No one told Natia that water burned too. That, as she drowned, it would sting her skin, her eyes her throat. No one told her that she would try to escape like her mother had when the flames ate at her. But it did. Natia felt raw, like the water wasn’t coaxing her in, but tearing her apart as she sank.
“I don’t want to be alone in the pain,” she admitted. “It’s dumb. I know. You can go ahead and tease me or--”
“Eternity,” he stopped her before he could be victim to another one of her rantings. Before he could hesitate Quinn pulled her into his embrace. She stilled against his chest. Now that was a line neither one of them should cross, but he did. And for some spectacular reason, he did not regret it. Damn the line. Damn the distance. He wanted to keep her close. To hold her and feel her heartbeat pounding in tandem with his.
“So long as I’m alive you will never be alone in your pain.”
“A lengthy promise,” she said reluctantly. Still, her arms moved around his waist.
Quinn had meant to stay away from the conflict. For so long he had stayed within his own bubble on Earth, doing what he could to help humanity during the New Enlightenment. All without anyone knowing who he was: The God of Stars.
In that time he had watched the tension grow with every passing year. From the Heaven’s Act to the detainment of unauthorized gods to the rise of the Revolutionist’s who strived to destroy every deity on the face of Earth. He had seen it all, but he never thought--never believed a war would come from it, or that he’d fight in it nonetheless.
Omne, the self-proclaimed Queen of the Gods, Goddess of the Universe, had other plans though. Finding him on the very night of the first murdered god, she made him her general, her skijic in the Nameless War. A position he only agreed to because of one thing.
The closer he was, the more he could go behind her back.
Every executed prisoner, every pillaged town and destroyed city was all apart of Quinn’s illusion. It was indestructible and powerful. A masterpiece hidden beneath of veil through which only he could see.
That is until he abandons it when meets a goddess from his past. A past that he barely sees glimpses of. So Quinn stays with her, grasping at memories he shouldn’t have, making connections who should’ve never considered. And despite all his confusion and desperation, there is a clear pinpoint within it all that he wants more than anything else to reach.
Omne smiled. There was danger in that expression. Powerful, dangerous beauty. It was in every bit of her. The way her hair was effortlessly swept back into a tight bun, the way the gold flecks in her eyes glimmered, how the metal talons designed specially for her tapped against the tulle of her dress. Pandora saw through it all. Saw what the gold and purple tint around her tried to hide, distract from, and she knew it was dangerous.
Pandora glared back at the hologram, her arms crossed over her chest, not bothering to stand. Omne rolled her eyes and ran her hands down the back of her thighs. The action pushed her dress forward while she sat down in a chair that had just come into view.
“Don’t be like that,” she said. “Tell me what’s wrong. What is it, that so shakes your heart, my dearest Pandora? What makes the ground beneath your feet split love. What is so ruinsome that-”
“I’m going to shoot you,” Pandora hissed at last, stopping Omen before she could go another dumb metaphor forward.
“I wasn’t finished yet.”
“You are now.” Pandora crossed her legs. Her feet subtly pointed to her bedroom door. She wanted to sleep. Even her subconscious was telling her to now.
“You’re no fun,” Omne grumbled. “Especially when you haven’t slept. How long has it been, huh?” Pandora tried to look away from her by facing the window. She was only meant with darkness though and remembered that she cloaked everything. “One week? Two? How bad is it Pandora?”
“How bad do you assume?” she asked.
“I don’t like to assume.” The tulle of Omne’s dress shifted as she did. “I like to know.” Pandora swallowed hard and glared back at the hologram.
“Don’t act like you care,” she asserted. “Neither of us deserve it.”
“I don’t care,” Omne said it back too quick, too defensively. “What I am offering you is professional courtesy.” Pandora scoffed and really looked Omne in the eyes. For a single moment, there was a moment of sincerity between them. Then it turned sour again.
“We were never very courteous in the first place,” she said. “Don’t start thinking we are now.”
“Can’t we at least pretend?” Pandora offered no answer, instead glaring into Omne’s hazel eyes. There would be no point in acting, in pretending. They would both know it was a lie anyway. “Fine then. Why the hell did you call me, Pandora? Unless you were just planning on scowling at me this entire time.”
Pandora did not speak yet again. She just watched Omne. Watched her sit, watched her wait, watched her tap her gold claws on her dress.
“You had him,” she muttered. “You had Quinn all this time, you disguised him as a warmongering monster so I would never even guess, dressed him up in satin suits and gave him proud stallions to ride into battle, turned him into the skijic. You did that, and go on to expect me to show you courtesy. Professional nonetheless.”
“Don’t sound offended.” Quinn glared at him out of the corner of his eye.
“I’m not. I always knew there was something strange about you Quinn. Something infinitely powerful and destined for great things.” Juniper took another sip from the bottle. Their eyes met again, both of them inquisitive. “You are the God of Light. You have white blood and weird abilities and a connection to the goddess who predates the entire universe.” Quinn watched the corner of his friend’s lips turn up encouragingly, though not happily. “You are learning more about yourself, and that is an amazing thing. I do not fear for you because of that. But you have yet to learn Pandora’s whole truth. It is that truth that I’m afraid will ruin you.”
He dropped his gaze to the ground, searching for something to stare at besides Juniper. His eyes found the window. Quinn watched the lightning again, the rolling rain clouds, and the glimmer of sunlight beyond it all.
To be honest, Quinn feared for Pandora’s truth as well. Her past would certainly be more complex than his own. A woman out of and within time all the same. The master of time itself, it seemed. At least in a romanticized sense. And yet there was a darkness within that past. It was fuming. That darkness is what made her recoil when he wasn’t angry. When he wasn’t punishing her.
What did that darkness do to her?
“I understand your fear, Juniper,” he said under his breath. “But I do not feel it as well. Even if Pandora can, which I doubt, it doesn’t seem like so much of a bad thing to be ruined by her.”
Juniper scoffed. “Then you are a fool.”
Quinn stared into the clouds, saw every molecule within them and he smiled.
Natia stared at her, studying her expression. She couldn't imagine how it felt. Couldn't imagine what it was like to be trapped like this. Because that is what this was. Evangeline wasn't trapped by obligation, but her own stupid compassion. This was the toll of her kindness. One sided love and a marriage she wasn't ready for.
"So what are you going to do about that?" Natia asked. Evangeline's eyes softened automatically and Natia couldn't help but wonder if this was the first time she'd ever felt heard. At least in the way that mattered.
"I don't know," she admitted, but her eyes showed no despair. "I was hoping you might have a suggestion."
Natia laughed. "Why would I know anything about this sort of thing?" She readjusted the bag straps on her shoulder awkwardly. "If you hadn't already guessed, I never married a man I didn't love." Evangeline didn't seem to startle at her blatancy. Somehow she'd already known that was just... Natia. She supposed that was lucky.
"Do you want to be with Lily?" Natia wondered at last. She saw the subtle joy in Eva's expression.
"Yes." It was no more than a whisper, but the sincerity was real. Natia felt a smile grow on her lips.
"Then go get her."
"But Ascher-"
"Fuck Ascher," Natia blurted but she didn't regret the words. "He can't keep you in a relationship you don't want to be in. He can't keep you from Lily. Only you can do that, so go get her."
Evangeline leapt forward without warning and wrapped her arms around Natia. She stilled in her embrace, not used to the whole sister thing yet. Hesitantly, she hugged her back. Eva was short enough for Natia to place her chin on top of her head. The darkness she had from was practically gone now, but Natia did feel something strange stirring inside of her.
Deciding not to mention it, Natia hugged her for a moment longer before Evangeline pulled away.
"Thank you Natia," was all she said before she raced out of her dorm and down the hall.
"Of course," she mumbled, her voice distant. Natia raised her hand to her face and stared at it. For some reason it felt fuzzy, like the blood and sense had been sucked from it.
“I’m fluent in Mu,” she said calmly. “Why the hell would I need him to translate?”
“So you were tricking him.”
She lifted the book, tapping the cover. “This doesn’t say Master of shadows. It says Dark God. Do either of you remember Grey telling us about a God of Darkness?”
“No,” Lily said quietly.
“What if it’s just a folk tale?”
“Doubt it,” she told Eva. “Everything else goes along with all of Grey’s stories. The God of Humanity, the angels, the Hall of Lights. All of it,” Nya jammed her finger against the cover, “except who it’s about.”
“Should we ask Grey then?”
Nya laughed and leaned back in her check, eyes closing as she shook her head. The book’s bindings felt ancient beneath her fingers. Like if she made one wrong move, it would turn to ash.
19. Orion, Lily, and Nya meet Quinn, helping him settle into Domum Deorum. Nya reveals to Quinn that the Siblings of Pandora each have a special kinesis. Lily uncovers more about Quinn’s identity and asks for Evangelines help.
20. Mayflower meets Juniper and Quinn. Quinn tells Pandora that he knows about the siblings. She looks into his past to be sure he isn’t threatening them. He explains his frustration of feeling like he knows Pandora. Quinn then tells her he wants to do more to help, and asks to learn Alchemy to do so. Pandora hesitantly agrees.
21. Natia grows tired from doing Ophelia’s commission, having not slept for 72 hours. She thinks about her mother’s death and breaks down. Only after Warrick tells her to sleep does she do so. Natia has a strange dream and wakes up, translating the Gods language blueprints somehow and discovering a shocking piece of Ophelia’s plan.
Favorite blurb this week (Rough Draft):
She was standing in her mother’s garden, looking out at her bustling town. The sky was orange and pink and purple and the sun was high in the sky.
Natia breathed it all in, felt the colors on her tongue like water. She tasted them, their sweetness, and swallowed them whole. They went down her throat, smooth as colors should be. Her hair was loose, dipping down to her collar bones. The sun caught the strands just perfectly enough to turn the usually plain brown strands gold.
“You seem to be enjoying yourself.” Her mom appeared at her side. While Natia’s skin had barely tanned through the summer, her mother’s skin was naturally the color of fall leaves and orange amber. She had hair like tar--so dark and smooth that it flowed carelessly in the wind. And her eyes. That was the one thing Natia had inherited from her mom: eyes the color of black coffee, eyes that did not turn to honey in the sunlight but rather red elderberries that had been smashed into the dirt, of dried blood on concrete. Dark eyes.
“I’ve always been more of a Fall person,” Natia explained. Her mom nodded.
“I know, little sparrow.” Little sparrow. That was her nickname for Natia. She had almost forgotten. “Do you still have what I gave to you?” Without saying anything Natia reached into her pocket and pulled out the small box she kept there. It was about the size of her hand. The wood was olive, making it beautiful and unique, and in the sunlight, Natia could see the seven bone inlaid symbols on the top. There was a blank spot in the wood, unblemished and unmarked. Empty and waiting.
“Oh good,” her mom said. Natia offered it to her but she shook her head. She smiled up at her, and Natia suddenly saw something not so human in her mother’s eyes. “Keep it. You will need it, little sparrow.” Natia stilled. That wasn’t her mom’s voice. It was deep and crackled like wood in a fire. Like bones in a fire.
Natia tried to back away, but her foot caught on something and she fell backwards. And she kept falling, the sky and earth stretching out above her until she was going cross-eyed trying to understand the change in the landscape. At last, she landed. Her fingers squeezed the grass below her as she twisted onto her stomach, groaning. Natia looked up.
Her gaze caught on the sun and moon, both of them gazing down at her. Then she heard it. A ticking, like a clock. She glanced behind her to try and figure out what it was. When she did she saw the grass twisting, moving up and down, up and down. Tilting her head. Natia tried to understand what it was that made the shifting so strange.
Not until her feet began to sink into it did she realize it wasn’t grass. She gasped and clawed at the dirt. The water grabbed at her ankles, trying to pull her beneath the surface. Natia closed her eyes, concentrating on holding on.
Tik. Tik. Tik. Tik. Tik. Tik.
She held on tighter as the water lapped further up. Her eyes opened and she looked up towards the sky. In perfect synchronization with the ticking, the sun and moon were approaching one another. Tik. The moon began to overlap the sun. Tik. Light tried to fight past the shadows, but it was being caged, trapped inside the darkness. Tik. The moon completely eclipsed the sun.
Natia didn’t close her eyes, didn’t prepare for the next tik that would allow the blinding light back in. She stared up and waited, but the tik never came.
Her eyes locked onto the moon, the water still trying to coax her in. Natia narrowed her eyes. The eclipse didn’t end, but somehow it seemed like the moon was getting bigger in the darkness. Expanding.
“What?” Natia wondered out loud. The moon offered no answers. Instead, it just kept growing, blocking more and more light as it did so. Then, right on the edge, Natia swore she--
Glass shattered, blowing out around her. At last Natia saw it wasn't a moon. She didn't know what it was. All she knew was to finally let the waves take her under.
The water dragged her lower, the glass above turning to fire as she sank. Natia held her breath. Somehow she knew the water wouldn't be allowing her back to the surface.
