Page 135 of The Concubine King
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
They crash to a stop when they can no longer continue.Even Nuada, never given up fighting Geom, does not take his exhaustion as opportunity.She falls to her knees and claws her fingers through the weeds and fallen leaves, digging into the earth.Her head hangs low, face hidden by her long tangled locks, but there is no need for expression.Her grief claws into them as her fingers into the dirt, tearing open the chasm left behind by three severed connections.
Vaire props himself up against a tree, pressing his temple hard into the rough bark.It does not bring any grounding or sanity.He cannot fathom the void inside him, like a cavern, a gaping emptiness.The ache of separation but multiplied by such an amount that there is no pain to be felt, only numbness where threads were pulled so taut they were split apart.Numbness and Nuada’s silent, screaming grief.
‘Sea,’ Geom murmurs.He must speak words, because nothing can be understood amongst the frayed chaos left.
Nuada lifts her head, speaking through tears and clenched teeth.‘How did they know?How did they know how to kill us?’
‘I told Cadoc we have hearts that can stop beating,’ Dihen says.They stand where Kyarin had put them down beside him, still holding his hand.
She turns her gaze and her fury to them.‘You made this happen?’
‘No.’Vaire pushes off the trunk with effort.‘We were talking to Cadoc.We found out the civilized gods don’t have hearts—’
‘Civilized?’Nuada spits.‘Even now you use their words?’She stands.Geom reaches for her and she pushes him away.‘I do not care if they don’t have hearts.They are able to die like everything else.They will die.’
‘Please,’ Geom whispers.‘Don’t do this.I lost him too.’
‘Then you should understand,’ Nuada says.A swell of water crashes through the trees.
Vaire reaches for Kyarin but their fingers only graze before the wave hits them.It swallows them whole and carries them, tumbling and pitching, as it fills the forest.Vaire’s chest cracks into a tree branch that doesn’t break.He grabs hold of it blindly and fights the raging current to stay clinging to it.
The flood plunges most of the land underwater.Many of Vaire’s parts cannot survive the drowning.Any animals that could not outrun or outfly the deluge die as well.Nuada does not care.
And then, in a snap of pain and terror, his sense of her is gone.The water drops and recedes.
Vaire climbs down to the saturated earth and stands up to his ankles in mud, looking at the broken trees and torn up foliage, the unnerving silence of a forest devoid of wildlife.
Dihen and Kyarin are far off.Geom is in the mountains.There are no others.Half of them—half of him—lost.
He finds Dihen, sitting alone on a boulder.There are no words.Kyarin is still far.He does not want to be found.It does not stop Vaire looking for him, but the only direction that brings him closer is towards the human lands.
Kyarin would not be as foolish as Nuada.He would not try to fight the human gods.This knowledge does not quell the heart-splitting fear.Vaire sprints across devastated landscape, houses and crops torn up and left in strewn pieces alongside waterlogged bodies.Dihen follows slower behind.
He collides into Kyarin running towards him and falls into his arms.Kyarin takes the impact, closing his eyes as Vaire clutches his head and presses their faces together.Forehead-to-forehead, then nose-to-nose, cheek-to-cheek, he fills the aching panic with the comfort of breath and skin, with the gossamer touch of Kyarin’s arms around him and the smell of cold darkness.
‘I have spoken to the human gods,’ Kyarin says.
Vaire stills from nestling into his neck.
‘They said they will not kill us if we become one of them.’
Vaire steps back.Kyarin does not let go.‘What does that mean?’
‘They are certain they can get the humans to worship us as they are worshipped.But we must become human concepts.They said I can be a god of dreams and sleep.’
He breaks from Kyarin’s arms.‘What?’
Kyarin is looking at him strangely.Desperately.‘Or anything I want.Anything you want.We can become whatever you want.’
‘What are you saying?’Vaire whispers, words barely a breath.The air feels punched out of his lungs.‘You’re not making any sense.’
Kyarin steps forward and grips Vaire’s hands between his own.‘The things that make us can be cut away.But the human gods—they are made of faith.That is their life force and it cannot be severed.It is the only way to live.’
Vaire shakes his head.It is not the words that don’t make sense, it is Kyarin speaking them.Speaking as though it is certainty, as though it is inevitable.‘You’re saying to defy our natures!’
‘I persist.You survive.Thoseare our natures.’
