Page 82 of These Godly Lies
Her hand slips away, her gaze resting on Anna. Something passes between them, so heavy it takes Anna a moment to put a name to it. It’s more than understanding; more than something shared.
She remembers the feel of warmth from the hearth, the way a quilt stitched by her hands covered their bodies and Khiran’s fingers trailed over the patterns on her skin. Remembers the way he told his and Eira’s story and Kaia’s mistake. Remembers the reasons Kaia gave him for interfering.
She confessed to me, much later, that she was a mother before she was a god.
The tension spills from her chest like coiled wire set loose, tangled and chaotic. A mother. Kaia was a mother. Of everyone here, they are the only ones who understand what parenthood means. The only ones who understand the pain and joy of it. The responsibility.
And Anna knows, with a certainty that leaves her breathless, that Kaia wouldn’t offer to take in a boy with bloody hands if she didn’t believe there was room in her heart to forgive him.
They have to pry her fingers away from her palm.
The pain is unspeakable, a scream in her lungs and a sob sticking in her throat. Khiran murmurs apologies as he carefully peels each finger away from the burnt and blistered skin. Then her hand opens, and she sees what she burned for—what she could havediedfor— and feels her heart race with the implications.
In the blistered cradle of her palm is a peach pit.
Cassius stares down at the grooved and pitted seed, a crooked smile dimpling his left cheek. “I knew it. I knew it chose you.” He looks at Khiran with a teasing glance. “Oh, I will most certainly enjoy holding this over your head for the rest of our pitiful mortal lives, dear Brother.”
Silas shakes his head in disapproval, but there is a fond smile pulling at his lips. He still wears it as he places a kiss to the blonde’s temple.
Cassius stares at her as if she is a dream made reality. Then his grin falters. Fades into something soft. Something warm. “Well done, Little Bird.”
Anna barely hears him. Her eyes are on the pit in her palm with giddy relief. Hope unfurls in her chest, fragile as a sparrow’s wings and ready to soar.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
His fingers rake through the remains, soot blackening his nails and ashes smearing gray shadows over his skin. This body feels strange—as alien to him as the lingering, aching pain. Hiding somewhere beneath the cremated remains of the great tree is a piece of himself.
EDUN
JUNE1975
They linger.
Mend their wounds and still their hearts while the flames slowly perish, embers glowing like eyes in the pitch of night.
Anna often finds her hand slipping into her pocket, closing her fingers around the seed just to assure herself that it’s still there. Sometimes, when everyone else has fallen into sleep, she’ll close her eyes and hold it for hours just to see if she can feel the hum of magic againsther palm.
She never does.
Whatever magic it holds is now beyond her reach, but she knows with a certainty that only faith can inspire that it’s there. She can no longer hear the whispers or feel the tug on her soul, but the moment she saw the pit in her soot-streaked palm, she knew what she was meant to do with it.
Plant it. Care for it until it grew into its magic like a phoenix made stronger for having been burnt down to ash.
She had considered letting it grow in the ashes of its mother. It would be poetic, she thinks, but ultimately it didn’t feel right. This paradise has been tainted. The roots twisted and forced into the unnatural shape of an unfit throne while its gifts had been exploited. Sometimes it’s not enough to rise from the ashes. Sometimes one has to start somewhere new to grow.
Anna suspects that sentiment will ring just as true for all of them. Sometimes she catches a stillness in Silas. One she recognizes as the same faraway look he would get when the world whispered its secrets to him. Anna knows he’s listening for something that will not come.
When she asks, he offers her a smile, but it’s weak at the edges. “The world is so quiet now that it no longer speaks to me. Sometimes I find myself forgetting that there are no longer whispers for me to hear.”
She sits beside him, drawing her knees to her chest. There’s a sliver of regret lodged in her heart. It twinges every time she’s reminded that they bear the burden of her choice. “Do you miss it?”
He looks down at his hand, somber gaze tracing the lines of his palm as if they could spell answers. “It feels like a piece of myself is missing.”
Cassius sidles in on his other side, their shoulders brushing as he gently places a plate of food into his lover’s hands. “Worry not, my love,” he soothes, lips curving into a smile as honest as it is playful. “Now that there’s no one to stand in our way, we will build a life together that fills the parts of us that feel empty.”
Silas’ answering smile is as warm as the fire reflecting in his dark eyes. “That we shall.”
Cassius’ gaze lifts to hers, his head tilting as he studies her. There’s concern chipping away at the curve of his lips. By the time he finishes chewing on his words, his smile has disappeared entirely. “Should I be worried?”
