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35. Rodan

35

Rodan

A nkou returned and spirited the entire party to a safe house further into the village, one of the four-story townhouses that had over six bedrooms to its name, and he stayed. Not just to speak to Lydia, but until, "This entire horrid matter is resolved."

Though Rodan could tell his daughter was tired, and still somewhat frightened by the god of death, the majority of her fear seemed to have evaporated.

It was more a resignation, at this point. An acceptance.

The two of them closed themselves into a private parlor, the pocket doors sliding shut behind Ankou with a decided click of the lock. A moment later and Rodan sensed the small magic that would keep him from eavesdropping.

Those two would have much to discuss, but Rodan could not help but want to rage. You get her for the rest of eternity.

Whereas he only had these few precious days. Hours, perhaps.

Elias and Pike had been called back, and now seemed to have come to some sort of understanding. Rodan could hear his Fae friend speaking softly to the scrapper, their conversation's ebb and flow the only soothing thing about the place for the moment. He longed to join them, but he could not move from the spot.

Maeve found him pacing in the wide hall outside the parlor and took his arm, leading him firmly up the stairs to the topmost level. Two above where the conversation was ongoing. "If my father finds you out there he'll be pissed, even if there's a sound barrier," she said as they moved. "Just give them their space for the moment."

"I hate this," Rodan said.

"I know," she replied. "I do too."

They had been up with the dawn, and so when Maeve pulled him into their borrowed bedroom with its borrowed finery and pushed him onto the bed, he did not argue. Sleep called to him, despite he needed so much less of it than she.

Maeve ran her fingers through his black hair. "I feel as though I've had no time at all to process, not even a little. I wish…" she shook her head, sighed, and nestled against him. "I wish we could have had something a little more normal. I would have enjoyed that. Wouldn't you?"

"Yes." He chuckled. "Our adventures could have been more about our travels, and all the nuances of the places we would discover together."

"Our children happy, our home warm," she murmured back, and he knew she was beginning to fade. "Many friends, and good food. Gardening, reading books, and walks in the forest."

"Oh, yes," he agreed, rubbing her back as she slipped further toward dreams. "But whatever the case, Maeve, my home is at your side."

"Promise?" she asked sleepily.

"I promise," he said, kissing the top of her head. He closed his eyes and soon, like her, was pulled into sleep.

As soon as he was in the dream, Rodan knew it was some form of sending. Some vision, or dream walking. He tread carefully, stepping silent as possible in the bitter dark.

For it surrounded him, above, below, and around.

"Rodan," came a familiar voice. Mocking, laughter-filled. "Can't find your way?"

Rodan bared his teeth. "Ninack. What do you want?"

"To talk," the god of darkness responded, coming from a wholly different direction. Rodan twisted toward it, only to spin again as the voice sounded directly behind him, filled with a cruel mirth. "And to convince."

"You have nothing I want," Rodan said.

"Oh, but I do… I do." The last was whispered so close to his ear that Rodan jerked back, only to hear echoing laughter surround him. "You are delightful. I see why my niece likes you."

Rodan swallowed. "What do you offer? Speak it and begone."

A roiling, surrounding chuckle. "I offer you a place at my side. You could be a prince of darkness, an emissary of my kingdom. I have need of someone with your skillset." He paused, then purred, "You could be lover to a god, Fae lord, when you're not at work. I could show you what pleasures can be found in shadows."

There was a brush of sensation along his back, as though thin fingers ran there, and Rodan twisted away, trying to calm the sensation in his stomach. "I would decline the offer. I have no need of princely titles, or new lovers, nor do I wish to work with you." Doing what, the god had not yet said, but Rodan could come up with ideas, none of them pleasant.

Ninack hissed, "Then hear me now, Rodan of the Fae Court. Rodan of the Realms. Your worlds are doomed. All the life within and upon them, fated for death. But you can save your beloved. Your precious Maeve," he spat her name. "If you join me, I will ensure her survival, and yours. You will live eternally. She as the head of the Nyx army, you as my lead enforcer."

"You would truly allow us to remain together?"

Laughter, and still an inky black so thick Rodan could not make heads or tails of his surroundings. Only his feet were, for the moment, on solid ground.

"Of course not," Ninack rasped, and this time his breath blew across the back of Rodan's neck. His hand cupped his jaw, fingertips exploring. Everywhere the god touched there was cold like ice, like the infinite void of space. "I don't share."

Rodan was trembling without the ability to stop. The control he normally had over his body seemed to evaporate. He could no longer move or lift his arms.

"Come to my side," Ninack said, lips terribly close to Rodan's ear. "And you will no longer quake so at my touch. I will feed you that which the gods nourish themselves on, and all you would know from me would be pleasure. Well," he canted his voice lower, as fingertips did the same, skimming over the column of Rodan's throat and down his chest. He feared if that touch went over his beating heart, it would cease. Frozen solid. "What's pleasure without a little pain?"

Hand like bands of steel gripped the back of Rodan's neck, and though he struggled at first, unable to do anything but, they held, unyielding. Ninack laughed and laughed. "Let me go!" Rodan hissed through the pain and pressure.

The cold, too, was seeping into the muscles and bones of his neck, his skull. Would his eyes freeze and pop? Would this reflect into the waking world? Would he awake blind? Frozen?

Would he not awake at all?

"Calm yourself, this is beneath you." The pressure did not ease, but the cold receded, leaving Rodan gasping. "You have until sunset to make your choice. Turn to any shadow, and say my name. I will take you home."

"You offer me pleasures," Rodan still struggled to speak through the grip on his neck, which squeezed his throat enough to make it difficult. "You offer life for myself, for Maeve, but is that all? To turn from everything?"

"You do not understand," the god purred. "If you do not accept, you will see Maeve, tortured, before you. Before you join her in death. Neither of you survive this, not without me."

"What of our people?"

Laughter, and Rodan could sense the edges of the dream beginning to crumble, though the grip was still just as intense. "They are long since fated to die in this. Their souls, too, will be devoured. Every one of them will be plucked from the worlds as though they had never been. And in so doing, we will give birth to a new era. A simple one.

"Everything begins or finds its way to my world. I intersect with all time and all things. Now I will rule them."

Rodan was thrust forward as the iron bands about his neck disappeared, and then he was falling. Falling, picking up speed, the wind rushing by at such intensity he knew to hit bottom would mean his death.

And then he woke up.

Car horns. Bird song. The weak but gloriously warm light of an overcast dawn.

Rodan slipped from the bed, filled with a still-sleeping Maeve, and clothed himself with magic before going in search of those who might be awake, thoughts spinning like a top. Where would Ankou be? Should Rodan tell him what Ninack had said? What he offered?

It's the least tempting offer I have ever received, he thought, and yet.

Yet.

Neither of you survive this, not without me.

That must mean at the heart, this was Ninack's machination.

Abuzz with possibilities, Rodan did not notice Ankou standing in the hall until he almost trod upon spreading shadows from that strange cloak. Halting, Rodan skipped back a step, fist to his chest as he bowed slightly. "Ankou."

"Rodan. What troubles you?"

Without pausing to think about it, he told the god of death everything. Launched into every detail. They moved as he spoke into the parlor which had been for Ankou and Lydia the night before, Rodan collapsing into a richly upholstered armchair and accepting the strong spirits the god passed him silently.

When finished, Rodan downed the amber liquid in one go, enjoying the sweet burn of the whiskey. It woke him the rest of the way up. "It's him, then. He's the one that is going to cause the event."

"Yes," Ankou agreed, sitting behind a wide banker's desk, the glow from the green-tinted lamp casting sharp shadows along his face. "I have wondered if it was him ever since learning of him taking Maeve's godhead, and those of Rizor and Tegal's get."

"Who were they?"

"They were both made into stone, their souls trapped for thousands of years. They have long guarded your River Onagala and the city now known as Cresna. I believe you call them stone guardians in your histories. Tegal's son was Asher, Rizor's went by Horus." He smiled a little. "They had much to say about you, when I released them from their prisons and brought their souls to my realm at last. If they had not been trapped, I would have learned of Ninack's plan many years ago."

Rodan felt a chill go down his spine. "So if Maeve had been born before them?"

"She would have been similarly imprisoned, yes. It is the way Ninack has kept things from us, but me in particular. He has to safeguard against much. We are meant to balance one another. There are systems in place that allow us to see what the others are doing, to easily glean each other's intent.

"Darkness has always been driven to consume all, to create nothing but more of itself. It is his greatest flaw, and yet such a part of his nature I know not how he could be any other way. I wish he could be content with his realm as a quarter of the whole of Danu. It is so much, but he has always wanted more."

Rodan had known creatures like that in the past, and done his best to restrain them. His greatest failure in such a thing? Sebastian Sekou.

"I will remain with you, until this is resolved," Ankou continued. "There are too many major powers at play here."

"Will your kingdom not need you?" Rodan asked.

The god smiled, slow and wide. "I am in many places, it is only I am mostly here. You need not concern yourself."

"You said manifesting on Earth was difficult."

Ankou nodded once. "It is. But nothing I cannot abide." He tilted his head, "Why, Rodan, do you not want me here? I can offer great protection."

He did not, and for none of the right reasons.

Rodan did not want to lose Lydia, though he knew the outcome was practically in stone. There was no way around this.

Still, he wanted to try. "There is… is there any potential, any slim possibility, that Lydia could live?—"

"No," Ankou said, words clipped. "That she has been withheld from me in this manner has already shaken the foundation of the deal you struck. Be lucky the laws of Danu did not rip Maeve's soul from her, to restore the needed balance. I truly believe it is because Lydia's circumstances are none of our doing she has decided not to intercede."

"The universe can do such things?" he asked, his blood running cold.

Ankou snorted. "Danu can do all things. She is everything, and every possibility, but she has not committed a direct action in quite some time. I think we are safe, at least for now." His voice hardened. "But I will remain. And when this is done, I will be taking Lydia with me. She understands. We spoke."

Rodan took a shaky breath and let it out in a sigh. "I damned her."

"No," Maeve's voice called from the doorway, where she was leaning, her arms crossed over her stomach. She was in bare feet and a pale blue sleep shift that hit her at her knees, her hair unbound and pulled over one shoulder. Glancing between them, she stated flatly, "If I had not struggled in the ways I did… if I had not taken that drink? None of this would have happened. Father would never have pulled me into death. I never would have gone to the doorstep to begin with, and we?" Her voice had risen as she spoke, and now she motioned between Rodan and herself. "We could have had some semblance of normalcy."

Ankou stayed where he was, but Rodan rose and went to her side. "This is not your fault."

"It all starts with me. Don't you see that?" she whispered. Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him, and he could sense something beyond the link of the bond, something that screamed of danger. "If I had not been so stupid?—"

"Enough," Rodan said, pulling her into his arms as her face began to crumble. "Please." He would not have her taking the blame, not when it was his hand, sticky with blood, that had slipped into Ankou's, his grip and words sealing the oath.

He would never forget that moment.

Your oath.

Ankou was a cool silence at his back as Maeve trembled in his arms. He knew her guilt was profound, not least of all because she had led Ankou to Lydia at long last. Pressing a kiss to her hair, he murmured against her, "I love you. I will always love you."

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