Page 38 of When Death Called Life Home (When Deities Awaken #1)

Chapter 38

Fear & Sorrow

MAELO

W armth hit Maelo as soon as they exited the door at the top of the stairs. It had been years since she’d been in the dungeon and she still forgot how much heat the clay kept out. It was either that, or Suoh was having fun trying to freeze them all to death.

Verena never lessened her grip on Maelo’s arm, guiding her through the passageways of the Grotto until they reached the Healer's wing. Each step and turn Maelo stored in her mind like all the previous times she’d come this way. Remembering her movements had always been second nature. A blessing and a curse.

She remembered her first experience with the war between Vitarce and Reapers. She remembered her mother smiling down at her when she was an infant, dangling a metal baby toy as it chimed above her. A toy her father made for Raine, and that was passed to Ascian, and then finally her.

Maelo remembered walking with the healers to view her parents' dead bodies.

A blessing and a curse, it was, to have her mind.

“Pay attention,” Verena muttered. She squeezed Maelo’s arm, but the pain was nothing compared to that of her memories.

Verena knocked on the healer's door and then waited. It opened a minute later to their eldest healer, sweat slicking her forehead.

“This is who the Elders wish to heal him?” Kamari’s gaze flicked up and down Maelo’s body.

Kamari was a strange woman, hair greyed from her many years spent alive. Her body was still as strong as any of the younger generations, though, muscles visible even from a distance. She was an Elysian, but everyone suspected Witch blood in her ancestry. Aside from the Elders, she was perhaps one of the oldest Elysians in the forest.

“Take the cuffs off her,” Kamari grumbled. She reached out for Maelo, waiting until the cuffs dropped off into Verena’s hands before ushering Maelo inside. “You stay out there. We need positive energy and you are seeping only negative.”

Verena barely got a word in reply when the door shut in her face. Maelo glanced back at it but felt Kamari’s hand press into her back and guide her over to an occupied table.

Her brother had done damage. A lot of damage, without being a Root, too. She knew he was strong, but hell around her, she didn’t think he was ‘crush-the-guy’s-jaw’ strong. Purple covered Osiris’ face and neck, spreading further down despite Ascian barely touching the man's chest and torso. A pit grew in Maelo’s stomach.

He would have been her brother, had Kallias not lost control of his energy. They would have been family. Now this was the state of them. Violence and pain. Loss and fear controlling their every action. Something needed to change.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Kamari asked, concerned.

Maelo glanced at her briefly. “Yes.”

“Then I suggest you hurry. I have instructions to only keep you in here while you have energy to expend.”

Maelo pushed against gritting her teeth. Healing wasn’t something you could rush, you needed to care. You needed to find the right sources within the body and focus in. Try it on the wrong source, and your patient is dead. “I’ll need water.”

Kamari raised a brow but didn’t question it as she left the room, locking the door behind her. The key hung around her neck. Maelo hadn’t missed that, either.

She walked up to Osiris’ bedside, lowering herself into the chair beside him and staring at his arm. She just had to touch it. That wasn’t difficult, but bringing herself to actually do that proved it indeed was. A heaviness weighed her arms down. The same heaviness that made it hard to breathe around him.

She needed to do it before the healer returned with the water. Just put her damn hands on his skin . Skin her sister had cherished, like she had cherished her family. A family Osiris fit into so damn well.

Maelo hated how much she still loved him. As much as she loved Ascian. Not that she’d ever say it out loud. Did Ascian feel the same? Did he miss his best friend? To lose both in the span of a year, Maelo wished she could compare their pain, if not to understand his. Perhaps it’s why the deities blessed her with Heart energy. Who better than someone who wished to understand what others go through with a simple touch. Touch, she could no longer stand to experience save for her bedroom pets, or Rhaego.

A rasping breath drew her from her tunnel vision on his arm. Maelo found Osiris staring at her, his guard dropped, overwhelming fear and pain filling his gaze. Her own defences fell, the charm and sweetness falling from her face with the simplest of decisions.

“You don’t have to.”

That’s all it took. Maelo surged forward, bracing herself for the wrath of sensation as she wrapped her fingers around his arm. It hit her like an arrow, straight through her chest. Writhing, spiralling pain. Snakes on fire, that was the best way she could think to describe it. Every part of Osiris’ body burned to an unbearable heat and still Maelo wouldn’t let go.

Was this how he felt every second of every day? If so, Maelo couldn’t believe he didn’t go on a killing spree simply from waking. It was no wonder he fought against every decision and action. With this kind of pain, you’d come to fear it would never end.

Maelo searched his body for the cause, the injury that was refusing to heal. Each bruise and broken bone she mended as she went, working up his body until she finally passed his jaw and made it to his brain. Shadows spread over his brain, creeping steadily outwards from where Maelo knew the cerebral cortex resided. She drew herself back slowly. Her energy untangling itself from his soul and returning to her own.

Maelo’s eyes flickered open. No bruises remained, as she’d expected, and his jaw no longer appeared misshaped. The pain and fear hadn’t disappeared, though. “You need to stop.”

She didn’t need to clarify what she was talking about. They’d known each other long enough that Osiris could understand without full sentences to explain.

“He thinks I raped her,” Osiris replied, voice as gravelly as the riverbed. “He sent Nymphs to punish me for it.”

Maelo dropped her gaze to her hands on his arm, feeling for lies in his sweat and finding none. Her brows furrowed. “Ascian doesn’t make assumptions, Osiris. As much as you may wish to think otherwise, we both know this.”

“Then why approve a Nymph's punishment?”

Maelo sighed, her fingers brushing over the runes on his skin. Runes Raine marked him with herself. How she stomached piercing the man with a needle so many times, Maelo would never understand. “That is something you’ll have to ask him, but I saw Xylia. She had bruises in intimate places.”

“I didn’t touch her like that,” he growled. The rage flickered in place of the fear for the briefest second, but his weakness didn’t allow him to keep that defence in place.

Maelo once again searched for lies in his sweat, and found nothing. He touched her, of course, roughed her up as Ascian asked, but he hadn’t gone to the length everyone was made to believe he had. Yet, Maelo hadn’t heard him utter a word of denial.

“Why haven’t you said anything until now?” She asked, leaning back into the chair once more. Her hands slipped from his arm, falling to her lap. Osiris caught one of them before it fell too far. His grip tightened around it, pulling it back to his side.

“Who would believe me after the things I’ve done?” He looked at her, lips curved downwards. “I’m surprised you believe me. ”

Maelo lifted her free hand and wiggled her finger. “Sweat reading trick, which nobody else knows about, so don’t go gossiping.”

A hoarse laugh burst from his lips. “Me? Gossiping?”

She shrugged. “You used to be the biggest gossip before…”

Yeah, not the smartest topic to head towards.

“Raine,” Osiris finished for her. Soft and pained, the first time she’d heard him utter the name since Raine had died.

Maelo cleared her throat of the forming lump. “So locking us all up in the dungeons was punishment for our ‘assumptions’?”

Osiris frowned deeply, trying to sit up and failing miserably. Maelo moved forward again, standing to help him before he injured himself. He squeezed her hand to get her full attention. “You’re all locked up?”

Maelo pulled back far enough to study his expression, gauge the shock and confusion that washed over him. “Yes … was that not the plan?”

“No!” Osiris immediately barked which turned into a coughing fit and Maelo swore that she still didn’t have the glass of water to offer him. She scanned the room for anything that could help, spotting a large pitcher that had to contain something drinkable.

Maelo pulled her hands from Osiris’ and quickly jogged to grab the pitcher, sniffing the contents and dipping her fingers in to taste the liquid. Water. Simple, clean water. Thank the deities. She returned with it to Osiris, holding it to his lips and letting him drink as much as he pleased. He pushed it away when he finished, locking his gaze on her.

“I never intended to lock you all up.” Maelo had never heard him sound as serious as he did saying those eight words.

“So what did you intend to do once you got Ascian here?”

Osiris fell quiet. Maelo watched him carefully, though it didn’t take long for him to speak.

“Give him a punishment for believing Forest Nymphs over his own Reapers.”

Maelo gave a humourless laugh, shaking her head. “You have no idea what he’s done for us in the years since your friendship split apart. Gods above, he’s taken more punishments than we likely even know about.”

“So he’s a martyr?” Osiris asked in annoyance.

“No,” Maelo growled. “He’s our leader. Would you take beatings for us, even if you didn’t think we’d done anything wrong?”

Silence filled the air around them and it was enough of an answer to Maelo. She understood what Ascian meant when he said they wouldn’t enjoy being a commander to a group of Reapers. She could’ve been chosen over Ascian, but she didn’t let the Elders see past her impulsive-self. Not to mention she enjoyed working as her brother's second. When you lose one sibling, you don’t tend to want to take your eyes off the other. Maelo couldn’t speak for Ascian, but she wondered if he preferred having her close for that reason as well.

“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” Osiris muttered and drew Maelo back to the quiet room.

Maelo scoffed. “You haven’t been thinking about a lot of things lately. Perhaps you should.”

The door’s lock jiggled and then slid open. Kamari stepped into the room and paused at the sight of Osiris sitting up. “Well done, Maelo. Perhaps you should look into shifting to a healer's position.”

Maelo tore her eyes from Osiris to offer Kamari a small smile. “As long as my brother is Commander, I will remain at his side as his second.”

Kamari’s face shifted, so subtly Maelo knew she trained to mask her true emotions for years. Even Maelo couldn’t read the difference. “And may he command his Reapers for years to come.”

Maelo hummed, eyes narrowing at the woman.

“Verena, you may take her back now.”

Verena stepped into the room and immediately closed the cuffs around Maelo’s wrists, again. “With pleasure.”

Behind them, the blankets on the bed shuffled as Osiris moved. Maelo heard Kamari mutter something to him. He must’ve ignored her for his voice shot towards Verena. “This wasn’t the plan.”

“Osiris, stop that.”

A thunk sounded and Maelo turned in time to see Osiris crumpled on the ground before the door shut in her face.