20. The High God of Witchcraft and Sorcery

Vex and Astrid were pleased with themselves after tricking Finnian into gifting Naia their mother's stolen necklace. Their ridiculing was relentless in taunting insults over the dinner table, never wasting an opportunity to point out their father's absence.

My, Father would have enjoyed the sight of the blooming baby's breath down by the river today. It is a shame he cannot, all due to Finnian's foolishness.

"I swear, one day, I am going to make them choke on their words," Finnian declared one night at the waterhole.

Naia's legs soaked in the starlight pool. Her head hung back as she peered up at a lone manta ray drifting aimlessly across the sea. The reflection of the moon pierced through the water, giving her plenty of silvery light to track its movements.

The night was alive with the sounds of crickets, animal calls, and rustling ground cover.

"They are not worth your time," Naia told him.

Finnian plopped down beside her and picked a part of a stick, chucking pieces over his shoulder. "You are too passive."

She recognized the way his hands trembled with a need to move. A distraction of thoughts. An outlet.After all, it had only been a year since their father's departure.

"Perhaps."

While she had every reason to obsess over revenge and making the triplets suffer, a rippling grief washed over her whenever she attempted to peer into her future beyond a few days. The prospect of pushing forward on the never-ending journey, without the possibility of ever seeing Father again, left her feeling utterly depleted and short of breath.

Finnian grew still beside her.

Naia eyed her little brother from the side as she swirled her ankles in the water.

His solemn expression was impossible for her to ignore. While revenge and vengeance were things that did not interest her, the same could not be said for Finnian.

"You made me a promise," she reminded him.

"I know," he said.

A promise Naia felt the constant need to remind him of as the centuries waned on.

In Finnian's two hundredth year, hemet Arran—a demigod who lived in the village and plucked fish from the sky for the kitchens to serve. Because of the soiled blood in his veins, most deities turned their noses up at him.

Arran's curls sprung in all directions, and he wore a tunic several sizes too big for his lanky figure, but he had a smile that molded the sweetest dimples in his cheeks and a contagious laugh. It made all the sense in the world to Naia he'd caught her younger brother's eye. For those buried in darkness often sought sprinkles of light.

A day Naia was assigned to scrub the kitchens, she found them joined behind the butcher block.

She let out a squeal. Stumbled over the mopping bucket as she fumbled to give them privacy, whilst stammering apologies.

Later, Finnian found her propped on the bridge railing over the River of Souls.

As he approached, his mouth spread into a grin with a piece of licorice between his teeth. "Sorry, Sister, I assumed Mother would make you clean the fish block outside the kitchens first."

She rolled her eyes and smacked him hard on the arm."Do not be coy with me."

He shook with laughter.

It was pleasant to see a brief glimpse of happiness in him. She could tell Arran meant a great deal to him.And as joyful as she was to see him experience love, it only reminded her of the bleak hollowness residing beneath her bones and blood. A dried yearning to experience such things for herself.

Three weeks later, Naia and Finnian returned from a morning roaming their father's favorite abandoned cove when they came upon Arran's mother weeping in the courtyard of the palace grounds.

"Please, I beg for his forgiveness! However he offended you! Please, just give me back my boy!"

Guards escorted out a bin and passed it along to his mother—a lesser deity. Her mournful sobs echoed through the courtyard.

Finnian stormed over to the bin before Naia could grab onto him. He kicked it over and fish guts and severed body parts strung out.

Naia's stomach heaved at the sight of Arran's detached head rolling across the cobblestone.

For offending Malik in some juvenile way, their brother had chopped Arran into bits and stuffed the pieces inside a bin with fish remains.

The next morning, Naia sat in the great hall, chewing on her fingernails. Her breakfast untouched on her plate, debating whether or not she should force down Finnian's bedchamber door to check up on him. He refused to let anyone in.

"A god with sullied blood is not worthy of my art." Malik sat in his high seat a few down from Naia, cleaning his butchering knife with a dishcloth.

Vex and Astrid cackled at his side, sipping on their chalices of wine, when Finnian stormed through the doors.

With a crazed look in his eyes, he vanished into a shimmering plume of smoke and reappeared in front of the table across from Malik.

Naia quickly stood up with the intention of getting to Finnian before he acted rashly, but something caught hold of her wrist—or someone.

She whipped her head around and the breath perished in her lungs.

Arran was deathly pale, with stitching around the joints of his limbs like a puppet.She took in the depthless waters of his eyes. Those once rich and vibrant gems were now opaque and muddied by the afterlife.

Before Malik could defend himself, Finnian fisted the back of his hair and smashed his face into the half-eaten soup on the table. The porcelain bowl shattered. Pieces of soggy vegetables flew about. A pool of Malik's blood mixed with the broth and dripped onto the crystal floor.

Vex and Astrid scraped back out of their chairs, gawking in dumb shock at the undead Arran.

Mages petrified the gods.But gods who had the gift of magic? Horrifying.

Finnian bent down next to Malik's ear. "You cannot kill what belongs to me, Brother."

Naia felt the familiar prickle of Mira's chilling power circulate the hall. Instinct took over and Naia went to jump over the table to shield Finnian, but Arran twisted her arm behind her back and drove her hips against the edge of the table.

Naia hissed through her teeth.

Out of the corner of her eye, the bone-white tusks of Mira's whip flitted across the air.

Finnian stabbed the butcher knife into Malik's skull with one arm, and threw out his other arm, catching the tail end of Mira's whip. He allowed its oil-slick body to coil around his forearm like a sea snake.

The jagged teeth tore into his flesh, and he turned from Malik and peered across the hall to Mira. "Come," he commanded.

Arms burst through the windows of the hall. Shards of the stained glass exploded everywhere, peppered pieces nicking Naia's arms. Hands punctured through the crystal floor. Jungle cats and decayed birds. Bodies of humans covered in seashells and algae, as if they'd decomposed on the seafloor.

The hall erupted into screams as the servants scurried to flee.

One undead human tore into the neck of a guard.

A jaguar, half its bones exposed on the side of its skull, pounced on Vex.

Astrid shrieked.

Mira reared her arm back, freeing the end of her whip, and lashed it through the flailing undead creatures coming at her left and right. It was the subtle pinch in her brow, her eyes betraying a swirling fury, that slashed a white-hot bolt of lightning straight down Naia's middle.

"Arran, let me go!" Naia begged. "She is going to hurt him!"

He pressed himself into her waist in response, biting her hip bones deeper into the edge of the table.

Naia reared up and threw her head back, her skull colliding with Arran's forehead. He let out a grunt, steadying his balance and tightening his grip around her wrists. She squirmed and wiggled in his grasp, gritting her teeth.

Mira launched her whip with a velocity too fast for Naia to follow. One strike after another, punctuated by a violent hissing, it moved with a viper's reflexes.

"Finny!" Naia shouted over the commotion. "Stop this?—"

Mira's whip connected with Finnian's face. The clash sent shockwaves through the air, the sound like thunder slashing across the seabed sky. Naia felt the vibration of it in her bones.

Naia screamed out her brother's name. They were deities, but some wounds inflicted by the most powerful of them could not be healed.

Finnian staggered.

His palm slapped over the right side of his head and his body folded forward. Blood gushed between his fingers as he whimpered.

"Finny!" Naia cried out.

To her surprise, Raksa appeared and ripped Arran off her. She shot around the table for Finnian, not wasting a single moment.

Another caught her by the arm.

She whirled around, snarling, "Let go!"

Malik's fingertips bit into her bone and the steel tip of his knife softly met the small of her back.

The blood in her face drained.

His silver hair, tainted with blood, served as a reminder of Finnian's earlier attack. He glared at her with an unmatched darkness, urging her to provoke him. As if he needed an excuse to carve his knife into someone.

Fear wrapped around her and squeezed. In reaction, her imagination conjured up countless sickening ways he could inflict pain upon her.

Mira disappeared from where she stood. She reappeared in a wispy puff, clutching the back of Finnian's head, his stomach pressed to the floor, with the heel of her shoe lodged at the base of his spine.

Her infamous whip melted into a puddle of water, splashing and mixing in the pool of Finnian's blood. "You decided to dip your bloody fingers into a pool with the deadliest shark among us. I am afraid you now have a target marked on your back." She crouched down closer to Finnian's head. "Never return to my kingdom, Finnian. If you do, I will not hesitate to summon Lord Cassian myself."Her voice was a lethal warning.

And with that, the High Goddess of the Sea whipped around, materializing out of the hall.

Finnian crawled up onto his arms, and let out a long, gut-wrenching bellow. Spit flew from his mouth. The veins in his neck strained as the sound shook the palace walls.

Naia broughthim to the bench in the garden and cleaned the trail of blood dried along his jaw. Then she inspected his right ear thoroughly, fighting him as he batted her away, assuring her he was fine.

To his own denial, Naia could not quarrel with him. The wound on his jaw had not healed, and blood continued to ooze from within his ear canal.

"It will heal," he murmured.

It wouldn't. She knew it. He knew it. For it should have already. But they didn't speak of it.

She provided him with a fresh set of robes and a few of her favorite treats from the kitchen. There was no time for sentimental goodbyes. If Naia had it her way, they would've visited the watering hole one last time, but Raksa was like a hawk, watching them from the entrance of the palace.

Finnian was to leave at once—and never return.

Naia's tears spilled with unflagging persistence. She smiled through them. "Find a place where you feel comfortable, yes? No shacks in the woods or graveyards. Somewhere with a bed and a fireplace. You need to keep warm. And don't go months without eating. I hear the Mortal Land is stocked full of delightful foods. You should try a cow-steak. I hear it is divine over an open flame."

Finnian patiently listened while she rambled on without interrupting her. Mindfully quiet, staring at her, as if he was taking the time to memorize her face. It had her heart submerging into what felt like razor blades.

This won't be the last time. This won't be. It cannot be.

"I think they simply refer to it as a steak." His palm came up to cup her cheek, and he gave her a crooked smile. "Come find me when you are free of this place. Only after you have explored a little. You deserve to experience the freedom you crave so."

The lump in her throat swelled, and she wiped the moisture from her eyes, shaking her head. "You know I cannot leave."

"Who says you cannot?" Finnian gently brought his forehead to hers and held it there. It spoke a thousand words they never dared to say to one another.

I love you, Finny.

He turned away and his figure disintegrated into a thousand scarlet particles shimmering in the sunlight.

Naia hung her head, concealing the traces of tears sneaking down her cheeks.

Grief, an ever-present companion, gently tore through her chest, taking residence within the trenches of her heart.