Page 52 of Evermore

“I will speak to my brother alone or no one at all. Your choice,” he said, never bothering to look away.

He knew we’d come, of course. We’d been lurking outside for four days, waiting for him to show up. But timing was everything with Ezra. It always had been.

“You will speak to the three of us or none at all, Ezarius.”

Finally, he spun, looking down at the woman he’d condemned millennia ago. He owed her far more than a conversation. But staring into the eyes of his old friend, his rigid posture nearly broke. “There’s nothing you can add to this conversation. I can promise you that, Minnie. But I will also give my word that no harm will come to any in this company by my hands today.”

“I would rather stand before the Fates than ever bargain with you,” she said.

He feared her, as most did. For different reasons though. As the God of Unmaking, he could see the future through his power. There were a million different ways future events could happen, depending on the variable nature of free will. But Minnie? With each action perfectly calculated for maximum impact, each consequence thoroughly considered and deliberately chosen, she could narrow down how something might go, sometimes better than he could. She just couldn’t see it the same way. Together, they were a force of nature, but he’d burned that bridge ages ago.

Ezra had a vision that the Fates would betray Minerva, the Goddess of Reason, and steal her power, something no one had ever heard of happening. She told him he was wrong, but Ezra’s never been good at listening.

Before the Fates had locked themselves away, he convinced every god to bind them more tightly to their loom, restricting their movement and abilities, even when Minerva had begged him not to interfere. And Ezra had been dead wrong. The Fates and Minerva were meant to work together, not against each other. His interference actually caused Minerva’s Reason to become tangled with the Fates’ Wrath, creating the Goddess of Reason and Wrath that she is today, imbued with power no goddess should have.

For several mortal lifetimes, she never left her library. And those of us that loved her, that tried to see her, were attacked by sentinels of the Fates’ Wrath. Minerva’s Wrath. Her unique power made her different from all of us. And potentially more powerful than even Ezra and me. She was a god who longed only for ink and parchment, yet Ezra had damned her to exist as a paradox, and there weren’t enough books in all the realms to contain her resentment for that truth.

“If you won’t leave, then stand and be silent.” When the bastard finally turned to face me, those eyes blazed with thesame fury that used to level cities. “You have some nerve showing up here.”

“You knew. The day you told me there was a path to peace, you’d already seen Alastor’s move, hadn’t you? The day the Fates told us about the Huntress.”

He smiled as if he were a fisherman and I’d taken the bait. “I saw many paths that day. So many possibilities for our future. Some led to peace. Some to ruin. The moment you chose to seek her out, those peaceful paths vanished.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me.”

“Lying is not the boundary between us, and you know it.” He took a half-step forward. “The boundary was your power. We don’t use our power on one another. That’s always been the unwritten rule. The one pact. And you had no problem taking away everything I was, everything I remembered, no matter how much wrath you’d face from the Fates.”

He blanched the second the words left his mouth, and I knew, without a doubt, he was fighting the urge to look at Minnie. Bastard.

“Rub it in, why don’t you,” I scowled.

“I’m done feeling guilty over lessons learned.”

“Interesting.” I said, sliding my hands into my pockets. “Because so am I. But I didn’t come here to debate the Huntress’s hand in offsetting the power. We’d be here for centuries, and that would work too far in your favor. I need to know about Alastor’s plan. If I go into the Forgotten, and I’m not saying I will, but if I did, will I return?”

He scoffed, turning back to study his fucking pillar. “I can’t wait to hear why you think I owe you an answer to that.”

I hesitated, hating to relive a single one of the memories. “Do you know what happens when an Ever dies, Ezarius?” I watched his back stiffen at the question. “Does your power let you feel from my body when you kill her? A thousand lives.A thousand slices into my soul. Thousands upon thousands of years of misery. I pay that for a few moments of bliss with her. You think I don’t know how ridiculous it is to chase her, knowing how it ends? You think Iwantto be here right now, begging the only one that’s ever stood in my way for answers? You want me to care about a few mortal years you had to survive without a memory, yet you don’t give a shit about what you do to me. Maybe I was wrong to come here. But I’m also desperate. So, be honest. Not for her. For me. Blood of my blood.IfI go to the Forgotten, will I come back?”

He stood for a long time in silence. I never looked away from him. Never bothered to focus on the Unmade circling the room. Not with Minnie in my court. She’d bring this entire place down on them, should it come to that.

Eventually he spoke and his voice was ice as he turned and glared at me. “You can crawl on your hands and knees through every realm, begging me. You can bleed. You can fall. And still, I’d never help you. You’re no longer my brother. You’re the unfortunate consequence of love, and nothing more. Play your games, Reverius. Keep pretending you’re innocent. When the realms fall, and believe me they will, it won’t have shit to do with the Fera. It won’t have anything to do with the Fates. It won’t even be because of me. It’ll be you and your Ever. And when there’s nothing left in the Never Sky but ash and the echoes of mighty gods who once reigned, maybe then you’ll remember what we once were.”

For a moment, I saw genuine pain flash across his face, the echo of something lost.

“It doesn’t have to be like this, Ezarius. This isn’t even about the Huntress. It’s about Irri.”

“It’s always about her!” His power flared, distorting reality around us. Minerva’s cane came down hard against the floor, awarning neither of us heeded. “Every path, every choice, every future leads back to her. And you’re too blind to see it.”

I stepped forward, my own power rising. It flickered, as it’d been prone to do now, and then returned. “Then help me see it. Show me the path forward. You said there was one of peace and I refuse to believe it just vanished.”

“I showed you once. You chose not to take it.”

“That was before?—”

“Before you fell in love? Before you decided your happiness was worth more than the balance of power?” His laugh was bitter, cutting through the tension like a blade.

I moved to grab him, but my hand passed through nothing. He’d vanished, anticipating my move, and appeared several paces away. “You want to know what I see? I see my brother walking willingly into darkness. I see him choosing chains he’ll never break. I see her betrayal. I see—” He stopped, pain flashing across his face.