“A mortal fabrication?” Casually, he overturns the skirt drawing, so that it faces down. “More’s the pity.”
When they reach his designated sleeping chamber, Sorrow balks. Considering his personality, she must have anticipated brocade sheets. Rather, he enjoys subverting her expectations.
Monochromatic linens cover a bed propped at the hollow’s heart. Another narrow stream trickles through the makeshift room, vines embroider the walls, and a lantern hangs above the mattress.
Never once has he brought someone here. The experience makes him edgy, and he yearns to fling any misgivings out to the shore.
Before or after he tears those pajamas off her body?
A growl of umbrage crowds in his throat. She’s merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’s been in want of a hot romp since their estrangement in the Celestial City, and the dormancy is wearing thin, to the point where he could fuck just about anyone right now.
She’s still wearing those flannels.
He could do her the way he once did. Or he could do nothing of the sort.
Picturing the least attractive images possible—seaweed, a broken mirror, a rayon shirt—Envy’s budding frustration recedes. He breaks from his position in the doorway.
When he does, Sorrow gets out of there quickly. Envy takes a moment to further tame the infamous wild beast—aka, his cock—then follows her.
Back at the threshold overlooking the lagoon, she retreats into the fresh air. Together, they hunker on the ground, their legs hanging over the side. The eddies grow active, the rocks dividing the lagoon into frothing tributaries. Moons swell, and the eventide constellations trickle out, their shapes honoring galaxies and symbols of destiny. An asterisk of mortal kismet, a spiral of immortal fate, the shape of a longbow, and the length of an arrow.
At his behest, Sorrow describes her own home in the Peaks. The assortment of lamps. The collection of fleece blankets.
Lamps. He adds that to the currant nectar, comfort food, and fleece bedding. Plus, her inventory of black fashion. Now that he thinks on it, it’s more Stellar Rockstar than Woeful Witch.
For a spell, they go silent, watching the world do whatever it’s doing out there. He spies the worry spreading across her profile.
“They’ll be okay,” Envy tells her.
Sorrow glances sideways at him. “What about us?”
He doesn’t know how to answer that.
As the second day progresses, she changes back into her skirt and vest. She resumes her task with aplomb, reminding him to think about that embarrassing moment.
Oh, but if she only knew. He’s never stopped thinking about it.
An ugly god is easy to spot.
Pushing it further, she requests that Envy take her to his least favorite place among the cascades. He grimaces but complies. They repeat their trip to the waterfall enclave. With their clothes beaded in mist, he guides her to a cavity with an aperture in the ceiling, through which they view a single, winking star.
Envy’s birth star.
When he originally discovered this, he’d felt despondent. Or perhaps, troubled.
He has rarely revisited this ligament of the past. Nonetheless, the more he talks, the more details pile up, and the harsher the grind becomes, to the degree where he resents her for making him dredge up this memory.
“I think on some level, peering through that chasm established how inflexible my life would be,” he says. “From birth on, it would only go in one direction, with very little divergence or say in the matter.”
He feels the press of her gaze. “Does that make me a selfish god?”
“No.” Sorrow shakes her head. “It means that you understand loss, because that’s what pain is. Loss of someone we care for, loss of something we treasure, loss of a home, loss of community, loss of purpose or will. Loss of freedom. Loss of choice.”
“I’ve chosen my conquests. I’ve chosen my rivals. I’ve chosen my arrows. I’ve chosen this uprising.”
“You’re backpedaling, trying to convince yourself.”
“Am I wrong?”
“You know better. We’re not completely at destiny’s mercy. But what about the things you haven’t been able to choose? Or the choices you wish you hadn’t made?” she challenges. “What are your regrets? What are your mistakes? What’s your pain?”
She probes him with questions. Why? How? What? When?
He snaps, sounding foreign to himself, yet he won’t fold in her presence. And part of him hankers to tell Sorrow, because his words make her throat constrict.
She cares about what she’s hearing. She cares to know.
Afterward, Envy’s drained and testy, yet oddly reinvigorated. “It’s my turn.”
He ushers her to a pool that dances at precisely the same hour each day. They watch coiled threads of water spring into the air, the synchronization akin to a living fountain.
And then she’s up again. “Say something you don’t want to say.”
“I haven’t a thing to wear for battle.”
“Something of substance!” she pipes, bursting into laughter.
Laughter. Smiling.
Envy insists he needs time to reply, when really, he needs time to recover from her. Always her.
And then it hits him. It hits him as they return to the cavern, finally in need of rest. Envy gestures to a certain hollow that will appeal to her, closing his eyes and enchanting a few adornments in her honor. After a stunted farewell, he pauses at the entrance to his own sleeping chamber.
Sorrow stands behind Envy, waiting for him to retire first.
Say something you don’t want to say.
With his back turned, he licks his lips and speaks into the quiet. “You intimidate me.”
And then he leaves.
13
Sorrow
She stands, motionless. The candles continue to glow, and the fire continues to paint the cavern in a white blaze, because these aesthetics will keep going as long as their owner wishes. They haven’t been snuffed out since Sorrow and Envy’s arrival.
Has it only been two days? Is tomorrow really the final day?
When was the last time she asked about his ribs? When was the last time he gave her a status report?
On second thought, his wincing has declined, and the bruises on his torso have nearly faded. Visibly, he’s on the brink of recuperation.
Whereas Sorrow is not okay. She’s super not okay.
She has misplaced her presence of mind. Her gaze meanders from one focal point to the next, from the tapers to the looping cloth canopies, from the scattered pillows and cushions to the glistening lagoon outside.
The contents of her brain jumble together, mashing up like porridge. She’s pretty certain her jaw has dropped.
“What did you just say?” she whispers to no one. Specifically, to the no one who’d been standing there minutes ago.
Yeah, she’s a little late finding the words.
As to his confession, it had sounded as though it wiped him out. It certainly has for her.
How long has she been idling? Long enough.
He’s probably snoring by now. It’s better to think of him snoring, rather than sprawling open-limbed and naked on that bed.
How does he sleep?
If she had stuck around after their smutty escapades, she would know the contours of his abdomen in rest, the rhythm of his breathing. She hadn’t bothered to pay attention to these things when they’d been camping in enemy terrain with her rebellious peers. Back then, she kept her bedroll as far from his as possible.
Okay. She needs to screw her head on straight. Her legs take pity and carry her to the depression that he’d haphazardly indicated. Pausing on the threshold, Sorrow suspects this must be a hallucination or a hoax.
Or this is real. This is very real, and Envy has beseeched the stars, customizing this chamber for her. Amethyst fleece blankets cover a bed, across from which a stack of shelves hold multiple lamps with pull chains.
&nb
sp; She tiptoes inside. Atop the mattress, a garment rests across the blankets.
Sorrow runs her fingers across the black, hooded robe, discovering it to be cotton. However, it’s the softest cotton she has ever encountered, the sort of textile that might dance on air.
The final touch is a tumbler of currant nectar, propped on a table beside the bed. She waits for dubiousness to arise, but it doesn’t, because this is nice. It’s thoughtful.
Envy had gotten everything right. He’d remembered.
She would say this is weird. So fucking weird. But she’d passed so fucking weird about five conversations ago.
Now, she’s just tired. Maybe she’s a tad sheepish, as it takes several attempts to touch anything.
Stripping off the vest and skirt—thus far, she has neglected to replace her boots and has been opting for bare feet—she drapes them across a plush chair and musters the courage to wrap herself in the robe. It fits perfectly.
Sorrow drinks the juice with slow indulgence, the tart berries soaking into her tongue. Moving with tentativeness, she inches beneath the sheets and sighs aloud.
Unfortunately, the reprieve doesn’t last. Hours pass, during which she tosses and turns, obscenities crowding her mouth like gravel.
What’s her problem? Oh, she knows what her problem is, what’s keeping her awake. Her mind races, doing a mad, sacrificial sprint back to that moment.
Back to that thing he’d said. That thing he’d admitted.
Is this why he never got sensual with her? Sorrow knows what her excuse is, and she recalls what he’d claimed in the waterfall enclave, but was he bullshitting? Is this the real reason he never tried to seduce her in the past?
Because she…because she…
They’ve not shared a single tender touch, or an angry touch, or a mesmerized touch. If he’d made a move, would she have welcomed it?
Sorrow drags her sorry ass out of bed, undoes her bun, and uses her fingers to comb through the tangles. As thoughts of pain and pleasure cycle in her head, she peels the bandage from her nose. To her relief, she doesn’t feel guilty about it. No, what she feels is ridiculous for having thought it necessary.
Then she recalls another embellishment that she’d admired: the painted eyelashes of a young male archer in the valley forest. That child, accompanied by the group who’d attacked her friends.
She conjures her own embellishment: tiny stars that trickle beneath her lower eyelids.
Using additional magic, Sorrow refills her tumbler, then drifts into the main cavern. There, she pads across the moss to the lagoon and slumps against the vine-draped entrance. She takes in the water, and the vegetation, and the surrounding footpath.
She inhales deeply—as a glass shatters from behind.
Sorrow wheels to find Envy’s silhouette arrested several paces behind her. He has cinched his long hair at the nape and replaced the silk pants with billowy ones of an indecipherable fabric. A filmy T-shirt outlines his muscles, those toned forearms bulging from the sleeves.
Fragments of a fluted glass litter the floor by his feet. As his eyes rake across her body, it occurs to Sorrow that the neckline gaps down to her navel, exposing a line of skin and the shadows of her breasts. Worse, her nipples have ruched against the night breeze, pinching through the material.
There’s that, in addition to her loose hair and glitter-painted eyes. And she has removed the bandage, which he notices with aplomb, his gaze sharp on the exposed bridge of her nose. He ogles that bare spot before returning to her robe.
Sorrow yanks on the sash. She considers whether to flop the hood over her head as well.
It makes zero difference, because Envy’s gaze shutters. His expression is of the frenetic sort, disorder leaping off his face and gluing her to the spot.
Sorrow indicates the garments. “This has nothing to do with you.”
His engorged pupils jump from her clavicles to her face. “I may be unsteady when it comes to the Goddess of Sorrow, but I’m shrewd enough to know that none of your actions have ever had to do with me.”
Sarcasm. Acrimony.
Good. She can handle that. “Huh. I’d counter that by pointing out our bawdy sexcapades, but as you accurately described it, I used our romps purely to get the randiness out of my system. It wasn’t about intimacy. It was just a cheap solution to external frustrations.”
You intimidate me.
There it is again. That thing he’d said, dangling between them.
This is a terrible idea, but how far can she push that confession?
Sorrow dumps her hands into the robe pockets and juts out her chin. “You may have had the universe fawning over you, but if you had tried seduction with me, your dick would have rusted like a pipe before you succeeded.”
Envy whips around, stalking over the glass shards and into the shadows.
Sorrow startles. Where is he going? It’s not supposed to be that easy.
Well, ha. Whatever. She told him off. She—
Fuck. Fuck, he’s changed his mind. He’s not leaving. He’s striding back here, and thrusting his digits through his hair, and ruining that fantastic mane, and crap, he’s not stopping. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Sorrow breaks into a run. Like prey, she leaps across the cavern as if someone has lit dynamite at her heels, skirting Envy’s arm as it lashes out to catch her. Yelping, she bolts into the nearest artery. It’s the wrong direction, but it’s too late, too late to turn back.
She whips her head over her shoulder. He pounds across the chasm, closing the distance, those ailing ribs be damned. If he’s hurting, he doesn’t show it.
The intent look on his face is neither friendly, nor playful. The only suitable classification is ambitious, his features narrowed as if hunting a target with carnal hostility.
His hell-bent expression is a straight shot to the groin. A swirl of desire tears up her limbs and causes a rift in the tight spot at the apex of her thighs, breaking her wide open.
Sorrow’s pulse hammers against her chest, anticipation thrashing wildly beneath her breast. Tumbling into the niche where he stores those fashion renderings, she backtracks, passing her makeshift room. Grasping a corner wall, she jets around the bend into his wardrobe alcove. They leave the space in shambles, shirts and belts falling off shelves and wall hooks littering the floor.
Everlasting Fates! If he doesn’t give a fig about the wardrobe’s state, that means shit has gotten real.
Blasting into his sleeping chamber, she makes a flying leap across the mattress, then hops over the stream and hustles back toward the entrance.
Envy charges, aiming to cut her off at the pass. Sorrow ducks and dodges.
Reaching the main cavern, she hops over discarded cushions and punts the chairs in his path, which he whips aside. She wouldn’t blame an outsider for mistaking this for some demented mating ritual.
Clamping her hands over her mouth, she staunches a laugh. The repressed noise must reach his ears, which propels him to a greater speed.
How is it possible to feel mirth, and fear, and arousal at the same time? Does she want him to catch her? Not unless they’d like to make a disaster of each other.
Because she knows. She one-hundred percent knows what this is, what will happen if he gets his hands on her.
With her feet slamming onto the ground, Sorrow bats the hair from her eyes.
The boat!
She barrels over the threshold. Bounding into the tethered vessel, she yanks on the cord with such force that it breaks. There’s a pole similar to the one from the star-shaped vessel that carried them through the rapids, except this shaft stands at the prow instead of the center.
Hyped up on adrenaline, Sorrow twists the column, light springing from its length as the vessel slides across the lagoon. She stumbles. Easing up on the lever, it slows down but shaves through the water swift enough to evade Envy, who halts at the rocky base.
On a whim, she flashes her middle digit and mouths, “Na-nana-nana-naaaaaa.”
Envy�
��s glare falters. Then he’s gone, diving in despite his ribs.
Sorrow whips around to grip the lever, missing it as the transport gives an affronted shudder. The boat leans sideways with Envy’s weight as he splashes his way into the vessel.
Sorrow feels her eyes balloon from their sockets.
He stands, glistening and gorgeous. And livid.
She turns to dive, then growls as a powerful arm slings around her waist and hauls her backward. Her spine smashes into his wet chest. Envy heaves, his wound twitching from the impact.
Nonetheless, he recovers swiftly. His torso pumps, as solid as asphalt.
Envy’s head tips toward her jaw, his breath rushing against her throat. His body drizzles all over her. Water dampens Sorrow’s robe, droplets splattering onto her throat and sliding into the neckline, teasing a path from her breasts to her belly.
Jasmine and myrrh suffocate her as his free fingers slide across her hipbones, holding her in place. “Say that again,” he rasps.
“Say what again?” she bites out, struggling to get free.
“All this drivel about seduction and rusted pipes.” Envy’s mouth rides up the curve of her earlobe. “Go ahead, tell me what I can’t do to you.”
“You…you’ve never…you’ll never…” The threat dies on her tongue as he swipes her hair aside and bows his head into the crook of her neck.
His lips graze her flesh into a frenzy. And just like that, her brain scrambles, and her inhalations quicken along with his own, and her center begins to throb.
At the stroke of his tongue against her pulse point, a restrained sigh skids from her mouth. Her lungs seize. Her joints tense. Then both give from the husky baritone of Envy’s voice.
“Go ahead,” he invites thickly. “Tell me to stop.”
“Sto…,” she hisses. “You need to sto…”
“Again. Try again.”
There’s a clench to his words that matches the clench inside her, which flutters at the edges, about to fall apart. His mouth sketches the side of her neck at an agonizing pace, moistening her skin with the contact.
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