Page 61 of In Your Light

You’ll know why when you see them, Cern had said.

Oh by the heavens.

Babies. They had babies.... Four tiny half-god babies.

Hadeom couldn’t explain the way his heart squeezed. Joy and sorrow wrestled with guilt and misery. The pain for what he could have stolen, for what he’d stolen from others, seared through Hadeom like a hot knife. His lungs screamed for air, so he sucked back a breath, his eyes stinging with tears.

He needed to leave. He needed to call for Cern. He needed this misery to end. Beg the old man for mercy. A god could die, right?

He fumbled back a step, and Fyn grabbed Hadeom’s shirt⁠—

Then he heard it. A far-off thumping sound, getting closer. Everyone turned and cocked their heads toward it.

“We have a helicopter incoming,” Ciaran said.

Sawyer rounded on Hadeom. “Who is it? Who is coming here?”

Hadeom shook his head. “I don’t know. Cern never said. I promise, I don’t know.”

Ciaran ushered Salem and Aurin toward the water. “Get them into the cove, now,” he demanded. “We’ll get you to the hut when it’s all clear. Otis, Pania, go with them.”

He then gave directions to the others, but Hadeom couldn’t focus on what was being said. He watched Salem and Aurin run for the jetty and disappear into the water, and then Fyn was pulling Hadeom along, first by his shirt, then his arm.

Hadeom went willingly. He had no fight left in him.

Not for anything.

Fyn ran, and Hadeom almost tripped over his own feet, but then he was in a house. In a small living room that smelled of old dust and lemon disinfectant. Fyn peered out the front window, and it sounded as if the helicopter was coming in to land, but Hadeom just stood there.

He felt sick to his stomach, and his heart hurt and his eyes burned, but his shadows were quiet and still.

They were so very dark inside him, growing darker and heavier, and⁠—

“Hey,” Fyn said, standing in front of him now.

Hadeom hadn’t seen him move. He lifted his hand to gently wipe a tear from Hadeom’s cheek. He hadn’t even known he was crying, but then another tear fell, and another.

“I’m sorry,” Hadeom said, the words coming out of him in a sob. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey,” Fyn said again, softer this time. He cupped Hadeom’s face in his hands and pulled him into an embrace.

An actual embrace.

Hadeom couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hugged. Had he ever? Through eons of time, he couldn’t think of one single time...

And oh, how wonderful it was.

Fyn was warmth and strength and everything else Hadeom didn’t deserve. But oh, how he needed it.

He couldn’t stop crying. It felt as if he’d been ripped open, every emotion he’d contained for millennia pouring out of him. Fyn held him as he sobbed, and when Hadeom’s legs could no longer hold him, he went to his knees, and Fyn went with him. Never letting him go. Never breaking his hold. Just keeping him in his arms and letting him weep.

It was pitiful. He was pitiful. Hadeom, the untouchable, unkillable slayer of monsters, was a broken man.

When he tried to collect himself, when he tried to pull away, Fyn held him tighter.

“Is it true?” Fyn asked. “Did you kill Salem’s mother?”

“Yes,” Hadeom replied. “I have killed thousands, Fyn. I’m not.... I’m not who you think I am.”