19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

A warm hand trailed slowly across Zen's neck and down his naked body. The bed beneath him felt plush, familiar.

Then a second hand joined the first.

Then a third.

Then more , some smaller or larger or rougher or smoother than the others, but as Zen roused, the hands were everywhere.

He awoke with a shudder, but the hands on him were no dream or illusion. Zen was on the bed from his dreams, Gaian and Zenos's bed from years past, though Gaian himself was not among those with Zen, who were touching him as though he were some specimen under their scrutiny.

The brides—all five of them—not dressed in their minstrel clothes from before, but in sheer flowing nightgowns for the women, and long loincloths in similar fabric for the men, each their own color.

Leela, the dark elf, was in purple. Her high elf husband, Elwyn, was in sunset orange. Lukas, Leela's brother, was in deep burgundy. Fennic, the gnome, was in goldenrod yellow. And Shael, the dwarf, was in icy blue.

All of it was very… see-through.

Zen tried to reach for a weapon, only to remember that he was naked, stripped of everything, including his belt with the bag of his powdered bones.

Zenos's bones.

With a furious cry at the surge of confidence his former self granted him, Zen tried to throw the brides off him, but they were too strong, too many. They were barely nudged and clung to his legs and arms and chest even more possessively, while tittering with laughter.

"Calm yourself," Leela said, closest against him, trailing sharp, deep-purple nails down Zen's chest. Her dark eyes captured his gaze and seemed to glow violet, rendering him awestruck.

Literally awestruck, Zen recalled from being Zenos, because the different races as vampires had different specialties, and dark elves could render their victims completely immobile with a look.

"We were simply meant to rouse you," Lukas said, with firm hands on Zen's ankles that kept sliding higher. "But oh, we would do much more if we were allowed."

"Like drain you dry." Fennic, beside Leela at Zen's legs, laughed, but it was a shrill piercing laugh that made Zen wince, a trait of gnome vampires to cause their victims physical pain.

"Hush," Elwyn chided, across from Leela at Zen's left. "Do you want Zenos's wrath once he is our lord?"

It was an almost comfort that the high elf, capable of trailing death and decay in his touch, was sensible, though Zen's fate of becoming their lord was not.

"I can't see why Gaian favors him," Shael sneered, across from Fennic. Where Lukas teased that he would trail up Zen's thigh, Shael ran a hand there boldly, up between his legs, with a pressure in her touch that made Zen tired and weak—the dwarven vampire power.

Against all five, no one could fight such monsters alone.

"Love is love," Leela said, smiling at her husband, though within that smile was a hint of fangs. "I suppose we aren't meant to understand. But I trust Gaian." Her eyes returned to Zen with another violet flash, and once more, he felt enthralled, unable to do anything but stare at her. "I am sure you will be magnificent. Remember our loyalty when you submit to our master."

"I-I…" Zen choked out, "will not… submit. I… will not drink from him again!"

They laughed, and once more, Fennic's made Zen wince.

"We will be loyal," Lukas said, parting Zen's legs only slightly, which made Zen shiver to his core, because he honestly didn't know what loyalty meant to them. "I do so hope we will be granted our master's pleasure someday. Both, if allowed. I have missed Gaian's touch."

Zen scowled, but what had he expected? These were Gaian's brides .

"Who do you think kept his bed warm while he waited for you?" Shael said, scratching her nails down Zen's thigh.

"But as soon as you were born," Elwyn added, "he sent us away, wanted you, to be pure and untouched only for you."

"Since I was born…" Zen repeated. "He only came to me in my dreams once I reached manhood. And he only touched me after I asked."

"Of course," Leela said. "He saved himself for you the moment you reentered this world, but he waited until you were ready, nearly sixteen years celibate in his pining. It was torture for us, to be denied our master, but watching him with you has been… inspiring."

Watching?

"You will give in to him, like you have so many times before." Leela pressed her body closer and bent to kiss Zen's cheek.

In that moment, the others pressed closer too, their touches more insistent, winding around Zen intimately, possessively, until all at once… they were gone.

Zen gulped at the sudden rush of cold as the brides slithered from the bed with unnatural grace.

"You have been washed already," Leela said. "Come down once you are dressed."

The weakness and press of captivating power left Zen, and though he shivered harder, he was able to sit up, as the brides exited through a door that remained unlocked. Zen wasn't a prisoner, yet he was, he knew, because where could he go but where Gaian expected him to?

Zen had no friends to call upon. The last time he'd seen them, even Guardian had looked menacing, but worse was seeing Dante as a werewolf, Morty a vampire spawn, and Khel a Night Hag, all under Gaian's control.

The memories of that fading sight when Gaian lifted Zen into the air on monstrous wings made him feel like his smallest self, and he huddled into a ball on the bed, hugging his knees. Wetness pooled at the corners of his eyes, but it wasn't only his past self strengthening him that made him fight the tears threatening to fall. Even as just Zen, he was far stronger than he'd been when he left the temple.

Sniffing back his tears, Zen rose. He remembered which wardrobe held Zenos's clothes, and they proved to have been kept pristine. Zen was able to choose an old favorite—a navy and black doublet with silver trim, more the garb of a rogue than a priest.

There was nothing to arm himself with, no sign of his weapons belt, the bag of bone dust, or anything else that might be of use in a fight, but there was food and drink. Remembering that such fare had been used to manipulate him before, Zen considered going hungry, but he was too weak. Besides, now that he knew how the food could sway him, he also knew that its affects should be limited, so he ate his fill.

Zen couldn't be sure what time it was, but outside the window was a glittering night sky, not the haze of diminished day. He'd had several hours rest, he imagined, and he felt better than how exhausted he'd been while escaping the mountains, but he knew he wasn't in top form. He'd been drained of too much blood without taking more in return.

All he had to defend himself with was his wits and the hope that he could call upon his prayers with enough impact.

There was a mirror, and Zen stood before it to brush out his long white hair and tie it back. If he had a dagger or a sword, he wondered if he would want to sheer it off, but no. He was Zenos, he had been Zenos, but he was Zen now too, and that was who he wanted to be—the sum of his parts, but still mostly the man he had been born in this life.

The collar of his doublet was low enough that his scar remained visible, and he traced the line with reverent fingers one last time.

Behind him, through the mirror, Zen could see the window with its breathtaking view. He turned to look at the landscape, and it was just as stunning as in his dreams, just as beautiful as he remembered from his past.

Like Gaian.

Like Enki .

Beautiful, but merely a reflection, a memory.

Zen left. He knew the castle so well, he didn't have to guess where Gaian would be. There was a grand banquet hall down the long staircase from the tower with a throne befitting a lord, and indeed, that was where Zen found Gaian.

Along with the brides, in their tantalizing finery.

And the Night Hag sisters, no longer hiding themselves with a glamour but true hags, like trolls with sharp teeth.

And finally, Zen's friends, transformed into monsters, with Guardian dutifully sitting beside Khel. Though Khel was almost like a shade, and Dante a fully realized werewolf, they still had their weapons about them, and Morty carried his bag of books. They seemed hypnotized, not even looking at Zen as he entered.

"Come, my love," Gaian said, in his noble red and black, standing by his throne and gesturing to the empty banquet table. "We will have a feast to celebrate our reunion. Once I have turned you, we have volunteers as you requested that you may feed upon. Although I do wonder if you will change your mind about no killing once you see who else I have to offer."

Zen paused at the end of the table, the long expanse of it separating him from Gaian, with the brides at Zen's right, and the hags and Zen's friends at his left.

From the room behind the throne, which Zen recalled was a hall both to the kitchens and to a passage leading outside, there was a ruckus of voices and struggling.

"You assumed I sent my horde to find you," Gaian continued. "You assumed that was why they wreaked havoc upon Daxos. But I knew you would find your own way here. No, I was looking for someone else, my love. A few someone's, in fact, though the king of this age would have been a better prize."

Degnan and his wife, Lyla, appeared from behind the throne, not transformed into werewolves, though Zen knew them both to be such now, but roughly carting two men bound in shackles.

Father Lewis and Lord Barrymore.

"They conspired against you," Gaian said with a flash of his eyes glowing red and his fangs glinting, as he descended to the head of the table. "They all did. They brought you back not so we could be together, but so they could train you to destroy me. And what do you think they would have done if you'd been the victor? Thrown you a parade? Decorated you as a hero? No."

Gaian beckoned Zen forward, and Zen was transfixed by the sight of these men who he'd feared for all the power they held over him. He couldn't look away from how tattered and weak they seemed.

Zen headed left around the table past his friends, but his eyes remained on Father Lewis.

"That's right. They would have killed you, said good riddance, and razed every square league of my lands and the people in it. You think me a monster, my love, but aren't they the true monsters for what they did to us?"

Zen kept his expression neutral as he walked up to Father Lewis in Degnan's arms.

Lewis snarled and spat at Zen's feet.

"I knew you would fail us," he sneered. "Go on then. Kill me. Kill us both. Let your master tear our throats out, or perhaps you'd prefer to do it yourself. Prove you are exactly what we feared."

All Zen could do was laugh, however hysterically, because he was having his trials all over again.

"The three tenets of the Sun God faith," Zen recited. "‘Protect the innocent even at risk of bodily harm,' which I have strived to do every chance I could and always will. ‘When questioned by heresy, know the words to volley back.' Honestly, I don't know what I believe anymore. I was dead for nearly a thousand years, and I don't remember anything after. Maybe the gods are real. Maybe they are watching. Maybe they were a dark elf, a high elf, and a human once when the world was young, and all they might have hoped to leave behind was corrupted.

"Finally, ‘Be ready to end an evil life, even if they plead, for any mercy they deserve will be granted after death.'" Zen let his expression turn cold on this last lesson, and he saw Father Lewis tremble, just a man in the end.

Barrymore struggled in Lyla's hold, pleading, "Spare me! I did only as commanded—"

"Silence!" Lyla hushed him, one hand transforming into claws and squeezing his throat with the threat of a sharp talon on his jugular.

It was vindicating to see these men brought low. After all, some people deserve to be uncomfortable, but vengeance was not Zen's goal.

"Despite all that, the Lord of Law has words of wisdom that I always thought contradicted the rest, yet these I believe. ‘Words save no one, only the light of one's true heart.'" Zen looked to Gaian, who smiled like he knew what Zen would do next. "My heart knows what's true."

Zen looked back at Lewis.

"You don't realize the irony, do you? I failed the trials because I wouldn't kill someone who had done terrible things but who believed in what they were doing and wanted mercy. Your own faith demands that I kill you, yet you can't even see that you are as much a villain as anyone else here.

"I hate to disappoint you, Father, but I am never going to pass the third trial." Again, Zen looked to Gaian. "Spare them."

"What?" Gaian startled, eyes dimming to human brown. "You would show mercy? To him , of all people?"

"I would show mercy to anyone, because I know what a rare and beautiful thing it is for someone to show it to me." At that, Zen looked behind him at his friends, and he thought perhaps, their eyes looked a little clearer.

"Zenos." Gaian traversed the few remaining steps that separated them and reached to cup Zen's face, letting his fingers trail further downward until they brushed Zen's scar. "Look what they did to you."

There was a part of Zen, seeing Gaian's sorrow beneath his vicious need for retribution, that thought instead—look what they did to you —but he knew, as guilty as the people of Daxos had once been and still were oftentimes, Gaian had made this monster of himself.

"I love you," Zen said, taking Gaian's hand from his neck and pulling it down between them. "I know you think you are gifting this to me, that you are doing this all for me, for us, so that we can be together as we should have been allowed to be all those years ago. But this is wrong. This is not what I want."

Gaian looked wounded, with a snarl curling his lips as he barked, "You would choose your god, who shunned us?"

"No." Zen squeezed Gaian's hand. "I said just now that I don't know if I believe in the gods. Some magic comes from within us, some without, but I can't say with certainty the source of mine. Maybe it is simply belief in me. Belief in those I care about."

Turning again to glance behind him, Zen took in his friends, who he was almost certain now were blinking awareness, despite their corrupted forms.

Bolstered by that shred of clarity, Zen returned to Gaian and brought their hands up to press a kiss into Gaian's palm, trying to convey that who he cared about was right in front of him too.

It almost seemed enough, the anger fading to only sorrow and a deep longing, like maybe Gaian could come to understand.

"Fiends!" Barrymore cried, breaking from Lyla's hold with a desperate dash toward Gaian and the decorative sword at his belt— decorative because he hardly needed such a weapon when he was a weapon himself.

Gaian had the man by the throat before Barrymore could even begin to draw Gaian's sword against him. Then Gaian was sinking his teeth into that throat, tearing into it furiously like a mad beast, not to drink, not really, but to rend.

Lewis looked horrified, knowing he was next.

"You see." Gaian's mouth and much of his clothing was coated in red when he let a twitching, dying Lord Barrymore drop with a thud. "You try to show mercy and they still attempt to destroy us. But they will be no match for you, my love, as they are no match for me, once you are my equal."

Gaian stalked toward Zen, fangs glinting and intent clear. All Zen could do was stumble away, for no one was on his side, much as his friends might have been trying to reclaim themselves.

Zen couldn't fight them all. If Gaian refused to see reason, then Zen was doomed.

"A hopeless cause requires assistance. Wouldn't you agree, cousin?"

Zen spun, not sure he could believe that voice belonged to who he thought until he saw Xari standing at the mouth of the hall, with several of her people, weapons raised, filing in behind her.

"We barely got a few leagues before we turned back," Xari added with a smile. "After all, we're family."

"You dare trespass!?" Gaian roared. "After I spared your clan all these years!"

Xari didn't look surprised to hear that her people's survival might have more to do with her lineage than to any prayers to the gods.

Zen couldn't be sure either, though it certainly seemed like divine intervention when Dante and Khel readied their weapons and Morty's hands began to glow—as they turned on the hags.

Guardian leapt at the dwarf, Clea, and the hall erupted.

Xari's people rushed the brides, who shed their beauty for monstrous, winged forms with the ease of shifting an expression.

Degnan threw Father Lewis to the floor, as he and Lyla shifted in kind, their clothing vanishing as they became a hulking black and silver werewolf respectively, bounding forward to intercept Xari.

As Zen's friends tried to engage the hags, only Khel proved capable of touching them. Guardian was shaken off with ease, and the others' swings and spells landed on nothing, for the hags were mostly translucent.

But so was Khel.

His sword became translucent too, which sliced into Clea's shoulder with a sizzle.

"Stop!" Gaian's bellow swung Zen's attention back to him and his looming threat, for Gaian too was a terrifying fiend, fangs elongating and wings sprouting from his back like the brides.

No one heeded him, but when his focus returned to Zen, his primary goal of seizing Zen at all costs was clear.

" Ensnare !"

Gaian leapt with the same ferocity as Guardian, but just as Gaian's feet left the ground, he was yanked back down with a force that shook the hall, bright glowing sigils having formed beneath his feet.

Zen turned sharply to see Morty with a grin around his vampire fangs and an outstretched hand.

" Crossbow ," Morty said next, at the end of a long muttering of Magic Tongue, and the lightest weapon Zen had ever held appeared in his grasp, shimmering faintly like a mirage.

"Enough!" Gaian slammed his hands against an invisible barrier. The sigils flickered but held, and Gaian's mouth seemed too wide in his fury, like a great mad gargoyle that could lay waste to everything in his path.

The trap wouldn't hold him long.

Zen took quick stock of the fight. The brides were gargoyles as well, and worse, Elwyn had one of Xari's people, already draining her, and from his bite and everywhere on the woman's body where Elwyn touched spread the decay he could inflict as an elven vampire, rotting away in a sickly gray and green that made her scream in agony.

Zen fired, striking Elwyn with a glowing crossbow bolt in the shoulder that made him hiss and release his victim to the floor. Zen could only imagine if she could be healed, but Xari dropped down to try.

"Control your spawn!" Gaian roared, slamming on the barrier again with another flicker of the sigils.

Morty was trying to hold his concentration on the spell to imprison Gaian for as long as possible, but he was also firing off additional spells to aid the others. Now, as Lukas, the bride who had turned him, broke from the fight to move toward Morty, the barest command of " Obey " caused Morty to falter.

Lyla must have been the wolf who bit Dante, because she did the same, and Dante stumbled mid-swing of his axe.

"You will be one of us," Clea coaxed Khel, and what sense of self had been in him vanished.

Zen stood frozen. Such creatures were bound to their makers, and yet, Zen's friends had been able to resist. They could again. They had to.

They had to before Gaian broke free and slaughtered them all.

" Resist ," Zen prayed to whatever god might listen, to whatever part of himself channeled the most power from whatever source and harnessed that outward through sheer will.

Khel raised his sword to attack—only for Clea to grab her sister and throw the other hag into the blade's path, nearly slicing her in two.

Dante wailed with a werewolf's howl, his claws monstrous around the handle of his axe, as he shifted his focus from the hags to his creator.

And Morty, with a brief shake of his head, kept his attention on the trap still holding Gaian captive.

It was then that a glint of light caught Zen's eye from a small table against the far wall—where the pouch of dust sat, fading from its recent glow, along with Zen's belt!

Gaian hadn't destroyed it.

"No!" Gaian cried, even more desperately trying to break the trap when Zen raced toward the treasure.

But before Zen could move even a few strides, Lukas was there, furious and snarling.

" Sunlight ." Zen let the crossbow dangle as he shot out his free hand without falter.

At last, the elusive spell flashed true, and the death knell as the bride burst into flames and then disintegrated was terrible, but Zen didn't pause to feel pity.

Leela screamed for the loss of her brother and turned from fighting Xari's people to hurl herself in Zen's path, just as a confused handful of people poured in from the room behind the throne. Zen stuttered to a halt once more, recognizing some of them from the first village.

Volunteers , Gaian had said. The thought made Zen shudder, and he wondered what these loyal subjects would do. They were clearly startled to find fighting, even more so to see their lord bested and trapped, with some of his monsters already dead.

A woman stepped forward, the blacksmith, Zen recalled, with a sword on her belt, along with a vial of glowing orange.

Alchemist's fire!

When she pulled the vial free, Zen feared she'd hurl it into the melee, possibly at Zen's friends, but she poured some along her blade, causing it to ignite, and then hurled the remainder at Leela.

A similar end met the sister as the brother—flames and then ashes—saving Zen before he'd even needed aid.

"Now we're talking!" Dante growled, and while he had no clothes in his wolf form, he had his belt, and on it were several vials of his own. He coated his axe as the blacksmith had, turning it aflame, and continued toward Lyla and Degnan.

The werewolf couple looked less eager now, seeing their own people changing sides. Guardian had turned toward them as well, hackles raised and teeth bared, because Khel had finished the first hag and was moving to fell Clea.

Zen had to reach the pouch, but his path kept getting blocked.

" Please ," he beseeched the werewolves, remembering their young children. He held their gaze only long enough to see them share a look, before they chose to join their people too, much to Gaian's fury.

Xari's people, with aid from the villagers, were quick to finish off Elwyn, his struggle ending with a swipe of the blacksmith's flaming sword removing his head, but several others were down, and Xari herself had the remaining two brides surrounding her. Fennic's hideous laughter was causing Xari too much pain, and Shael's swipes and faint touches were weakening her.

Then Degnan and Lyla roared, racing to Xari's aid, with Dante and Guardian hot on their haunches.

The din made the brides look back at what descended on them, and though weakened, the reprieve gave Xari the chance she needed to summon forth a wave of fire. It wasn't enough to incinerate the brides, but they were badly burned and left howling—enough for Degnan and Lyla to get in swipes of their claws that nearly tore the brides' throats out in a single strike, and then for Guardian to leap at Fennic and finish the job, while Shael tried to run, right into the path of Dante's axe.

At last, the way for Zen was clear, and he took off sprinting.

"Look out!" Morty hollered just as Zen reached his prize, hand closing around the pouch with the remaining dust too late.

"Mine!" Gaian's voice preceded him flipping Zen around and pressing him into the table. The trap had failed, and Gaian was a powerhouse atop Zen. "You're mine! You will drink from me! You will be with me!"

Even now, with nearly all his best warriors slain or turned against him, that was all Gaian wanted, but the only thing Zen could feel in reply was a deep remorse held in the centuries that separated them and all that had made Gaian this.

"You'd imprison me," Zen asked plainly, soft between them, "take choice away from me, like the king who first tore me from you? Like that lord who acted out of fear? Like the cruel priest who raised me? Why?"

Gaian's monstrous visage couldn't hide how his glowing eyes filled with moisture. "How else would you choose me now? I am everything they say, everything you accuse me of. A mad monster."

Zen dropped the crossbow, which vanished without his hold on it, and reached to grasp one of Gaian's wrists, whose hands were twisted in Zen's doublet but loosening. "That is your choice too. Don't let them be right, that we are cursed because of who and what we are. Let me and the others go. Let this end. Please. Be the man I once loved one last time."

The tears in Gaian's eyes broke free, and with their exodus, so too faded Gaian's snarl, his fangs, the red in his eyes, and the batlike wings. He was Enki, pitiable and mourning.

He released Zen and stood upright, the sounds of fighting fading, everyone standing still and vigilant, wondering if Gaian would kill them all in a blink, either with a spell or the speed with which he could tear into their necks.

Lewis lived, huddled against a wall near where Degnan had dropped him. Clea lived too, as stunned as all the others when Gaian waved an arm to encompass the hall, and everyone who was a monster suddenly no longer looked monstrous.

He'd freed them.

"Go," Gaian said, backing away to let Zen up. "Take any others who wish to be free of this place. You are right. I have to end this."

Zen realized then that Gaian had taken the pouch. "Wait—"

"You're not the only one with the hands of a thief," Gaian said, and with a final look of longing, he opened the pouch and threw it into the air above him, creating ashen rain that fell upon his entire form. "I will always love you, my Zenos."