Méherre cried out in pain. A portal slit the air, a thin sliver taking too long to widen.
Sarai eyed it with dread and pressed her and Kadra’s clasped hands to her chest. “If the worst happens,” she whispered, “it has been the greatest of honors.”
He tipped her chin up and caressed the underside. “Every day meanteverything,” he said softly.
Her eyes grew wet. “Be careful.”
Noceo lifted a few vials from his satchel. “Anyone want these first?”
“Fuck no, I’m not touching anything she’s made.” Anek flinched at the sound of screaming from within the portal. It broadened enough for them to enter. “Elsar preserve me,” they muttered to the sky with heavy irony before walking in.
Face tight, his brother followed.
Kadra entered with Sarai’s hand in his. A black wind swallowed them. Their feet left the ground. Gold eyes found his before black closed around them and spun, hurtling them into the center of a whirlwind.
He dimly heard Sarai’s scream. Her hand tore from his grasp, his roar of her name lost to the howl of air and flashes of color. Other faces whipped around them, hapless within the same fury. Sight and sound blurred in a tumultuous shriek until his feet hit the road.
His sight cleared.
And he knew where he was.
Rain struck cobblestone with bitter fury and pelted the body at the base of Sidran Tower. She twitched, mangled fingers inching forward in an attempt to hoist herself upright before realizing that it was fruitless.
Kadra knew pain. Its corners and tunnels had ceased being a mystery to him in childhood. But in this, he, who had borne the pain of a cracked spine for a decade without complaint, was rendered in agony.
He approached her as he had then and knelt, brushing a waterlogged strand of hair from her face. A harsh breath sawed from him. As the years passed, the memory of Sarai’s original face had faded long before he’d met her again. Now, he would never forget.
Half of her was pulp. The rest quietly pleaded with him for mercy. Brown eyes, hollow cheeks. “Please,” half her mouth slurred, the rest broken against cobblestone.
He cupped her cheek with a hand that shook. His heart choked in his chest when she leaned into the touch. She felt solid, broken. Fury sharpened his bloodlust. This god knew his weakness well.
An unnaturally large shadow loomed over them and blotted out the scant moonlight.
He didn’t turn around. “Is this real?”
“In life, I was Time’s acolyte,” a melodious voice spoke behind him. “I can make it real.”
Anguish threaded through the cracks in his heart.
A dark blue-green foot touched the ground in front of him. He raised his head to the goddess standing beside Sarai. Her black hair floated in defiance of the rain. Bone-white horns gleamed like blades, and eighteen eyes surveyed him with cold amusement, twelve pupilless orbs scattered across her shoulders and clavicles, four on her cheekbones, and two human ones.
He had an idea of who she was now. “Faragathe, Wretched Seer of Sleep. The one who’s been trying to crush my skull.”
“You’ve a hard head. And you owe her,” she said with a hard glance at Sarai’s body. “So much pain could have been avoided this night, if you’d placed her life above your petty gains.”
“What will undoing it cost me?”
“Everything.” Her teeth gleamed as sharp as Wrath’s. “You and your city for her future. We should understand each other better than most,Godstouched. The objects of this world do not matter. Cities rise, fall, and burn. It’s all a day in the life of a god. Let this one go, and I will spare your woman. She will have the life she should have had. You have my word.”
“Will that life be real?” he asked, voice clipped and hard.
She laughed. “You of all people should understand how very variable reality is. But she will be happy. Tragedy will not find her.”
And neither will I. He understood the cost.
Thunder roared around them. Sarai’s mouth worked under his hand. “Please don’t go,” she croaked.
Heat built behind his eyes in a way he hadn’t known since childhood. He wiped a trail of blood from her chin. Wrath had been right.Everything has a price. Even regret.
