At the end of the room was a short dais and a massive stone chair in the center. Zyros was lounging in the chair, one leg casually thrown over one of the arms. On her right the God of Wisdom kneeled.
Caelan’s stomach lurched, taking in Lore’s appearance. The God of Wisdom did not look well. His clothes were tattered, torn, and bloodstained. His hair was a disheveled mess, and there were several bruises on his face. But he sat there at his love’s side, a completely blank expression on his face, as if his mind wasn’t really there, as if he were checked out from the scene in front of him.
When Caelan was within a few yards of the throne, one of the guards grabbed his shoulder, claws poking through his thin T-shirt to puncture his flesh as he was pushed to his knees. As soon as he was kneeling before the goddess, they turned and left the room, the double doors closing with an ominous thud.
“You’ve finally come to pay me a visit,” Zyros purred.
Caelan sat back on his heels, ignoring the dampness that was soaking into the knees of his cargo pants. “I was in the neighborhood. I thought it would be rude of me if I didn’t at least stop by.”
She grinned at him so that a fang slipped out beneath her lip. “I knew you’d be better than the rest of them. I could hear whispers of how you bickered with the others. You didn’t let them push you around. You had your own goals, your own code of honor. I respect that.” She shifted in her seat, bringing her leg down off the arm of the chair. Her movements were almost boneless and fluid, sending a shiver along his spine. Catlike grace he could have dealt with, but the fact that she reminded him too much of a snake made his skin crawl. He’d never cared for snakes.
Zyros sighed heavily and dropped one hand to the top of Lore’s head. She threaded her fingers through his messy black hair. The touch didn’t strike him as affectionate as much as it was a bored twitch, to give her idle hand something to do. Or maybe a reminder to both of them that she was the one in complete control.
“It’s just a shame you let them use you.”
Caelan smirked at her. “A sad weakness of humans, right? They hear the term ‘god’ or ‘goddess’ and they immediately drop to their knees, ready to obey any command. They expect the god to know best, that they are loving and benign. Complete crock of shit.”
Zyros’s smile returned, and her hand tightened in Lore’s hair. The god winced, proving that there was still something of him left in that shell. “Exactly,” she hissed. “We have to learn to be cautious of the gods. To be skeptical of their desires. They don’t give a shit about the humans.”
“If the gods can so easily use and manipulate the humans, why can’t the same be done to them?”
With a sigh, Zyros removed her hand from Lore’s hair and dropped it onto the arm of the chair. The smile slipped away and was replaced with a more speculative look. He liked that. He wanted to keep her on edge. He wanted her unsure of which side he was going to play. Yes, they were very similar in how they viewed the gods, but what they ultimately wanted from this existence was completely different. It all came down to whether she truly understood him.
“You’ve had some time to consider my offer,” Zyros began again in a low voice.
“And I’m sure you understand my hesitance to strike any deals with you when you sent Safa to Hidden Falls.”
Zyros waved a hand dismissively at him, as if the topic was incredibly unimportant. “She was a loose end that needed tying up. I can’t go into this fight with my powers split in multiple places. You promised to kill her if I sent her to you. I took you up on that offer.”
“She slaughtered the village of Hidden Falls. She nearly killed one of my people,” Caelan countered, trying so very hard to keep his voice flat and even.
A dismissive scoff jumped from her throat. “That’s what she does. That was the entire reason for her existence.”
“To kill people?”
“To wake the gods and goddesses from their fucking stones,” Zyros snarled. “As long as she was bonded to me, I knew the others would never bond with her. I needed her to stir up enough trouble, to get the allies I needed to drag their gods from their lethargy. I was done waiting for them to decide when to finish this game.” She snagged a handful of Lore’s hair and twisted it in her fist, drawing the softest hiss of pain from him. When she jerked his head back, Caelan caught sight of a gold collar around his neck. It glowed and pulsed faintly against his too-pale skin. Was this how she was controlling him?