I should have told her.He exhaled. When this was over, he would exhume the past from the Drust mountains to lay at her feet.
And pray to every one of the Elsar that she’d still choose him at the end.
The ruined nerves in Kadra’s back pulsed with the jolt of his steed’s hooves over cobblestone. Dismounting yards from his tower, he absently registered the fire spearing down his spine. The exertion with the bounty hunters hadn’t helped, but four bottles would dull the pain. He had no illusions of it ever vanishing. It was the nature of old wounds to linger.
Steps away, the Academiae’s statue of Wrath snarled at an unseen enemy. Crimson paint dotted his burnished armor and hung in droplets from his stained shield.
Kadra walked past it.
“Stop,” ordered a voice like the roar of rocks tumbling down a mountain.
Kadra kept walking.
A thud. Armor clanked and dogged his steps, arrowing the sun’s dwindling rays into his eyes. He unlocked Aoran Tower’s gate and arched an eyebrow when no one pushed inside past him. A quiet evening then.
He locked the gate, turned, and found Wrath scowling at him.
Amber eyes pinned his, flame flickering within the irises. With an exasperated breath, the god abandoned his armor for blood-red robes that pooled around him in liquid threat. Long, black hair melded with the mass of fabric. Skulls and voids blinked from every hint of shadow.
Kadra tilted his head consideringly. “No.”
Lord Wrath, among the most feared of the gods despite the Order consistently revoking and reinstating his status as one of the High Elsar, smirked. “Your city implodes. Your woman struggles in the north. Your people are being laid to waste. And you still dare refuse.”
“Will you tell me who the culprit is if I agree to join you?”
Wrath pursed his lips. “No. Struggle belongs to humanity.”
“And detachment to the gods,” Kadra observed. “No.”
An imperceptible shift took place in Wrath’s frame, broadening the line of his shoulders, magnifying his eyes. Less an attempt at intimidation than a god unused to feigning human form. No mortal could comprehend the Elsar’s true faces. The façade was for Kadra’s benefit. This wasn’t their first argument. He had the irritating sense that it wouldn’t be their last.
“Few enter into the minor pantheon of the Naaduir in this age,” Wrath said slowly in a voice like slate scraping against slate. “Millions profess to worship us, but few truly do. You mortals have formalized more Saints than exist in truth. Many of the vaunted names you pray to are vestigesof souls being impaled in some hell or another.” He bared wide fangs in a grin. “Repeatedly.”
“Yet, you still want me as one of the Wretched.” Like the High Elsar and the Dark, the minor pantheon of the Naaduir contained both the Saints and their aptly-named, crueler compatriots. Kadra had under no illusions as to which one he was slated for. “Is there such a dearth of candidates that the gods no longer vet them?”
That seemed to amuse Wrath. “The gods have their ways of evaluation. You were already positioned for a seat once you died given your inspiring number of kills. Your service pleases me greatly.”
Kadra leaned against the gates. “I’ve never thought of you.”
A flicker of annoyance on the god’s face. “Your choices find me. There are other Elsar those decisions have served, but the sum of your life has led my way. I have Touched you. There is no returning to the world you knew. You will always see and know more.”
“Like the compatriot of yours who seems to have a penchant for crushing my skull?” Kadra asked dryly. “She offered me power too.”
The god seemed to halt in his tracks for a second, before continuing. “She can never give you what I can. Accept. In life, you will have strength beyond any you’ve known. In death, you will be the god you choose.”
“The same strength that has driven many men mad,” Kadra noted with amusement. “No.”
Blood dripped absently from Wrath’s hands. Bone extended from his nail beds like talons.
“Your position fetters you,” the god said darkly. “Tetrarch, Headmaster, Magus Supreme, they bind you to human notions of morality. Your constituents are equally your enemies and turn on you at the hint of crisis. They laud you for dispensing justice and shun you for how you enact it. Your land sees you as only fit for battle not rule.” The liquid pool of his robes widened. Skeletal hands emerged from it, clawing at the air. “Your woman is scapegoated by the very land she risks life and limb to save. You work yourself to the bone, trying to turn this country into a fortress for her,and for what? A reckoning comes. And it will force your hand between love and country. You will need me then.”
Reckoning. Wrath’s use of the word didn’t escape Kadra. “A shunned god seeking to rebuild his name,” he said evenly as rage tightened the Elsar’s face. “I know why you need me, but you’ve given me no reason to agree. My people are dying. Who is my enemy?”
A crease formed between Wrath’s dark brows. He was quiet for a long, barbed moment. “There is someone here who shouldn’t be.”
“And I am not to know who.”
“Some battles are necessary. While here, you are Godstouched and mortal. Only in death will you gain the privileges of godhood.”
