Page 81 of These Godly Lies
Anna recognizes him anyway.
Her empty hand traces the gaunt line of his cheek, leaving a trail of ash in its wake. She breathes his name between them. A question. A confirmation. “Khiran?”
A scream pierces the air, shrill in ways only small bodies seem capable of accomplishing. Malik lays on the ground, face and clothes streaked in ashes and soot, his small fists and feet striking the ground in a tantrum. The words that leave him are so tangled up in emotion, it takes Anna a moment to decipher them. When she does, her heart gives a painful twist, regret coating her tongue in bitter understanding.
“My fault,” he screams. “It’s all my fault!”
Anna knows she’s to blame for it—that she used him the sameway The First has for thousands of years. As if he were a weapon instead of a boy. Instead of a child.
Anna stands, her burned hand curled protectively over her chest and feeling every bruise and scrape with a permanence she hasn’t felt in nearly a millennium. Strange how something so universal can feel so new. She wets her dry lips, tasting ash, and steps toward him.
A hand on her wrist, gentle and unfamiliar, stops her.
“Leave him,” Khiran says, but his voice is as foreign to her as his features. He winces, as if the change surprises him, too. Frowning, he releases her wrist to look at his hands, leaving a smudge of ash where his fingers curled around her pulse. A shadowed bracelet forged from everything she’s destroyed.
Slowly, his fingers close into a fist. The sinewy tendons of his arms flexing just beneath his skin.
Over his shoulder, Anna sees the look in Kaia’s eyes. The same frozen promise as the moment the tide swept The First to his end. Anna’s not sure how fast or how far her current traveled before the magic burned from their veins, but she doesn’t doubt that Kaia’s delivered on her threat. Somewhere, The First’s screams are being swallowed by an ocean, his lungs filling with salt water. Anna has always feared drowning—feared the agony of it. She thinks it’s a fitting end for a man who would happily let the world burn.
But not for Malik.
She steps to the side, putting her body between the boy who has nothing and the woman who has lost everything. “He’s a child,” Anna says, looking between all their faces. She expects to find sympathy, to find anally, but even Silas averts his gaze.
Cassius is the one bold enough to voice what they all must thinking. “He’s a monster, Anna.”
“Only because he was never given the chance to grow into anything else!” She looks to Kaia, but she won’t return her gaze. She’s too busy staring down at the child pounding at the earth, body pale with ash, as if he’s an obstacle to overcome. It may have been on The First’s orders, but it was Malik’s fire he weaponized. Malik’s hands who killed Eira. “Kaia,” she says, a plea threading through thewoman’s name like a prayer. “He never had someone like Eira to teach him. Tolovehim.”
Anna takes a deep breath, hands fisting at her sides. “He deserves that same chance. Please.”
Cassius shakes his head, his arm cradled against his chest. The First must have landed a blow before Kaia’s waters swept him away. “You’re a few thousand years too late, Little Bird.”
“You’re wrong.” Anna looks to Khiran, her gaze steady and her voice strong. “Time touches everything. He deserves the chance to grow. Tochange.”
He can’t hold her stare, his eyes dropping. Anna feels his doubt like a betrayal.
“He killed Eira,” Kaia says, but the edge in her gaze has dulled into something thoughtful. Pain mixed with reflection.
“Yes.” She won’t deny the truth of it, as partial as it is. Anna glances at the smoldering ruins around them. A throne of roots and ruin smoldering into ash. “In a way, he helped you kill The First, too.”
They all go silent—Malik’s tantrum and the hiss of the waning flames the only sound between them. Khiran wets his thin lips, shaking his head. “Anna’s right.” He looks over at the boy, measures the way his tiny fists and feet beat against the ashes of a stolen temple. “If oppression can breed cruelty, then perhaps empathy can heal it.” He reaches for her, fingers trace the line of her jaw and meeting her gaze. “He suffered as we did, but without the freedoms. Without the friendships. He deserves a chance, and we owe it to him to give it.”
Silas’ expression is weighted with understanding. “I agree.”
Eyes rolling, Cassius does little to rein in his skepticism. “That’s all very touching, but that doesn’t really solve anything. Which one of us is actually willing totake him in.” He looks between them, his uninjured hand splaying over his chest. “Because I’m certainly not. I refuse to be responsible for a child, let alone one with thousands of years of emotional baggage.”
“I’ll do it,” Anna offers. “I’m the one who hurt him—who used him. The least I can do is try to teach him how to live a normal life.”
“No,” Silas murmurs, a furrow in his brow. “That’s why it shouldn’t be you. He’s been angry for so long… looking at you is more likely to remind him of what he’s lost instead of the freedom he’s gained.”
Anna winces, hearing the truth in it. “But—”
“I’ll take him.”
The words are quiet, but they ring in Anna’s ears like a promise. When she looks, Kaia doesn’t meet her eyes. She’s too busy looking at the boy.
Khiran is the first to react. His brow creases, his dark eyes anguished. “Kaia, you don’t—”
“I do,” Kaia says, cutting him off. She turns to him, her face softening in ways Anna hasn’t seen since their time below the waves. “I need to be the one to take him in. I need to be the one to ensure something good comes of all of this. SoIcan heal, too.” Her hand rests over Khiran’s gaunt cheek, her eyes glassy. “It’s what Eira would have wanted.”
