Page 14 of When Death Called Life Home (When Deities Awaken #1)
Chapter 14
Daughter, Sister, Beloved
ASCIAN
A morsa covered the clearing Ascian led Alora through. The absence of his scythe, no longer bumping against his thighs or back with each step, left him feeling naked and vulnerable in the only place he ever felt safe being so. This would forever be a weapon-free zone. He’d promised her — Alora — that when he created it.
Verena would laugh if she found out, as would Osiris. A Reaper creating instead of taking? Unheard of, save for the amorsa the few fortunate enough could grow. Maelo, though, would ask if she could visit with him the next time he went. Her always spritely eyes dimmed with a hidden grief, and Ascian knew he would agree, if not to have someone else know the whereabouts, but so Maelo could mourn her friend, too. Not that she needed to any longer. A bittersweet relief he wasn’t sure he liked.
They’d thought her dead. How? Nobody knew. No rumours spread, only that Xylia took her and she’d disappeared from Elysia. No body, no note, no trace. Gone. Dead, for all they knew. Kallias had held him back from following them, preventing Ascian from putting a stop to whatever his plans were. Now, he knew exactly what they had been. Take away Ascian’s reason to live and fight for long enough that when he finally brought Alora back, Ascian wouldn’t know where to start repairing that friendship. Hell, Kallias was probably giddy with the knowledge Alora didn’t even recognise Ascian.
Retreating footsteps drew Ascian’s attention from his thoughts and to Alora’s disappearing figure. He sighed, crouching before the stone he’d carved, reaching out a hand and trailing his fingertips over the indented words and patterns.
Alora Vaine
Death's Angel
Daughter, Sister, & Beloved
Ascian wiped the back of his arm over his face before falling forward onto his knees. He glanced back in the direction Alora had retreated then again to the headstone. He didn’t let himself overthink the words that fell from his tongue. “I never thought I’d see your eyes again.”
Their families had threatened their friendship too many times. Almost split them apart, and then succeeded physically. Until today. He knew he’d seen her in that treehouse, in the bushes, knew she’d faced that serpent with what appeared to be no fear.
His head fell, dark strands falling over his forehead. He shouldn’t have interacted with her. He knew the moment he so much as touched her he’d be drawn right back in again and unable to keep his distance. The distance that would keep her alive.
Ascian would never forgive Kallias for allowing him to believe Alora dead. He hadn’t considered them true enemies before, but now? He’d drive a dull blade through the man's chest before he considered him a friend.
“Why didn’t you recognise me?” Another sentence he didn’t know whether he’d voiced aloud or not. A query to the forest, perhaps. Not that she ever answered him. The question still remained, in his heart, in his soul. Why hadn’t she recognised him? Ascian would know her from a mere strand of her hair, would she not him? Had she forgotten him in her time away? Was he that indistinguishable to her? No. There had to be another reason.
He laid back, the ground beneath him flattening from his body’s weight. His arms stretched out on either side of his body and his fingers dug deep into the soil. Easily enough, but pressure still built beneath his nails as the dirt caked under them.
Life bloomed within the ground. Every worm, every microscopic insect, every root of every plant within a hundred metres of the clearing made their presence clear to him. The ones he felt most, though, were the amorsa that shifted all around him. They listened to his breathing. They felt every emotion he could barely restrain within himself. This place he’d built for Alora, but he knew what it had become, and what would come of it if anyone but Maelo found out. It’d be ashes before he could swing his scythe. No longer a shrine for peace and rest, but a battleground for jealousy and envy.
Snakes slithered through his veins, poured out of his heart and through his body. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to consciously follow every single one’s movements. Each tendril wound through his body, through each limb until they were out through his hands, feet, head, then another wave started.
Ascian couldn’t tell how long he remained like that with his fingers growing numb in the ground. All he knew was that each wave helped the numbness spread further inwards.
A coward's way of coping. The Elders' voices echoed in harmony in his head and he pushed the emotions that came with it into the next wave.
No other way had come close to doing anything, and Death above, Ascian had tried many.
When he thought his fingers would almost certainly be black, he pulled himself up, sliding his hands from the soil and into his lap as he crossed his legs. His fingers still held colour to them, as pale as that colour may be.
He couldn’t feel the well of power within him any longer. Only a tiniest of drops echoed back to him when he silently screamed down the tunnel, and looking over his shoulder revealed just what it had produced.
Rows upon rows of new amorsa buds sprouted, slowly peeling their petals back and drinking in the last of the sun's rays for the day. He could take it if he wanted to, to replenish the power he’d just poured out. Energy from the sun was different to that of his own simply replenishing, and he’d need to use more of it than his own to get an equal result, but Ascian left those final bursts of energy to the flowers to gobble up.
Movement from the edge of the clearing, by his scythe, caught his attention. A lion stood there. Not just any, though, Maelo’s lion. The thick black mane surrounding its head was a dead distinction.
“I could have just stabbed you and you wouldn’t have known,” came an amused voice at his other side, amused until he looked towards her and any lightness she held dropped away. “What is going on with you, Az?”
“No weapons in this clearing,” Ascian grunted in annoyance as he beckoned for her lion guardian to join them and then turned to Maelo. Her hands raised quickly. “Do I even want to ask how you found me?”
“My guardian may not be a wolf, but he’s damn good at tracking what I ask him to,” she replied, dropping her arms. A loud purr vibrated from the lion’s chest at her praise.
Ascian grunted, leaning into the warmth of the large feline’s body that stretched out between them. “I thought you would have understood I didn’t want you following me when I didn’t tell you where I was going, Maelo.”
“And I thought you would have realised how worried that would have made me, Ascian ,” Maelo retorted with an exaggerated version of the same tone. “Your guardian isn’t even here. No weapons close by, no guardian to protect you, eyes closed and head somewhere else. Anyone would think you have a death wish.”
Not anymore.
“She has her own mission I sent her on,” Ascian murmured. His sister's eyes dragged towards him as one of her brows popped upwards in a questioning gesture. “Not one you need to know about.”
“So secretive.” Maelo rolled her eyes and fell back into the flowers. “You didn’t reassure me about that death wish.”
“I doubt Death would allow his ‘most decorated servant’ to leave before he allowed it,” Ascian grumbled in response, his attention on Alora’s headstone.
Maelo went quiet for a mere couple of minutes before opening her mouth again. “Is it something to do with her?”
Ascian’s jaw clenched and he closed his eyes in a will to not let his temper explode. To tell Maelo, to tell anyone , would solidify Alora’s return and Death knew what events that would set off. He couldn’t do it, not yet.
“Shut it or leave. Those are your two options right now.”
A moment of silence passed and then rustling started, and the lion between them stood with a sulking Maelo on his back. She flicked Ascian’s ear before her lion made a run for it. The last annoyance caused Ascian’s remaining power to thunder through the ground and made the new amorsa buds bloom without any help from the setting sun.