Chapter Twenty-Eight

SOREN WRAPPED HIS hand around Briar’s upper arm. “This time we’re listening to the Gods.” Evaria hung on his other side, her face pale. She clutched what remained of her shirt and the green glow escaped through her fingers.

The three of them moved together, around the lake house, sidestepping all the debris that had once been a beautiful home. When they came to the front of the house, they found even more chaos. Families were fleeing; cars zipped by at breakneck speeds as the blood continued to pour from the sky.

“Stay here,” Soren said, leaving both women by the car and running inside. It was only moments before he was back out, keys dangling from his fingers.

Briar pulled open the back door and urged Evaria inside before scrambling into the front. Soren turned the car on and started forward, only to nearly crash into a truck speeding down the road.

“Fuck.” He punched the steering wheel before pulling out. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” The wipers smeared red rain across the windshield.

“I can’t go with you,” Evaria said, “I can’t run away, I’m the mayor. You have to drop me off in the city. I have to help. This is a disaster.”

Briar pivoted in her seat. It was startling to look at Evaria, the too-bright eyes and the faint glow from her chest. She knew it must be just as startling for Evaria to look at her now. “Do you know what they meant by a fallen God?”

Evaria shook her head. “No, I’ve heard some about conduits but just the stuff you learn when you take the guided tours of any of the Gods Spots. But this…” She gestured outside. “This is apocalyptic shit. And did you see his eyes, like black holes?”

But Briar was not thinking of Ivian’s eyes, she was thinking of the swirling darkness that had briefly replaced Evaria’s chest. The way Lorcus had healed it because she asked. The way she had almost watched her die.

“And Gods, you look…Briar, people are going to know when they look at you. You’ll…” She stopped talking and reached out, touching Briar’s face. She could feel the faint thrum of magic beneath Evaria’s skin, the spring gusts of Lorcus’s power. “I’m frightened.”

“Fuck,” Soren said again, driving back over the bridge. The blood rain had slowed to a drizzle, but the lake was forever changed, a vast expanse of golden water, unlike anything Briar had ever seen. They all shivered when they crossed over the waters and reached the other shore. “I can’t believe I didn’t tell anyone to feed my cat.”

“You’re thinking about your cat right now?”

“Well, this is all very fucked up.” Soren looked in the rearview mirror and grimaced. “All those Gods. Fuck, Briar, a conduit?”

“I don’t want any of this.” Briar tried to take stock of the events that had just taken place but her memory was fuzzy, whether from emotional trauma or head trauma she didn’t know. Perhaps a bit of both. “Evaria, you should be dead.”

“I know. I can’t explain the way it felt when that darkness hit me, but it wasn’t anything humans were meant to feel. It wasn’t anything from this world. He meant to kill you horribly.”

“That’s what they were saying.” She pieced together the things the Gods had screamed at him. “The Gods aren’t meant to hurt humans, and not for their own gains. But…what does fallen mean?”

Soren shrugged. Sirens blared past down the freeway, heading toward the lake.

“Pull over,” Evaria said, pointing to a rest area sign. “I’ve got to handle this.”

“Absolutely not,” Soren said, driving even faster. The trees and guardrails were a blur outside the window. “I’ve got the human conduit, whatever that means, and the mayor of Wesvik in this car. I’m taking you both to where the lovely God told me to take you. I’m not pulling over.”

“Soren…”

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear it. You obviously haven’t looked in a mirror. You get out of this car and you’re going to scare the shit out of even more people. And besides, they said to get away before Ivian woke up and I don’t know when that will be, so no, I won’t pull over.”

“A mirror?” Evaria pushed herself through the space between the two seats and pulled down the visor mirror, practically in Briar’s lap. “Oh, Gods. My eyes.” She snapped the mirror shut, then opened it again. “What does it mean?” She turned toward Briar, their faces only inches apart.

“I don’t know, Evie,” Briar told her, turning to look at herself in the mirror. She looked like something out of a wax museum, close to human but not quite right. “I need to talk to Fauna.” She reached into her back pocket but her phone wasn’t there. It must have fallen out at some point.

“I felt mine smash when we hit the ground,” Soren said.

Evaria climbed back over Briar and into the backseat. “I’m tired.” She yawned, touching a hand to the glowing on her chest.

“Sleep,” Soren said, finally slowing to just above the speed limit. Other cars still passed them, racing toward the city. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Briar wasn’t sure that was a promise he could make but her eyes were heavy as well and she hurt. Whenever she stopped panicking, she wanted to cry. She was tired of running, tired of hurting, tired of losing people. Soren’s father had died and he hadn’t even mentioned it yet. They had left his body. “Are you okay?”

He glanced toward her and shook his head. “Not at all, but I don’t want to talk about it. I have to get us to Lillia’s and I can’t break down.”

“Okay. I love you.”

“You too, Ry.”

*

WHEN SHE WOKE, she was surrounded by buildings and the car was moving slower, filled with the sounds of the city, but even here it was frantic. News had traveled and people were huddled together, heads grouped above phones. People ran through the streets.

She looked in the backseat. Evaria was still asleep and Briar wasn’t sure if she should wake her. She watched her for a while as they drove the narrow streets toward Velorian’s Quarter and finally Evaria’s eyes fluttered.

She stretched and her hands hit the door. She flinched, then shot up, green eyes wide. She looked around and put a hand on Soren’s shoulder. “Take the next right. One of my clerks lives there. I have to get to work.”

Silently, he did as she said, and she stepped out slowly, gripping her shirt again. The pieces of it fluttered in the wind. “Thank you,” she said, looking each of them in the eye. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Soren.” She shut the door.

Soren still didn’t speak as he put the car back in drive and pulled into traffic and Briar didn’t know what to say to him. Her life was a nightmare. She thought today would be the end, for better or worse. Deal or jailed or free, it would be the end.

Nilaja had used her and she’d known it was coming. She should have prepared. Why else would they have agreed to help, knowing she was going to kill Eliana? That had been their sacrifice for their own magic.

There was no sympathy for Eliana in her heart, but thoughts of Jenia kept coming to her. She’d never gotten a proper goodbye; she’d never find a final resting place. Her body had been desecrated and used. No one deserved that.

That was happening to her, she realized with a start. Her own body had been changed against her will. She would be used when people found out, they would expect her to call on the Gods. To ask for their prayers to be answered.

And why couldn’t they do it themselves? If they were free to roam at will, why require a blood summoning? Why require a conduit? And why Briar?

The sun was setting, casting a ghastly hue of red and orange over the city as Soren turned onto Lillia’s street. He parked and turned off the car and looked at Briar. His face was drawn and ashen. “I killed my father.”

She unbuckled. “I know.” What else could she say? “I’m so sorry.”

“We should go inside.”

Briar nodded and they both got out. Every movement hurt her body; every sound was too loud. She wanted to sleep for years and years.

Lillia’s door banged open and Fauna flew out, tears streaming down her face and launched herself into Briar’s arms. “I thought you were dead too. I thought you were dead and I would never see you again. I love you so much. I was so scared.”

Briar held Fauna tight to her, breathing in her scent, enjoying the weight of her cousin in her arms. “We need to go inside.”

“Of course.” Fauna pulled away and then her face fell. “Briar?” She reached up haltingly and her hand came within inches of Briar’s now perfect skin, then fell away. “Who are you?”

“I’m me.” She tried to take a deep breath but the air went nowhere. “I… They used me, turned me into a conduit.”

Fauna took a step away, shaking her head. “You look—”

“It’s her,” Soren said. “My father is dead, Eliana is dead, Evaria nearly died. There was blood rain and the lake is gold and…they used Briar for all of it.”

Fauna covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, Gods.” Her gaze darted between Soren and Briar. “And I left you alone for all of it.”

“I’m glad you weren’t there.” Soren nodded toward the house, where Lillia was standing, terror-stricken, in her doorway. “Ortus told us to come here.”

“Ortus?” Lillia rushed down her steps and stopped feet away from Briar.

Feeling like she was on display, Briar followed every movement of Lillia’s eyes. They took in her face and moved down her body before returning to her eyes.

Lillia gulped. “You aren’t hurt?”

“I hurt all over.”

“Come on. I made soup.” She wrapped an arm around Briar’s shoulder and squeezed.

*

THEY SHOULD ALL be sleeping. The sun had long since set and the moon was full but they were all awash in the glow of Lillia’s television. The news would have been amusing to watch if it wasn’t so dire. None of the anchors knew what to say, no one quite understood what was going on. The headlines switched and flashed and reporters kept bursting into tears.

Return of the Gods. Prime Minister oddity explained. What happened to Jenia Alvier? Lake Grimelsda turns gold. The hot new Gods Spot.

That headline sent them all over the edge. It ran across the screen and they all started laughing until they were wiping their eyes.

“Sounds like a club.” Fauna’s voice was muffled by the mound of blankets she had wrapped around herself and Soren.

“Instead of foam it’s blood rain.” Briar wiped at her eyes, unsure if her tears were laughter or despair. “What’s—” She paused at the almost familiar feeling of Nilaja inside her head, but it was changed now. Less a plea and more of a knocking on her proverbial door. She could feel their presence, warming the magic inside her. A tug on a string.

The others all looked at Briar as she stood. Lillia braced herself on the couch, ready to stand.

“It’s okay…Nilaja wants to talk….and…” She wasn’t sure of the other presence she could feel except that it was old and cold and… “Ortus.” It had to be. “I’ll be back. I’ll be fine.” She promised them as much as herself.

They all nodded though their trepidation was clear on their faces.

The kitchen seemed as good a place as any. She reached for a knife and paused. She didn’t know how to summon a God now that everything had changed. She’d paid the blood price.

She was the conduit.

Even her eyelids ached when she pressed them together and imagined the Gods, imagined them there. She tugged on the strings that connected them. There was a woosh of cool autumn air and when she opened her eyes Nilaja and Ortus were standing in the kitchen.

Their faces were grave and they both looked worse for wear, as much as the Gods could. They were wholly there and Briar could feel a connection between herself and the Gods, more than just the strings between them but something more, something she couldn’t put into words. She wanted to test it, to roll it around like a pearl in her mind, but now was not the time.

“Is she here?” Ortus asked in his voice of death that made Briar’s flesh pebble.

“Lillia?”

Nilaja cleared their throat, frowning.

“Yes, she is descended from Remelia.” He peered around the counter and into the hallway and Briar had to stifle a laugh at a God doing something so human.

“Yeah, uh, she’s here.” Briar called to Lillia and could hear her footsteps as she approached.

She froze in the doorway and her hand rose to clutch at her neck. “Oh…”

“It is lovely to see you,” Ortus said, inclining his head. The air around him rattled like bones. “You do not look much like Remelia but I can sense her spirit around you, her goodness.”

“Did you…” Lillia seemed to notice the hand wrapped around her throat and shoved it in her pocket.

Ortus chuckled. “No, she was simply a friend. I spent many nights talking to her. She often reminded me of all that there is to love in this world. And it is my dedication to her that brings me here tonight, to protect the things her children’s children find precious.”

Lillia glanced at Briar and blushed.

“I can sense others in this home. They are those you trust? This information is important.”

Before he finished speaking, Fauna and Soren were in the doorway. The blanket was still wrapped around Fauna but her eyes were bright.

“Yes, she trusts them,” Nilaja said. They grabbed a handful of their sheer robe and pulled it up to walk toward the counter. It was odd to see them so corporeal; none of the shroud from their realm clung to them. “Sit.” They inclined their head toward the barstools under the counter and everyone obeyed.

“What is a fallen God?” Briar asked. She had no desire to have some touchy-feely conversation about feelings and what the future held. She was tired of layered conversation and double meanings. She wanted answers. She deserved answers.

“I’m sure you have worked that out for yourself,” Ortus said, picking up a pear from Lillia’s counter and turning it over to examine it.

Briar screamed, as loud as she could. She screamed until everyone looked frightened and her already sore throat felt like it was going to bleed. She took a deep breath. “Enough with your bullshit and your stupid double talk. Enough. Either answer my questions or get the fuck out of this house.”

“Well…Nilaja, if you will.” Ortus sighed and frost coated the pear. It withered in his fingers.

“A Fallen God is…well, it’s what happens to a God when they subvert our purpose and intentionally harm a human for their own gain. We are not meant to harm humans at all, but there are exceptions, reasons that we sometimes must hurt one to help another. There are also exceptions to this rule if the offense is small, a minor hurt. A crime of passion to use a human phrase. But killing a human? That is forbidden.” They locked eyes with Briar and her heart fluttered. “A God who kills—or attempts to kill—a human is banished from the realm of the Gods. They are no longer allowed to walk amongst us. They are given half a year to either redeem themselves or they wither and die and a new God is born.”

“What the fuck.” Soren ran a hand through his hair, echoing Briar’s sentiments.