, so she sent her to a place where no one knew she was mine and didn’t know what would happen to them if they hurt her, all while I sat on my fucking hands and played right into hers.
I tamp down the surge of anger inside me as I look into her hawkish features. Syrinx thinks she’s a master manipulator and that I’m still playing her game, because that’s exactly what I want.
I’m going to watch her slow self-destruction and witness her loss of power while making sure she knows she is the only one to blame for her downfall as she makes mistake after mistake. When she’s been cast to the side, exposed as the worthless creature she is, then I will kill her and make sure anything she ever cared about dies with her.
“Thank you for seeing me, Ziv.” Her tone is dulcet, coaxing. If I wasn’t privy to every aspect of her power, I might not even realize she’s trying to coerce me into a calmed state. It bothers me that she thinks she could control me, but that’s an easy offense to ignore.
I don’t acknowledge her greeting in any way, but she continues, unfazed by my apathy. “As you know, the selection is near, and I need to know I can rely on you as my second during the games. When I accepted your residency at the Ivy, you pledged your allegiance to me?—”
“To the Ivy,” I correct.
Syrinx’s eyebrows lift as if to question the distinction between the two. “Yes, well, I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to you that I need to be certain I can trust you and that oath considering the situation you’ve found yourself in.”
A brisk knock on the door draws her attention, giving me a brief reprieve to school my features so she won’t see my murderous gaze. ThesituationI found myself in was entirely her making. She is the reason my mate isn’t with me and, more importantly, is in danger. Her single-minded obsession makes her blind to the truth, that there is no oath or vow that is more important than my mate, but before I’m done with her, she will. I look over my shoulder, pretending I don’t know exactly what the current interruption is about.
Before the headmaster has a chance to respond to the disruption, the door swings open, and her assistant stumbles through the door. Her black eyes are wide, and the stiff set of her shoulders does a good job of displaying just how distressed she is. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s been an…” She glances at me, then back at Syrinx. “An accident.”
I wouldn’t classify what happened as an accident, but maybe the vampire hasn’t ever seen what can happen to a body when it explodes from the inside out after a swift pressure shift. I wonder if his eyes are still dripping from the wall.
“An accident?” Syrinx grates out, clearly bothered by the disturbance. After all, she did just ask me a very important question that I haven’t gotten around to answering yet.
“Mistress—” The vampire shakes her head slowly and swallows with some reluctance. “I… I think this situation needs your attention.”
“Another incident, Syrinx? It seems those are happening too often around here.” I let wariness and censure color my tone as I rise from the chair. Making her doubt herself is one of the steps in her ruin, and I just planted the first seed.
Her eyes follow mine until she’s staring up at me. I enjoy the moment she takes note of our positions and hastily gets to her feet in an attempt to make sure I’m not looking down at her. The effort is wasted. She will always be beneath me, and we both know it.
“It seems you have more pressing matters to deal with than questioning me about my fidelity.” I don’t hide the rancor I feel, but I do allow her to assume it’s her examination that doesn’t sit well with me.
“And yet you haven’t answered.”
