Chapter 30

ChapterThirty

Greed sat astride Ivo’s nuckelavee, glaring at the sands like they were the problem. He certainly wasn’t. After all that had happened, he thought he deserved a little time to not believe he was the asshole who had not only ruined this kingdom but also his chance with the most beautiful woman in all the seven realms.

Which was why he was out here. Hunting. Doing everything he could to find the bastards who had attacked the Festival of Lights. The Horde would answer for what they had done, and they would answer in blood.

He knew the desert wanted to feed. The sands underneath his feet already screamed for more blood that would sink deep into the beating heart of this kingdom, igniting it once again. But he also knew therein lay the problem. If he wasn’t careful, this kingdom would return to its more... lively habits. He could not, and would not, allow it to return to that state.

No matter how much he wanted revenge. The Horde had taken from him. They’d ruined a night that should have remained precious for the rest of their days. Even the thought of things she’d done, the words she’d whispered, how sweetly she’d bent over his arm and begged for more, even though her thighs were already shaking?

Ach, she’d been perfect. And then he’d had to let her go.

“So, why are we out here again?” Gluttony asked, leaning over the pommel of his saddle. Morag hadn’t been pleased about letting his brother take her mount, but there were only so many nuckelavees to go around.

“Because we are hunting down the idiots who thought they could attack my festival and get away with it.”

“Oh, your festival is it now?” Gluttony’s dark brow raised. His brother had insisted on wearing a wide-brimmed hat, he looked foolish wearing it, but his lily pale skin would have burned by now if he hadn’t. “And here I was, believing you hadn’t even thought of that festival for hundreds of years. What was it called again?”

“The Festival of Lights,” he ground out.

“Right. The Festival of Lights. Where your people send up their lanterns with wishes written on the inside, hoping that the gods themselves would hear their prayers. Isn’t that about right?”

“What are you trying to get at, Gluttony?”

“I’m just saying.” The creak of leather in Gluttony’s hands was the only sound that gave away that he might not be quite as flippant as he pretended. “You were never interested in this before that woman waltzed into your life. And you’ve never wanted to hunt someone down for burning through a camp. You are the warlord king who took this kingdom and let it burn. Remember?”

Of course, he remembered his own history. Greed couldn’t forget it, no matter how hard he wanted to. He’d been here for centuries, had indulged his kingdom in whatever future they wished to carve for themselves. That didn’t mean he couldn’t change. Or that he didn’t want to.

If he didn’t look at the desert, casting his gaze out to the wild landscape beyond, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t launch himself at his brother and knock him off the horse he’d provided.

Gluttony had always gotten underneath his skin, though. They had never gotten along.

“So we are Horde hunting,” Gluttony said as the silence stretched a little too long between them. “Interesting. And why are we Horde hunting?”

“Because they attacked a village of people during what was supposed to be a truce between all the cities. The Festival of Lights is known to not allow stealing, thievery, or murder.”

“And that is by your own grace and choices, of course.”

“Of course.” It wasn’t. Greed hadn’t ever made those rules, but he would uphold the ones that his own people had made. They wished for peace during this time, and that suited his own needs. He wanted revenge.

Apparently, Gluttony saw right through him and into the thoughts that he tried so desperately to hide. “And this has nothing to do with the woman, then? Or that tent that you two disappeared into? You realize I have exceptional hearing. I know exactly how you were entertaining yourself while the rest of the town continued to celebrate.”

“I don’t need your approval to do such things. Besides, you weren’t even supposed to be there.”

“Of course not. But I want to, once again, ask why we are in the middle of the desert hunting the people who are simply doing what you have taught them is acceptable? Burn down villages if you want what they have. Take what is yours and ask for no quarter or apologies.” Gluttony lifted his voice to a higher pitch, as though Greed spoke in a tone higher than his own. “They do what you tell them to do.”

“And now they will feed my desert with their blood,” he growled. He could feel the anger rising. His cheeks burned bright red and his chest felt hot. All at once, that rage coiled in his chest and snapped. “They ruined what could have been the best night of my life. They took from me the treasure that I have always desired and now I will hold their beating hearts in my hands for it! Everything would have been perfect if they hadn’t walked into that festival and ruined it!”

“Eh,” Gluttony said with a light shrug.

Greed’s vision turned white.

“Eh?” he repeated, spitting the word in his brother’s direction. “What does that mean? Eh?”

“It means, brother, that you have yet to consider that all of this fuckery might be your fault.” Gluttony turned on top of his mount, facing Greed directly while he ticked off his fingers. “You were the one who tried to get her to leave her people when they needed help. You were the one who taught the attackers to do exactly what they were doing. Let’s not forget that after you helped save her people, only because she forced you to do so, that you then blamed her for making you feel worried because you thought she might be dead. And then she knocked you off your own horse, and you let her go.”

Greed wanted to wrap his fingers around his brother’s neck and squeeze. “So you want me to take all the blame for what has happened?”

“I think that’s the logical choice, yes.”

“You want me to be the villain in this story when there is someone out there that we can actually hunt? Someone we can kill because they have killed so many others?”

“I do not know you to be a man who has any interest in mercy.” Gluttony tilted his head to the side, watching him with dark eyes that saw far too much. “This is mercy, brother. You are hunting down the people who harmed innocents. It’s unlike you.”

But that wasn’t why he was doing it. Sure, Greed would take their adoration and their devotion because of what he did.

He was only out here hunting because the Horde had unwittingly stolen from him when they attacked that village. They’d stolen a night of pleasure that he never wanted to forget, and that memory would forever be tainted by their touch now.

He wouldn’t stand for it. They would pay for their foolish mistake and he would watch them cry out for mercy. And he would give them none.

Gluttony watched him with those knowing red eyes. Seeing right through to his soul and then snorting. “So it’s like that, then. You want to punish them for making a mistake that is actually yours. That’s fucked up, Greed. At some point, you’re going to have to admit that you make mistakes as well. And sometimes you have to sit in your own punishment.”

That was it. His brother had no right to judge his life.

Leaning over his own pommel, he braced himself on the sturdy saddle as his beast shifted between his thighs. “Why are we sitting here talking about me? You’re casting judgement, brother, when you are the one here with a babysitter because you couldn’t stop eating your own people. Why don’t we talk about that?”

Gluttony’s face darkened with what Greed could only hope was embarrassment. “We’re not talking about me.”

“Oh, but we are. You were the one sent away like a misbehaving brat to a kingdom far from your own, because Wrath didn’t want mommy to see how badly you had misbehaved.” Calling Pride “mommy” was perhaps a bit of a stretch. But their brother in the skies was rather pretty.

Though they both knew it was right, Gluttony would argue. He never failed to rise to a challenge like this. “First, I did not eat any of my followers. I drank her blood dry because she wanted me to. And second, do you really believe Wrath could take me out of my own kingdom if I did not wish to go?”

“Yes.” Greed rolled his eyes. “You’re a bigger fool than I thought if you believe you could go head to head with Wrath. There’s a reason he is where he is. None of us wanted that kingdom, but he looked at the challenge of darkness and monsters and made it his own. You want to fight him? Be my guest. I wouldn’t even take a punch from that one.”

And that was the truth. Greed would fight anyone and everyone who would give him a chance. He adored fighting. Loved the feeling of a fist meeting his face even if only because that meant he could unleash whatever he wanted on the person. Fighting was a catharsis that so few people ever got to feel. A release of all that pent up aggression in his body.

But fight Wrath? He’d rather lie down and let the sun take him.

Gluttony shook his head, but his red eyes had turned out toward the desert as well. Almost as though he couldn’t look Greed in the eyes.

And that was strange on its own. His brother had never backed down from a fight. Not once.

Curiosity burned in his chest, and the feeling was rather welcome considering all he’d been able to feel for a while now was rage and disgust at himself. Latching onto it as though that feeling might save him, Greed pushed. “Well? If you want me to believe Wrath’s story, then by all means, stay silent. This is your chance to tell me what happened.”

“You are inclined not to believe me.”

“You are correct.” Greed squeezed the reins a little too tightly in his hands. “But I will do my best to hear you out.”

Though Gluttony turned to look at him with suspicion in his eyes, his brother spoke. Halting, shuddering words that revealed he didn’t want to tell Greed. Something inside him must feel an ounce of guilt for it. He must know that these dark thoughts and worries needed to be purged.

“She wanted to die,” he started, his voice deeper than before. “I didn’t want to be the hand that wielded that blade, but there was no other choice. Not for either of us. She had to die, and I had to let her go, so I did. I was the murderer who eased her into the beyond in the only way I know how to, Greed. I’m not a killer, like you.”

“I’ve never killed innocents.”

“Of course you have,” Gluttony scoffed. “We all have. Every choice we make in our kingdoms kills innocents because none of us were meant to be gods. I have my vices that you judge me for, just as you have your own. I cannot understand your need to take, just as you cannot understand my need to consume. It is who we are.”

And that sounded... wrong. Greed urged his mount forward, knowing Gluttony’s would follow. “I do not have vices. I encourage people to embrace the part of themselves that keeps them here. We have given the people in each of our kingdoms a safe place for them to feel no guilt for who they are.”

“Ach,” Gluttony tsked. “You sound like Pride. But you don’t actually believe that, do you? We’re the problem, brother. We always have been. I know it was our dream to be mortal and that we would take these forms and make a significant difference, but we haven’t done that. All we’ve done is feed in greater volume since we took the thrones. We made the humans worse.”

The thought of that didn’t sit right.

Had he made this kingdom worse? No. He hadn’t. “When I came here, there were hundreds of tribes all over the kingdom, each one vastly different from the one next to them. They fought with each other nonstop. They followed herds of creatures to eat and they were starving. The jungle devoured them day in and day out before I gave them a reason to band together.”

“And in doing so, you made them all the same.” Gluttony didn’t even flinch at the glare Greed sent toward him. Instead, his brother held his gaze with a strength that he hadn’t seen in Gluttony for a very long time. “I’m not telling you that you’re a bad person, Greed. I’m just saying we’re all the villains in their stories, no matter how much they pretend to love us. We’re the monsters in the storybook, the ones who fucked up their world and remade it in our own vision. And perhaps it is time for all of us to recognize that about ourselves.”

He swallowed hard. “You want us to accept that we are monsters?”

“Yes.” Gluttony didn’t hide from that. He just agreed with it. “There is power in accepting what you are. The humans call us demons for a reason.”

“I don’t want to be a demon,” Greed muttered, but his brother saw through him, as he always did.

“Don’t you?” Gluttony asked, his eyes boring into Greed’s profile. “I know I do. I’m not ashamed of it. They call me the demon king and I have become one. I drink blood. I devour their life essence and I consume all that I am given. If that does not make me a demon, then I am unsure of what I am.”

Unsettling. Every part of this conversation was unsettling, and most of it was the thought that he didn’t want to be the person who others feared. He didn’t want to be the reason this kingdom floundered or failed.

But no one had taught them how to be kings. He’d done what he thought was right, and now they were all here. The desert ruled them all in some small part, because his kingdom wasn’t like the others. Greed had taken the hardest kingdom because he had felt a kinship to it and that was... it.

The sand rolled underneath him and he sighed. Knowing that his own stupid feelings were getting the better of him. He had to push them back down. To indulge himself in more greed and bloodshed, because that was where he was most comfortable.

If only the desert would let him think. If he didn’t have to feel like he was rolling on a lake somewhere or—

“Greed?” Gluttony’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Do you have a snake problem?”

“Excuse me?”

Then Greed saw it. The massive snake shifted through the sands, its scales glinting in the sunlight where it poked through the desert before sinking back down. A snake who should have been dead for hundreds of years and yet, apparently, had woken.

“The desert takes what it wants,” Greed muttered, the words from an old kingdom that had long fallen underneath the sands. “We feed it blood, and the beasts rise from the deep.”

“What are you muttering?”

“This is a problem,” he snapped. “Bigger than that fucking Horde who I assume is behind all this. We’re following the beast, Gluttony.”

“Of course.” His brother kicked his nuckelavee’s sides and Greed wished once again for his own mount as they raced across the desert after the ancient snake that should be asleep. “Why wouldn’t we follow the snake?”