Page 83 of These Godly Lies
Anna winces, the empty space beside her chafing.
Khiran isn’t acting like himself—hasn’t been since the moment The Tree went up in flames.
He’s been quiet and withdrawn. Given the circumstances, she can understand why he might feel the need to pull away from the others—to recenter himself in his new reality. It must be hard, suffering under their gaze and being reminded that the body he’s come to know ashishas been stripped away. What worries her is the way Khiran seems to be distancing himself fromher.
Once, he’d told her he’d give everything if it meant they could hold each other without the fear of The First hanging over them. Now, she worries the realities might cost more than he imagined when he murmured the promise over her heart.
He keeps going back to the spot where The Tree once stood—his eyes measuring. Anna can’t be sure what kind of answers he’s searching for and she’s too afraid to ask. It’s been at least an hour since he told her he was going for a walk. She knows where his feet must have taken him.
Her hand goes to her pocket, fingers tracing the curve of the pit, trying to draw a bit of comfort from the hope it holds. Cassius’ question feels like a weight she can’t escape. “I don’t know.”
She hates that it’s the truth.
Silas must hear the pain lacing her voice, because he shares a look with Cassius before setting his plate aside. His hand is warm, reassuring, when it settles on her shoulder. “Why don’t I go tell him the food is ready?”
Weakly, Anna nods. “Thank you.”
Cassius studies her a moment longer while Silas walks away, before dropping his gaze to his plate. The First, she learned, hadn’t felt hunger for food or drink, but a larder had been kept with some basic staples for Malik and Marcia’s sake. Kaia had found enough to make rice to go with the fish they’d caught that afternoon. Taking abite, Cassius chews thoughtfully before speaking. “You’ll get your happy ending, Little Bird. You’ve fought too hard to accept anything less.”
She shakes her head. “I haven’t—”
He pins her with a knowing look. “You killed Dante.”
Anna recoils, heart giving a stuttering whine in her chest. She hadn’t had a chance to process the blood on her hands—hadn’twantedto. Better to bury it until she could afford to let the guilt cripple her. She feels it now, though. A burning under her skin. She swallows down the nausea rising in her throat. “Yes.”
“Wish I could have seen the look on his face when he failed to still you,” he says, voice lilting. “He always was an arrogant bastard.”
“I’ve—before that—I’d never killed anyone before,” she admits, staring at her hands. If she looks hard enough, she thinks she can still see the blood staining her pale skin. “Not directly. Not like that.”
“I know.” At her cautious, questioning glance, he smiles. A gentle pull of his lips that feels weighted, dragged down by memories she’s not privy to. “We all had that look about us, once upon a time.”
Anna swallows tightly. “I don’t regret it,” she whispers, the words an aching confession. “I thought I would.”
“Why should you? The only thing you’re guilty of is surviving.”
Anna’s heart doesn’t agree, but maybe someday she’ll feel it. Time changes everything, after all.
Her eyes drift across their meager campsite, lingering on the boy by Kaia’s side. Malik’s wrath had quieted into resigned silence. Sometimes Anna catches him watching them, his hazel eyes studying their more gentle interactions with a bemusement that makes her heart break. She’s afraid to know what his life looked like under The First’s care, treated like a weapon instead of a child.
Kaia must know some extent of it. She’s extra gentle with him, soft in ways that soothe. She sings him songs and tells him stories; turns the shadows of her fingers into puppets. Now, she sits with him on the ground, showing him how to play a version of tic-tac-toe and drawing in the dirt with the pointed end of a stick.
Suddenly, the quiet peace is broken by Malik’s scream. The soundblisters, so large for such a small body. Anna jumps up, running toward them. Malik is too caught up in his frustration to speak, his hand clutched to his chest. It takes Anna and Kaia a full minute before they realize the cause of his distress.
A splinter, big enough to hurt and small enough that Anna has to squint to see it in the firelight. She wonders how overwhelming such a pain must feel to a child who has lived too long to remember its bite.
She catches the moment Kaia reached for a magic that’s no longer hers; sees how lost the older woman looks without it. For the first time, Anna sees them—beings thousands of years her elder—and finds her youth to be an advantage. She has not forgotten what it is to be human; to be powerless.
She’s beginning to realize that theyhave.
It takes three days before the last of the embers give up their stubborn spark. Anna finds Khiran in the ruins not long after.
He’s kneeling, hands sifting through the ashes. It coats his arms up to his elbows like a ghostly pair of gloves.
“Khiran?” His name is a question she can’t bring herself to ask. The more days pass, the more she’s convinced that he’s changed in more ways than just appearances. There’s a pain in him, a quiet torment she doesn’t understand. Even when they lay together, their limbs tangled and their breath shared under the blanket of night, he still feels far away. Lost in thoughts he either can’t name or won’t share. “What are you doing?”
For a moment, he gives no indication of having heard her. Ashes spill from between his fingers as he rakes his hand across the earth. Once, twice, before he answers. “Searching.”
She kneels beside him, her bandaged hand reaching out to join him, but he grasps her wrist. Ashes smudge, ghostly and gray, over her skin as he meets her stare. His brown eyes still feel unfamiliar,but the look in them—the exasperation—is something she’d recognize anywhere. “Your hands,” he scolds softly. “You’ll get them infected.”
