29. The Blood of a Demigod

Solid ground settled beneath her feet. Saltwater and the sweetness of palm trees rushed up her nose. The sloshing water against the metal of boats in their slips and the wooden pillars of the marina surrounded her. Harsh rays of lamplight glared down upon them.

None of it came into focus, though.

Naia held herself hunched over on her knees, breathing rapid intakes of air. Her heartbeat skipped with Marina's threat trapped in her head.

"Gods." Avi squatted, his hands in his hair, eyes round, rocking back and forth. "Shit. Shit! I need to go back and make sure everyone is okay. Vi… She—" His voice cracked.

"Go." Ronin ordered."The barrier is secure around the warehouse. Make sure everyone is safe. Collect all the bodies. We'll give them a proper burial. Theon, take?—"

"What the fuck is going on?" Theon stormed over to Naia, his footfalls stopping behind her.

They deserved an explanation. She simply couldn't give them one right now.

"Theon," Ronin cut in. "Give her a?—"

"You almost died! I want to know how. Lady Ruelle has always protected you!"

Ronin ignored him and kneeled beside Naia. With a gentle, trembling touch, he tucked a piece of her blood-crusted hair behind her ear."Naia," he whispered.

Naia shivered. He deserved an explanation, but she didn't know how to work up the words without bursting into tears. He didn't know what to say, either. She could feel it in the way he stared down at her curse-marked hand, mouth opening and closing in silence.How much had he heard?

"Theon, take Avi back and make sure everyone is okay. Please," Ronin ordered again.

This time, Theon did not dispute. A sound like mud being vacuumed hissed in the air as they disappeared.

Naia glared down at the curse mark through her tears.

Everything was all wrong. She had happiness gripped by its collar, believing she could overcome anything—even marrying Solaris and sacrificing her freedom. Ronin made her a promise. No matter what or where, he would find her and bring her back to him.

But this?

Naia pressed her palm into the softness of her belly where?—

She ripped the other glove off her hand and stood up. Ronin stood with her. It was still the middle of the night. Nobody was around besides them.

She marched to the edge of the dock leading onto a secluded beach.

"God of Death and Curses!" she shouted. "Come to me!"

She whipped her head around to search for him, the edges of her vision wilted red.Silhouettes of swaying limbs of trees rustled along the sand.

"Naia!" Ronin jogged to keep up with her. "What are you doing?"

"I need answers." She charged through the sand, her fury palpable in every stride.

"Naia." Ronin reached out his arm, and the tips of his fingers brushed her sleeve before dropping his hand, as if he remembered all the times she'd flinched when being touched.

She wanted to assure him he would not startle her; that she'd grown to welcome his skin on hers, crave it even. But she was too distraught to speak with such tenderness.

"Talk to me," he pleaded softly.

Naia roared the High God's name.

She would not stop until the bastard showed.

Her feet dug in the sand, waiting with chattering teeth.

A long second passed and her muscles tensed.

"Cassian, come to?—"

"You seem agitated, Little Goddess." His voice appeared behind her, as smooth as a shot of whiskey.

Ronin fell unconscious and crumpled to the ground before he could spin and raise his arms in defense.

"Ronin!" Naia started towards him, twisting her head towards the god. "How dare you!"

He rolled his shoulders. "Let's call it a security measure."

Naia crouched down next to Ronin, ensuring he was okay. Ronin resembled a ghost after all the blood he'd lost. Being unconscious would at least prevent him from trying anything brash.

"I never pegged you for being as cruel as she." Naia straightened and spun around to face Cassian. "But it goes to show the length of my stupidity."

He didn't seem the least bit taken aback by her outburst. He remained poised, exuding an insufferable air of apathy. The lamplight from the dock shone brightly on his pale, blond hair, and the monochrome of his dark clothes against his light skin was like a dead rosebush in a field of snow.

"Cruelty and ambition are two vastly different things," he said. "Your mother is extremely volatile. It is what got her cursed in the first place."

Naia swung her fist at him, and he fluttered into a puff of smoke.

"Careful, Little Goddess," he purred, "or I might fight back."

Reappearing a few feet from where he once stood, a shadow streaked across the sharp, ethereal features of his face. "What is the reason you have called me here?"

"Your curse! I must hand over my child to you, don't I?" A sob tore through Naia's lips. "Whymychild?"

Cassian observed her intently, tilting his head in fascination at her sadness. "Do you know the history of the Himura clan?"

She couldn't get a word out, crying through her clenched teeth.

He obliged, straightening the cufflinks of his sleeves. "A thousand years ago, a mortal woman and a god had a child, and it accidentally killed its father with its blood. The gods decided to end the life of this child, as they saw it to be a great threat. The clan to which the child belonged to were mages. They fought against the gods, using the child's blood to kill many of our kind. The Council eventually intervened and, with illusive spells, the clan went into hiding."

Naia was aware. She'd read about the Himura clan in her studies. It was rumored they were extinct.

Cassian slipped his hands inside the front pockets of his trousers. "The location of their whereabouts was discovered a century later, but by that time, the demigod child had already passed. Not willing to take any risks, the gods massacred their bloodline, save for two—a young girl and an adolescent boy."

Naia sniveled, wiping her wet cheeks with the heel of her palm.

"As the last remaining genders of their bloodline, the High Goddess of Fate placed them under her protection. To oppose adversaries, she dipped her hand into the blood of the children, proving the clan's blood did not truly have the power to kill, for they were simply mortals. Though, she writhed on the ground for some time, as it still affects us, much like your precious beloved's blood does now. But do you know why his blood cannot kill us, Little Goddess?"His brows quirked with a nauseating glimmer in his eyes.

The first child who accidentally killed its father was born a demigod. No other deities would have dared come within a hundred-foot radius of someone from the Himura clan after learning what their blood could do. No other demigod children in the clan would've existed?—

Until now.

Her gut lurched.

"No…" she breathed.

"Ah," Cassian smirked. "Ronin is not a demigod, therefore the power in his blood is not lethal."

Their child's blood would be a true poison to deities.

Cassian hung his head back, peering up at the night sky filled with hundreds of dazzling gemstones. "This may not come as a surprise, but I loathe Ruelle. She's fucked me over time and time again, and I have tried killing her as many times in return. It is a sick game that has gone on for centuries between us, and she always ends up winning. It's quite vexing. Now, though?" He dropped his chin and his golden eyes flashed on Naia. "Well, I'd say I've bested her this time."

It's why he agreed to curse Naia to Kaimana. It was all a part of his plan, well aware he would need a reason for her to come and beg for a way out—a prompt for this curse, to hand over her child to him.

In her state of shock and disbelief, she couldn't help but be amazed at the intricacy of his plotting.His strong hatred for the High Goddess of Fate had nothing to do with her, and yet, she'd been standing in the middle without realizing.

Fool.

Happiness was a mirage, and perhaps it was better for it to remain that way. Basking in its rays of light would only make the darkness that much colder.

"Can you not let me have this one thing?" Tears dripped down her face, the salty drops mixed with her snot running over her lips. "All I want is happiness, Lord Cassian. I have already lost one love. I do not wish to lose another!"

Cassian stalked around her, the toe of his leather shoes inches from Ronin's head. "Eight hundred years ago, your soul parted from your beloved's to descend from the Land of Entity and become flesh and bone. Only, you ended up in Kaimana as a goddess, while he was born as a mortal." He stared down at Ronin. "After his first death, he came to me and pleaded to return to the Mortal Land. Repeatedly. After each of his lifetimes."

Cassian turned his head to look over his shoulder at her. "He found you once, but I believe you knew him as Kaleo back then—or you found him."

It felt as if her heart had given out, like the sand beneath her feet was being sucked back into the sea.She fell to her knees. Her hands came up into her hair as she choked out a mangled cry.

Memories of her time with Kaleo flooded her mind, mingling with the parallels of Ronin. In the kitchen, in his bed, his chilled skin and the scent of jasmine, stepping on her toes on the dance floor, and how they both looked at her. I'll show you if you let me.

The story was too tragic. A depressing, awful dose of fate.

Was she truly to believe their story, after an eternity of searching, would always end in sorrow? It wasn't fair?—

A boy.

Naia's breath caught.

Their child was a boy.

It was the reason Ronin's life had not been protected from Marina.

Naia sobbed harder.

She blamed Ruelle.

No, she hated Ruelle.

Cassian's shoes appeared in her line of sight. "It truly is a shame Ronin found you again." He bent forward, hands still resting in his pockets. "Come nine months, Little Goddess, your child is mine."

He placed his finger under her chin and guided her to look up at him.

Throughout Naia's life, she'd overheard others describe the High God of Death and Curses as merciless, alive but without a heart. Naia never understood because he'd always handled her with an impartial kindness. Even when he cursed her for the first time. He was not one to torture or maim, to taunt with remarks. His presence emitted an ancient, intimidating power, but he never struck her as evil.

Though, in this moment, as he stared down at her in valiant and cunning victory, she wanted to see that evil, to believe every part of him over the centuries had rotted, but she could not.

Cassian was not evil. He was broken. Barely a husk of a thing. And, like Mira, striving fiercely to hang onto something that did not exist.

Naia thought of all the times she backed down in fear. A fear that always seemed mountains bigger than herself when Mira hurled threats and punishments at her; when Marina's resentment locked its eyes on her; the permanent future mapped out for her with Solaris. An eternity of solitude and confinement.

And as she stared back at the High God, one of the first deities born into existence, she was no longer frightened. With her loved one's lives on the line—the life of her unborn child—she would rise and become bigger than everything and everyone she'd ever been afraid of.

"Hear me now," Naia said, boring deep into his eyes. "I will break this curse."

A power she had never known before accumulated and caressed between her skin and bones, eager to be unleashed upon the world.

A devilish smile curved along his lips. "You can try, Little Goddess, but in the end, I always get what I want."