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Merry

He had called out to her, his voice blasting through brick and mortar. Even now, the wreckage of his speech still carves through Merry like a blade.

Your greatest wish is not to wield love. Rather, it’s to feel love.

And all he wants is to cut that heart from his chest and hand it to you. Because it’s yours.

That had been several days ago. Yet it feels new every time, the words playing on repeat in her head. He had communicated all the sentiments she’d ever wanted to hear, a monologue that scattered her heart all over the floor. Well done.

Maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe it’s not enough.

What’s the point in fighting for this? After what she saw in the library, Merry was never going to kindle Anger’s soul. Not when he refuses to move on.

Fine. She will rise above this travesty and find another way back to The Dark Fates.

Standing before the full-length mirror, she inspects her features, angling her profile in the reflection, her skin embossed in mood lighting. So this is what a woman scorned looks like. This is the vision of a thwarted heroine.

A loose shift hangs off her like a sack, the hem sagging to her knees. Knit socks cover her feet, the chunky weave scrunched at the ankles, and her toes are wedged into the cloud slippers. Comfort clothes, because no desolate soul is ever soothed by wearing tulle, no matter how pretty the fabric. She’ll choose a more polished ensemble in the morning—a power outfit. But for now, Merry just wants soft cotton.

The walls of her home flash. Beyond the double doors, scythes of lightning pierce the sky, turning the observatory into a short-circuiting bulb. Sheets of rain lash at the panes. The torrent obscures the deck, rivulets smashing into the world.

Merry resents the claustrophobia, and she’s concerned because Anger is afraid of storms. Then again, the traitorous god could be taking shelter with Malice or chasing the unattainable. He could be shadowing Love.

Merry elevates her chin and points a finger at her reflection. “No, Merry. Not anymore.”

Anger can take care of himself. That’s not her job.

Envy, Sorrow, and Wonder had surrounded Merry in her time of need and then departed, questing from The Celestial City to parts unknown. Perhaps she needs to disinfect herself, now that she’s alone. A thorough cleansing will rinse these atrocious tribulations from her system.

Kicking off her slippers and socks, Merry opens one of the doors and pads across the deck. The gales assault every corner, slapping the hedges and dousing the votives. Standing at the center, she lets the shower drench her, clothes shriveling to cellophane around her body, locks of hair matting to her scalp. Miniature tributaries race down Merry’s skin as she spreads her arms and cranes her head, letting the squall drain away the past and replenish her.

What a benefit that she can’t feel the cold. Yet what a shame.

Two things occur to her. One, she and that rage god have grown up under different skies, separated yet connected by The Stars.

Two, they’re under the same sky now. Literally now.

Merry’s arms fall to her sides. Swallowing rain, she turns.

Anger stands beneath the trellis, near the entrance to his makeshift chamber. Like her, he’s sodden from head to toe. A t-shirt suctions to his torso, exposing a bulk of muscles that swell with every inhalation. The deluge plasters layers of dark hair to his visage, and anguish twists his features.

He doesn’t look afraid of the weather. Not tonight.

From across the deck, they stare at each other. Merry doesn’t know what her countenance reveals, but it’s nothing that encourages him to stride forward. Even while her pulse pounds, any resilient goddess worth her weight would require groveling. After which, she’d march off, saunter off, brush him off, all while telling him to fuck off.

Yet wanting anything from him, even his humility, only binds her to this god. Like hell will Merry do that. She has never relied on Anger for validation, and she isn’t about to start now.

The last time they were soaked like this, they’d been tangled up in her shower. His fingers had pumped inside her, and the spray had teased her clit. Anger must be thinking the same thing, his eyes simmering as he watches the fabric stick to her form.

Merry makes the same mistake, her gaze tripping over his whipcord body. Her fingers curl into fists. She takes a retreating step, about to turn her back on him, but he’s in front of her within seconds, clasping her jaw in his palms.

“Leave,” she hisses, jerking her face from his touch. “I want you gone.”

“Merry,” he implores. “Please. Tell me you don’t mean that.”

Her hands smack his chest, driving him backward. “You shithead! I’ve meant everything I ever said! You’re the one who hasn’t!”

“That is not true!” he hollers back.

“Name one thing—,” her voice cracks, “—one single thing you’ve actually meant!”

“Everything I told you in the library. All of that was true!” he bellows, his words shoving through the maelstrom.

“What about before?” she hurls back. “What about then? Because I recall you wanting to admit something to me, which means you’ve been holding back! Which means you’ve been deceiving me somehow! Whatever it was, were you hiding the truth the whole time? On the motorcycle? In the cable car? In the shower?”

“Yes!” he shouts, the word breaking in half.

Merry falls silent. Stricken, she beholds the self-loathing that trenches across his features. And then she watches in shock as this fallen god holds her gaze—and sinks to his knees.

Caught beneath the tempest, Anger prostrates himself, a supplicant at her mercy. He drags his face to hers, the next sentence bleeding from him. “I set out to break your heart.”

Anger tells Merry about the legend, the rewards, and the consequences. All of it pours from him like crimson from a flesh wound. “I thought I could achieve this without harming you indefinitely. I thought you would recover in time, because I never took your devotion seriously, because I never took love seriously, because that’s not supposed to be the way of Dark Gods. I thought I could succeed. I thought I could walk away from you.” His voice splits like timber. “But I fucking couldn’t.”

Every word totals Merry, throwing her off balance, the reality far from the romantic visions she had invented for them. It hurts. This violation of trust hurts so much, she can’t breathe. Treachery, disillusionment, and rancor threaten to decimate her.

And yet. Sympathy is its own indomitable force. Often, it’s been Merry’s superpower.

This tragic figure kneeling at her feet speaks in a frayed voice, his torment a palpable thing. He has led a different existence, experienced a different upbringing, endured a different misery. Ultimately, he did what any Dark God would have done.

Nonetheless, Merry refuses to let these thoughts show on her face. She regards him stonily, wearing it like armor, guarding her heart as he continues.

“So yes, I was hiding this truth. But no, I was not hiding all other truths. Every second with you was precious,” Anger supplicates. “It was real, even when I pretended otherwise. You dismantled my sense of control. You intimidated me, humbled me, enraptured me. You fucking destroyed everything I thought I knew.” In her silence, this formerly taciturn deity says more than she’s ever heard from him. “You were right. I once coveted Love, but I never befriended her. I watched over her, but I never missed her. I never bared my soul to her, never yearned to tell her anything and everything, never sought to learn her truest fears and wishes, never wanted to know anything and everything about her. But I do with you.”

Balling his fists onto his thighs, Anger speaks through the storm. “Stars almighty, I mean this. You’re everything brave and hopeful in this forsaken universe. The Dark Fates rejected you, yet that has not diminished your light. It has only made you brighter, bolder. You have fought back, made a life for yourself. That makes you the most resilient soul I have ever known. And I’m so fucking sorry for ever coming near you, for trying to break a heart that means more to me than my own.”

Merry hates how this speech wraps around her, holds her together like chipped porcelain. If she’s so resilient, she wouldn’t long to hear more. She wouldn’t need his proclamations.

Also, Merry is incorrect. Not everything she has ever told him has been the truth. But if they’re going to face this head-on, and if she’s got nothing more to lose, and if they’re laying it all out, then she might as well test his pretty speech, see how much honesty he can stand. See if her own lies are just as admirable to him.

It takes every drop of willpower to keep her voice steady. “Stand.”

Anger opens his mouth to impart more, but then he stops himself. At a measured pace, he gains his feet and awaits her verdict, droplets tumbling from his eyelashes.

But it won’t come yet. Instead, Merry says calmly, “I set out to kindle your heart.”

Confusion grips his features. Yet he doesn’t reply, only waits for Merry to elaborate.

Her dealings come to the forefront. The other uncovered legend and the plan to rekindle Anger, chiefly for the sake of winning access to their homeland. While it’s far less cruel than his agenda, it still had involved lying, intruding upon his grief, inserting herself into his recovery, and using it for Merry’s own gain.

The god’s chest hitches as if she has impaled him with an arrow. Yet he accepts the strike, letting it pierce him through.

Malice and Wonder had supplied each of them with these outlets. But it had been Anger and Merry’s choice to enact them on one another. They had imposed upon each other’s vulnerabilities, chasing a goal from opposing sides. It had only been a question of who would succeed first.

Rain patters the deck. They stand there, watching one another, processing what they’ve done.

Finally, Merry collects herself. “So. Is that all?”

Because yes, she senses something lingering on his tongue, a final string of words he’d been about to profess before she commanded him to rise. And yes, it’s a challenge. A dare to see if her actions have so easily shifted his feelings.

Yet Anger’s irises glitter. “No. That is not fucking all.”

Then he takes the initiative. Stalking forward, he grasps her face and hisses, “I’m in love with you.”

And if anything can tear her apart, it’s that. Merry’s world, her essence, her restraint. They crumble along with her flinty expression, an onslaught of angry tears shoving against her eyelids.

Anger searches her expression, visibly plagued by self-hatred. But also mesmerized. “I love you, Merry.”

Lightning slices through the sky. It’s a selfish moment in which she savors the need staring back at her. The realization that he just might be honest about those three words.

His nostrils flare. Her breathing quickens.

Merry leaps at the same time Anger does. She hurls herself at him, just as he snatches her waist and hauls her forward. Her breasts slam against his wet chest, and his lips descend, and hers launch upward.

Their mouths slam together.