Selfish Myths 2

by Natalia Jaster

  “I don’t make the same mistake twice—what now?” Anger demands as Malice begins to search the terrace garden crammed with juniper saplings and herb beds. “What are you doing?”

  “Searching for your cock. It seems you’ve misplaced it—”

  Anger closes the distance. Malice goes flying into a patch of rosemary, the impact eviscerating crops and pulverizing the plot’s brick border.

  The archer stumbles to his feet. Chuckling, he straightens his clothing and retrieves his weapons, which have skidded across the building.

  Spitting out blood, Malice waves an arrowhead lazily in Anger’s direction. “Be careful, mate. Number one, try not to cramp my nitty-gritty style with your piss-poor timing. Confessing about Love on the cable car? I know you were trying to break Merry quickly, but you have to earn her first. Number two, it’s fine to bend her over if you need a release, but don’t prove me right by going lame. As it is, the world’s overpopulated with enough pussies.”

  “Number three, go to hell.”

  “Now that you mention it, I could use a vacation to the afterlife when this is over. I’ve heard the weather’s fantastic in hell.”

  Anger has no plans to wheedle Merry into his bed or anything remotely similar. He cannot afford an emotional handicap when there’s plenty to do, plenty to consider without additional impairments. As if he would be tempted by such a hindrance.

  Is it still worth it?

  He recalls a time when his bow still flexed with magic, when he still had a home, a class. He recalls one special dawn beside a frozen lake, where a goddess’s lips had brushed his cheek as she said good-bye to him.

  His skin prickles in the spot where he last felt Love’s touch. He remembers the very second when she lost the remnants of her memory, when he became no more than a blot in her mind. That instant when she looked in his direction but no longer saw him standing there, no longer knew he’d ever existed.

  And so Anger holds out his hand for Malice to shake.

  ***

  The hammock is a nightmare. A veritable fraud of comfort.

  Anger thrashes in the contraption, this topsy-turvy excuse for a bed swooping, incapable of being still. Sardined within the basin of material, he attempts to find a comfortable position without crashing to the ground.

  A slew of profanities blows from his mouth. He’s going to commit genocide on every forsaken thread count.

  Like an idiot, he’d opted for this alcove instead of actual accommodations in the observatory, or at least one of the outdoor lounge chairs. Merry had been elated when he’d agreed to bunk here, her face flushed from the early morning rest and a day’s worth of downtime without Anger. She’d waxed poetic about the charm of sleeping in the open air, beneath infinity.

  Anger had simply wanted to black out. Nothing a handful of hours can’t cure, enough to revive him for the next few days.

  Midnight. Dammit. He’s far from comatose.

  Strands of light twinkle, peeking between the ferns draped overhead. Too many sheets ensnare him, courtesy of Merry. Too many quandaries congest in his mind, also courtesy of Merry. Muttering more obscenities, Anger batters the pillow.

  Life capsizes. His pride follows.

  The alcove’s canopy inverts as the miserable cot rotates him, flipping him upside down. Anger’s reflexes spare him from crashing. He fists the canvas while his legs wrap around the belly of the hammock. He dangles one foot off the ground, swinging like a bell. Really, he should just let go. It wouldn’t even be an impressive crash landing.

  And it’ll appear less funny to the female who’s watching him.

  Merry’s silhouette fills the entrance, a jubilant specter outlined in a nimbus of pink. Her hand clamps over her mouth, and her shoulders shake.

  Anyone but her. No one but her.

  Ultimately, he cannot decide if she’s the best or worst person to witness his demise. “Go ahead and laugh,” he says, indignant.

  “You look like a rotisserie trout—”

  “I changed my mind. Go away!”

  “—with the mouth of a blowtorch.”

  A dainty nightgown clings to her body. Unfortunately, the cloud slippers—literally, puffed clouds—and a fuzzy robe spoil the effect. Without them, she would have exemplified the term, goddess.

  Anger resents that atrocious robe for existing. It’s a tasteless design and blocking the rest of her flesh from view, which pinches at his curiosity.

  Fates, he should be grateful for the concealment. Yet his eyes strain for details.

  The creases of satin, the tremble of lace. The contours of her curves and calves.

  Clouds twitch as she approaches him. Before she can ask if he needs help, he untangles himself from the humiliation, lowering his form to the ground and standing. He towers over her in the dark, but that pink halo of hair glows, a beacon brightening the universe.

  The hem of her nightgown swabs her knees, pattering against his limbs. Her eyes rush over his bare chest, down to the waistband of his jeans. When those orbs rise again, Anger’s gaze swerves from the same involuntarily inspection he’d been giving her—her slippers.

  Yes, her slippers. Not the flutter in her throat or the billow of her neckline.

  Anger senses her blinking away, too. And when she does, he chances another glimpse. He cannot feel heat any more than Merry can, but a thick and disturbing profusion of liquid fizzes through his veins, just as slashes of fuchsia race up her cheeks.

  She tucks the robe closer, yanking on the ties to fully enclose the gown.

  It would be so easy to reach out and undo it again. It would shock her. It would encourage her, which is what he should be doing.

  Anger’s fingers flex, ticking with restlessness. He wants his bow and quiver. He wants to shoot something, to fix something, to control something.

  Merry skips over to the cot and settles on it, crossing her feet at the ankles. She’s an expert, the hammock cupping around her without incident.

  “Aren’t you going to join me?” she asks.

  “You’re hogging the space,” he lies.

  “Never fear. I’ve got the midnight fussies like you.”

  “I don’t get fussy. I get furious. And you hibernated just this morning.”

  “That doesn’t count.” Merry yawns, stretching her arms and splitting the robe again, ties be damned. “I wish that I could rest more. It’s such a delight slumbering at night, isn’t it? Bathed in silver and all those shadows in your room?”

  Anger eases into the slot across from her. He’s pleased when the hammock stays put as he settles in, facing Merry from the opposite end, his toes touching her slippers. “So you sleep more than necessary, merely for the ambience.”

  “I sleep more than necessary in order to dream. I like to dream, and sleeping is convenient for that.”

  His mouth quirks. “It’s been a while since I called a room my own.”

  “Tell me about the spectacular and sorrowful places you’ve lived.”

  Infectious girl, often getting him to oblige. She’s just so entertained, so enthusiastic to listen. For a change, it’s nice to be listened to.

  It’s…nicer…when it’s with her.

  He leans back, using her posture as a guide and mirroring the position. He speaks of the Court and his Guides. He tells her about growing up in the Peaks, wielding the power of fury in the human realm, and regulating mortal fates. He tells her about the metropolises, the parched deserts, and the war zones to which he’s been assigned over the past century. He tells her of the furies that he’s either infused or reduced, depending on what each human has needed.

  Mostly, it has been the latter. Mortals get riled easily. It takes stamina, courage, accountability, and humility to calm down. That’s where Anger has helped.

  He’s proud of his timeline. At least, until he notices Merry pouting.

  He switches direction, speaking of his banishment. Yet she withholds her own tale, for which Anger suffers a craving, a gnawing at the pit of his
stomach. He wants to ask. More than that, he wants her to answer.

  The notion hits a personal nerve. It’s a dumb inclination since he’s the one lying about the most vital thing: his intentions toward her.

  “So you’ve been without a home all this time?” Merry asks. “Wandering, never taking up residence outside of the Peaks?”

  “I like fresh air,” he tries to joke. “You said it yourself, it’s charming to sleep beneath infinity. I’m sure you have reasons for choosing an observatory?”

  “But if you could have a new home of your own, a room of your own that wasn’t simply assigned to you. If you could have that, what would be inside it?” She points at him. “You have to be honest but inventive.”

  What a little sprite. She’s changing the subject, albeit the prompt distracts Anger from confronting her. On this account, it’s pleasant to consider what he hasn’t before.

  He gives it legitimate thought. “It would be a place of stillness,” he says, out of his comfort zone yet enveloped in it. “It would be as stable as iron, as pure as stars—full of memory. For as long as we live, rarely do we get the chance to build memories.” Idealistically, he reminiscences about the locations where he’s felt the tamest, the most himself in the Peaks. “My home would have minerals and placid waters. The hushed and nebulous color, blue.”

  “That sounds beautiful.” Merry snuggles into the hammock. “And maybe a gap in the ceiling, so you can see Sagittarius or your own birth star.”

  “Remind me never to play a guessing game with you.”

  “Aha! Yet you doubt that we’re soul mates.”

  She’s only half-jesting, but Anger sobers. He makes no reply, swinging his gaze toward the skyline.

  This morning, he’d wanted her light back. Not her, but her light.

  More than that, he wants her to have dark eyes and black hair. He wants her to have a white dress and archer’s hands. He wants her to be so small that she’d have to stand on tiptoes for a kiss.

  It’s not that he wants Merry. He just doesn’t want to be derelict anymore. He wants the life, the other person he lost. He wants what he’ll never have.

  Merry doesn’t deserve to be treated like this. To be used.

  “Uh-oh,” Merry says. “You’re grumpy. Is it insomnia? I have a cure for that.” She produces a player and a double set of earbuds from the robe’s pocket. “My headphones are better, but these’ll do for us both.”

  “You were born with speakers in your ears, is that it?”

  “Music soothes the weary soul.”

  “None of that pop dribble. No glitz, no ballads, no electro—”

  “Anger, trust me.”

  He cannot resist when she extends a set for him. A melodic voice and the fluctuations of a guitar vibrate through his ears. Anger and Merry burrow into their own ends of the hammock and stare at the canopy, the song swirling from the speakers.

  It’s a hypnotic tune. The lyrics lack reason but not substance. In between tracks, Merry analyzes humans’ abilities to express themselves through music and how intensely they feel.

  Deities detect emotions in mortals through taste, touch, texture, sound, and sight. It helps with targeting humans, the ones who need those emotions managed, who need the dosage of an arrow. But Merry says empathizing with them takes more than that.

  It takes understanding.

  “The senses only identify feelings,” she says. “Music lunges deeper into the soul, reaching into a place that we all have.”

  “Not me,” Anger mumbles.

  “That’s because you’re a misanthrope with no imagination.”

  “It’s because I’m a rational immortal.”

  “Another word for it is snobby.”

  “And another word for you is loony.”

  She flicks him with the wire. “Be quiet and listen.”

  He does, and there is something tangible there, something relatable. And not just in the music, but in this exchange. This moment and the female at its epicenter.

  The music drowns him. He sinks, his eyelids growing heavy and his feet linking with a cumulus set of slippers.

  When he awakens, dawn threads across the sky outside the alcove. He feels rested, the buds lodged in his ears. Against him, Merry stirs, flashing the gap in her front teeth. By divine intervention, they’d convened on one side of the hammock during the night.

  Presently, they rest on her end, which means Anger had unconsciously crawled over to Merry. They’re entwined now. With her calf slumped over his, her face nestled beneath his jaw, and his arm enfolding her, Anger feels contentment and a novel sort of peace. Neither of them utters a word, but they smile awkwardly at one another.

  She’s pretty, he realizes.

  “Let’s go see the sunrise,” she whispers.

  They disengage. Because she’d used the robe for a pillow, she abandons it on the hammock. He takes one lingering look at the nightgown hugging her figure, the flimsy garment concealing an archive’s worth of mysteries.

  Anger snatches the robe, bringing it with him. He clenches the material as he follows Merry past hedges to the roof’s edge, the sky glazing his bare shoulders and her hands.

  Far below, the carnival glitters, sprinkling its hues across the city.

  He wants to tell her that he’d liked the music, that he’d understood what she’d said, that he enjoyed seeing her sleepy face when his eyes opened. He wants to tell her that, without artifice.

  Merry crosses her arms atop the ledge. She’d polished her nails at some point, painting them the same alternating colors as the carnival. “Why are you so proud to control humans?”

  It’s not what he expects. “Why are you so against it?”

  “Because they’re not free to learn from their own blunders, just like we aren’t free to rise above ours. The targeted ones aren’t at liberty to define their flaws, just like we aren’t free to defend ours. We have the right to belong, to be who we are, to be included while existing independently. We should be shouting this from every rooftop.”

  She’s right. She’s right.

  But there’s no time to think about mortals, because this reinforces everything he intends to do. What he deserves to win back. And what the Court deserves to lose.

  Anger retorts, “You’ve been sheltered your entire life. What makes you so damn worldly?”

  “That’s stupid. I’m an outcast, but I’m not sheltered—not from humans, and not when I live in a metropolis. I’ve been watching them longer and closer than even you.”

  “Last time I checked, you’re not mortal. You’re the opposite, and from that life, you’ve been sheltered.”

  “Fine, but I have kindreds in this city, and many of them remember the Peaks, and I’ve heard plenty. I’m not the only one who believes that we’ve all been shortchanged; exiles are getting huffy and restless. And you’re still not thinking a wit about humans. If this keeps up, I’ll start agonizing over why I carry a torch for someone so infuriating.”

  “Comes with the job.”

  “The one you lost?”

  That hurts, nicking him between the ribs. Not that what she’d said is news to him, but hearing it come out of her mouth, the knowledge has a different edge to it. It sounds even more absolute, more impactful.

  Which is more demeaning? The truth itself? Or her voicing the truth?

  Why does he care what she thinks? Why can’t they go back to last night?

  And why is he still holding the cursed robe?

  Merry gasps with contrition. “Oh Anger, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t filter before I speak, simply blurting out whatever I’m thinking, which is never good in the company of somebody like Surprise, but with you—”

  “I’m not here to impress anyone. I don’t give a shit what you think of me. That would imply you have an effect.”

  Merry’s lips part. She’d been harsh, but he’d been horrible. Like her, his mouth had acted ahead of his brain. He’s not supposed to wound her—yet. Not until he’s score
d her heart, inflating it so that he can puncture it later, because he’s weak and just that disgusting of a god.

  No matter what, he loathes all of this.

  Anger opens his mouth to make amends, but Merry isn’t looking at him. She’s gawking over his shoulder.

  “Tsk, tsk,” a silken voice drawls. “Is that any way to treat a lady?”

  “What did we expect?” someone else remarks. “He’s as hurtful as I am.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” a third visitor chimes. “He’s far worse.”

  Anger’s naked torso rises and falls. Then he turns around.

  Three archers. A male with dark, almond skin and a vexing smirk. A female with an inconvenienced mien and eyes the color of tears. And a voluptuous goddess with a cherub face and a wandering gaze.

  Somewhere in this world, mountains are crumbling, icebergs are melting, and the sun is causing heatstroke. Somewhere in this world, his classmates are needed.

  Yet here they are, standing before him.

  Envy. Sorrow. Wonder.

  11

  Anger

  Anger hasn’t seen them in years. Neither has he heard from his classmates in all that time. Not one message through the stars, not a single salutation or greeting.

  They hadn’t even said good-bye to him. They’d simply vanished to their assigned realms in the mortal world.

  Once the most elite class of archers in the Peaks, which had included Love, they’d grown up and trained together. In a way, they’d been friends as well as comrades. But that hadn’t mattered after his banishment.

  Envy, dressed in tweed slacks and a button-down shirt. Envy, who can seduce any god or goddess with a flick of his finger. Envy, who has seduced nearly every god and goddess, making sport of their lust and pitting them against one another for his amusement.

  Sorrow, in a shredded skirt down to her ankles and a vest fixed with stitching needles. Sorrow, bisected with half-moon eyes and razor cuts up her arms. Her purple hair used to be short and spiky, but now it bobs at her chin, tucked behind her ears. And the rectangular bandage patched across the bridge of her nose is new, either literal or an accessory—with her, guesswork is futile.