Page 24

24

Anger

There’s a star that blazes harshly in the sky. It’s trapped there like a thrashing shard, fighting to break free from restraints. In this immortal realm, the celestial isn’t colorful or serene. Rather, it’s a furious black diamond.

As the five members of The Fate Court glance in the star’s direction, the flashing suddenly ebbs. Despite its aggressive nature, the star demonstrates the ability to contain itself when required, and this sense of discipline is enough to impress the rulers. They’ve convened in a glass dome surrounding a stargazer—the human equivalent of a telescope—the funnel supported by posts and the dais painted in constellations.

From this vantage point, The Court is pleased. Beside them, the Guide of Anger affirms, “That is him.”

The next rage god. The one ordained to serve destiny.

When the Guide extends his upturned palm and beseeches the firmament, the black star fizzes out momentarily. A ray falls from the sky, then a speck appears in the mentor’s cupped hand like a seed. Overhead, the star resumes its blaze, albeit less ornery, its contents emptied and transferred into the Guide’s grasp—a birthed deity for its superiors to admire.

To empower. To train.

***

Anger’s limbs are too short and gangly. He hates that.

How long must he be this size? It’s weak.

Irritated, he thwacks the mirror in his chamber, glass fragments scattering to the floor. His Guide observes this meltdown, just as the mentor has observed copious amounts of meltdowns from his charge, then reminds Anger of this privileged existence.

The immortality. The magic.

The lush hills and coves of The Dark Fates. The cottage on stilts where Anger lives, the structure looming over an expanse of placid water, as glossy as spilled oil.

The power of his bow, forged of iron. His own choice at such a tender age.

Blessings and duty. That’s what the Guide preaches, which only makes Anger angrier. He’s about to pound his foot, which will dent the floor.

But then his mentor utters a new proclamation. “I promise, you shall get taller when you stop doing that.”

Stop throwing fits? That will make him taller?

Anger halts, thinks. Then he makes a conscious effort to keep his boots planted on the ground.

When The Fate Court visits him later, they nod in approval. He puffs himself up, because he can be a worthy deity. He can restrain himself, rage god or not.

The court members level their gazes, never once looking at Anger as if he’s too small or too feeble. Instead, they regard him as though he can do anything.

As if he can grow the fuck up.

***

He has gained a number of inches. Now he reaches Envy’s height.

But the best part is that Anger towers over her . That nuisance of a goddess.

Love.

Sitting in a misty enclave, he and his crew—Envy, Sorrow, Wonder, and Love—listen to their respective Guides’ speech about being the most exceptional deities in The Dark Fates. Immortals destined to wield the most potent of emotions.

Anger’s attention diverts toward Love’s runty limbs hanging over her chair, her toes unable to meet the ground. She’s as thin as a rail, with marble skin, threads of black hair, and an annoying face.

Most offensive of all, the wings. Black plumes extend from her back, a trait no other deity possesses, which will grant her the ability to soar above everyone else, once she musters the grit to learn how.

Anger cannot fathom why the feathers vex him. They just do.

What makes The Court believe this waif is suited to be the first Goddess of Love? In addition to the strange plumes, her pasty complexion lacks pigment and vibrancy, and her bony frame has no curves or girth to speak of. She isn’t like Wonder, who’s perfectly fleshy.

And the waif is not even listening to the forsaken lecture!

Although there’s nothing tantalizing about this Love candidate, his eyes stray toward her during the lesson. And when she catches him, there’s a look, which spears through Anger’s chest. In those eyes, he beholds a coalescence of envy, sorrow, wonder, anger, and something else that disables him. It’s the opposite of docile. He sees ardency and an audacious zest for companionship, a suppressed yearning for physical contact.

For touch.

Not from Anger, but from someone. Despite his meager years, it’s an intimidating stare, of which he has never been on the receiving end. It’s the look of insubordination.

It’s the capacity to love.

***

To regulate anger, he must know the emotion inside and out. To decipher which humans need a dose of it, and which humans need a reduction of it, he must study the art of fury. He must become fluent in its scents, sounds, tastes, and textures.

The sour bite of resentment. The chafe of frustration. The roar of hatred. The sulfuric rot of enmity.

The composition of rivalry. The propulsion of tempers.

He learns from his Guide, who takes Anger on field trips to the mortal realm, to examine inferior humans. Anger is an apt pupil. He soaks up the education with a porous but reserved air, observing his future targets like specimens.

Not like Love, who peers at them with more than just her mind. No, she watches with every fiber of her body, mind, and soul.

By contrast, Anger is not biased. He’s withdrawn, as impervious as an archetypal deity should be. He schools himself against empathy and resists dwelling on anything beyond the intricacies of mortal conniption fits. As such, he dismisses little things like their creativity, their prayers, and their dreams. Because what could any of that possibly teach him?

By comparison, he pays attention to the screams, the audible pounding of fists, and the octaves of words. Not all mortals control their anger, which leads them to chaos, which only shreds their world asunder rather than maintain strength and unity. It reduces them to imperfection.

That’s why they require assistance from Dark Gods. That’s why they necessitate Anger’s arrows, to reel in each human or fuel them with enough indignation to defend themselves.

***

Yet during one expedition, he does pause in confusion. In the bedroom suite of an aristocratic townhouse, Anger witnesses a middle-aged human wearing a loose cravat and strumming a guitar, acrimony leaking through his fingers as they run across the strings. When the mortal is done playing, he apologizes privately, speaking to an empty room, professing himself to an absent lover with whom he’d been arguing.

The melody confounds Anger. The pure intensity of it. The voluntary way this human atones for his mistake, on his own and without coercion.

Still, Anger berates himself. Not all humans are capable of enlightenment. He cannot be everywhere at once in this realm, taming every mortal simultaneously, but he can distribute his power to the crucial recipients. That will generate a wave, which will culminate in a larger shift, a vaster influence.

Without deities, this would be a messier world than it already is. But when Anger returns to The Dark Fates with his Guide, the music replays in his head.

***

During archery practice on the moonlit hill, his temper festers. It’s an itch that he really, truly, seriously wants to fucking scratch.

Instead of training, Wonder ponders random subjects and takes forever to make decisions. Sorrow gets increasingly upset with each target she misses. Envy needs to quit viewing everyone as either competition or a potential fuck toy.

And don’t even get Anger started on Love. Her presence is the biggest distraction of all. Though the most proficient archer, she neglects practice today. Instead, the goddess wastes time caressing her opposite hand and daydreaming.

Cursed sentimentality. Her preoccupation with human touch grates on Anger, the notion curling his knuckles into fists. The curious longing in her profile is dreadful. The more she does this, the farther away she seems, the less she cares how close Anger stands to her.

Later, when Envy teases Love, Anger is forced to grab her shoulders and prevent the goddess from attacking the smarmy bastard. Firstly, this prevents Anger from crushing Envy’s skull himself. Secondly, managing tantrums is Anger’s calling, especially when it comes to this loose-cannon female who can’t leash her compulsions like a normal deity. He must watch out for Love, before she loses herself.

Before he loses her.

The Fate Court hardly sanctions the goddess’s sporadic whims, nor does her obsession with mortal touch amuse them. It is not the way of their kind.

It could get her into trouble. Or it could change her.

Once he relinquishes his grip, Anger sneers at Love, “Stop acting like a human.”

When honestly, he wants to beg. Please, Love. Please, stop doing this.

Anger shouldn’t pay this degree of attention to her. In fact, he never should have started. But it’s safer to mock, scorn, and berate this goddess for her shortcomings. It’s easier to judge her, than to judge himself.

***

On an excursion to the human realm, Anger and his crewmates stand within the eye of a vicious snowstorm. The Guides have brought them here, this time as a group. However, Anger cannot concentrate.

The flakes spiral, hitting his face and whipping through his hair. The wind howls against stone edifices and horse-drawn carriages. The quagmire batters his leather vest and rattles his quiver.

His palms moisten. His feet shuffle, because he wants to run and hide.

Because he’s scared.

The rest of his crew is unaffected by the tempest. Love hesitates until her wings spring free of their own accord, the plumes beating against the flurries. She has long since trained herself to fly, although she rarely takes to the sky, intent on avoiding public scrutiny.

Perhaps it’s because the storm compromises visibility for everyone, rendering her less exposed than usual. Or maybe she simply lets intrigue win her over. Either way, Love launches into the air, her shingled wings flapping, the span remarkable.

Wonder grins, marveling at the spectacle. Sorrow and Envy cannot help but gape, staring after Love who flits like a boomerang in and out of the storm, eventually disappearing beyond the clouds.

Anger sucks in a breath. He launches forward, barreling into a run through unpaved streets. She might get sucked into a vacuum, might get thrown by the gales, might get hurt.

Or she might reach the sun. Away from this hellish tumult. Closer to heat and light and safety.

Skidding to a halt, Anger glowers as Love plows through sheets of snow and lands in the distance, amazement consuming her flushed face. Indeed. He has underestimated yet again; she does not require his help, which he couldn’t have given anyway. For she had flown high, above the storm, far from it.

Back home, he retreats to a mineral cave. Like a miserable fuck, Anger takes refuge on a corrugated rock. Only then does the fear subside, his fingers no longer trembling. He should get Terror’s advice about this, but Anger is too ashamed.

Besides, Terror will tell everyone. Dark Gods are hardly empathetic, much less discreet. They would rather entertain themselves at the expense of others’ disgrace, if only to stoke their egos and avoid their own faults.

Cowards. All of them.

Then again, how does hiding away make Anger any different?

Just his luck, Love finds him. She approaches cautiously, picking around the foliage. He wants her to go away, to fuck off. And he wants to strap his arms around her—around someone daring, someone infinite.

“Why were you scared?” the nosy goddess asks.

“Fuck off,” he grouses. “It’s my business.”

“Storms cannot kill us.”

“Yet the tempest looked angry,” he says of the blizzard. “A means of rage I cannot control.”

And if he can’t control anger, if he can’t be his best self, what’s the point of him?

Love takes her fate into her own hands by settling beside him. “It was brave of you to stay. I would have run.”

Bitterness stings his tongue. What she really means is, Love would have run from the blizzard if she had lacked wings like the rest of them. However, she is braver than that. And more fortunate. So no, she wouldn’t have run, and he tells her as much.

Despite herself, Love reaches out to offer Anger a conciliatory pat, the motion draining him of air, thought, and speech. But then he stops her before the damage is done, pinning the goddess with a warning look that causes her to jolt back.

“You need to stop that,” he growls.

She needs to stop doing many things to him. Things that might cause his downfall.

Love flees quickly, her absence leaving him bereft, although it’s better this way. His grim thoughts progress from her phantom touch to her wings, which she had retracted prior to reentering their realm. Anger won’t lie; the goddess had looked magnificent while flying. And invincible.

Longing putrefies into resentment. Resentment corrodes into jealousy.

The sensation coils around his gut like thorn brambles. Love has the means to escape storms, retreat to a haven where tempests don’t exist, a place where heat and light reign supreme, where it’s safe.

With wings, a deity can reach the sun.

***

Putting up a nostalgic front, Anger observes how the Guide of Pride molds iron into objects. The female is an accomplished smith who enjoys this practice in her spare time, when she’s not mentoring her successor.

“Iron’s reaction to fire powder is potent,” she tells him while brandishing tongs by the light of the flames. “If applied with care, it can adhere iron to any surface. However, this means that nothing will destroy the end result—with one exception.” The Guide glances heavenward, through a skylight carved into the ceiling. “Only that which created a blend of fire powder and iron can break them down. This can be a benefit or a detriment. Your arrows are exempt from this, of course. They weren’t forged using the powder, and anyway they carry the magic of The Stars.”

“So heat is the iron’s weakness,” Anger summarizes.

“Heat and light. But not just any sort.” The tongs clamp onto a length of iron and lifts it from the blaze. “It must come from the sun.”

If combined with fire powder, iron will meld with any surface. And only heat and light from the sun will melt it.

How ironic, this discovery. The one place he hopes to reach is the same place that will vanquish the very resource he would use to get there.

Nonetheless, perhaps he can find a midpoint. Close, but not critical.

Because he fashioned his arrows out of iron, the Guide makes no objection to his request to audit the process. For decades, Anger does this until the craft is embedded in his mind. Then finally, he steals into the forge under the cover of eventide and constructs two panels, each one layered in iron plumage, which he brands into his back using the fire powder.

His flesh scalds and blisters, but that is of no consequence. What he feels instead is the stitching sensation of a thousand spears, the pain drawing howls from his lungs. But when it’s over, he petitions The Stars, who show mercy for his actions by enabling him to retract the iron wings into his back. A genesis that none shall discover.

However, the celestials also make him pay a price for this insolence. They brand Anger’s arms with flame tattoos, the inky markings searing across his flesh at random times.

It takes a while for him to identify the sensation for what it is. Heat. For whatever reason, The Stars have chosen this form of discipline, yet the burn is worth the reward.

Besides, markings such as these can naturally materialize over lifetimes, akin to belated birthmarks. Because they represent traits, it’s easy to convince his peers that the flames manifested on their own and reflect his temperamental disposition. As for the heat, Anger simply never mentions that part.

From then on, he trains himself in private. Exercising the wings in secluded locations beneath the firmament, with his likeness reflecting in the sea below, he teaches himself to fly like her .

No. Better than her.

For the wings are a boon, a weapon that will lead to greatness. The owner may flee any hazard or obstacle, cultivating a new type of strength, including power over the elements.

Love does not appreciate this gift. Instead, she wastes time breaching protocol. Anger loathes watching the female put herself in harm’s way, worries for her as much as he abhors witnessing Love forsake her potential.

He won’t make the same error. Thus, he circles the sun’s rays daily, acclimating with each session. Someday, he will locate that midpoint safely, reach his destination without burning the wings.

The Stars keep his secret, but although he cannot reveal what he’s done to himself, neither will Anger take it for granted. Nor take it too far.

***

Wonder has been caught tampering with her power. Of all the reckless, careless, foolish pursuits the female could have undertaken, she has attempted to bewitch a mortal man. A negligent enterprise. A lost cause, if there ever was one. Taking leave of her senses, Wonder has been sneaking unattended to the human realm, attempting to communicate with this human.

A disgrace. An affront. A crime.

What happens to one crew member, happens to all crew members. They’re responsible for protecting and reprimanding each other.

That’s what Anger has been taught. That’s what he believes. That’s the edict in this land.

So when Wonder is disciplined, his crew is ordered to carry out the torture. In a rotunda full of deities, the congregation makes an example of her. Sorrow and Anger shackle Wonder to a chair while Envy slashes her hands with the blade that Love was forced to sharpen.

Wonder’s wrists shudder beneath Anger’s grip, her wails of pain shearing into his ears. This isn’t fucking right. His peers detest carrying out this deed, conspicuous with every faltering lash from Envy, the tormented expression on Sorrow’s face, and the shrieking protests from Love.

The penalty is warranted, given how Wonder’s actions had endangered their world. Yet the punishment is also barbaric. It’s too much, too far.

Do mortals do this to each other? Yes. Over history, humans have been drowned, drawn and quartered, and disemboweled while alive. And that is not the half of it.

So what’s the difference?

To combat the sounds, as well as the desire to release Wonder, Anger replays that human guitar melody in his head.

That is, until Love bellows. As she flings herself like a shield in front of Wonder, fear seizes Anger by the throat. Muttering an oath, he restrains his frustration while hauling her from the room.

In the corridor, he shackles Love’s face in his palms. “Stop, goddammit! Do you want to get us banished?”

As usual, she doesn’t listen, doesn’t obey, doesn’t fucking shut up. The wildcat of their crew wrenches herself from Anger and points a finger. “Why didn’t you help me stand up to them?”

Because that would have gotten their crew into trouble.

It would have gotten Love into trouble.

It does anyway. When The Court sentences Love to solitary confinement, Anger sneaks to her cell door and slides his hand beneath the division. He cannot say what possesses him to do it, only that he’d been unable to sleep, to eat, to do a forsaken thing while picturing her locked up. So here he is, being just as reckless as Wonder.

Due to Love’s obsession with touches of the gentle sort, Anger’s gesture silently tells the goddess that she isn’t alone. He thinks this will comfort her, wants her to need him, yearns to feel the pressure of her hand resting in his. The longing is inexplicable, as it always is with her.

Except his peace offering comes too late. Still bitter that Anger hadn’t vindicated Wonder, the goddess refuses his hand. Instead, Love’s answering scoff takes a bite out of his patience, then swallows it whole when she jibes, “I’m naked.”

Anger’s vision turns blood red—the same color of her irises—and the fire tattoos roasts across his forearms. Fury clots his veins, the response directed at too many figures to count.

The Fate Court, for stripping Love and tossing her into a cage.

Love, for throwing his efforts back at him, much like smack in the face.

Himself, for assuming she would touch him back, that she would return his feelings.

On a snarl, he pulls away. Let this cursed goddess languish in darkness for a while. Let her realize what she just threw away. Let the tiny she-devil regret it, the way Anger routinely regrets every beat of his heart.

***

He fucks her that night. Hard and fast.

First, Anger smashes his fist repeatedly against her door. Seconds later, she answers. The partition swings wide to reveal her startled eyes, confusion sweeping across her features.

“Anger?” she inquires, stricken by the expression tearing a hole in his face. “Anger, what—”

He snatches Love by the hips, yanks her body against his, and slams his mouth onto hers. There’s a profusion of shock. Then her startled gasp dissolves into a moan of surrender, and she grapples for him, stabbing her fingernails into his biceps.

With a groan, Anger drives her lips apart while fastening his arms around her waist, her breasts kicking up against his torso, nipples perking. Famished and fucking pissed, he splits her mouth and rocks his tongue inside until she’s making plaintive noises from the back of her throat.

Her hands lock around his biceps, tugging him forward. Together, they rush inside, Anger punting the door shut behind them with the flat of his boot. He braces his fingers on her dress and rips. The material splits, hanging off her shoulders to reveal naked flesh, heaving tits, and glistening hair at the nexus of her thighs. Fuck, she’s already so wet for him.

Desperate, she kisses him back and shoves her hand into his pants, her fingers groping his heavy cock. The grip is urgent, her digits encasing his flesh, rubbing and stroking until every inch is as firm as iron.

Minutes later, Anger is on top and growling. Their bodies thrash across the bed, her splayed legs clasping his waist, knees rising high. Braced above her, Anger pumps his naked hips, thrusting his cock restlessly into her damp cunt.

Crying out—literally crying guilty, sorry, mournful tears dappling her closed eyelashes—she clasps his ass in a frenzy, flings her thighs wider apart, and throws her head back with abandon. Her pussy clutches his dick as it pistons into her deeply, roughly, tirelessly. And it’s all he wants, all he wants, all he wants.

The right to touch her, hold her, kiss her, fuck her, claim her. To be the first deity to know that privilege. To be the only one.

There’s something crazed and desolate about this, but he does not stop to analyze. He has been dreaming of this, dreaming of this, dreaming of this…

Anger lurches upright from the bed. His eyelids fly open and focus on a ceiling draped in cords of blossoms.

It must have been another bout of delirium. Another mere fantasy.

Except this is not his home. Only one goddess decorates her dwelling in verdant greenery.

Beside him, a body shifts and emits a drowsy noise from between a hill of pillows. Clarity returns, and his head veers toward the sound. Chestnut locks spill over a curvaceous body, which rises and falls in sleep. Her bandaged hands rest atop the blanket, the dressings concealing cuts that will soon turn into wildflower-shaped scars.

***

They don’t talk about it. In bed, Wonder had been desperate for someone she cannot have. So had Anger.

And perhaps he had wanted to apologize for the abuse, to atone for Wonder’s punishment in the only way he knew how. And he’d wanted to make her feel good, make himself feel good. All the while, he had envisioned giving Love the same ecstasy, imagining making her come around him.

The compensation hadn’t worked. So it never happens again.

***

Anger approaches The Fate Court. He does this on the pretense of blithe curiosity and the arrogance of a well-bred deity, so they won’t see through him when he asks what makes mortals inferior.

The rulers grant him an audience. Two gods and three goddesses.

A pale-skinned female dressed in white lace as bright as starlight. Another female with a voluptuous figure like Wonder, along with amethyst hair. A dark-skinned beauty draped in iridescent fabric like a galaxy. A male with a hawk’s nose and long braids. And a cloaked god with ramps for eyebrows.

They sit in a crescent of thrones, the fretwork hewn of platinum, the seats cushioned in velvet. Around them, a waterfall amphitheater reflects the cosmos, and a fleet of raptors fly overhead.

The Court’s earnest response stuns him. They wear mournful and tired expressions rather than haughty ones.

The dark-skinned beauty folds her hands over her shimmering gown. “It’s our life cycle. If we do not control human destiny, we lose our purpose. And therefore, we lose our lives.”

“In turn, humans forfeit theirs,” the hawkish male with braids answers. “Free will is a fallacy, but the illusion has merit. While they shall never have that actual liberty, the mere possibility fosters hope, which bolsters humanity’s resilience, which ensures their existence. Whereas humanity gives us a reigning duty to dominate their emotions, which influences their actions, which shapes their fates. Ultimately, it is destiny in disguise.”

“Without that, humans would flounder,” the pale goddess contributes. “Left fully to their own devices, their world would collapse. They would fight more wars than they do already. They would endure more suffering and less unity—less hope. If they collapse, there would be no one to serve. And with no one to serve, we would be obsolete. Thus, we would fade.”

While Anger understands, he speculates how they know this for certain. Is it because The Stars have said so? Because The Stars are the ultimate rulers? Or because none have ever considered an alternative?

When he comes of age, The Fate Court sends him to the mortal realm, and he carries these questions with him. But he never voices them, because he doesn’t know the answers, much less where to find them, or if anyone out there can shed light on things.

For nearly three millennia, Anger does his job. He regulates human rage while sparing time to launch amid the clouds, taking his flight higher each time, nearer to the sun. With each stretch of distance, he tests the limits, measuring how much closer he can get.

Anger also monitors his peers, each of them sequestered within their own realms. And he watches over her.

He watches the goddess fall in love with a human. He watches her choose a mortal life over an eternal one. And because he’d cared too much about Love to report her actions, Anger gets banished. But at least The Fate Court lets him keep his bow.

***

He safeguards Love for too long, making sure she fares well in her new life, even if she doesn’t remember him. Then it becomes too absolute, too abrasive to withstand. So Anger carves her name into a tree and leaves the hamlet where she lives with her subpar mate.

Anger strides toward the horizon, traveling from one oppressive environment to the next, intent on a mission. Yet his bow is reduced to a useless prop across his back, his wings stay tucked beneath his flesh, the baking sun lacks the same appeal it once did, and he is whittled down to a shadow of himself.

Over time, he broods. He gets lonelier and lonelier, angrier and angrier. At everything, at everyone.

One day, Anger reaches his destination, a city where exiled gods and goddesses have established their own society. Here, he might discover certain truths including how to reestablish himself and restore a goddess’s memory.

But something unforeseen happens. As he stands at the edge of a rooftop, the setting sun gleams brighter than any other time in recent memory. Then another type of light fills his vision, this time not from the sky. Instead, the source is a pastel rainbow skirt worn by a female fleeing her enemy on a blue motorcycle.

The strings of a guitar blare from the headphones clasping her pink head. The music sounds vaguely familiar. It feels like a coincidence.

Or something akin to fate.