Page 59 of These Godly Lies
Anna frowns. “I don’t understand.”
“Eira’s meadow, it was fixed. Once Marcia forced an invitation from her, there was no going back. No locking her out. Kaia… her gift isn’t tied to a place. She doesn’tneeda home at all. I think… I think this place was an apology. Maybe even her repentance. If Eira ever needed a place to run to where she couldn’t be found—”
“She’d at least have here,” Anna finishes, heart aching. “Did Eira ever forgive her?”
“In her heart? I like to believe so. In the ways that mattered?” Khiran shakes his head, a scoff laced with fondness escaping him. “And now she’s gone, and it’s too late.”
Time is a fragile thing.
Once, Anna had a better sense of just how fragile. Those years she struggled to find her next meal. The nights that were so bitterly cold, she wasn’t sure she’d wake come morning. Then Khiran placed that peach in her hand, and she stood in the flames but did not burn. Years turned to decades and decades into centuries, and somewhere along the line Anna forgot how it felt to feel afraid of running out of time.
It wasn’t until she took Piers under her wing and called him son—when the years became a countdown instead of a tally—that she had a taste of that feeling again. Being immortal, having forever stretched before her, robbed her of that. How easy it must be to hold on to an apology when you think you have an eternity to make it.
Anna leans her head against his shoulder. “Do you think she knows? About Eira?”
A moment of silence, filled only with their breathing and footsteps. Then, so quietly she nearly misses it, Khiran answers. “No.”
He doesn’t offer any further explanation. Anna doesn’t ask for one. There’s a hollowness to his eyes that indicates he’s more focused on his thoughts than what’s in front of them. She wonders if he’s going over the dozen different ways that conversation will go, the waysheis.
If he’s right—if Kaia truly doesn’t know of Eira’s passing—then she will soon. As much as she’s sure he hates to be the one to tell her, she knows Khiran will. Sometimes, lies can feel kinder than truths, but secrets can fester—a bitter, subtle poison. He won’t risk silence when he knows it will only sharpen the lancing pain of the truth.
Anna can’t help but wonder why he didn’t call on this favor before, when they were in Istanbul—a city settled on a strip of land cradled between the Black Sea and Marmara Trough. It would have been so easy to run straight from the temporary shelter of Cassius’generosity to Kaia’s uncharted fortress protected by the ocean itself. She wonders, but she doesn’t ask.
How can she when the answer wears the shape of Eira’s parting smile?
The temperature continues to drop.
Soon, Anna’s jacket doesn’t feel nearly warm enough to protect her from the cold. Her teeth chatter, the sound obnoxious even to her, but she can’t bring them to stop. Khiran gives her his coat, but it still doesn’t completely shield her from the chill. She tucks it around herself firmly, ducking her nose and chin under the collar so she can at least feel the warmth of her breath.
“Almost there,” he promises. The cold barely touches him. It’s only the goosebumps dotting his arms and the breath curling like smoke from his lips that convinces her that he feels it at all.
“Will it b-be warmer?”
“… Do you want the truth?”
Her answering glare is as bitter as the cold.
Khiran chuckles, pulling down the collar of his coat just enough to place a kiss on the reddened tip of her nose. “Don’t fret. Kaia would turn me out before she let you freeze. Some of the rooms are colder than others, but she’ll have some spare furs for you to wear to ward off the chill.”
Anna nods, ducking her face back into the collar of his coat. It’s hard to gauge how far they’ve traveled—the cave walls leave little room for landmarks, but they walk another fifteen minutes when Khiran’s steps slow and Anna realizes the tunnel has opened up into a cavern. At its entrance, a woman who can only be Kaia stands as if she’d been waiting for them.
She’s beautiful.
Her thick, black hair gleams. Even braided, it’s still long enough to reach past the woman’s lower back. Then she turns, and Annasees her face. She understands how a young Khiran would see the moon in her. Her face is full, glowing and soft. When she smiles, her dark, hooded eyes are like twin crescent shadows.
“Khiran.” She says his name like a song, her voice melodic and deep. Ancient. “It has been many years since you journeyed here.”
“I’m afraid mortal perils rarely find their way this deep.” The corner of his lips curl, a subtle smile that feels as tired as she feels. “Hello, Kaia.”
When she walks, she’s so fluid and silent she almost floats. Intricately carved hooks pierce her ears, flashing pale and iridescent against her tan skin. Shells, Anna realizes, they’re carved from shells. As she gets closer, she gets a closer look at the design and notices that the carved scrolling framing her face looks like waves.
Kaia reaches up, placing a hand on Khiran’s cheek. A string of shimmering shells dangle from her plump wrist, ringing out like the world’s only wind chime beneath the waves. “I’m happy you’re here.” Her eyes slide to Anna, head tilting. “And not alone.” The pleased smile she gives is as soft as she is. “My, things must be changing in the world above.”
Khiran’s knuckles brush her own. “This is Anna, my…” he falters, eyes meeting hers. “My person,” he says, voice soft. “My heart.”
Once, Anna would have only seen the romance in such a statement. But for all the love he holds for her, the adoration lining his voice like velvet, there are flames haunting his eyes like ghosts. His heart. His weakness. Burn her to ashes and he will float away with her.
Subtly, she laces their fingers and hopes he catches the echo in her eyes. In her smile. He is her heart, just as much as she is his.
