by Kenna Bardot
I shook my head in protest. “No, it’s too close to your birthday for us not to spend it celebrating.” He caught me around the waist when I wrapped my arms around his neck. With my left hand, I reached over to take Ryle’s hand. “Are you feeling better?” I asked him.
“I’ll survive, Winter girl,” he murmured, all forgiven between the two of us. He kissed my hand before moving forward to wrap around me from behind.
“Are we going to spend our time cuddling instead of eradicating Mireyah’s ineptitude with Majele?” Char asked.
I looked around Tate as best as I could while being enveloped between the twins to find him standing just beyond our embrace. Hollis hovered not far behind. “You’re such a sweet Sire,” I drawled.
“You can do it, I know you can. If you don’t want to practice the next time we’re all home together, then I suggest we spend the rest of today training.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he interrupted me. “Being tired isn’t enough reason to stop trying.”
I sucked in a breath that I expelled loudly. “Fine.”
Ever obtuse to the subtleties of the female language, he continued on without picking up the disinterest in my voice. "Good, now that's settled.” Char tilted his head towards the purple-haired man even as he gave me the evil eye. "Shep, attack her." A line of white swirled from him to wrap around me. “This time, I’m rendering you unable to access your Kald, Mireyah.”
I braced against the hollow sensation my lack of Kald left me with. As one of Shep’s tornadoes lifted me off the ground, I tried to grab that other part of me. I knew it was there, but no matter how I searched, nothing surfaced. With Char muting my Kald, there was just nothing. Nothing but a strange reminder of what it had been to be human.
Still, I searched.
Until the faintest wisps of blue sputtered from my hand. The sky darkened above us as Shep’s storm grew. I tried again and managed more blue to come out, but the Majele felt so different from my Kald. So foreign, that I didn’t know what to do with it and it sputtered out before I could understand. Thrashing my body about in my frustration, I pushed myself off the tornado, landing with my back on the ground.
The sky cleared as I laid there, and the tornado dissipated from the corner of my eye. Tate peered down at me and offered a hand. “Are you sure you want to keep doing this? There are less painful alternatives.”
I struggled to a sitting position and shook my head. “I’m fine.” When he offered his hand again, I hesitated. Contact with Tate amplified his abilities and given the way he pushed for a better understanding of the internal workings of my emotions, I didn’t trust it.
“I swear I will not read you without your permission. Trust me when I say I respect your decision.” He pulled me to a standing position, and I looked over his shoulder to see that the rest of our men were watching us with a heavy silence.
I nodded but said nothing. I didn’t know why, but this time I had a feeling ignorance was bliss. It seemed important not to understand my block until we were ready for it.
“Who’s next?” I asked instead of responding.
Three
Mireyah
Joy exploded through me as I ran out of the building. Being dismissed from my duties early was such a rare luxury that I didn’t even consider the one unfortunate consequence until I paused at the top of the steps. Instinctively looking for one of my Sires, I deflated when I realized the shock of my early dismissal meant no one waited to walk me home.
While I was entirely capable of making the journey on my own, I enjoyed walking home with one of my men holding my hand.
That skin on skin contact with one of them reinforced our Bond, and I thrived in spending that scarce one-on-one time with each of them. I shook the disappointment off as I started down the steps.
It was one day walking alone. I should be grateful for the time to myself.
I turned to make my way to the Springen Express when my gaze landed on a shock of bronze hair. Oryn, head buried in a book, lingered in the plaza. Since it felt like ages since I’d last seen him, I rushed up to him. “Oryn!” I called.
He didn’t hear me, and it didn’t come as a surprise. With all the time we spent just reading in the alcove in Sylfeshire, I knew how easily he lost himself to the words on the page in front of him.
I called him again, louder so he couldn’t miss me the second time. “Oryn!”
"Mireyah!" He finally looked up, meeting my eyes with an enormous smile.
"It’s early. Why are you not in the library?" I asked as I stepped up into his space and gave him a brief hug.
"Same reason you aren’t tormented in the nursery, I expect.” Oryn shrugged as he snapped his book shut. He turned to face the capital.
At the very Northern edge of the plaza stood a massive building formed of the same black-and-white marble that the North was known for. Strong and regal, the building jutted up into the sky like an obelisk. It was where Kald, Vide, and Tovenaar leaders convened and where they held official functions. "Are you ready for the torment to begin?" Oryn asked.
"What torment?" I asked him, tilting my head to the side in confusion. He swivelled to face me, his face crumpling as he studied me.
"The party?"
"Party?” I tapped a finger against my chin, then shrugged. “I don't think I was invited," I laughed, and my fingers toyed with the tattoos on my left wrist. Char hadn’t told me about it, but with how consumed by work he’d been of late, I couldn’t blame him for forgetting.
My obsessive, hard-working perfectionist often forgot the things he thought frivolous.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to attend a party full of Northerners. Some of my least favorite people are from the North.”
“Last I checked, you were a Kald, Mireyah. And you have as much right to be there as those who put such a ridiculous stigma on you and your circumstances.” His jaw tightened in anger. Such an unusual expression for my bookish friend.
“Oryn, please….” I trailed off at the look on his face, at the way it morphed from rage to a deep melancholy as I watched.
"You just became my date." He nodded, and I let loose a sigh. I hated seeing my friend so sad and I wanted to reach up to comfort him. The only thing that stopped me was the realization that there was no comfort I could offer. Not when the date he should have brought was still in Sylfeshire. Not when his heart ached for Aes. After her failure in their first round of Sire Trials, I couldn’t blame him for his impatience
I knew what waiting for her must have felt like. I’d lived the same separation during my time in Sylfeshire. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be so close and then have to start all over to win the right to Sire her.
"Okay, I'll be your date," I said, taking the arm he held outstretched for me with an exaggerated sigh. I did rightfully belong in the North. No matter how much I might have hated most of the Gods there, Oryn needed a date. That was the least I could do.
“Great! I’ll walk you home so you can get ready then I could pick you up there or we can meet at the capitol building.”
“Zeevar, no! No way I’m going home to get ready. Can you imagine how my men would react?” I laughed because I could imagine it would be a ruckus.
He looked at me a moment before nodding and veering sharply to the right and in the opposite direction of the path that took me home. “Where are we headed now?”
“It’s closed, but I have the key to the library. I can leave you there while I head home and change.” He shrugged when I arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re always welcome in my house, but most wouldn’t consider it appropriate. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“You’re not wrong.” And it meant I got to spend quiet, alone time with books.
Not a hardship for me.
✽✽✽
I hated the North, but I had to admit that the library was glorious. Filled floor to ceiling with books, the smell of parchment and wood permeated the air like a familiar and com
forting embrace. The moment Oryn left me, I made a beeline for the shelves and choosing just one proved nearly impossible.
But I did eventually choose, and time seemed to fly by.
“Mireyah, it’s time to go.” Oryn called out for me and though I heard the impatience in his voice, I held up a finger to hold him off. I was barely halfway through what I was reading.
It was a book I’d read before, but the copy of Lysandra’s favorite book in a library in Demiorgo took me by surprise. Then again, with Oryn as its curator, I should have expected that he would make inclusive choices. It was bittersweet, remembering her that way. But it made me feel closer to her again, like tapping into a happy memory and savoring it while it lasted.
He stepped towards me on light feet. “I’ll make sure you get that book so you can finish it, but we have to go.”
“Okay,” I sighed and looked up at him. Oryn had changed, and I suddenly felt underdressed. I’d never thought to ask him what the party was for, but I had a feeling it wasn’t just some simple get together.
The North never seemed to just do simple.
With the library locked up behind us, he escorted us towards the tall, black structure. We walked in behind all the other Gods and Goddesses who had gotten to the party at about the same time that we had.
And I confirmed that I was underdressed for certain. That day, I’d worn a sheer purple shirt that showed off a bit of midriff. It was a top that Shep simultaneously loved for its color and hated for what it revealed. I’d paired it with gray silky pants that had a slight sheen and while not overly casual, it was a couple steps down from what the general population seemed to wear.
I smiled. I liked that it was so different, almost irreverently so, from what the others wore. The North already saw me as a freak for the choices I made, so it made me happy to wear an outfit that defied expectations so spectacularly.
As Oryn and I entered the Capitol building, Gods and Goddesses sneered at us. “Oryn, you should have insisted that I change.” I didn’t want to reflect poorly on him, not when bringing me as his date was sure to annoy some of his peers as it stood.
“Are you bothered by it?”
“Not particularly, no. I just worry for your sake.”
“I don’t particularly care either. I changed, because I don’t want to give them a reason to chase me out of the library. But you’re fine. What’s the worst they can do? Not let you care for the hellions they don’t want to deal with?” He gave me a gentle pat on the shoulder and I hoped that what he’d said was true because walking through the open doorway sealed that fate. I wouldn't back away, wouldn't retreat just because some Gods glared at me.
I'd defied them for far less as a human, and while I had faltered and allowed myself to weaken as Sylfe, I’d triumphed and conquered that. I wouldn't let them deter me as a Goddess.
I smiled serenely, holding my head high as I looked around the building I'd never entered. It was a place Char gave more import to than I - a place where he could achieve his new dreams and goals. Those that he’d grown more determined to get after I Ascended and he could focus on his personal achievements.
But it would not be the place where I could start my own dreams, accomplish all of my lofty goals. No, the North hated me far too much for that. Judged me far too harshly for that with my two-toned hair and my dual-colored eyes.
I tried not to wince when my eyes landed on black across the room. There were so many Tovenaars in the North. Just like it wasn't fair of the Northern Gods to judge me because I had two tones to my hair, it wouldn't have been fair for me to judge an entire House based on my interactions with one male.
And it was that one male whose eyes landed on me and had me tightening my grip on Oryn’s arm, which stiffened when he turned to see what I was looking at.
I maintained my breathing, refusing to let the breath hitch in my chest when Ashric's naturally upturned lips parted to exhale a breath. As if he hadn't seen me in passing, as if it was a shock to see me looking so different than I had during our last interactions.
"Is this the first you’re seeing him since Sylfeshire?" Oryn whispered at my side and Ashric gave a shake of his head at the same time I nodded. His long legs strode toward us, and I refused to take my eyes off of him. Goddess, Sylfe, or human: I didn't trust Ashric Tovenaar enough to give him the benefit of the doubt that would come with diverting my focus from the threat he posed.
"Only in passing. We haven't spoken, thank Zeevar.” I tried hard to swallow. My body reacted to Ashric in much the same way my mind had.
Badly.
"Until now, seemingly."
“You’re not wrong.” I squared my shoulders, both wishing for and grateful that I didn't have any of my men with me. After Ashric allowed his bear to shred my skin in the final Sire Trial, I was certain any of the men would return the favor if he got too close to me.
Breathing the same air was too close, in my opinion. So he really was already cutting it close.
"Mireyah," he murmured, that odd half-warmth in his voice as he reached out a hand and plucked a chunk of blue hair off my shoulder. His hand barely touched my skin, barely brushed against it. But it was enough.
Just enough.
I didn’t step back but allowed the frost to creep up his fingers, flaking over his skin in a warning that made him drop my hair with a grimace. He smirked at me as he shook the faint ice from his hand. "Is that any way to greet an old friend?"
"Friends?” I shook my head. We were not friends by any stretch of the imagination, and only a man like Ashric could claim such a lie.
"We were almost married. Surely we can be friendly now that we are equals.” He smiled at me, the curve to his lips turning ever more smug when two Goddesses from his House stepped up and flanked his sides. Silent support.
I ignored them.
"We aren't equals, Ashric," I laughed as I watched his nostrils flare, his eyes narrowed at my words. "Even as a human, I was worth ten of you."
"Is that why you aren't wanted here, Majele whore?" one of the Goddesses at his side asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Khione, she has just as much bronze to her hair and eyes as she does blue and deserves to be here," Oryn said in my defense. I stopped him with a hand on his arm. I'd never needed a man to defend me, never needed protection from something as simple as a few scathing words.
"Why don't you put your head back in a book, Oryn? Gods know that's all you're good for," the Goddess he’d called Khione sneered at him, and I watched Oryn's jaw clench.
"Leave him alone," I spat, stepping forward and it was only Oryn's subtle touch to my side that stopped me from what I had been about to do. Becoming a Goddess from a Sylfe, and to that from being a human meant I’d felt the way being a Goddess made me more intense. More unstable.
It made me more prone to crying. It made me more prone to violence. It made me more prone to anything, simply because I could no longer be the cold bitch locked away behind my heart of ice.
Not with how my men melted it.
"How cute of you to defend him, since you can't even convince your Sire to take you to a party. How pathetic," she drawled.
"My Sire has far more important things to do than attend a party with the likes of you," I spat.
"And you don't?"
I felt the pang in my heart because I knew that while he loved me, Char was too ambitious not to give his priorities to furthering himself. But I wasn’t about to let anyone know that I felt that as I glanced around the room with a grimace. "I was mildly curious. I have to say though," I paused, heaving out a breath. "I'm not impressed. I knew starving humans who threw more lively parties."
Oryn chuckled at my side, looking oddly curious about my reference of my life as a human. I knew from the rare moments he brought it up in our casual conversations, that he genuinely had an interest in the way humans lived.
In how they survived some of the harsher lifestyles of Godsfell. The North was as harsh as they came, with its brutal winters a
nd difficulties with growing the food we needed to survive.
Ashric eyed Oryn with disdain before turning back to me and shaking his head as if I was a continual disappointment to him. I didn't understand how after all that time, he still thought he had any right to be disappointed in me.
He was nothing to me, and he never would be.
"You have five dicks at your disposal, but you still needed a new one?" Ashric asked, his voice as cold as his words were vulgar. The women beside him snickered, but I noticed they made no move to touch him. Even his supposed friends didn't dare have any physical contact with the God that I suspected made even their skin crawl.
"Speaking of dicks, do you still call out my name when you fuck other women?" I shot in return, watching as his nostrils flared and his Adam's Apple bobbed with his visible swallow.
Those black eyes glinted as he stared me down. "Still as wild as ever, I see. If you were mine, you'd know your place by now."
"If I was yours, I'd have slit your throat while you slept by now," I growled in return. "After all, Tovenaars are so very fragile. Kalds and Majeles," I pondered, pursing my lips as if I had to think of it. "Not so much." And it was true, I'd been fortunate enough to Ascend into the powers of two particularly resilient Houses.
"This isn't Sylfeshire, Mireyah and you’re not untouchable here. The Core Gods no longer give a shit about you now that you're Sired and just another one of us. You’re expendable, so remember your mediocrity before you burn any bridges." Ashric sneered at me, touching the arm of the Goddess who hadn’t spoken. She winced, but didn't jerk her arm back. It only confirmed what I'd already suspected. Ashric may not have risen to any great level of respect on Demiorgo, but he still bulldozed his way through everything with disrespect, intimidation and fear.
"I think it is probably best that you leave, Mireyah Majele.” I turned to see Jaiya, eyeing me with that look I felt she reserved just for me. The way she left the Kald off my name was an attempt to ostracize me further. It didn't matter to them that I belonged there, that I was as Kald as I was Majele.
